#simmer for thirty minutes

[unnamednemisis]

So heres another ghetto distillation setup:

Steam [and steam-soluble constituents of the herb] rise up, condense on the glass, roll down the inverted dome pot lid, and collect in the metal bowl. bonus: the metal handle keeps the inner bowl from floating off to the side

@comicaurora there's no reason for me to @ you with this, other than you might find it an interesting thing to try with your running 'reds drink order' bit.

[toads-treasures]

Love that my cooking hyperfixation coincided with me not being able to get my adhd meds for the last two weeks. I can read about cooking all I want, in practice…. Abysmal

[yueebby]

onsen incident  — gojo satoru

synopsis. gojo satoru gets everything he wants and right now he really wants to go to an onsen with you.

contents. fluff, lovesick!gojo, he's just a cute loser, highschool!gojo (first year), he needs to be locked up asap

notes. this is part ii to indulge me? and a piece in the series, but can be read alone.

you’re not sure how you ended up here. one moment you were exorcizing a grade one curse that rampaged a small town with gojo and now you find yourself back at the ryokan you had stayed at the prior night. except this time around you have an overly excited gojo, still at a high from the successful mission.

“suguru mentioned how nice the onsens here were,” he brings up innocently, his lips curving into a sly grin. you spare him a side glance. 

“we should be heading back to the airport to return to tokyo,” you asserted, eyes trained on the entrance of the onsen— a wooden paneled door leading to the private hot spring that came with the room you and gojo had unknowingly reserved. 

gojo stretched leisurely, his body arched like a cat as he yawns, “i don’t know about you but i’m beat! that curse wore out all my energy and a quick dip in an onsen is just what this body needs.” he opens one eye, gauging your reaction.

you don’t buy his act. “you exorcised the curse instantaneously, gojo.”

but gojo doesn’t back down easily, “yeah, well that took up a lot of cursed energy and now i’m drained,” he reasons. the white haired male solidifies his argument by collapsing on you just to show how fatigued he was. his dramatic show nearly sends you tumbling.

annoyance simmered in you, arms folding over your chest. the flight back to tokyo was in a couple of hours, and you had hoped to be able to go sightseeing. 

but gojo’s sky-blue eyes plead silently as they look up at you, unblinking. his pink lips start to quiver. it was hard to deny him when he was basically begging. as comical as his dramatics were, you could almost argue how hard it was to resist his unwavering gaze. plus, he was the one that completed the mission singlehandedly.  

“fine.” you yielded. “thirty minutes and then we leave.”

he perks up happily.

“great! let’s go!” without wasting a moment, he seizes your hand and practically skips to the entrance. 

you recoiled, nearly shrieking, “you pervert! i’m not going in there with you! i’m going to go sightseeing.” 

gojo looks at you like you’ve sprouted two heads.

“... then what’s the point of the onsen?” he looked at you incredulously. it deeply troubled you that someone so conniving could look so innocent.

your response is caught in your throat, leaving you flustered and unable to make eye contact. arms remained crossed, you mutter, “you’re insane if you think i’m stepping foot in an onsen with you.”

gojo’s tongue prodded at his cheek, lost in thought, “they do say you have to be insane to be a jujutsu sorcerer." he looks at you all enthused, "don’t be shy now, we’ve already slept together after all.” there’s a teasing lilt in his voice.

“we slept in the same bed– not together! don’t you go spreading that around now,” you jump to cup a hand over his mouth. you feel him grin underneath the palm of your hand.

“same thwing,” gojo’s voice is muffled, but he doesn’t bother taking your soft hand off his face. 

“it is not,” you furrow your eyebrows. 

“it can be.” he wiggles his eyebrows, a boyish smile growing.

you remove your hand from his face, “have you no shame?” 

“not a shred,” he declares cheerfully. “come on, we’re wasting precious time standing here. i can feel the steaming water calling our names.” 

“i’ve told you already, gojo. i’m not going to a hot spring naked with you.” 

he waves his hand dismissively, “you don’t have to be naked, it’s not unheard of for people to go in with a towel.”

you sigh exasperatedly at his stubborn disposition, “it would still be highly inappropriate.”

“as inappropriate as cuddling with your classmate while he’s naked and unconscious?” he raises an eyebrow suggestively. gojo was once again referring to the previous night’s moment of vulnerability.

you stiffen. 

“it was not like that and you know it. for all i know, you were the one cuddling me,” you retorted, crossing your arms with a huff.

 gojo raises his hands in defense, “how about we call it even and hop in the hot spring together as a compromise?”

“that doesn’t make any sense.”

“it makes perfect sense. just two classmates relieving the weight of the world off their shoulders.” 

you hate that he’s starting to convince you. 

the knowing smile creeping on gojo’s face signals that he’s sensed your weakening resolve. he decides to deal the finishing blow.

“this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. with busy lives like ours, who knows the next time we will be able to visit one of the world’s best hot springs?” he gestures dramatically. reluctantly, you start to give into his words.

“fine. but if i see you indecent, i will kill you.” you point a finger threateningly at gojo. 

he simply chuckles, “kinky.”

operation satoru x [name]!!!!

gojosatowu attachment: 1 image

shoko.ieiri what the actual hell gojo.  i did not need to see a picture of you with nothing but a towel on. ts is disgusting.

getosugu where is [name]? i thought you guys were returning from your mission today.

gojosatowu heh the two of us are going to take a little dip in kyushu’s world famous onsens haha :3

shoko.ieiri WHAT

getosugu  you?? [name]?? onsen?? together?? gojo satoru explain hello?

shoko.ieiri where is [name] you dirty pervert  i swear i’ll murder you if you pull any dirty tricks answer now

gojosatowu gotta go! ive been dreaming of this day ><

shoko.ieiri  don’t you go ignoring us!!

you’re already settled in the hot spring by the time gojo arrives. with a snug towel secured tightly around your body, you are submerged underwater from the chest down. the steam curls lazily into the air, casting a dreamlike haze around you.

“for someone that was excited about the onsen, you came awfully late,” you quipped at the snow-haired boy. his signature glasses are absent, allowing you complete access to his azure eyes. on the other hand, gojo is granted the opportunity of seeing you in all of your natural beauty.

gojo enters the steaming water just a couple of feet away from you, “had to calm myself before seeing you.” he sighs contentedly when the water envelopes him. it was true. his nerves were a lot calmer when he was fighting the grade one curse than the short walk from the changing room to the hot spring.

you can't help but roll your eyes at his obvious flirtation attempt, but you decide to let it slide.

the conversation lapses into silence, an awkward veil settling between you. you were starting to regret ever entertaining gojo’s invitation to the onsen. to escape the discomfort, you divert your gaze to the steam rising from the water's surface and the surrounding rocks. the trees around you start to look interesting as you focus on not letting you eyes stray on gojo’s solid buil—

breaking the silence, gojo interjects, "did ya think i looked cool taking down that curse?"

your eyes shift from the rocks to gojo’s face, “it was quite impressive how you were able to crush the curse with your infinity.” you have heard of stories of gojo’s strength, but seeing it with your very own eyes was truly incredible.

he preens under your praise, a faint blush coloring his cheeks.

"perhaps i deserve a reward," he suggests, his voice taking on a playful tone.

you entertain the idea, your curiosity piqued. "i suppose you do."

a deeper flush tinges gojo's cheeks, and he averts his gaze. without warning, he points at his cheek, anticipating something. you tilt your head, puzzled by his unspoken request. he keeps pointing to his cheek, poking it multiple times.

“…”

“give me a kiss!”

the water ripples with how fast you lean back, “huh? no way.”

undeterred, gojo shakes his head. "fine then. i guess i'll have to kiss you.”

your eyes widen as he leans closer, and you instinctively scoot away, surprised by his boldness. "what? no!"

“eh?! why not? i went total snowagumon on that curse!”

“that’s your job gojo,” you respond matter-of-factly. you’re a bit taken aback by his digimon reference. how dorky.

gojo clicks his tongue, feigning indignation as he looks away. “hmph. can’t even get appreciation for keeping the world in balance.” 

you let out a resigned sigh, realizing he's being dramatic again. it almost feels like dealing with a child. but you suppose you’ll play right into his hands this time– and this time only. he has worked hard on this mission, taking on all the work while you watch idly from the sidelines.

hesitantly, you inch closer towards his frame. the distance closes as you lean towards his face. it was only a split second, but your lips placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. 

you watch what once was a pink blush blossomed into something deeper. gojo sits up a little straighter and you notice how the corner of his lips are slightly upward.

“gojo, are you oka–” 

“satoru. call me satoru,” he interjected, sounding breathless, his eyes locking on yours. 

you look at him, uncertain. “isn’t that a bit too informal? we’ve only known each other for a couple of months.”

“if it was up to me, we’d be married by now,” satoru closes his eyes nonchalantly, sinking deeply into the water until half of his face is under. he blows a series of bubbles. he really was a child.

your laughter rings out melodiously as you throw your head back, finding his remark utterly amusing.  “you’re actually ridiculous.” 

satoru watches you with a soft smile, his heart feeling lighter. it was criminal how cute you were. if this was his reward for exorcizing a measly grade one curse, he was willing to wipe out all special grades on the earth just to receive your praise again. maybe next time you'll even kiss him on the lips (he'll die a happy man if that happens).

"i am, aren't i?" he muses, basking in the joy of the moment.

extra notes. i lowk hate this but due to popular demand i had to write it. ps i dont even know anything abt digimon i js know gojo likes it gn (forgive me if my digimon reference was totally wrong)

[shurisneakers]

saw your requests were open and i figured i would humbly aid 🫡

everyone is always like “oh! bucky with a golden retriever reader this! bucky with a sunshine reader that!” what about bucky with a reader who’s just as moody as he is??

no one ever writes two grumps together and i think it would be an interesting dynamic

Summary: It's New Years Eve and this man simply refuses to do anything but be a pain in your ass.

Warnings: cursing, alcohol

A/N: Sid. did you know. did you know that you're literally a genius. you're so right about grumpy x grumpy. i do not know if I have done this justice but I wrote this out on my phone because I like this request so much thank you for sending one in 😭❤️

New Year’s Eve is a migraine wrapped in tinsel and cheap champagne. You’ve seen too many years roll over into nothing to care anymore.

Doesn’t matter. You’re here because the bar’s open, and when someone says “open bar,” you take it as a challenge to see how open it can really be.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asks.

“Whatever’s most expensive.”

He ducks under the counter, comes back with a bottle that looks more like a museum piece than alcohol. Fancy glasswork, gold lettering, the works.

He starts, “This one’s got notes of—”

“Let me see,” you interrupt.

The second the bottle’s in your hands, you turn and walk away.

He sputters behind you, but you wave him off. “Put it on the billionaire’s tab."

You snake through the crowd and confetti, nodding at a few familiar faces but not stopping for any. Emergency exit in sight, you take a seat where you can watch the chaos unfold while staying out of it.

"Pass the bottle."

You don't even bother looking at him as you respond, "Go steal your own."

"You took the most expensive one."

"Get another one."

"This is easier."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Real festive of you."

Still, despite your best efforts, he’s already taking a seat, uninvited.

You take another swig before passing the bottle to him without another word.

He glances at you. "Why are you here?"

"Well, it was quiet before someone showed up."

"Must'a really pissed you off," he says, tipping the bottle back.

God, Bucky was fucking annoying. But his cheeks are flushed pink and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbow.

"Why are you here?" you scowl.

"It's quiet," he replies, like just knows it'll make you mad. He's right.

"You’re in my space.”

“This isn’t your space.”

“I was here first.”

“Congrats. Want a medal?”

"Leave."

"No," he states, resolutely.

Bucky’s the human equivalent of a rock in your shoe—persistent, irritating, and impossible to ignore.

You feel face warm with irritation. "Where's your date gone?"

"Nat set me up, I've never met her before," he says, as though it’s the least surprising thing in the world. "Haven't seen her in thirty minutes."

"What, you couldn't brood your way into her pants?"

He gives you a dry, unimpressed look. "I don't kiss and tell."

"Doesn't look like you're doing any kissing at all," you scoff.

He tips the bottle back, takes a slow drink, then hands it to you. "You think about me kissing a lot?"

"I don't think about you."

He snorts, low and humorless, and you hate that it makes you want to laugh.

Bucky's fucking annoying. He's run his hand too many times through his hair, and there’s a smudge of something—lipstick, maybe—on his collar, and he's stretched out too damn much, like he's right at home.

He sends you a look. It makes you want to hide. You hate the way his eyes linger, like he’s waiting for you to flinch.

"Bottle," you demand.

He hands it over silently, crossing his arms over his chest, staring right ahead.

"How much longer?" he asks, checking his watch.

"You can leave."

"Sure can," he says, but doesn’t move.

"So leave."

"No."

You stare at him. "Find somewhere else to sit."

"No," he replies.

The minutes stretch. The bottle passes back and forth, your irritation simmering every time he exhales, every time he looks at you like he’s got something to say but doesn’t.

Bucky was fucking annoying. He smelt like expensive cologne and Tide detergent. His eyes are tired and his voice is scratchy. when he shifts beside you, it’s like he takes up more space than anyone has a right

He holds his hand out for the bottle. You give it to him.

"What are you gonna do at midnight?" he asks.

"Finish this bottle."

"What about after?"

"I'll get another one."

Bucky rolls his eyes. “That all?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t.” You glare at him, but he doesn’t flinch. He never does.

“Good."

His jaw’s tense, his eyes dark and sharp, and for a second, you think maybe he’s as pissed at himself as you are.

Silence falls. It’s not comfortable, but it’s not uncomfortable either. It’s just there. Like him.

"What’re you gonna do at midnight? Cry into whiskey?” you ask pointedly.

“I could, but you drank it all." He rolls his eyes.

There's a lot left. You give him the bottle. He takes it without a word, fingers brushing against yours.

Bucky takes a swig. “No one waiting for you at midnight?"

"Loads," you scoff. "Got a line out the damn door waiting to kiss me."

"Uh huh," be says.

There's silence.

You look at him, only for find him eyeing you.

“No one waiting for you?”

You scoff. “Why, you volunteering?”

He doesn’t answer right away, just studies you with those sharp, unreadable eyes. “Maybe.”

"Sure, Barnes, I'll kiss you at midnight," you drag sarcastically.

His face doesn't shift. Your brows furrow.

"Christ, you're bein' serious," you mumble.

He shrugs non committedly. "I could think of worse things to do."

"Wow," you say dryly. "Charming."

"Just sayin'."

With two minutes to go, you find that it's harder to look him in the eye. Your heart stumbles over itself, and you take another drink to cover the sudden heat crawling up your neck.

Either the whiskey was really starting to take hold, or the damn spirit of the damn season was getting to you.

"Look, I wasn't plannin' on asking anyone else," he says.

You raise an eyebrow.

"Do with that what you will," he says, taking a swig.

"What about your date?" you test.

"Don't think she remembers I exist."

You observe him. His shirt is unbuttoned, and his coat jacket lay on his lap. His bowtie also hung precariously from his neck.

Bucky was really fucking annoying. His hair is toussled and his stubble is rough and you're fairly certain his nose is sunburnt. You know this because you've been staring at him every day from the second he stepped foot in the compound, withdrawn and scowling.

It's late and you're tired of a lot of things and you're careless, so you stare too long. He catches you.

"What?" he bites.

"I'm assessing," you say, then add grudgingly, “You're not... terrible."

Which is a lie. He's beautiful. He's acutely aware of this on some days. Those days are harder for you.

He stares at you. "I can see why there's a line out the door for you."

"Go join them," you say. "I'll finally get some fuckin' quiet."

He exhales a short laugh. "No."

You can hear the crowd shouting numbers, but it’s distant, unimportant. Bucky’s eyes are on you, steady.

The crowd cheers.

Bucky's really fucking annoying.

But he kisses you like he's liked you all his life. Like he's real tired of waiting. It lingers just long enough to make your stomach flip when you realise he still tastes like whiskey.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t look smug. He doesn’t say anything at all. Just hands you the bottle and leans back like nothing happened.

His cheeks are red. His lips are swollen. He's never looked prettier in his damn life.

“Happy New Year,” you mutter, staring at the bottle because you can’t look at him.

“Sure,” he says, voice low, almost hoarse.

[callsigns-haze]

What ruined this Christmas so quickly? Lies.

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x wife!reader

Summary: Just a few weeks before Christmas all goes downhill. You're left taking care of the kids and leaving work early and now your husbands brings up the topic of moving as soon as possible to San Diego. You're overwhelmed but he's willing to go no matter the lies he told.

Warnings: Mentions of throwing up, mentions of sickness, lies, overwhelmed reader, arguments

Word count: 8.4k

The soft hum of Bradley’s Bronco pulling into the driveway was a familiar sound, one that always made your heart skip. You glanced at the clock on the wall—6:45 PM.

He was home right on time.

The winter sun had already set, leaving the house bathed in the warm glow of lamplight. The faint scent of chicken soup wafted from the kitchen, where you'd left a pot simmering, just in case Judy's cold appetite returned.

Anna was perched on the couch, her tiny legs swinging as she clutched one of her plush animals to her chest. "Daddy's home!" she exclaimed, leaping up and running to the front door with the kind of uncontainable excitement only a four-year-old could manage.

You heard the front door creak open and then Bradley’s voice, deep and familiar, “Where’s my Anna Banana?”

Anna squealed with delight, her laughter echoing through the house as she threw herself into his waiting arms. Bradley lifted her easily, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Did you save me any trouble today, or were you full of mischief as usual?”

“Full of mischief!” Anna giggled, resting her head on his shoulder as he stepped inside and kicked the door shut with his boot.

"Of course you were," he teased with a smirk, glancing at you over her head. “Hey, hot stuff.”

“Hey,” you greeted, a soft smile spreading across your face as you leaned against the archway leading to the living room. “Dinner’s on the stove if you’re hungry.”

“Perfect. I’ll grab a bite after I check on Judy.” He set Anna down gently, ruffling her curls before heading toward the living room, where Judy was sprawled on the couch.

Your oldest was curled up under a blanket, her nose a little red and a tissue box within arm’s reach, vomit bowl to the side. Her favourite Real Madrid hoodie hung loosely on her small frame, the oversized sleeves nearly swallowing her hands. Her eyes lit up, though, when she saw her stepdad walk in.

“Hey, Jude,” Bradley said softly, kneeling beside the couch. It always warmed your heart the way he said her nickname, a perfect blend of affection and playfulness.

“Hi, Roo,” she croaked, her voice raspy from the cold. She reached up to tug on the front of his uniform shirt. “Real Madrid won today. Bellingham scored again.”

Bradley chuckled, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. “I heard. Kid’s on fire, huh?”

Judy nodded weakly but managed a small grin. “I told you he’s the best. But he still takes weird pictures sometimes.”

That made Bradley laugh, a deep, warm sound that filled the room. “Weird pictures or not, I think your dad would’ve loved hearing you talk about Real Madrid like this.”

Judy’s face softened, her smile widening slightly at the mention of her biological dad. “You think so?”

“I know so,” he said firmly. “Now, how about we make sure you’re taking care of yourself so you can get better and keep watching him score goals?”

Judy nodded, leaning into his touch as he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Deal.”

From the hallway, Anna peeked in, clearly feeling left out. “Can I sit with Judy, too?”

Bradley turned his head and grinned. “If Judy’s okay with it, sure.”

Judy nodded, patting the spot beside her, and Anna climbed up eagerly, snuggling under the blanket with her big sister. Bradley stood, stretching slightly before heading back to you.

“How’s Theo?” he asked, his voice lowering so he wouldn’t wake the baby.

“Asleep, for now,” you replied, tilting your head toward the baby monitor on the counter. “He went down about thirty minutes ago. Let’s hope it sticks.”

Bradley grinned and leaned down, pressing a kiss to your lips. “You’re too good, you know that?”

You laughed softly, brushing a hand along his arm. “Sure. Now, go eat before the soup gets cold.”

As Bradley settled into his chair at the dining table, you brought him a steaming bowl of soup. He murmured a quiet thanks before picking up his spoon, glancing at you as you moved to lean against the counter.

“How was work today?” he asked between bites, his warm brown eyes flicking up to meet yours. “Everything okay with you leaving early?”

You hesitated for just a moment, your hand brushing over the edge of the counter. “It’s fine,” you said casually, offering a small shrug. “Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.”

Bradley frowned slightly, setting his spoon down for a moment. “You sure? That’s, what, the third time this week? Last week you had to take a couple of days off because of Anna, too.”

You sighed, crossing your arms. “Bradley, it’s no big deal. It’s not like we’re behind on anything. I had everything under control before I left.”

He tilted his head, studying you carefully. “That doesn’t mean you can't call me, you know.”

You pushed off the counter with a small laugh, brushing past him to gather up Anna’s pyjamas from a nearby basket. “I’m fine, Rooster. Seriously. It’s not like I’m doing it alone—you’ve been pulling your weight, too.”

His lips quirked up in a small, understanding smile, but he didn’t push. Instead, he returned to his meal, watching as you disappeared briefly into the living room to remind Anna about her bedtime routine.

“Annabelle,” you called, leaning over the back of the couch. “Fifteen minutes until you’re brushing your teeth. No nap today means an early bedtime, remember?”

“Okay, Mommy,” Anna replied with a sigh, snuggling closer to Judy under the blanket.

“And Judy,” you added, brushing a hand over Judy’s head, “I didn’t forget our deal—you can stay up a little later tonight, but only if you rest here for now, okay?”

Judy nodded with a tired but satisfied smile. “Thanks, Mom.”

You returned to the kitchen just as Bradley finished his bowl, pushing it aside with a satisfied sigh. “That hit the spot,” he said, standing to place the empty dish in the sink.

“Glad you liked it,” you said, leaning against the counter as he moved closer to you.

Bradley turned, placing his hands on either side of your waist, and gave you a thoughtful look. “Once all the kids are down for the night,” he said softly, his voice dipping to that warm, familiar tone he used when something was on his mind, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

Your brows knit together in curiosity. “Oh?”

He smiled, brushing a stray hair out of your face. “Yeah. Nothing bad, I promise. But… let’s get through bedtime first.”

Your lips curved up in a small smile as you leaned into him for a moment. “Alright, Bradshaw. But now you’ve got me wondering.”

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Patience, sweetheart.”

With that, he turned back toward the living room, his voice playful as he called out to Anna, “Alright, Bananas, let’s get those teeth brushed before your mom tells me I’m slacking.”

Anna’s giggles filled the house as she bolted from the living room, her tiny feet pattering up the stairs as Bradley’s playful growl followed closely behind.

“Anna Banana, you get back here!” he called, his boots thudding against the hardwood as he gave chase. “We’re brushing those teeth whether you like it or not!”

“You can’t catch me, Daddy!” she yelled between bursts of laughter, the sound so joyful it made you smile despite the exhaustion lingering from the day.

Shaking your head, you turned back to the kitchen and grabbed Bradley’s empty bowl from the table, rinsing it under warm water before adding it to the dishwasher. The soup pot still sat on the stove, its comforting aroma hanging in the air. You ladled the leftovers into a container, snapping the lid on before slipping it into the fridge.

Judy wouldn’t be eating any tonight—you knew her appetite was still weak from the cold. You sighed softly as you wiped down the counter, taking a moment to glance toward the baby monitor. Theo was still sound asleep, his soft snores faintly audible through the speaker. At least one of your kids was making bedtime easy tonight.

With the kitchen clean and quiet, you dried your hands and made your way to the living room, where Judy lay nestled under the blanket. Her Real Madrid hoodie was slightly bunched up, and her face was still flushed from her cold, but her eyes brightened when she saw you approaching.

“Hey, Judy bug,” you said gently, sinking down beside her. “You feeling okay?”

She nodded, scooting closer to you. “I’m just tired,” she admitted softly.

“I know,” you said, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into your side. She fit perfectly against you, her small body warm and familiar. “But remember, we made a deal. You’re allowed to stay up a little longer, as long as you take it easy.”

Judy smiled faintly, leaning her head on your shoulder. “Thanks, Mom.”

You pressed a kiss to her temple, brushing some hair away from her face. “Anytime, Judy.”

For a few minutes, the house was quiet except for the distant sound of Bradley trying to wrangle Anna into brushing her teeth. You chuckled under your breath as Judy let out a small laugh.

“Rooster’s not very good at catching Anna,” she murmured, her voice raspy but amused.

“Nope,” you agreed, squeezing her gently. “But he’s trying his best.”

Judy’s giggle was soft but heartfelt, and you cherished the moment, knowing it wouldn’t be long before all three kids were asleep and the house finally settled into peace for the night.

Judy shifted against you as you tucked the blanket tighter around her shoulders, her small hand reaching for the remote on the coffee table. The soft thud of Anna’s bedroom door closing upstairs brought a sense of relief; Bradley had clearly won the bedtime battle. You smiled to yourself, imagining how he’d probably managed to wrangle her into bed with one of his goofy voices or a quick rendition of a lullaby she insisted he sing.

From above, you heard the bathroom door open and the unmistakable sound of the shower turning on. That man earned his fifteen minutes of peace after chasing Anna around.

“What do you say we watch something before bed?” you asked, glancing down at Judy.

Her eyes lit up slightly, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Can we watch The Grinch?”

“You’re still in a Christmas mood, huh?” you teased, but you didn’t mind. Judy had always loved the story, and it had become a tradition to watch it at least ten times every December.

She nodded, snuggling closer to your side as you leaned forward to grab the remote. It only took a few clicks before the familiar opening notes of The Grinch filled the room, and the glow of the television bathed the two of you in soft light.

As the movie started, you glanced down at Judy. Her eyes were focused on the screen, though you could tell she wasn’t quite as energetic as usual. Her cold was still zapping her strength, but she looked content, nestled under the blanket and leaning into you for warmth.

The two of you sat quietly, watching as the Grinch made his first grouchy appearance. Judy chuckled faintly at his antics, her laugh muffled by the blanket she’d half-pulled over her face.

Upstairs, you could still hear the shower running, the steady hum of water a comforting backdrop to the cozy moment. It was one of those rare evenings where, despite the chaos of the day, everything felt peaceful—just you and your daughter, sharing a quiet moment together while Bradley unwound upstairs.

You let out a soft sigh of contentment, wrapping your arm a little tighter around Judy. Nights like this, you thought, were what made all the hard days worth it.

As the Grinch grumbled on screen about Christmas cheer, your phone buzzed on the coffee table, the screen lighting up with a call from work. You sighed, glancing at the number. It wasn’t unusual for work to call after hours, but it still pulled you out of the cozy moment with Judy.

Judy turned her head toward you, her brows furrowing. “Mom, do you have to go?” she asked softly, her voice still scratchy from her cold.

You gave her a reassuring smile and smoothed her hair back. “No, bug, I’m not going anywhere. I just need to take this call, okay? Roo will be downstairs in a couple of minutes. Can you hold tight until then?”

She nodded, though she still looked a little disappointed. “Okay.”

You kissed her forehead before standing and grabbing your coat from the rack by the door. Wrapping it around your shoulders, you stepped onto the front porch, the cold night air biting against your skin. The faint scent of pine from the wreath on the door lingered, and you pulled your coat tighter as you tapped to accept the call.

“This is YN,” you answered, your breath puffing in the chilly air.

The person on the other end quickly launched into their reason for calling—some minor crisis involving a data set that had apparently gone haywire. You listened intently, nodding even though they couldn’t see you, while mentally sorting through solutions.

As you paced the porch, the front door opened, and Bradley stepped out, fresh from his shower. His damp hair was tousled, and he’d pulled on a well-worn hoodie and sweatpants. He glanced at you curiously, then stepped back inside, letting the door click shut behind him.

A few moments later, you wrapped up the call, offering quick instructions and assurances that you’d look at the problem first thing in the morning. You hung up and exhaled deeply, allowing the crisp night air to clear your thoughts.

When you stepped back inside, Bradley was in the living room, crouched next to Judy. He’d wrapped an arm around her, his other hand resting on the blanket tucked snugly around her. Judy looked a little brighter already, smiling up at him as she pointed something out on the screen.

Bradley looked up as you closed the door, his warm eyes meeting yours. “Everything okay?” he asked, his voice soft so as not to disturb the moment.

You nodded, offering him a tired smile. “Crisis averted. Thanks for stepping in.”

“Anytime,” he said, patting the spot next to him on the couch. “Come sit. We saved your spot.”

The warmth in his voice and the sight of your little family waiting for you melted the tension from your shoulders. You slipped off your coat, letting it fall onto the back of a chair, and joined them, ready to soak in the rest of the evening.

As the Grinch continued plotting on the screen, you noticed Judy start to rub her eyes. Her head had begun to droop a little, and not long after, she let out a soft yawn.

Bradley, ever observant, caught it instantly. A teasing grin spread across his face as he looked down at her. “Uh-oh,” he said dramatically, “sounds like someone’s ready for bed. What do you think, Judy? Time to head upstairs?”

Judy’s head shot up, her tired eyes narrowing as she frowned at him. “No, it’s not! My bedtime’s 8:30, and it’s only 8!”

“Hmm,” Bradley drawled, tapping his chin in mock contemplation. “I don’t know. That yawn says otherwise.”

“It doesn’t count!” Judy protested, sitting up straighter and fixing him with her best determined glare. “I’m not tired. I can stay up for The Grinch. You promised!”

Bradley chuckled, raising his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. You’ve got until 8:30. But if I catch you yawning again, we might have to renegotiate.”

Judy crossed her arms, trying to look serious but failing as a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You’re so dramatic, Rooster.”

“Me? Dramatic?” he asked, feigning offense. “I’m just concerned about your beauty sleep, Jude. I’m looking out for you.”

Judy rolled her eyes, but you could see the playful affection in her expression. “You’re such a weirdo.”

Bradley laughed, pulling her close and planting a kiss on the top of her head. “That’s me. But you love me anyway.”

She snuggled back against him with a small huff, her earlier defiance fading as she relaxed into his side. You watched the exchange with a smile, your heart full at the sight of their bond.

Bradley caught your gaze and gave you a wink, his hand resting gently on Judy’s shoulder. You could tell he was savouring the moment as much as you were.

Judy had just settled against Bradley’s side, her eyes fluttering back toward the screen, when he lightly placed his hand on her forehead. The smile on his face faded slightly, replaced by a look of concern.

“Hey, Jude,” he said softly, tilting his head to get a better look at her. “You’re feeling a little warm. Are you okay?”

Judy blinked up at him, her brows furrowing as if she hadn’t noticed it herself. “I think so,” she murmured, but then a raspy cough escaped her, and her body tensed.

You immediately perked up, your eyes scanning her face as she began coughing harder. “Judy?” you asked, worry creeping into your tone.

Before she could answer, her hand shot to her mouth, her face paling. Instinct kicked in, and you grabbed the bowl you’d left on the floor beside the couch earlier, knowing her appetite had been off all day.

“Here, sweetie,” you said gently, holding the bowl just in time as Judy leaned forward, the cough turning into a small heave.

Bradley’s arm stayed securely around her, his other hand moving to rub her back as she threw up into the bowl. His voice was soft and steady as he murmured, “It’s okay, Jude. Just breathe, baby girl. We’ve got you.”

You crouched beside them, one hand resting on Judy’s knee as you watched her closely. It didn’t last long, but her little body trembled with the effort, and when she finally leaned back, her face was flushed, and her eyes glassy with exhaustion.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered weakly, her voice barely above a rasp.

“Oh, baby, you have nothing to be sorry for,” you assured her, brushing a hand over her hair as Bradley wiped her mouth gently with the tissue you handed him.

“She’s burning up,” Bradley said quietly, concern etched into his voice as he pressed another hand to her forehead.

You nodded, already moving to grab a cool cloth from the kitchen. “Let’s get her cooled down and check her temperature again,” you said, your mind shifting into problem-solving mode.

Judy leaned heavily against Bradley’s chest, her small frame dwarfed by his protective embrace. “Daddy,” she croaked, her voice barely audible, “I don’t wanna be sick anymore.”

She rarely called him dad, but that was something else.

“I know, Jude,” Bradley said softly, his hand brushing over her hair. “I know. We’re going to take care of you, okay? Just rest for now.”

Judy’s little body eventually gave out from the exhaustion, her head lolling against Bradley’s chest as her breathing evened out into soft snores. You exchanged a quick glance with Bradley, nodding silently toward the stairs.

“I’ll grab the bucket,” you whispered, standing up and heading to the bathroom while he carefully adjusted Judy in his arms.

Bradley lifted her as if she weighed nothing, his large hands supporting her back and legs as he rose from the couch. He cradled her close, his steps slow and deliberate as he started up the stairs, making sure not to jostle her. The soft sound of her breathing mixed with the creak of the floorboards, and it tugged at your heart how small she looked in his arms.

By the time you reached Judy’s room, Bradley was gently laying her down on her bed, taking care to arrange her blankets so she was snug but not too warm. He brushed a hand over her hair, his thumb grazing her forehead again as he sighed quietly.

“She’s still a little warm,” he murmured.

You nodded, setting the bucket beside her bed within easy reach. “I’ll check her temperature again in a couple of hours, just to be sure.”

As you adjusted the bucket, Bradley glanced back at you, his brow furrowed. “She got sick last night too?”

You hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I thought it was because she decided to have hot chocolate fifteen minutes before bed. She didn’t even tell me until after she’d already made it.”

Bradley’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I didn’t hear a thing. She got sick, and I didn’t wake up?”

You smirked, placing a hand on your hip as you teased, “Roo, you’d sleep through a literal earthquake.”

He let out a soft chuckle, though there was a flicker of guilt in his expression. “Guess I need to work on that. I hate that you were dealing with this by yourself.”

You shrugged, brushing it off lightly. “It wasn’t too bad. Besides, the real fun was earlier today.”

Bradley straightened, his concern sharpening. “What happened?”

You sighed, leaning against the doorway. “She got sick at school. They called me about an hour after I got to work, so I had to come home early to pick her up. She’s been pretty out of it since. I tried feeding her soup earlier, but that didn’t go well either.”

Bradley exhaled deeply, his hands on his hips as he glanced back at Judy, who was now sound asleep, her face still slightly flushed. “Poor kid,” he murmured, running a hand through his damp hair. “She’s had a rough day.”

“Yeah,” you agreed softly, stepping closer to him. “But at least she’s getting some rest now.”

Bradley nodded, reaching out to give your arm a gentle squeeze. “You’ve been handling all of this like a champ. Seriously, YN.”

You smiled at him, leaning into his touch. “We’re a team, remember? You’ll take the next round if she wakes up again tonight.”

“Deal,” he said with a small smile, his eyes flicking back to Judy one last time before wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

As you walked back downstairs with Bradley, the weight of the evening’s events still hung in the air, but your mind wandered back to his earlier words—I have something to tell you. You gave him a curious look as you both stepped into the kitchen, where he leaned casually against the counter, though there was an unmistakable tension in his posture.

“So,” you said, crossing your arms and leaning against the opposite counter. “What’s this big thing you wanted to talk about?”

Bradley exhaled deeply, rubbing the back of his neck in a way that instantly made you wary. He was stalling. “Alright, don’t freak out,” he started, his eyes flicking to yours. “But there’s a chance we might be moving again… before the end of December.”

You stared at him, utterly floored. “You’re kidding.”

He shook his head, his lips pressing into a tight line. “I wish I was.”

“Bradley,” you said, your voice rising slightly in disbelief, “we’ve only been in this house for three months. Three months! And it’s almost Christmas! How are we supposed to pack up and leave—again?”

He winced at the exasperation in your tone, holding up his hands defensively. “I know, I know. Believe me, I’m not thrilled about the timing either. But I think this might be the last time. I mean it.”

You raised a sceptical eyebrow. “That’s what you said the last two moves. And the time before that.”

He nodded, his jaw tightening. “I know. But this is different. I got a call about going back to Top Gun—to San Diego. They need me there, and they’re offering some stability. A more permanent position, YN. I’d be working with my old crew again, the same people I did the uranium mission with.”

You blinked at him, your mind spinning. “San Diego?” you echoed, trying to process the implications. “Bradley, we’ve moved five times in the last four years because of your job. Every time, it’s been the same story—‘this is the last one, we’ll settle down here.’ How can you be sure this time?”

“I can’t be sure,” he admitted, his voice soft but steady. “But I know how much we’ve been through, and I know what I’m asking isn’t easy. But Top Gun feels like home to me. The team, the work—it’s different there. It’s something I know I can grow with long-term.”

You stared at him, still feeling blindsided. “And you think we can do this in the middle of the holidays? We’d have to uproot the kids—again. Judy’s been sick, and Anna just started getting comfortable here.”

“I know it’s asking a lot,” he said, stepping closer and placing his hands on your arms. “But I think San Diego could be a real chance for us. The base there is more stable, and I wouldn’t be deploying as much. I’d be home more—for you, for the kids.”

Your shoulders sagged as you took in his words. You wanted to believe him, but the exhaustion of endless moves, the packing, unpacking, and constant uncertainty weighed heavily on you.

“And this is all happening before the end of December?” you asked, your voice quieter now.

Bradley nodded, his expression apologetic. “There’s still a lot to figure out, but yeah. They need me soon. I just… I wanted to talk to you about it first. I wouldn’t make this decision without you.”

You let out a long breath, running a hand through your hair. “Bradley, this is a lot. I don’t even know where to start.”

He nodded again, squeezing your arms gently. “I know it is. Take some time to think about it, okay? We’ll figure it out together.”

You bit your lip, your thoughts still racing, but you couldn’t ignore the sincerity in his eyes—or the hope. Despite the upheaval it would cause, he truly believed this could be the fresh start you both needed. But whether or not you were ready to believe that too, you weren’t so sure.

You stared at Bradley, the frustration rising in your chest as the weight of his words truly sank in. Shaking your head, you stepped back from his grasp and crossed your arms tightly.

“Bradley, I’m going to say this right now—I’m not moving until after New Year’s,” you said firmly, your voice steady but resolute. “I refuse to spend Christmas in some lousy halfway spot, surrounded by boxes, trying to keep the kids from falling apart. It’s not happening.”

His brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to respond, but you kept going, your emotions spilling out in waves.

“This constant moving isn’t just exhausting—it’s unhealthy for the kids. Anna’s finally settling in here. She’s starting to make friends, and she’s getting used to the house. Judy’s already switched schools enough for a lifetime. It’s not fair to her to have to keep doing this over and over. She’s nine, Bradley! I thought mine and her fathers job at the start would make her need to move so much but truly it didn't. She needs stability, not a new classroom every year.”

He sighed, his shoulders sagging slightly as he tried to meet your gaze. “I know it’s hard, YN—”

“No,” you interrupted, holding up a hand. “You don’t know how hard it is, Bradley. You’re not the one managing school forms, paediatricians, or trying to help Judy settle in after every single move. You’re not the one cleaning up puke when she gets so stressed she makes herself sick. And on top of that, I have my own job to think about. Do you have any idea how much of a nightmare it is to move space labs? Or how hard it is to get rehired in the same field every time we relocate? What if they don’t even take me this time?”

He frowned, guilt flickering in his expression. “I didn’t think—”

“That’s the problem, Bradley,” you said, your voice softening but still firm. “You didn’t think. You’re chasing stability for yourself, and I get that. I do. But what about us? What about the kids? What about me?”

Bradley ran a hand down his face, clearly grappling with your words. “I thought this would be a good opportunity for all of us,” he admitted quietly. “I thought… maybe it could finally be the place where we can put down roots.”

You let out a shaky breath, willing yourself to stay calm. “If you want to go, fine. Go set things up. But I’m not uprooting this family in the middle of the holidays. The kids deserve a Christmas in a real home, not in a house we haven’t even unpacked yet. And I’m not putting them—or myself—through another rushed move until we know this is going to work.”

He nodded slowly, his jaw tightening as he absorbed your words. “Okay,” he said finally, his voice low. “We’ll wait until after New Year’s. I’ll talk to them, figure out a timeline that works.”

Relief washed over you, though it was tempered by the uncertainty still lingering in the air. You reached for his hand, squeezing it tightly. “I need you to understand, Bradley. This isn’t just about you anymore. It’s all of us. And I can’t keep putting the kids—and myself—through this. And I will go insane if I'll be in another motel for weeks.”

“I get it,” he said softly, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “I do. I just… I want to make this work. For all of us.”

You nodded, your gaze steady. “Then let’s figure it out. But after the holidays.”

Bradley’s arms stayed wrapped around you, but as you rested against him, he gently pulled back, his eyes scanning your face with quiet concern. He tilted his head slightly, his voice soft but pointed.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked, his tone both curious and insistent.

You hesitated, your gaze flickering to the floor before meeting his again. You’d been holding back, trying to push through for the sake of the evening, but he clearly wasn’t going to let it slide.

“Honestly?” you said, exhaling deeply. “It’s not fine with me that you’re thinking of leaving so soon—especially after I had to miss work last week. I’ve already taken so much time off between Anna being sick, Judy needing to come home early, and everything else. I’m exhausted, Bradley. I’ve had enough.”

His brow furrowed as he stepped closer, his hands resting lightly on your arms. “Then why didn’t you just say that when I asked earlier?”

You bit your lip, your frustration bubbling to the surface. “Because I wasn’t about to argue in front of Judy and Anna,” you said sharply. “They’ve already been through enough tonight. Judy doesn’t need to hear us going back and forth on top of being sick with cruel stomach décor, and Anna’s finally getting settled. I didn’t want to add more stress.”

Bradley sighed, running a hand through his hair as he took in your words. “I get that,” he said softly. “But, YN, I need you to tell me these things. You don’t have to hold it in just to keep the peace.”

“I know,” you replied, your voice quieter now, “but I’m just… tired, Bradley. I don’t feel like moving again. Not until March at the earliest. I’m not ready to pack up, to sort through everything, to start over—again.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes softening as he processed your words. “You feel like you’ve hit your limit,” he said, more a statement than a question.

“Exactly,” you admitted, your shoulders sagging. “I’ve hit my limit. The idea of boxing up this house, pulling the kids out of their routine, and throwing myself into another round of uncertainty—it’s exhausting just thinking about it. I’m not bothered to pack up again right now. I need time.”

Bradley was quiet for a moment, his thumb brushing absentmindedly over your arm as he considered his response. “March,” he repeated, nodding slowly. “Alright. We can make that work. I’ll let them know we need more time.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, meeting his gaze.

“I’m sure,” he said firmly. “I’m not going to push you into something you’re not ready for. If March feels right, then that’s what we’ll aim for.”

Relief washed over you, though a small part of you still felt the weight of what lay ahead. “Thank you,” you murmured.

He pulled you back into his arms, holding you close. “We’ll figure this out,” he promised.

Before you could fully relax into Bradley’s embrace, your phone buzzed again on the counter, cutting through the quiet. You sighed, reluctantly pulling away to check the screen. It was another call from work.

“I should take this,” you muttered, already swiping to answer.

Bradley leaned against the counter, watching you closely as you murmured into the phone, your tone professional but clearly laced with frustration. He caught snippets—something about deadlines, a meeting you couldn’t miss, and some last-minute chaos that had you pinching the bridge of your nose.

When you finally hung up, you turned back to him, running a hand through your hair. “Looks like I’ll be driving down overnight,” you said with a resigned sigh. “I’ve got an early morning meeting anyway, and at this rate, I’ll barely get any sleep if I wait until tomorrow to leave.”

Bradley straightened, his brows knitting together. “Overnight? YN, that’s going to be rough. Are you sure that’s the best idea?”

You shrugged, already mentally planning the drive. “It’s easier this way. I’ll get there before the day starts, and I won’t have to stress about being late.”

He crossed his arms, his concern clear. “I’ve got the day off work tomorrow. I’ll stay here and take care of the kids. You focus on work.”

You blinked at him, a little surprised. “You have the day off?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, stepping closer. “I’ll handle everything here. Judy’s already home sick, so I’ll keep an eye on her and make sure Anna and Theo are good too. You don’t need to worry about anything on this end.”

The tension in your shoulders eased slightly, and you nodded, grateful for his support. “Okay,” you said softly. “Thanks, Bradley.”

He gave you a small smile, brushing his thumb over your cheek. “Just drive safe, alright? And text me when you get there.”

“I will,” you promised, leaning into his touch for a brief moment before pulling back to start gathering your things. As much as you hated the overnight drive, knowing Bradley would hold down the fort at home made it a little easier to handle.

Bradley climbed the stairs quietly, his mind still on your late-night drive and the conversation the two of you had just shared. But as he passed Judy’s room, a soft, raspy voice caught his attention.

“I don’t mind moving,” she said, her tone small but clear.

He stopped in his tracks, leaning slightly toward the open doorway. A grin tugged at the corner of his lips as he stepped inside, spotting Judy sitting up in bed, her blanket pulled up to her chest.

“Well, well,” he said, crossing his arms as he leaned against the doorframe. “Sounds to me like someone’s been eavesdropping.”

Judy’s cheeks flushed a little, but she gave him a defiant look, crossing her arms over her blanket. “It’s not eavesdropping, Roo. It’s overhearing. There’s a difference.”

Bradley raised an eyebrow, fighting back a chuckle as he walked over to her bed. “Oh, there’s a difference, huh?” he teased, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. “Pretty sure your mom wouldn’t see it that way. She’d probably have my head if she knew you were listening.”

Judy smiled slyly, leaning back against her pillows. “Good thing she’s not here to find out.”

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “You’re a smart one, Jude, I’ll give you that. But seriously—what are you doing awake? You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

She shrugged, fiddling with the edge of her blanket. “I just… I heard you guys talking, and I wanted to know what was going on. Are we really moving again?”

Bradley sighed, his teasing expression softening. “It’s a possibility,” he admitted. “But nothing’s set in stone yet. Your mom and I are still figuring things out.”

Judy looked down at her hands, quiet for a moment. “I don’t mind moving,” she said again, her voice softer now. “I mean, I like it here, but… if it makes you and Mom happy, I’ll be okay.”

His heart swelled at her words, and he reached out to gently brush a strand of hair from her face. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”

She smiled shyly, her eyes still on her lap. “I try.”

Bradley leaned down, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. “Now get some sleep, okay? And no more overhearing—or eavesdropping—or whatever you want to call it.”

“Fine,” she murmured, already snuggling back into her blanket. “Goodnight, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Judy,” he said softly, standing and turning off her bedside lamp before heading to the door. As he glanced back, she was already drifting off, her little body relaxed and peaceful.

Bradley stepped quietly into Theo’s room, the soft glow of the nightlight casting a warm hue over the small space. Theo was curled up in his crib, his chest rising and falling in the rhythmic breaths of deep sleep.

Bradley leaned over the crib, brushing his fingers lightly over Theo’s soft hair. Despite his hesitation, he decided it might be best to have him closer tonight, especially with you driving through the night. Carefully, he slipped his arms under Theo and lifted him, cradling the boy against his chest. Theo stirred slightly but didn’t wake, settling back into his father’s embrace with a soft sigh.

Bradley carried him down the hallway to your shared bedroom. The portable baby mattress was already set up near the bed, and he gently placed Theo down, adjusting the blankets around him. The little boy stretched briefly, then fell back into his peaceful sleep.

Bradley crouched for a moment, watching him, his expression soft with affection. He reached out, tucking the blanket a little more securely before standing.

Moving quietly, Bradley made his way to the small desk tucked into the corner of the room. He sat down heavily in the chair, his elbows resting on the desk as he ran a hand down his face. The day—and the conversations—were catching up with him.

As Bradley sat at the small desk, the quiet hum of the house surrounding him, he pulled out his phone. The group chat with the Dagger Squad lit up with unread messages, the notifications buzzing intermittently.

Payback: So, Rooster, you coming back after New Year’s or what?

Coyote: Yeah, man, don’t leave us hanging. You know Hangman’s already bragging about how he’ll outfly all of us again.

Hangman: Correction, Coyote. I will outfly you all. Don’t need Rooster to confirm that. But hey, Rooster, don’t be scared now—you coming or not?

Bob: It’d be good to have you back, Rooster.

Fanboy: Yeah, you’re part of the team, man. We’re counting on you to bring the mustache magic.

Bradley smirked, shaking his head at their banter. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, debating how to respond.

Phoenix: Give him a break, guys. He’ll let us know when he can.

He hesitated. Phoenix was the only one who knew about his life outside the Navy—his wife, his kids, the constant balancing act he’d been navigating. He hadn’t told the others, not because he didn’t trust them, but because it never felt like the right time. Now, with their texts pressing him for a commitment, the weight of his promise to you settled heavily on his shoulders.

He’d agreed to wait until after the New Year to move the family, but they didn’t need to know that. If he got sent to Top Gun temporarily for a few days, it wouldn’t disrupt the plan too much—would it? He could handle a few days away, fulfil the request, and be back before you’d even finished packing the decorations away.

But then again, keeping this from you didn’t sit right with him. His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he considered his reply.

Rooster: I’ll let you guys know soon. Still working a few things out on my end.

The responses came quickly.

Coyote: Come on, man, you know you wanna fly with the big boys again.

Hangman: “Working things out” sounds like code for chicken. You scared, Rooster?

Fanboy: Ignore him. We’re looking forward to having you back.

Bradley stared at the screen, his mind torn. He knew how much they wanted him back—and if he was honest, he missed flying with them, too. But you had made your stance clear. You didn’t want the chaos of a rushed move or the disruption to your family’s routine, and he couldn’t ignore how much you’d already sacrificed for his career.

The only one who truly understood the bind he was in was Phoenix, and as if on cue, another message from her popped up in the group chat.

Phoenix: Don’t rush it, Rooster. We’ve got time.

Bradley sighed, grateful for her subtle support. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation when the time came to tell you he’d been sent down for even a short stint. For now, though, he tucked the phone away, deciding to deal with it when—and if—it became official.

-

As you parked your car outside the lab, the faint buzz of your phone caught your attention. You glanced at the screen, seeing a text from Bradley pop up.

Rooster: Hey, just got an email—orders came through. I have to head back to Top Gun the day after New Year’s. Just for a few days to test some equipment.

You frowned, your fingers lingering over the steering wheel. He’d softened the blow, but the sting of his words remained. After all the back and forth, the long conversations, and the arguments about waiting until the New Year to avoid uprooting everything again, this felt like a sudden change. Still, you trusted him—if it was orders, there wasn’t much he could do.

A follow-up text arrived moments later.

Rooster: How was the drive? Everything okay? All the kids are down for the night. Theo didn’t even wake up when I brought him to our room. Judy’s still coughing a little but sound asleep. Let me know when you get a moment.

You sighed, the tension from the late-night drive mingling with the unresolved frustration of the past few days. Pushing it aside for now, you texted back quickly.

You: Drive was fine. Thanks for holding down the fort. I’ll call you in a minute.

Pulling your coat tighter, you stepped outside the car and dialled him. The phone rang twice before his familiar voice answered.

“Hey,” Bradley greeted, his tone warm but careful. “How’s it going? You get there okay?”

“I’m fine,” you replied, your voice steady. “Just parked. You said you got orders?”

There was a pause, just a fraction too long to go unnoticed, but he recovered quickly. “Yeah, it came through just a little while ago. Email straight from command,” he said, keeping his tone light. “It’s not a big deal, just a quick trip to test some new equipment. A few days, tops.”

You pressed your lips together, glancing up at the dimly lit lab building. “Funny how that just popped up, considering we were arguing about moving a couple of hours ago.”

He sighed, the sound crackling faintly through the line. “I know the timing sucks, but this isn’t about the move. It’s just work. You know how it is—they send orders, I follow them. It’s out of my hands.”

You leaned against the car, the cold seeping through your coat. “And it couldn’t wait until after we decided?”

“Apparently not,” he replied, his tone still soft. “They want it done now to prep for upcoming missions. It’s not permanent, YN. Just a few days, and then I’ll be back.”

Your fingers tightened around the phone. His explanation was logical, but a part of you still bristled. “It just feels sudden, that’s all,” you admitted. “After everything we talked about, it feels like the Navy’s always pulling the rug out from under us.”

“I get it,” he said gently. “I really do. But I promise I’ll make it as smooth as possible for you and the kids. And hey, once it’s done, we can refocus on everything here. I’ll help with the packing, with the kids—whatever you need.”

You exhaled slowly, the initial frustration easing slightly. “Alright,” you said finally. “If it’s orders, it’s orders. Just… don’t keep me in the dark about anything else, okay?”

“I won’t,” Bradley said quickly. “Promise.”

“Okay,” you murmured, glancing toward the building. “I should head in. Thanks for calling to let me know.”

“No problem,” he replied, his voice warm again. “Drive safe when you head back, alright? And don’t work too hard.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you said with a faint smile before ending the call.

As you walked into the lab, a flicker of doubt lingered in the back of your mind, but you pushed it aside. He wouldn’t lie about something like this—or so you believed.

-

Bradley sat back in the chair at his small desk, the glow of his phone screen casting a faint light across the darkened room. The group chat with the Dagger Squad had gone quiet for now, but his mind was racing. He hated lying to you, especially after the hard conversations you’d had tonight, but what unsettled him more was the creeping realization of how deep this would go.

A soft creak at the door pulled his attention, and he looked up to see Anna standing there, her favourite blankie draped over her shoulder and her teddy bear clutched tightly in her small hands.

“Daddy?” she whispered, her voice soft and sleepy.

Bradley immediately put his phone down, his heart squeezing at the sight of her. “Hey, Anna Banana. What’s wrong, baby girl?”

She padded over to him, her bare feet barely making a sound on the floor. “I had a bad dream,” she said, her bottom lip sticking out just a little as she rubbed her eyes.

“Come here,” Bradley said gently, holding out his arms. Anna climbed onto his lap without hesitation, curling against his chest as he wrapped his arms securely around her. Her blanket and teddy got squished between them, but she didn’t seem to mind.

He swayed gently in the chair, rubbing her back. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re safe. It was just a dream.”

Anna nodded sleepily, her head resting against his shoulder. “Are you going away again, Daddy?” she asked suddenly, her voice muffled.

The question hit him like a punch to the gut. He swallowed hard, guilt twisting in his chest. “Yeah,” he said softly, his voice thick. “But only for a little while, baby. Just a few days. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Anna pulled back just enough to look at him, her big, earnest eyes shining in the dim light. “But why? I don’t like when you go away.”

Bradley forced a small smile, brushing a strand of her hair out of her face. “I know, Banana. I don’t like leaving you either. But it’s part of my job, and I promise I’ll be home really soon.”

“Promise?” she whispered, holding up her pinky.

He hesitated for only a second before linking his pinky with hers. “Promise.”

Anna seemed satisfied with that, her little hand relaxing as she tucked herself back against his chest. He held her close, guilt gnawing at him. He hated that he was lying to her, too—that he wasn’t going because of orders but because of his own decision to go back to Top Gun for reasons he hadn’t fully shared.

Her small breaths began to even out, and Bradley knew she was falling back asleep. He carried her to the bed you both kept in your room for when the kids had restless nights, tucking her in with her blankie and teddy. She didn’t stir as he pulled the covers up around her.

As he returned to his desk, he stared down at his phone, the unanswered questions and unspoken truths weighing heavily on him. For a moment, he considered calling you again—coming clean about everything—but the fear of how you’d react kept his finger from pressing the button.

Bradley sat back down at his desk, the soft glow of his phone screen illuminating his conflicted expression. He glanced over his shoulder at Anna, curled up peacefully with her blankie and teddy in the bed. Her tiny chest rose and fell in a soothing rhythm, but the weight in his own chest didn’t lift.

He turned his gaze back to the group chat with the Dagger Squad, their earlier messages still sitting there, waiting for his response. He could hear their voices in his head—Payback's good-natured ribbing, Hangman’s cocky taunts, Phoenix’s steady, knowing tone.

His thumb hovered over the keyboard, hesitation coursing through him. You trusted him. Anna trusted him. But here he was, about to step back into the world he thought he’d left behind for good.

With a deep breath, he began typing.

Rooster: I’ll be there.

The replies were immediate, the chat lighting up in a flurry of responses.

Coyote: Knew you couldn’t resist!

Payback: Finally, the squad’s back together.

Hangman: About time, Bradshaw. I was starting to think you’d gone soft.

Phoenix: Good to have you back, Rooster.

Bradley leaned back in his chair, letting their messages blur together. He couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt as he reread his text. He hadn’t even said it out loud yet, but sending that message felt like crossing a line he couldn’t uncross.

He locked his phone and rubbed his hands over his face, the quiet of the room pressing down on him. This decision wasn’t just about him—it was about you, the kids, the life you’d built together. And yet, here he was, making a choice that might shake the foundation of it all.

For now, he’d focus on the days ahead. He’d handle the fallout later, even if it meant confronting the disappointment in your eyes when you found out.

Part 2

A/n: Maybe this is a mini series concept....

[makeitmakesomesense]

The End of It

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: A/N: Day 6: I've merged a lovely request from a lovely friend with the @taylorswiftmicrofic prompt for the 6th of January, which is 'internet'.

.

‘It’ll be so nice.’ The babysitter said with a smile. ‘Having some time, just for the two of you.’

You kept a fake smile plastered to your face. You glanced at Natasha. Her fake smile was always so much better than yours. 

‘You really deserve the break. You guys are like the nicest family.’ The babysitter said now. She was looking between you and your wife with an admiring smile. 

You slipped your hand around Natasha’s waist and pretended not to feel her stiffen at the touch. 

.

You offered to drive first and Natasha didn’t say anything. Five years of marriage and silence was easier than talking. 

You reversed out of the driveway, taking the shortest route to the highway. As you merged onto the busier road, Natasha spoke beside you.

Her tone was flat. 

‘Do you still want to get a divorce?’ 

You stared forward, your hand gripped the steering wheel. Somewhere far ahead, a car horn blared.

‘You know that I do.’

Natasha’s head turned back to lean against the car window.

.

You drove in silence to the hotel. It was thirty minutes away, Natasha’s choice. You hadn’t complained, given everything. You wondered if she was going for a kind of symmetry. 

It was the same hotel chain as the one you’d visited on your honeymoon. It made you feel a bit sick. 

Natasha went to the front desk and checked in. You stood a few feet back and waited with the two small suitcases. You stared at the luggage and realised that you could have shared one bigger bag. You tried to remember if you were ever in sync.

Natasha walked back to you, hotel keycard in hand. Her sunglasses were pushed up into her red hair. She’d cut it a few years ago. The new look had seemed severe at the time. Now, with her lips pressed tightly together, it suited her perfectly.

She didn’t look at you. She caught the handle of her wheeled suitcase and dragged it casually behind her. 

You tried to ignore the sudden flare of annoyance as you were forced to follow behind. The lingering feeling of not being wanted.

When you reached your suite, you watched as Natasha threw her backpack onto the desk in the corner. She dragged her suitcase around to her side of the bed and slipped casually out of her heels. 

You stared at the crumpled backpack. Everything else about Natasha’s life was always so put together. The backpack was the exception. She’d bought it when your first daughter was born. You stared at the backpack, suddenly frozen in place.

Memories demanded your attention. You'd used watched it swing casually from Natasha’s shoulders on every family day out. Your daughter had scribbled over the front of it after a particularly perfect day at the zoo. You’d waited for Natasha to lose her temper when she saw the scribbles. Instead, she’d just laughed.

‘I love giraffes.’ She’d cooed happily, lifting your daughter on her lap and giving her an eskimo kiss. 

You’d wondered then. Why had you expected something else. Why her smiles were becoming surprising.

Natasha walked back over to the desk now. 

She unzipped the backpack and started to rummage inside it. She hooked the leg of the chair with her ankle and dragged it out from underneath the desk.

She glanced back at you and nodded directively at the chair. 

Simmering frustration was becoming your default. You tensed your jaw as you walked over to take the indicated seat. 

You’d been the one to ask for the divorce but Natasha was the one who’d tersely demanded this. A weekend break away from the kids as a cover to get together and figure out the exact details. 

At last, Natasha pulled out a notebook. She turned around and moved to sit on the desk beside you. Her legs swung back and forth as she opened the book to the right page. You tensed your jaw at the swinging motion, everything casual she did seemed to set you on edge. The implication that she didn't care. It was a pretence but it was a cruel one.

Natasha opened the notebook at a neatly filled out page. Even at the funny angle, you recognised a checklist of topics to cover. 

Natasha cleared her throat, she clicked the pen in her hand decisively. Then, she looked up at you. Your gaze met her calm one.

Immediately, Natasha started to cry. 

.

You got to your feet instantly. 

A decades old instinct made you cup her face. Your fingers tangled in her hair. Natasha’s body curled forward as she shook with silent tears. Her hand gripped the front of your t-shirt. 

The heaviness inside you was beyond words. Your bones were lead. You leaned forward to kiss her hair. Natasha pushed you away. 

You stumbled back before regaining your balance. You watched Natasha cover her face and cry harder. Her sunglasses fell from her head, clattering to the ground. 

You left the room and waited in the lobby. You connected your phone to the free internet access and stared at it blindly, willing yourself not to break down.

.

You gave it an hour before you returned to the room. Natasha was waiting for you. She was lying on her side of the bed on top of the pristine covers. She was wearing a white hotel robe. Her hair was damp and the ends were already curling. She glanced up at you as you walked in. Her eyes were rimmed red, but her expression was stony. 

‘Are you ready to talk?’ You asked quietly. 

Natasha folded her arms but she didn’t speak. 

Five years of marriage and silence was easier than talking. 

You couldn’t keep doing this. 

‘Do you want to talk about custody?’ You tried, voice carefully passive. You knew it was the conversation that you were both dreading the most. 

Natasha looked towards you but her gaze didn’t meet yours.

‘Fifty-fifty.’ She murmured, eyes trained an inch to the left of you. You nodded. It was a good place to start. 

‘We can make it work around your schedule.’ You promised suddenly. It had kept you up at night. Weirdly, more than anything else. The idea of Natasha losing time with her kids because she was away saving the world. ‘We’ll adapt it so you really do get half the time.’

A lone tear rolled down Natasha’s cheek.

You tried to speak again, but your throat tightened unbearably. Instead, you left to take a shower. 

.

You ordered takeout to the hotel that evening. You walked out to meet the delivery driver in the parking lot. He gave you a nonplussed look as he handed over the plastic bag with a single portion of food inside. You still felt self conscious. You hated people thinking you were lonely.

That’s why this had taken so long to unravel.

You returned to the hotel room. Natasha was sitting on the desk again. Her half eaten burger ordered from room service was next to her. She was still in her robe, but it was coming loose. She didn’t seem to care. Her bare legs swung back and forth, determined to annoy you.

You dragged the desk chair a few feet further away from her and took a seat. Once she had finished eating, Natasha watched you instead. You tried to ignore her. It was strange having this much attention on you. Life was so easily full of other things. Kids. Life. Work. 

Just as you started to pack up the empty container and plastic cutlery, Natasha cleared her throat.

You looked over to her. She was playing with the end of the dressing gown cord, wrapped loosely around her waist. In another, less sad, lifetime it could have been flirting. Instead, you recognised the anxious gesture. 

‘Why do you want a divorce?’ Natasha asked at last. 

It had been three weeks since you’d first brought it up. Natasha had barely said a word since. She'd been avoiding this question. You realised now. You felt your heart breaking one last time. 

‘You’re not happy.’ You said with simple sadness. ‘You haven’t been for a long time.’ 

‘I don’t think I make you happy.’ You admitted. 

Your throat burned as you forced the final words out without tears. 

‘I’d give you anything Natasha.’ Your face cracked into an automatic smile as you savoured the feel of her name on your tongue. It would never not be special. ‘Let me give you this.’

The silence was unbearable.

You stared down at the ground, you leaned forward in your chair as the hollowness in your chest became hard to bear. 

Natasha’s hand brushed the back of your neck. It was a gesture so familiar, you felt like you’d known it your whole life. 

‘I don't want anything else. I just want you.’ 

When you looked up, you met her green eyes and couldn't help but love her.

.

.

Requests are still very welcome for future January fics. More info in the pinned post if you're interested in requesting. <3

.

[lulunothulu]

“In sickness and health”

Tyler Owens x Reader

Summary: you’re sick and Tyler makes you feel slightly better 🥰

Content: PURE FLUFF, and some sickness lol

GIF from Pinterest credit to the OG maker 💗

Your head was throbbing when you woke up. Your body aches every time you move and your nose was runny.

Great, you were sick.

Of all the days that you wake up feeling like absolute dog shit, your body decides it wants you to suffer.

What was so important about today? It was yours and Tyler’s first wedding anniversary.

You felt terrible, this was the first anniversary you both happen to be together to celebrate and you were sick.

You pull your hair down from its messy bun and sigh in front of the mirror of your bathroom. “Maybe a shower will help.”

You turn the shower on, waiting for it to warm up and then stepping in once your clothes are in a pile on the floor.

You scrub your body slowly, sighing when you have to sit down on the shower floor to wash your feet and legs. It feels nice down there.

It was a mistake.

You wake up with the shower still spraying you with hot water and Tyler standing over you, eyes full of worry.

“Baby?” He asks.

“Did I fall asleep?” You ask hoarsely.

He nods, turning the shower off and grabbing a towel from the rack. “I walked in to surprise you and you were slumped in the floor.”

“I’m so sorry,” you tell him, wincing when he lifts you into his arms.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just sore,” you tell him. “My body and head hurt.”

Tyler lays you on the bed before helping get dry and dressed in your pjs.

“You need to regulate your body temperature before I take your temperature for a fever,” he instructs you. “Just lay here and I’ll go shower.”

That’s when you fully notice that Tyler was in his clothes—flannel shirt clinging to his body and dripping onto the floor. 

“I’ll be right back,” he tells you, kissing your forehead.

You only nod because the energy you have left was used to get yourself into your pjs.

———

Tyler gets out of the shower ten minutes later to see you sprawled out on the bed, fast asleep.

He smiles, kissing your forehead after he gets dressed in a pair of sweats and Texas Longhorns t-shirt. “Jesus, she’s burning up.”

Quickly, Tyler goes in the linen closet and grabs a rag before running cold water over it and squeezing the excess water out. He makes his way back to you and places it gently in your head, smoothing your hair down.

Once he sees you’re doing fine with the rag on your head, he heads downstairs to the kitchen. Grabbing carrots, celery, an onion, and some chicken, Tyler starts to make some homemade chicken noodle soup for you.

It’s what his mom used to do for him when he was sick, and he knew it would help you feel better.

After thirty minutes, the soup is simmering on the stove and Tyler needs to check how you’re doing. He walks back upstairs and smiles when he feels the rag on your head.

It’s still fairly warm and you’re sweating, which means your fever has broken. He grabs the Tylenol from the bedside table before filling a glass with water from the carafe on the dresser.

“Sweetheart,” he gently says, shaking you awake. When you open your eyes, he smiles and says, “Can you take this?”

You nod, popping the Tylenol in your mouth and swallowing it down with the water. “Thank you.”

“I have some soup on the stove, do you want me to bring it to you?”

“No,” you croak. “I can go downstairs with you.”

Tyler nods, sweeping you into his arms before carrying you down the stairs and gently placing you on the plush couch.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells you.

When he comes back in a few minutes later, he has a tray with a steaming bowl and a glass of orange juice on top. He places it on your lap before sitting beside you on the couch.

“Eat up, baby.” He kissed your temple before standing and putting on a movie for you to watch while you eat.

He walks back into the kitchen, sighing to himself before grabbing the flowers he’d brought you and putting them in water. You’d have to marvel at them later when you feel a bit better.

“Tyler?” You call out. He makes his way back into the living room to see you looking up at his with sad eyes. “I’m sorry I’m sick on our anniversary.”

“Shh,” he coos with a smile, taking a seat beside you again. “It’s okay, I just wanted to spend the night with you.”

He tilts your head back before kissing your lips, warm and tasting like the soup he’d made you.

You pull away smiling. “I don’t want you to get sick.”

“Hey, I chose to be with you in sickness and health. If I get sick then so be it.”

You close your eyes, kissing him again. When you pull away, you smile up at your husband. “I love you so much, Ty.”

“I love you too, Sweetheart,” he tells you. “Don’t feel any better?”

“I do,” you smile. “I would’ve felt better if you were just here with me anyway.”

“Good,” he smiles. “Now, what do you wanna watch after Toy Story?”

You shrug. “Might as well finish the whole thing.”

———

Halfway into Toy Story 3, you’ve fallen asleep again this time leaning on Tyler’s shoulder. He kisses your head with a smile before laying your head on his lap and stroking your hair.

Sleep was a necessity, especially now that you were sick. Tyler didn’t mind you sleeping. He would’ve been happy if all you wanted to do was sleep your way through your anniversary, as long as he got be around you.

Once the movie finished you slowly sit up and rub your eyes. “Did I fall asleep again?”

“You did,” Tyler smiles. “But that’s fine because you didn’t get to see me cry when Andy drove off.”

You chuckle, snuggling Tyler’s thighs. “That’s too bad.”

You sigh when Tyler’s fingers rub your scalp and you close your eyes.

“How’s your head feeling?” He asks.

“Much better,” you tell him.

“I think it’s time for your second dose of Tylenol so let me go get that.” Tyler stands, carefully helping you sit up before walking to the kitchen and grabbing the pill.

When he walks back in, you’re seated on one side of the couch and scrolling through the movies on the screen. He hands you the pill with a glass of water before sitting down, lifting your legs to rest them on his thighs.

“Hey, we have to catch up on Sex Education,” you tell him. “Kate said she and Javi were gonna finish the season without us.”

Tyler snorts. “Of course she did. Alright, let’s watch it.”

After a few episodes, Tyler begins to rub a your feet making you moan. “That’s feels so nice.”

“I know,” he smiles.

“Thank you,” you start. “For making me feel a bit better than I was this morning.”

Tyler only shrugs. “That’s my job. As your husband, I’m supposed to make you feel better and take care of you. And you know I don’t half ass anything, when it comes to you.”

“God, that’s so cheesy,” you laugh.

“Cheesy, but true.”

“Kiss me again and tell me you love me,” you tell him.

“Gladly,” Tyler’s says before leaning over and kissing you softly. “I love you, Mrs. Owens.”

You smile. “And I love you, Mr. Owens.”

[harryslittlefreakk]

favourite crime 3

summary: harry disappears and leaves y/n in the dark. when he finally resurfaces, they struggle to heal hurt and broken hearts.

warnings: angst, brief mentions of cheating, fluff, age gap relationship, teacher/student relationship

wordcount: 5.2k

a/n: strap in its angsty!!!!! but we’re almost at the end of the back and forth now, i want my babies to be happy 😭

thank you so much for reading & supporting 🤍 masterlist | favourite crime masterlist

“You really haven’t seen him?”

You nibbled on your lower lip as you waited for Courtney to reply, rubbing two fingers over your temple.

“No, and Josh still hasn’t heard from him either. Last I knew, he was coming to find you,” Courtney murmured, smoothing a hand over your hair.

“There’s rumours everywhere,” you told her. “He quit, he got fired. You don’t think someone found out and he had to leave?”

Courtney shook her head, leaning back in her seat. “He would’ve told you. Even if it was the last time you ever spoke, I think he would’ve told you.”

You pulled your knees to your chest, staring up at the ceiling. It had been over a week since you’d seen or heard from Harry. You’d checked with Courtney every day, hoping by some miracle that he’d gone home or spoken to Josh, but he hadn’t. He’d pushed you away in his office and then fallen off the face of the Earth.

You’d typed out and deleted texts almost every hour, rushing to check your messages and missed calls as soon as you woke up every morning. Your finger had hovered over Harry’s phone number, never hitting call.

You made sure to walk by his office everyday, hoping for some sign of life, but nothing ever came. Your mind was running wild. You couldn’t help but imagine him lying in a ditch somewhere, hurt and alone. Or on the run, dramatically changing his appearance to escape law enforcement after his relationship with you had been revealed. Or worse, he simply felt he had to disappear to save himself from you.

It wasn’t until you saw a flash of brunette curls disappearing into his door that your worry turned into white-hot rage.

Your heart rate quickened with your feet, your shaking hand fumbling with the doorknob as you barged in behind him.

The blood was pounding in your ears, every muscle in your body tense as he turned around and looked at you.

“What the fuck, Harry?”

Your voice was a whisper with all the anger of a shout, the words catching in your dry throat. Your hands balled into fists inside your sleeves as Harry looked over you, barely a speck of emotion on his face.

He was no different to the last time you saw him, his outfit one you’d seen before, each line and crease on his face no different than before. But the way he was looking at you was new. He was indifferent, arms resting at his sides as he waited for words that you couldn’t form. His eyes held nothing. You felt like a stranger to him, and you willed your feet to carry you away, back to the comfort of not knowing where he was but knowing who you were to him.

But as you turned away, he finally spoke. “How long does it take you to get home?”

“Thirty minutes,” you answered, tears resting on your eyelashes as you stared at your feet.

“Then I’ll see you in thirty minutes,” Harry replied, watching you leave his office as quickly as you burst in.

—

Harry sat in his car outside your house, his hands gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. His eyes were locked on the mirror, watching the corner of your street with a clenched jaw.

His anger simmered just beneath the surface, a volatile mix of frustration and betrayal. The minutes felt like hours as he replayed the last time he was here, stoking the fire of his anger. He was determined to hear the truth, even if it meant he would never see you again.

The second you turned the corner, his heart near stopped. You didn’t seem to notice him or his car as you approached, your eyes weary and heavy-lidded as you stared straight ahead.

Harry hadn’t paid much attention to you in his office, trying to ignore the pained furrow of your brows, the red tint of sleepless nights beneath your eyelashes, the way you looked almost exactly the same and yet so different to him. But as he looked at you then, dulled and burnt out even as the afternoon sun illuminated everything around you, his anger fell away and shame rolled through his body in a nauseating wave.

He was a grown man. With a job, a home, a life that shouldn’t involve someone in their early twenties, someone who’s education he was responsible for. You may have approached him first, but he barely thought twice before pursuing you, fisting his cock that night with only thoughts of you in his mind.

And worse than that, he’d run away. He’d backed you into a corner, fucking you, making you his, while making it clear to you that you’d never be more than a fun weekend. He’d kissed you, set up boundaries so weak that you had no choice but to push through them, making you believe that you were setting the pace and dictating what relationship you would or wouldn’t have. Then he’d backed off.

He deserved every inch of the hell he’d found himself in. Harry ran a hand through his hair, suddenly wanting to be anywhere else. He still wanted answers, but he found himself totally unfazed towards whatever the truth was. You had every right to want him to hurt.

At the sound of keys jangling in a door, he turned his head, watching you let yourself in. With a deep sigh, he followed, his legs wooden as he trudged towards the door you’d left ajar.

“Hi,” Harry murmured, slipping into your apartment behind you. He hadn’t seen it before, and it was absolutely no different than he’d expected. You had fresh flowers and house plants on almost every surface, lilies and roses in soft pinks and whites, posters and pictures dotted around the walls.

You turned to face him, dropping your bag on the kitchen counter. “Where have you been?” you asked him, your voice sharper than you intended.

You heard his breath hitch in the silence, the sound of his shoes banging as he pushed them off, his socks soft against the floor as he edged towards you. The air between you was thick, charged with everything unsaid, everything he’d been avoiding.

“I saw him,” Harry said quietly, an edge to his voice, a tightness that betrayed his restraint. “I came here.”

He’d paused a few paces away, his expression unreadable in the sunlight seeping through the window. But you could read the tension in the way his jaw was clenched, the way his hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Saw who?” you scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest, trying to keep the hurt at bay. “You kissed me, Harry. And then you disappeared. You didn’t say a word, didn’t even let anyone know if you were okay.”

He exhaled harshly, running a hand through curls that looked like they’d been toyed with all day long. “I didn’t know what to say! What do you want me to say? I came here to apologise, but you were clearly already busy.”

“You came here after I left your office?” you questioned, your voice rising. “I was tutoring, Harry. I told you I was fucking tutoring.”

He leaned the wall, steadying himself as you knocked the wind out of him. In the entire week he’d been gone, racking his brains every day for some kind of innocent explanation, he hadn’t even remembered that.

He knew he was jealous, overly possessive, even over people he couldn’t claim, but this was a new low.

“I was tutoring Tommy, who’s in your fucking class and has a girlfriend. I needed to get my notes from my room. Which is where I’m assuming you saw us?” you paused for him to confirm, feeling rage wash over you like a tidal wave.

“He followed me into my room, and then we studied, Harry. At the dining table. On opposite sides.”

You ran a hand over your face, eyes screwed shut as you tried to make sense of it all.

“You don’t know how it looked,” Harry whispered, the colour drained from his face, his jaw clenched.

“You disappeared for a week. No communication, no word to even Josh. I was going out of my mind, Harry! There were rumours everywhere. You were hurt, you got fired, you got caught with a student - how do you think that felt? How that looked?”

His silence said more than his words ever could, and it made your blood boil. You took a step toward him, closing the distance between you, your heart pounding against your ribs.

“Why do you keep doing this?” you asked, your voice starting to tremble. “You took me to the lake, you suggested the weekend away. You thought sleeping with me and then dropping me was the best plan. You kissed me, you pushed me away. And now you seriously think that I’d do this?”

When he still kept quiet, eyes flitting across your face, your anger reached boiling point. You were being mean, you knew that. You’d had just as much of a hand in anything that happened, but blaming Harry felt easier.

“Do you think I wanted any of this? You pull me close, like you want me, like you feel something, and then the second it gets too much, you push me away. Do you even know what that does to me?”

That struck a nerve. You could see it in the way his face twisted, his body recoiling slightly as if your words struck him deeper than you intended. He looked at you, and for a moment, there was something raw in his gaze.

Harry stepped closer, his body tense as if he was barely holding himself upright. He pushed his head back, inhaling a deep, deep breath before looking back at you. “You didn’t want any of that?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

“That’s not what I meant, Harry, and you know that. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more than I want this. But I wanted more,” you explained, turning your back on him as you tried to keep a hold of yourself.

“It wasn’t meant to be like this,” Harry confessed, pinching the top of his nose. “I don’t know how it all got so complicated.”

“You pulled the strings, Harry. You made it this way,” you replied, letting your chin fall to your chest. Nothing made sense to you. It had been two weeks with Harry, and you’d barely even spent any time with him during those weeks. Yet you were practically falling apart, sagging under the weight of the heartbreak.

You turned back to face Harry, needing him to see the hurt he’d caused written over your face.

His eyes dropped to the floor, and for a moment, he looked as though he would say something - finally actually admit what he’d been feeling. But instead, he just shook his head, his voice barely a whisper when he spoke.

“I didn’t want it to be this way.”

You wanted to believe him. God, you wanted to believe that this had all just been some misunderstanding, that he wasn’t as scared of his own feelings as you thought. But you were exhausted. Tired of the back and forth, of the emotional whiplash that had been defining whatever it was the two of you had.

“So what now?” you asked, your voice quiet but steady. “What do we do now, Harry?”

He looked up at you then, and the way he was staring, it almost felt like a plea. Like he was hoping you’d have the answer, that you’d know how to fix the mess you’d both found yourself in.

But you didn’t. And if your heart hadn’t already shattered, it would have broken at the realisation that neither did he.

The silence stretched between you, thick with unspoken things. You stared at each other, neither of you knowing what to say, both of you too scared to admit how badly you needed each other.

It felt like you were standing on opposite sides of a chasm, each too wounded and too stubborn to reach across.

“I just want there to be a reality in which we can be happy.”

You turned back to face him, willing your heart not to shatter as Harry’s whisper cut through you. It was a thought you’d rejected countless times since seeing Harry in the bar that night. Happiness in a relationship, especially at the start, shouldn’t have been so hard to find and hold on to. But for some reason, there had been trouble at every turn.

You could feel the sting of tears in your eyes, the image of Harry in front of you blurring. Your hands trembled as you reached up to wipe your eye, the dam finally breaking.

Tears streamed down your face, unbidden and unstoppable. You had fought so hard to keep it together, convincing yourself that things would get better, that they could still fix what was clearly broken. But standing there in the silence in the wake of Harry’s words, you felt completely destroyed.

Harry looked away, his gaze falling to the floor as if he couldn’t bear to meet your eyes anymore. His shoulders slumped, and for a moment, he looked as if the fight had drained all the energy out of him. “I don’t want to fight with you, y/n,” he said quietly, his voice filled with exhaustion. “I hate this.”

You let his words hang in the air, unsure of anything you can say or do to make the situation better. “I need to change,” you told him eventually, padding past him towards your bedroom.

Harry watched you leave, your arms hanging limply by your sides, your steps light despite the darkness weighing on you.

He followed after a minute, holding up his fist to knock on the door, before it falls to his side. He picked it up again, reaching out for the doorknob with tentative fingers, before completely abandoning any attempt to get you to let him in. His heart broke with how badly he wanted to be there, to ease you out of the day’s clothes and help you into new ones, to wipe your tears with the soft knit of his jumper and to make it all better. But he didn’t know how to be in your space, how to comfort you when he was the very source of your tears.

When you eventually opened the door, you tried to walk straight past him, but he reached out to gently catch your arm. For a brief moment, your eyes met, and in that instant, he couldn’t hold back anymore. Without a word, he pulled you into his arms, holding you close as your body trembled. He cradled you, his hand smoothing over your hair, the other placed firmly your back, and you stood there, enveloped in him, his scent and his touch filling the space around you, until your breathing slowed.

Once you were steady, no longer wrapped tightly around him as though he was the only thing keeping you up straight, he lead you to the sofa, his hand never leaving your lower back. You lay your head in his lap, staring straight out of the window at the setting sun.

Harry softly ran his fingers through your hair, his fingertips scratching at the roots in just the way he knew you loved. A soft smile tugged at his mouth, remembering how you’d fallen asleep in seconds after his hands found your hair. His eyes never left your face, trained on every detail as though he was worried this was the last time he’d ever see them. He watched the way your eyelashes fluttered as you blinked, noticing the faint furrow of your brows starting to smooth out after a while. The pink tint at the tip of your nose, the soft freckles dotted over your cheeks, the shine on your lower lip. You were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

After some time, you shifted onto your back, turning to face him. Reaching up with a gentle hand, you l pushed a stray curl from his forehead. "I’m so sorry, Harry. I never thought things would get like this,” you whispered, a single stray tear slipping down your cheek, coming to rest on the fabric of his slacks in a tiny damp spot.

"You don’t have anything to apologise for," he replied, his voice tender, laced with emotion.

He hesitated for a moment before asking, "Are you hungry? Do you want to shower?"

You nodded at that, feeling the weight of the past week clinging to you, suddenly desperate to wash it all away.

You sat up, your head pounding after so many tears and such twisting emotions, and dragged yourself to the bathroom.

You sat on the edge of the bath, staring at yourself in the mirror. You looked exhausted, both emotionally and physically drained in the wake of a week that had nearly broken you.

Harry followed you after a few minutes, watching from the doorway as you gathered your strength. He couldn’t bear the thought of a life without you, without the colours you’d brought into his world. He kneeled in front of you, gently taking your hand in his. His touch was soft, tentative, as if he was afraid he might break you further.

“Let me take care of you,” he whispered, his voice soft. His thumb brushed over your knuckles, his gaze pleading for forgiveness, for the chance to make things right.

You nodded, too tired to protest, and that was all Harry needed. He tugged on your hands to make you stand, his hands soft and steady as he undressed you. There was a tenderness in the way he moved, a quiet determination to show you that he was still there, and that he wasn’t going to let go. Not then, not ever.

He turned on the water, making sure it was the right temperature, then adjusting the radiator so it would warm your towel as you showered. As he was about to walk away, you pulled on his arm, directing his attention back to you.

“Stay with me,” you whispered, thumbing the hem of his jumper, waiting for permission to strip him of his clothes. When he didn’t protest, you undressed him in the same way he’d done for you, then finally stepped under the water.

His fingers gently brushed your hair back, away from your face, and you closed your eyes, letting the warmth of the water and Harry’s presence soothe you. He reached behind you, running your soap between his hands before gently massaging them over your skin.

His touch was featherlight, as if he was trying to wash away not just the exhaustion, but the hurt that had built up between you. He was careful, attentive, his actions filled with unspoken words of love and regret. As he moved, his lips brushed against your shoulder, a silent apology, a promise that he would do better. The intimacy of it made you weak, your body turning to jelly as he cared for you in a way you knew no other man was capable of.

“I don’t want you to ever think I was using you,” he murmured, his voice barely audible over the sound of the running water. “You’re so much more than what you can give me.”

You opened your eyes, meeting his gaze, as he stepped a little closer to you. The warm water cascaded over both of you, its steady rhythm filling the quiet space between you and Harry. His eyes searching yours as the droplets slid down his face, his breath slightly ragged.

Your hand lifted slowly, fingers coming up to caress his cheek as you stared at each other through the steam, your fingertips lingering as if you were scared to let go.

“You’re so beautiful. I don’t think I’ve told you that enough,” Harry murmured, running his thumb over your bottom lip.

You swallowed hard, your throat closing around any words you could come up with. “Harry,” you whispered eventually, your voice raw from all the emotions of the day. “At times like this, I can really picture a life with you,” you finished, shy as the words finally came out.

You weren’t even sure what the fate of your relationship was, whether you even had another shot at happiness with him. But you knew, as much as it pained you to realise it, that things had only gotten so fucked up because both you and Harry had felt so much more intensely for one another than you’d ever expected. It wasn’t just sex, or a weird fling. There was something real between the two of you, you were certain of that.

His fingers traced along your jawline, his eyes glistening as he took in what you’d said. And then, without hesitation, Harry leaned in, closing the space between you, his lips meeting yours in a kiss that was soft, yet full of urgency. It wasn’t at all like the other times, it was deeper, filled with apology, with longing, with the need to prove that neither of you were willing to let go.

The water poured over your entwined bodies, but all you could feel was him. His kiss was tender at first, but as the seconds passed, it grew more passionate, more desperate, as if he was trying to pour everything he felt into that one moment. His hands moved to cradle your face, his thumbs brushing your cheeks as his lips moved against yours, seeking not just forgiveness, but something solid to hold onto as you both tried to find your way back.

Your hands slid up his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath your fingertips. You kissed him back, matching his intensity, your fingers curling into his damp skin as if afraid that if you let go, you’d lose him all over again. The warmth of the water mixed with the heat of his body against yours, and finally anything outside of that moment faded away.

When you finally pulled back, gasping for air, your foreheads pressed together, Harry’s chest was heaving, his eyes still closed as if he was trying to hold onto the feeling of your lips on his. His hands didn’t leave your face, and you could feel the slight tremble in them as he pulled you into his chest, pressing a kiss on the top of your head.

“You’re everything. Everything,” Harry muttered, his voice muffled by your hair, one arm wrapping around your back, holding you tight to him.

He shut the water off after a while, letting you melt into him for as long as you needed to. The air in the bathroom was thick, warm steam curling in the corners of the room.

“Come here,” Harry murmured, holding your towel out for you, a soft smile tugging at his lips.

You hesitated for a moment, but then you moved closer, letting him gently wrap the towel around your body. His touch was careful, tender as he pulled the fabric tight around you, tucking it securely. His fingers lingered for a second longer, grazing your bare skin as they brushed over your arms. His eyes met yours, filled with that familiar warmth, but there was something else, something quieter. Maybe regret, maybe something unsaid.

“Go on, princess,” he whispered, his voice soothing, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be taking care of you. “I’ll bring you a cuppa.”

You nodded, offering an exhausted but grateful smile before heading toward the bedroom. The weight of the day had left your body heavy, but Harry’s presence, his care, made everything seem softer, lighter somehow.

Harry stood in front of the kettle, his hands gripping the edge of the counter as he waited for the water to boil. The kitchen was quiet, except for the low hum of the kettle, but his mind was anything but.

He tried to focus on the task at hand - two cups of tea, something simple. Something he could control. But his thoughts kept drifting back, slipping through the cracks he was trying to seal up. The mistakes he'd made, the moments when he’d let you down, they all crowded his mind, a slow, sinking weight in his chest.

He thought about the hurt, the missed chances to say the right thing, the times he’d let his guard down only to retreat again out of fear. He’d always been good at getting in his own way, letting his own doubts cloud the way forward. It was no different now that he had been risking his career for you. He’d wanted so badly to protect you, to keep you close without smothering you, but somewhere along the way, he’d gotten lost in his own head. And now, standing in the kitchen, waiting for the water to boil, those moments felt like stones in his chest.

You deserved better. He knew that. And he wasn’t always sure he could be that person for you. You needed someone who didn’t hurt you, who didn’t let their own insecurities and mistakes get in the way.

He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to push the thoughts down, but they kept rising, unbidden. What if he wasn’t enough? What if he made another mistake, and it was one you couldn’t forgive?

The kettle clicked off, its billowing steam piercing through his thoughts, grounding him again. He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to focus. He was there, caring for you, showing you how badly he wanted to fix what he’d broken. He poured the water over the tea bags, watching the liquid swirl, darkening as it steeped.

As he waited, he thought about the look in your eyes when he wrapped the towel around you. The way you trusted him, the way you let him take care of you without question even after such a shit show of a day - a week - because of his immature insecurities.

Teas in hand, he took a deep breath, steadying himself before heading back to the bedroom. You were perched on the edge of the bed, the beginnings of a cloud of sleep hovering over you.

“Here you go,” he whispered, placing the mugs down before brushing a strand of hair from your face.

As soon as he straightened up, the towel wrapped precariously around his toned hips threatened to come loose. His hands flew to it, protecting his modesty with a sheepish grin.

A laugh bubbled out of you for the first time that day, shaking your shoulders softly as the giggles exploded out of you.

“I should have considered this scenario before getting into the shower with you,” Harry smirked, covering the soft blush of his cheeks with his free hand.

“I still have your t-shirt,” you offered, nudging your head towards your top drawer. “But I can’t help with pants.”

“Somehow a t-shirt with a loose cock feels worse than this,” Harry murmured, frowning as he glanced down at the tiny towel barely covering any of him.

You let your eyes linger on his body for a second, knowing that absolutely none of your clothes would fit his big frame. Your gaze dropped to your own t-shirt, thinking for a beat before pulling it back over your head and dropping it by your feet. “Solidarity,” you told him, not failing to notice how his breath caught at the sight of you, as if he hadn’t just run his hands over every part of your naked body.

Harry reached over you to grab your towel, turning away before pulling his own from his body, heading towards the bathroom with a little sway in his hips, as if he knew you’d be watching.

And you were. You leaned around the door frame, eyes locked on his tight ass until he was out of sight.

The weight in your chest lightened as you smiled, the domesticity healing a part of you that you didn’t know was broken.

-

You lay back against your pillows, cradling your mug in your hands. The room was dimly lit by the faint glow of the moon outside, casting soft shadows across the walls. It was quiet, save for the sound of gentle breathing, yet the silence between you and Harry felt heavy.

You shifted slightly, resting your head against Harry’s shoulder, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. You had been here before, so close, so intimate, but it felt different. There was a weight in the air, a lingering sense of uncertainty. You were clearly over the worst, both hearts mending slowly and carefully, but it still felt too raw and too heavy to be fixed so fast.

"Do you think we still have a chance?" your voice was faint, your words timid as if you didn’t actually want an answer, but the question pierced through the stillness with raw vulnerability. You screwed your eyes shut, afraid of what Harry’s answer might be, but you knew that it needed to be heard. The uncertainty was what had been hanging over your heads, both of your minds drifting to that very question in every quiet moment.

Harry’s arms slipped around your waist, pulling you closer ever so slightly, but he didn’t respond immediately. His gaze fixed on the ceiling, his jaw tightening as he thought. He had been hurt, and so had you. But the risks were far greater for him, and anything between you both, whether it was love of heartbreak, needed to be worthy of that danger.

"I don’t know," he admitted finally, his voice hoarse. "I want to believe we do. I don’t think we would be here now if there wasn’t a chance." He sighed, the sound heavy with frustration. "I don’t want to lose you. I never wanted to hurt you."

You swallowed hard, turning to face him with leftover tears prickling at the corners of your eyes.

"I don’t want to lose you either," you said, your fingers tracing small patterns over his bare chest. "But I don’t know if things can go right back to how they were.”

Harry’s breath hitched, and he gently tipped your chin up so that your eyes met. There was something soft yet intense in his gaze, a quiet determination lurking beneath. "I don’t think either of us want them back to the way they were,” he muttered, his lips curling into a smirk.

You bit your lip, trying to contain the laugh that wanted to slip out. “Maybe better than before. But I don’t know if that can happen straight away,” you confessed.

Harry took your mug from your hand, reaching behind you to place it on your nightstand, before pulling you closer to his chest. Snuggled up to his side, with his arms right around you, you suddenly felt more secure in yourself and Harry’s future than you ever had.

“All we can do is try,” he whispered against your skin, his nose nudging at your cheek.

Slowly, you turned to meet his gaze, finding a softness in his face that you weren’t sure you’d ever seen before. His brows were slightly furrowed, as if even he was uncertain about his every move, but the tenderness in his expression made your breath catch. You leaned further into him, your lips ghosting across his.

Then his lips brushed yours, a sweetness in the gesture that made your heart stutter. Your eyes were locked on each others, seeking permission and acceptance, neither of you sure about how the other would react. But when neither of you made the effort to move away, or to protest, the space between you disappeared in the smallest of breaths.

Harry’s mouth moved with hesitance, as if he wasn’t sure he really had the right to be there with you, wrapping himself around you. But you kissed him back, of course you kissed him back, praying that any movements you made showed him just how much you wanted him there.

Your hand found his, your fingers lacing together as if to make your connection deeper. Neither of you pulled away, savoring the tentative closeness, letting the quiet stretch between kisses, as if testing the waters of something new and unknown.

When you finally broke apart, your foreheads rested against each others, breaths mingling in the soft light. Harry’s thumb brushed across the back of your hand, his touch grounding and real.

“We’ll figure it out,” he whispered, his voice low and reassuring.

You nodded, feeling your eyelids grow heavy as your eyes trailed over his face. “Tomorrow is a new day,” you murmured, nudging your head into the space between his shoulder and his neck, breathing him in with a content smile brewing your lips.

“Tomorrow is a new day,” Harry repeated, breathing out a deep sigh of relief.

oop thank you so much for reading!!!!

taglist: @angeldavis777 @softestqueeen @jerseygirlinca @palmettogal508 @drewsephrry @austiebuttbutt @indigo24hughes @peterparkerbae @im-an-overthinker @daphnesutton @loveableidioticweirdo @harryshotpocket @tenaciousperfectionunknown @swag13r @ashleighsss @tswiftsgf @chesthairrry @nikkisimps @hannah9921 @lilfreakjez @prettygurl-2009 @s-h-e-l-b-e-e @indierockgirrl @cicicavill7 @harrystylesluverrrr @cohnfusedarling @ell0ra-br3kk3r @stylesfever @stylesbrock @harry-nialllover @fanfic-whore @triski73 @haliastyless @meetmeintheemeraldpool @harryshousewitnessprotection @danaehldy @fairytale07 @storyschanging @wannaliveinparadise @mrs-anna-styles211994 @mema10 @fangirl509east @devilsqueen722

(i get so confused with my taglist so just comment on my post/message me / let me know if i haven’t tagged you!! )

[leahrintarou]

hii i wanted to request like enemies to lovers for dabi x fem!reader when reader is one of the villains in league and she and dabi always hated each other, or more like they love each other but won't admit a shit. and also dabi is always this rude, snarky bitch and then one day they get send together for some mission and he gets injured, like somewhere in the chest and reader has to take care of him and patch him up. and like she decides to be a bitch now and she's like paying him back and she's not gentle at all like she's even rougher than needed just because 😆. but then in the middle of the night when she has to change his bandages she just softens because she's actually worried about him and he kisses her and it's like the first time he feels love in thousands years🥺❤️

✩₊˚.⋆ I HATE YOU - dabi/touya todoroki

CW: swearing, enemies to lovers, dabi being an asshole, y/n is stubborn, they lack communication skills but figure something out in the end lol, mentions of wound stitching, injuries, dabi's daddy issues, quirk usage, a lot of arguing. Word Count: 4.7k Author's Note: hii, sorry for taking so long to write this lol. my schedule was busy as hell. i hope you all enjoy it tho! ty for reading and if you have any requests for me to write, send it in!

"hate."

it was a word that held so much meaning and although y/n wasn't the type to feel it for many things, as she looked at the man standing in her doorframe with a bored expression as she laid in bed, it was all she could feel.

"what do you want touya? im tired." she groaned into her pillow. he rolled his eyes, shoving his hands into his pockets. "shigaraki wants us to take care of something for him." he said, making y/n shift to sit up and face him properly. "together?" she questioned. dabi didn't answer and that alone make y/n feel dread in the pit of her stomach. she stood, walking to her door and pushing past dabi to find shigaraki who was sitting in the lobby of their hideout.

"tomura, you seriously sending out touya and i? it's late."

"exactly." he muttered, glancing at y/n as dabi showed up behind her. "given your quirks, i need you two to cause a distraction for me in the city. I've gotta get something from a hero guarded area. it'd be less bothersome if a few of them had to focus a bigger situation."

y/n sighed at that. her ability allowed her to use the quirks others. once she makes physical contact with them, a pill is produced and once ingested, she is able to use their quirk for up to half an hour. "why can't he just do it on his own?"

"because it wont be enough, y/n. just go and don't let you guys' odd relationship fuck anything up."

she glared at shigaraki due to his stern tone and the words he said overall. she didn't speak another words and only walked towards the exit, leaving dabi behind. she began walking off, sighing when dabi caught up next to her.

they walked shoulder to shoulder and y/n reached for his hand to which he pulled away imeedietly. "the fuck is your deal?"

"my deal is that i need your quick. stop bitching."

he gave her a look that almost burned through her being itself. "fine, whatever. just make it quick."

with a swift movement, y/n grabbed his wrist, her fingers just brushing against his skin. she felt the pill form in her palm and quickly swallowed it after placing it on her tongue. for the next thirty minutes, she had full control over dabi's blue flames.

dabi shook off her touch as soon as the transfer was done, shoving his hands back into his pockets. "hope you can handle it."

y/n clenched her fists, feeling the raw power simmering just beneath the surface. "i can handle your little fire tricks just fine."

they continued walking in silence, the tension between them thick, both preparing for the chaos they were about to unleash. the city lights ahead glowed brighter as they approached, a signal that they were nearing their destination. heroes patrolled these streets regularly, and they needed to make their distraction count.

"you take the east side. i’ll take the west. we meet back here once it's done," y/n said, her voice steady despite the adrenaline starting to pump through her veins.

dabi gave her a lazy nod, his eyes scanning the area.  "don’t burn the place down too fast." she said, voice sharp with a stern tone.

“take your own damn advice,” dabi sneered, turning on his heel without another glance, heading toward his side of the city.

y/n scowled at his retreating figure before focusing on her own task. she approached a crowded intersection, raising her hand as the blue flames sparked to life at her fingertips. they burned cold, unnatural, just like dabi’s. with a sharp flick of her wrist, she sent the fire roaring down the street, igniting everything in its path. cars exploded, storefronts erupted into flames, and terrified screams echoed through the night air.

sirens blared almost immediately. she sighed in frustration. this mission wasn’t the problem; it was having to work alongside dabi. she hated the way his flames felt inside her—too raw, too unstable. she could handle it, but the discomfort gnawed at her.

on the other side of the city, she could see dabi causing just as much destruction. his blue flames lit up the night sky, and even from a distance, she could feel their heat. as much as she despised him, she couldn’t deny the sheer force of his quirk. their fires painted the city in an eerie blue glow, chaos unfolding just as shigaraki had planned. every hero in the area would soon be rushing their way.

but despite the destruction, y/n could feel the strain. her body wasn’t built to handle dabi’s flames for too long, and each second was like a slow burn from the inside out. she clenched her teeth, refusing to show any weakness. not in front of him. never in front of him.

as another car exploded in front of her, y/n felt the flames flare uncontrollably for a moment, forcing her to stumble back. she quickly reined them in, but the effort was draining. she could hear the distant thrum of footsteps—heroes were coming, and they needed to keep the distraction going.

without warning, dabi appeared beside her, his usual bored expression replaced by a smirk that only fueled her irritation. "you’re pushing it too hard," he remarked coldly.

"i’m fine," y/n snapped, her voice sharper than intended, though there was a slight tremor beneath it.

he cocked an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. "doesn’t look like it. you’re burning out."

"i said i’m fine," she repeated, venom in her tone. she forced the flames to obey her, though her body screamed in protest.

before he could say anything more, the ground around them rumbled. the heat in the air intensified, and y/n’s heart sank as she saw who had arrived—endeavor.

out of all the heroes, of course, it had to be him.

endeavor’s flames blazed brighter than anything y/n had seen, casting long shadows across the wreckage. his eyes locked onto dabi and y/n, sharp with recognition and disgust. “enough,” he barked, his voice deep and commanding. “this ends now.”

dabi’s expression darkened, but the smirk that stretched across his face was nothing short of malicious.

y/n swallowed, the tension between father and son palpable in the air. she could feel dabi’s flames still swirling inside her, unstable and dangerous. they were running out of time. they needed to keep endeavor distracted long enough for shigaraki to finish the mission, but with the fire slipping out of her control, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold on.

dabi moved forward, the flames on his body flickering angrily as he faced his father head-on. "you gonna try and stop me? i’d love to see you fail. again."

y/n watched as the two squared off, the heat between them almost unbearable. she could feel the pressure mounting, knowing she had to act fast, but part of her was consumed by the sheer hatred radiating from dabi. it was so intense it was suffocating. he wants this fight, she realized.

but right now, they couldn’t afford it. not with the mission still in play.

"touya, focus," she hissed under her breath, stepping up beside him. "we’re not here for this."

he barely spared her a glance, his jaw clenched. “shut up, y/n. stay out of it.”

y/n glared at him, biting back the retort that bubbled in her throat. as much as she despised him, she wasn’t about to let him throw the entire mission away for some personal grudge.

endeavor’s flames flared even brighter, his voice booming as he addressed dabi directly. "you’re not walking away from this one."

"we’ll see about that," dabi said through a sigh.

before either of them could make a move, y/n raised her hand, sending up a barrier of blue flames between dabi and endeavor. the fire crackled wildly, the heat forcing both men to step back.

“touya, get your shit together,” she snapped, glaring at him. “this isn’t about you and him right now. we’ve got a job to finish.”

dabi’s eyes widened with fury, his body rigid with anger. "are you serious right now? stay out of this, y/n. this has nothing to do with you."

“it has everything to do with me,” she shot back, her voice low. “if you screw this up, we’re both dead.”

“i’m not screwing anything up,” dabi growled, stepping toward her, his flames flaring dangerously. “you think I’m gonna pass up a chance to burn that bastard?” he gestured toward endeavor, who stood on the other side of the wall, watching them closely. "this isn’t just about some stupid distraction. it’s him."

y/n’s hands trembled slightly from the strain of maintaining the flames, but she refused to back down. “you think i care about your daddy issues right now? i’m not dying because you’ve got something to prove.”

dabi’s smirk twisted into a sneer, his voice dripping with venom. "oh, now you’re concerned about dying? cute. you can’t even handle my flames, and you want to play hero? don’t act like you can lecture me."

y/n’s temper flared. "i can handle more than you think, but i’m not stupid enough to throw everything away for some pointless grudge! shigaraki will kill us if you mess this up."

“i don’t care what shigaraki does,” dabi snarled, stepping even closer, his body practically vibrating with heat. “you think I’m afraid of him? of you? you’re out of your league, y/n. stay the hell out of my way.”

---

"touya, lets go!" she shouted. a few long minutes had passed by and both dabi and endeavor suffered injuries. y/n thought that it was just her eyes playing tricks on her, but it wasn’t. there on dabi’s chest was a large gash that spilled blood with every movement he made.

dabi didn’t even flinch, seemingly blinded by his rage. his eyes were locked onto endeavor, and the hatred burned hotter than the flames between them. y/n’s heart pounded in her chest. if they didn’t leave now, it would be too late.

“touya!” she screamed again, but her voice was lost in the roar of the fire and the madness of the fight. dabi was deaf to everything around him. his focus, his obsession with his father, drowned out any reason or sense.

just then, her phone buzzed in her pocket. she fumbled for it, hands shaking, and saw a message from

shigaraki: get out of there now. i’m done here.

her stomach dropped. they needed to leave. now.

she looked back at dabi, her gut twisting with panic. there was no way he could handle another attack in his state. endeavor was gearing up for something big—his flames surging brighter and hotter, ready to end this once and for all.

y/n didn’t even think; she reacted. she reached for dabi’s flames still coursing through her and launched herself forward. her body screamed in protest, the quirk tearing through her reserves, but she unleashed a massive wave of blue fire directly at endeavor. it wasn’t just dabi’s quirk she was using—she’d stored another teleportation quirk earlier in the week just in case. with a strained breath, she activated it.

in an instant, the world blurred, and she and dabi were pulled through space, landing back at the league’s hideout.

they collapsed on the floor. y/n's vision swam as the overwhelming strain of using both quirks at once hit her like a truck. every muscle in her body felt like it was on fire.

dabi was up almost immediately, his eyes wild and furious. “what the hell did you do?!” he roared, looming over her, his chest heaving.

y/n didn’t flinch, didn’t even respond. she just sat there, catching her breath, her eyes glazed with exhaustion and a cold, blank expression on her face.

“why the hell would you—” dabi continued, his voice a mix of anger and something else, something more vulnerable. but y/n didn’t care.

she stood, her legs shaking but her face expressionless. she looked him dead in the eye, her voice barely above a whisper but filled with a venomous calm. "hate."

dabi paused, caught off guard by the single word. his eyes narrowed, but he stayed silent.

“it’s what you live for, isn’t it?” she continued, her voice as cold as the flames she had just wielded. “but it’s going to kill you. and you were too blinded to see it.”

the silence between them was suffocating, tension hanging in the air like the weight of all their unresolved fury and pain. dabi’s lips twisted into a bitter sneer, but he didn’t respond. he couldn’t, not with the truth staring him in the face.

y/n finally turned her back to him, her voice distant as she walked away. "i’m tired, touya. i don’t care anymore."

he didn’t respond and that was unlike him. and although she didn't want it to, she turned around to glance at him. he was clutching the wounded area of his chest, the blood coating his hands. y/n stopped in her tracks and watched as he held her gaze with a heavy glare. "what?" he groaned with less heat in his voice.

"nothi-"

"they got you good." shigaraki said as he entered through the front door. dabi remained silent and y/n let out a sigh. "told you this plan was stupid." she muttered. shigaraki shrugged, holding up some sort of vile in a glass tube. "got what i needed though. thanks."

y/n shook her head and walked over to a table in their hideout where a first aid kit remained. "come on, touya." he never said a word despite their previous argument and the heated tension that remained between them and only followed behind y/n. this was surprising to her and even shigaraki. instead of questioning it though, she just decided to let it be, grateful for the silence.

they got to a nearby bathroom in the hideout, and y/n motioned for dabi to sit on the edge of the sink. "take off your shirt," she ordered, her voice flat, though she couldn’t help the slight irritation lacing her tone. dabi raised an eyebrow but said nothing, peeling off his tattered shirt to reveal the nasty gash on his chest. the wound was deep, the blood still seeping through the cracks of his burned skin.

“so fucking reckless” y/n muttered underneath her breath as she grabbed some antiseptic and gauze from the first aid kit. she didn’t wait for a response before starting to clean the wound, her hands rougher than necessary. dabi hissed in pain but didn’t pull away.

“watch it,” he growled, but there was no real heat in his words. his eyes, usually filled with spite or disinterest, softened for a brief moment as he looked at her. something shifted in his expression, like an apology he wasn’t quite ready to say aloud. instead, he settled for his usual sarcasm. "you don’t have to be so damn rough."

"oh, i’m sorry," y/n replied, her tone dripping with sarcasm as she pressed a little harder than needed on the wound. "is the fireproof bastard too delicate for a little first aid? if you didn’t want to get patched up, you shouldn’t have gone toe-to-toe with endeavor.

"i didn’t ask for your help, did i?"

"no, you didn’t. but here we are," y/n snapped, stitching up the wound with more force than was probably necessary. her fingers worked quickly, efficiently, but there was no gentleness in her touch.

dabi’s breath hitched as she tugged at the stitches. "you’re enjoying this way too much."

“maybe,” y/n replied, not looking up from her work. “or maybe i’m just pissed off because you almost got yourself killed. again.”

the room fell into a tense silence, only broken by dabi’s sharp breaths and the sound of her sewing needle pulling through his skin. but when y/n finally looked up, she caught dabi’s gaze. his eyes were softer now, not filled with the usual defiance. instead, there was something different in them, something almost… regretful.

“what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. "you’re staring."

“nothing,” dabi muttered, but he didn’t look away. his voice, usually laced with sarcasm or anger, was quieter now. he held her gaze for a moment longer. it wasn’t filled with the usual hate or resentment, but something else entirely. it almost looked like an apology, unspoken but there. maybe he realized just how close he’d come to death, and for once, wasn’t pushing her away.

after the final stitch, y/n wrapped the wound tightly, her hands no longer rough but steady. she didn’t say anything for a moment, just focusing on her work, and when she was done, she stood back, her eyes meeting his again. the air between them felt heavy, like there was something unspoken lingering just beneath the surface.

“you’re a reckless idiot,” she muttered, shaking her head, though her voice was softer, the anger dissipating into something more resigned.

dabi’s expression faltered, and for a moment, he just looked at her, his usual sharp retorts gone. "guess i am," he said quietly, a hint of exhaustion in his voice. "but you still patched me up, didn’t you?"

y/n crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. "only because i wasn’t going to let you bleed out like an idiot. someone’s gotta keep you alive."

there was a beat of silence before dabi let out a breath, leaning his head back against the wall. “guess i should thank you.”

y/n scoffed. “don’t bother. just… try not to get yourself killed next time.”

dabi’s eyes flickered to hers again, and this time, there was no sarcasm or sneer, just a tired acceptance. “i’ll try.” his tone was surprisingly sincere, catching her off guard. she blinked, taken aback, but instead of saying anything, she just grabbed the bloodied cloths and turned to leave. "get some rest," she muttered, not looking back.

for once, dabi didn’t argue.

---

it was the middle of the night, and despite the quiet that had settled over the hideout, y/n couldn’t sleep. no matter how many times she turned over in bed, sleep evaded her. the events from earlier kept playing over in her mind, along with the way dabi had been uncharacteristically silent after she patched him up.

with a frustrated sigh, she finally gave up on resting and pushed herself out of bed. maybe checking on dabi would settle her thoughts. his injuries needed to be looked at again anyway, and the bandages likely needed changing. she grabbed the first aid kit and padded softly down the hall toward his room.

when she got there, the door was slightly ajar. peeking inside, she saw him lying on the bed, his defined back rising and falling with the steady rhythm of sleep. for a moment, she hesitated. dabi was never one to sleep deeply, always waking up at the slightest noise or movement. but his bandages had to be changed, and she didn’t trust him to do it himself.

quietly, she slipped into the room, closing the door softly behind her. she approached the bed, taking a seat on the edge as carefully as she could to avoid waking him. he was still, his usual guarded expression replaced by something softer in sleep. for a brief second, she allowed herself to just watch him. he always seemed so hardened, so untouchable, but like this... he looked almost human.

gently, y/n reached for the blood-stained bandages wrapped around his chest, her fingers working carefully to undo them. she peeled the old wrappings away, revealing the wound beneath. she grabbed fresh bandages from the kit, preparing to rewrap him, her movements slow and deliberate.

just as she began to wind the bandage around him again, dabi stirred. his eyes snapped open, instantly alert, and his hand shot out to grab her wrist before she could move any further. “what the hell are you doing?” he growled, his voice low and raspy from sleep.

y/n froze, meeting his gaze, her heart skipping a beat. "relax, it’s just me," she said quietly. "im checking to see if your stitches held and I've gotta change your bandages."

he blinked, still groggy but releasing her wrist. his grip loosened, and he leaned back against the pillow, eyes narrowing slightly but without the usual hostility. "im not a child. i can do that myself,” he muttered, though there wasn’t much bite to his words.

"i know, but you looked like you were going to bleed out earlier so forgive me for double-checking." she retorted, continuing to wrap the fresh bandages around his chest. her touch was gentle but firm, and dabi didn’t stop her this time, watching her work in silence.

"always playing the martyr, huh?" he mumbled after a long pause, his voice quieter now. "not a martyr. just realistic. you're reckless and you know it."

dabi was silent as she finished up. he sat up once she was done and watched as she placed the items back into the first aid kit. "why are you up so late anyways?"

"couldn’t sleep." she shrugged. dabi raised a questioning brow and she shrugged. "you expect me to sleep after everything that happened today?"

"causing chaos isn't something that you haven't done before though." he hummed, watching as she compiled all of the used bandage together to throw away. "but watching you almost get yourself killed was."

"you really care that much?"

y/n lowered her eyes at him and shook her head in pure disbelief. "no shit, touya. why would i have teleported us home? stitch up your wound, and even hours later, i come back to check on you. you sound so fucking selfish right now." she stood up, turning to walk away, but dabi reached for her wrist.

he caught it just in time, letting out a small groan from the swift movement. "what the fuck, touya. be careful." she said, placing the first aid kit down and a hand to his back. "im not selfish."

"really?" she deadpanned. "y/n, you've hated me ever since i joined the league. understand me when i get confused on whether or not you actually give a fuck when it comes to me." he ran is palm down his face, trying to fight his exhaustion.

"i can say the same for you." y/n spoke.

"i only return the attitude that's given to me." dabi said, staring at y/n as she tried to read his features but he gave her nothing to work with other than an emotionless expression. "i don't hate you."

"so what do you feel, y/n? you're not making sense."

she stared at him and they held eye contact. y/n let down whatever guards she had up in hopes that dabi can read what she was trying to tell him. he was good at that whether she liked it or not. "say it." he finally said. y/n figured that he got the idea in just mere seconds.

"no." she shook her head with a scoff. "i hate the fact that i feel it for you anyways. I'm not going to speak it into reality."

dabi’s grip on y/n’s wrist loosened as he let out a low chuckle, shaking his head slightly. “you really think not saying it makes a difference? you’ve already given yourself away, y/n.”

y/n’s eyes flashed with irritation. “you don’t get it. saying it makes it real, and i can’t deal with that right now.”

dabi scoffed, leaning back on the bed, his eyes narrowing as he looked up at her. “oh, spare me the drama. you think i don’t know how you feel? you act like you’re the only one here who’s conflicted.”

y/n glared at him, yanking her wrist free. “conflicted? you? you barely even acknowledge when people care about you. you’re reckless with your life, like nothing matters, and you think i’m the one being dramatic?” her voice rose, frustration bubbling over.

dabi sat up straighter, his gaze sharp and unyielding. “don’t pretend like you’ve been so open about your feelings either, y/n. you’ve spent most of your time pushing me away or acting like you couldn’t care less. and now, when it actually matters, you wanna play the martyr?”

her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “i’m not playing anything, touya! you’re impossible to deal with. you push everyone away, you never let anyone in, and now you have the nerve to act like i’m the problem?”

dabi’s expression hardened, his eyes flashing with anger. “you really think you’ve got me all figured out, huh? like you’re the only one who’s allowed to have their guard up? newsflash, y/n, you’re not as mysterious as you think.”

y/n’s frustration boiled over as she crossed her arms and shot him a withering glare. “then what do you want from me, touya? huh? what is it you actually want? because all you ever do is act like nothing gets to you!”

dabi stood up abruptly, towering over her as the tension between them thickened. “you think it’s easy for me to be like this? you think i enjoy pushing people away?” his voice was low, dangerous, his eyes blazing with a mix of frustration and something else y/n couldn’t quite place.

her heart pounded in her chest, but she refused to back down. “then stop doing it! stop acting like you don’t care about anyone or anything!”

“i care more than you think!” dabi snapped, taking a step closer. “but you—you’re always so busy pretending you don’t want this, like it’s all some burden for you!”

y/n’s pulse quickened, her frustration and confusion mounting. “i never said i didn’t want—”

before she could finish, dabi’s hands shot up to either side of her face, pulling her in roughly. his lips crashed against hers with a sudden, fierce intensity that stole the breath from her lungs. the kiss was aggressive, meant to shut her up, and y/n’s mind went blank as every thought evaporated under the force of it.

her body reacted before she could process what was happening, her hands gripping the front of his shirt, pulling him closer even as her heart raced with the shock of it all.

dabi’s lips moved against hers, demanding and relentless, and she found herself kissing him back just as fiercely, pouring all her pent-up anger and frustration into the kiss. it was heated, messy, and full of everything they couldn’t say out loud.

he pulled back for a brief moment, their breaths mingling as he muttered, “you talk too damn much.”

before she could respond, he kissed her again, cutting off any retort she might’ve had. his hands slid from her face to her waist, gripping her tightly as if he couldn’t stand to let her go. the anger between them melted into something else entirely—something raw and consuming.

y/n’s heart hammered in her chest as she kissed him back, her hands finding their way to his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. the argument, the tension, all of it faded into the background as they lost themselves in the intensity of the moment.

when they finally pulled apart, both of them were breathless, their foreheads resting against each other. dabi’s grip on her waist remained firm as he stared down at her, his expression softening just slightly.

“maybe i don’t want you to shut up,” he muttered, his voice low and rough, “but you make it hard to think.”

y/n’s lips parted, still swollen from the kiss, her breath coming in shallow bursts. “then maybe you should start listening,” she whispered, her voice shaky but steady.

dabi let out a low chuckle, his thumb brushing lightly against her hip. “yeah, maybe.” his voice dropped even lower as he added, “but that doesn’t mean i’m done shutting you up.”

with that, he pulled her back into another kiss, this one slower but no less intense, as if he was determined to make sure she knew exactly how he felt, even if neither of them were ready to say the words just yet.

she pulled back for a breath, her forehead meeting with his shoulder as she closed her eyes.

"i hate you, touya."

"then hate me more."

got a request? send it in and i'll write it :D

Taglist: @nemoo888 @delicatexmoonchild @flowerpjimin @tedcruzumakii @sugacor3 @selysixn @mitsuyas-version @matchaismylove @cyberrthegreat @ivydoesit23 @riririntaro @ilovechickfilasauce @sincerelyzee @daydreamteardrop @satorusluvrgirl @tired-jaz

[lundenloves]

“ 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒 ” ¹

≔ in which simon’s son enlists behind his back. ceramics are smashed, threats are thrown and feelings are hurt behind nonchalant expressions.

⤷ *return of the mac in the background* i wasn’t really sure which route to go down with this so i just blind wrote it. if you don’t agree with any of the following actions or words, keep it to yourself because i really do not care. it’s been a long hibernation, troops.

∷ warnings of abusive dynamics if you squint but mainly just unnerving silence and abrupt shouting | 2.3k

masterlist | dad!simon masterlist | taglist | request info

Eight thirty. 

Three hours into Simon’s habitually quiet morning routine with the rising sun pouring keenly through the kitchen window, and sparrows chirping a little too loud — the mail had slid through the door.

A modest fall of envelopes, taking each one with a crease between his brows after sifting through them, eyes glossing over each addressee while walking to the kitchen table with the stack. He liked it this way. He liked the known, finding a specific comfort in knowing that the mail would come on the same dot every, single, day. 

Not that there was ever anything special. Only the usual, clubcard points, screwfix leaflets, disgusting bank statements and various military envelopes on his current pension plan. Christ. 

He sat down, pulling a lip upward to disregard more than half of his own mail, tossing it to the counter behind him for the bin. “What a load of shit.” Came a grumble, kissing his teeth at the mere £3.40 discount he had received for spending over £300 in Tesco. 

Though the pending sigh was lost for a singular stand out letter. One he seemed to still over, chest dipping in regret. Regret for nothing in particular, only a sinking feeling for the familiar Be The Best motto cast upon the right side of one envelope — different to his Who Dares Wins slogan. The envelope wasn’t for him. 

The birds hadn’t paused their songs, an ambient morning now fuelling a slow anger. An inter boiling one, but for now simmering with long breaths. In and out. His shoulders broke inward with large palms leant on the counter, craning his neck side to side to release placebo tension. 

The letter mocked him. A bit of paper that had permanently strained something, “Fucking hell, son.” He picked it up, flipping it backward to frontward as if the writing would change. As if his son's name would disappear from under the window of the envelope. Though it didn’t, and the paper was slid to the depth of the counter, prompting Simon to rub at his bottom lip.

It took three minutes of silence before he was being followed downstairs by his son. Few words exchanged, and surprisingly fewer questions. They both knew, and tension had already built, bringing Simon’s anger to a heavier simmer. The prior efforts of calmness were obliterated at the sight of the kitchen once more, the pad of his foot tapping against the vinyl flooring.

“What the fuck is this?” The letter was slid across the counter, branded and bred in the British military with the familiar crest proud in the top right. It looked sinful, like something exposing, illegal even. The boy's stare was one of tiredness, palms flat on the kitchen counter to stare down at the envelope on the oak.

Fatigue hadn’t quite left his eyes, squinted in the bright dawn. “What’s what?”

Though his words were met with silence and the birds chirping outside seemed wrong. The moment had forced a thicker, uglier tension into the room, and his son rounded the counter to pick up the letter. Brash and pasted, once again, in military branding. 

His eyes fell to his father. 

A picture of disappointment, veiled with frustration through a glare, one so strong it almost felt off-putting. Stress seemed evident via the way his hand had pushed toward the back of his neck, running upward and down the front of his face. 

“What is it?” The same question, though this time quiet and sincere. His eyes had regrettably softened for all of two seconds before a leg had begun bouncing in compromise after taking a seat in pre-ceasefire. 

“Nothing.” A teenage mumble. 

Simon laughed dryly, shaking his head with a palm flat on the counter. “This.” He raised his hand, now only the tips of his fingers on the letter. “This isn’t nothing.” Eyes catching his mirror image, a lanky eighteen year old with next to no muscle. It was devastating, really.

“It’s just mail.” 

“Open it.” A stern command, standing up and boring his eyes further into the boy before him. His height and build was much more significant, effectively towering over the six foot kid with all of his broadness.

“It’s none of your business, like.” The croaked words of a voice just woken were ones Simon raised brows at. 

“Anything with that crest is my business.” 

The similarities between his younger self and the boy before him was something Simon internally hated. He hated that his son had genetically taken not only his originally scrawny, defenceless build but also his raging attitude and temper issues. Dark eyes and accompanying circles, a rare smile and sigh of laughter.

Though not one bone had been broken in his body, his nose wasn’t squinted from various punches and his skin hadn’t been plagued by scars of battle. Something Simon could always draw a line between, though, he no longer held that power. 

The kid begrudgingly opened the letter, hunching shoulders inward as if to shield it from his father. A congratulatory letter, one addressed to his name in bold letters with an offer to train at the military academy for a reserved cadetship upon completion. 

The silence was loud. 

Simon knew what it was before it had been opened. His fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose, and rubbed at his temples. “Fucking hell mate.” A deep breath was taken, chest puffing out with the inhale. “Fuck sake.” 

His son felt like a child again, small and inwardly anxious for his fathers reaction. Not that Simon was ever violent, not ever, but he was a different kind of frightening. Silent. He gave you the option to take whatever you’d wanted from his step back, though fiery eyes only pushed you down one slope. Anxiety and paired overthinking, it came as part and parcel of the Riley name. 

“I was goin’t tell you.” 

Another laugh escaped Simon, “At what point?” The side of his lip curved upward, though there was no real amusement. “Look at me.”

There was a scoff from his son in response, shaking his head with eyes locking back to the letter. Ink printed in gratification. “Nothin’ to do with you though is it?” The second part came as a mumble for the internal struggle to hold back aggression. Though it slipped through, naturally. 

“What did I say? Fuckin’ hell.” Simon growled, taking the envelope from the boy and skim-reading it. “Right.” He cleared his throat. “The fifth, next month, yeah?” Eyes flicking to his son who had shrugged, slinking off behind Simon to look through cupboards in evident dismissal.

“Dunno–”

“You’re out.” 

They had spoken in unison, each person cancelling the other out to create a bout of eye contact. “What?” The quirk in his lip was a giveaway of building frustration, eyes cast directly across his father who stood just taller than him. “I’m out?”

“You’re out the house.” Simon slid the letter across the counter in finality, “As soon as you leave for that camp. You’re gone.”

“What the fuck.”

“Big enough to enlist?” His tone was venomous, something his son was unable to contest. “Big enough to fucking leave.” The letter had been picked up by the kid, eyes skimming it over, eyes darting across the page while familiar anger had slowly built.

“Fuck off.” He mumbled, brows pulled together in a foul mix of annoyance and evident upset over his fathers’ dismissal. “Any other dad would be proud of that.” The letter dropped to his abdomen, two shaky hands still clutching to the torn envelope. “Not you though, yeah, not fuckin’ you. ‘Course not.”

There was a pause before a crash. 

A split decision of anger, one Simon mirrored at that age. A raging feeling of internal emotion that was only alleviated in bursts of aggression and breakage - punching holes in doors or smashing dishware. There was never a safe space to feel, therefore it came out unwillingly. 

For his son, it was a failing on his behalf as a father. That space was never created for lack of recovery had never allowed real estate. 

Multiple ceramics flown off the counter with one hand swoop, “Such a cunt.” His chest heaved and Simon’s eyes bore into his. Solemnity follows each and every moment with an unnerving silence, though it wasn’t continued when aggravated palms had landed on his chest, a teenage attempt to express.

“Don’t.” A bark, complete with snarling and a metaphorical showing of canines. A hand caught the boy's forearm, an admittedly tighter than required grip. “Don’t you fucking dare.” And for a moment, he feared he sounded like his father. 

Though he did dare. 

A rebellion as it was.

Again, a heavy palm had landed on his fathers’ chest - uncaught and if any stronger than the age of eighteen would’ve at least budged Simon. And, god, did he sound like his father with the promise of violence, a grip on his son’s shirt to hold him against the wall at the action alone.

A huff of air fell through his nose, head tilted, “If you enlist and you have this attitude,” The words were spoken through gritted teeth, eyes fixed to the wall he held the boy against to speak just above his ear. “They’ll send you right fucking back.” Though his son no longer recognised dad. This was someone else, someone he was never to meet. “Show some fucking respect.” A tone orchestrated of octaves reserved for Ghost. 

You had come down with the crash of ceramics, fully aware that Simon was in knowing of your presence by the way his grip had rid, stepping back with hands to his head. “What the fuck is going on?” You scowled at your husband who was already lighting a cigarette. 

After a short inhale, “He’s enlisting.” The smoke tumbled from his lip that turned upward to accommodate a low but amused chuckle. “He’s enlisting, lovie. Our boy.” The cigarette was then pointed to the teenager. “He’s enlisting so he can run around with a fucking rifle, kill one or two people because it's what? It’s a laugh is it? A fucking game?” Though the words were intensely directed to you, waving the smoke around before taking another inhale and shaking his head. 

“It’s not that serious, fucking-”

The words were cut off by a harsh slap of the counter and a rumble of a scold. “Not that serious?” It could only have woken the whole house and Simon ditched the cigarette to lift his shirt up, various scars and burn marks stretched across his front and back. “What's this? Eh?”

“Calm down.” You warned, or at least attempted to. 

“Calm down? He’s going to get himself fucking killed.” A bite, one without intention of ceasing. 

“You’re not dead.” The kid provided.

“I died years ago, son.” His eyes were naturally narrowed in their frustration, slow on the look-up, and shoulders tense through chest heaving. Up and down, and up and down.

The kid mirrored his fathers’ lost expressions.

“Right.” You then interrupted, placing delicate hands on the shoulders of your boy to steer him out of the room, letter still in his hands. 

“Coddle him. Tell him he’ll be fine,” The smoke from the cigarette danced around his hand, lifted back upward for a long, slow inhale, eyes burnt to your back. “That the world is a safe place and he won’t get hurt.” His voice had lowered.

But there was a mutual understanding of the lie, that nothing was fine and he wasn’t going to come out unscathed. Mentally, if not physically. 

It had bled into an argument between the two of you after, pointed fingers of accusation and bursts of tears had split from your eyes. His frustration turned into ready anger, then dismissal, refusing to believe the reality. 

“What’s your fucking issue?” Was the question you had barked once downstairs, four words that seemed obvious in their asking though Simon still quirked a brow. “There’s no need. No fucking need at all for that.” 

He shook his head, looking down at you over his cigarette while you swept up smashed ceramics. “Don’t act like you don’t know.” His voice low, cigarette mumbling the words with an inhale. 

You dropped arms to your sides, pointedly tapping the foot of the brush against the floor. “Like I don’t know what?” The accompanied scowl was one Simon’s eyes darted back and forth from, looking away out the window before tipping his cigarette. “It’s something he wants.”

“He’s going to get himself killed.”

“Ever the fucking pessimist.” 

“Once he leaves,” The cigarette was acting as punctuation, pointed toward the door in far gesture. “He’s out.” Tone unnervingly quiet. One that warned any other argument off, though not yours. 

“Do me a favour, yeah?” You continued to sweep the ceramics. “Realise this isn’t about you.” Looking up at the way he had shifted in his stance, arm now crossed over his chest to tuck under his opposing armpit. 

“Fuck—“ He laughed. “It’s not about me.”

“You just kick off immediately.” 

“Hardly.”

“The fucking state of the floor, Simon.” You scorned, raising your voice to take his attention from the mindless cigarette smoking. “He’s your son. Treat him like it.” 

“When he learns respect-”

“He doesn’t respect you for that fucking attitude. It’s a battle, let it go.”

His eyes met yours to stand down, ditching the cigarette before nodding absently. His silence was telling of an awful mood, one he would carry for the next few days if uninterrupted. 

Tension grew thicker than a rope knot dramatically fast in the Riley household, and whether granted or not, there was only the one man to blame. Walking on eggshells whenever he would come home from a bad deployment was only fit to last so long, and you couldn’t change him. 

But he didn’t want to change himself either.

≔ unedited, and the tags probably won’t work. this is all i got and i’ll slam my fist on an ikea desk, this. is. all. i. got.

simon 'ghost' riley taglist: @vamppxncess @crowbird @tallrock35 @fluffmonster @islanderr @blueoorchid @lea3773 @coldflapjack @rayhawk05 @han11dh @melovetitties @fallonx @rvjaa @fuckmelifesucks @bhayatsara @local-spidey @konigsblog @penutjuice @babychoi03 @sheluvzeren @sparklingtragedy @maviee @wiserebelpartypie @daddylorianisastateofmind @bhayatsara @writingmysanity @johfaam0 @idkbbyx3 @gressseyy @shibble @maladaptivedaydreamingbum @hotgirlsshareaccounts @simpxinnie @cliosunshine @bloobewy @lazybutsmexy @iluvoaldmen @yyiikes @tieflingteatime @cosmoscoffee @lilvampirina @cinnabeanz @spencerreidisbae123 @paperbag-prncss @cookiecutta @sluttyforsimon @loveangelic @friendly-neighborhood-lich-queen @hayleybarnesx

@bunthebunny23

song of the day (time of writing)

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 ICARIAN

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

SUMMARY: dazai had known he was flying too close to the sun, he should have stopped himself while he still had the chance. {wordcount: 11.5k; fem!reader, romance & tragedy}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: installment fiveeeee otherwise known as part 2 of installment four LOL! ugh guys i'm dragging myself thru the trenches right now i'm so miserable - i wasn't even up to posting this today i won't lie but </3 i pulled thru </3 if only barely. fun fact this is actually only a 3 scene chapter but the second scene is just MASSIVE. i wasn't up to restructuring so you guys are just going to get it as it is. this is also unedited because i just wasn't up to it so bear with me regarding mistakes. JUST TO REMIND YOU ALL: the last installment is DELAYED - i have 3 finals next week and haven't had the time to finish it. it will be up by the end of may </3 sorry guys. wow this actually is attempt number three trying to post this correctly - i'm so shot

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR 17 & UNDER FOLLOWING THE SERIES: partially copy and pasted from badlands - if you guys read badlands, you know the deal. y'all knew what you were getting into. this is the smut chapter. but again, i'm not going to ask y'all to not interact/read a whole 12k chapter just because there's 4k words of smut, but i am going to say here the smut is in the SECOND scene. there is very little plot development in the smut itself, so i ask you guys, again, to respectfully scroll past it. i'll make the sentence when the smut starts red like this so you know that's when it starts, and then you can continue reading at the next divider. thank you for understanding! there is NO plot development in the smut, i'll reiterate that at the end where i put the summary in badlands, i restructured to make sure none of it was in it.

SMUT WARNINGS: unprotected sex, dazai cries </3 poor baby, sub!dazai, as always pussy drunk!dazai, bit of overstim on dazai's part too, jfhsuhdfsu i will say it starts on the bathroom floor so that might be a bit gross to some of you but dazai hardly even uses his apartment anyway so trust it's clean. bear with me. it just flowed from there i had to go with it. the story writes itself, i'm only the scribe. LOL let me know if i missed anything, i might have

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

Dazai is hardly listening to the conversation at hand. They’ve been going back and forth for thirty minutes about inconsequential matters. Tolstoy is getting increasingly heated as he goes tit-for-tat with Nabokov, evidently the tripartite alliance between the Russian mafias is not quite enough to quell all of the bad blood that’s simmered between them, but something about the situation isn’t sitting right to Dazai. He can feel it in his gut, swirling in the depths of his chest—something is wrong but he doesn’t know what.

Mishima looks equally put out, gaze trained on Tolstoy and Nabokov’s conversation, occasionally looking back at his executives. Cao seems bored, head tilted back against the red cushions of the round booth as he smokes a cigarette; in all regards, he seems relaxed, but Dazai notices the way the fingers of his free hand are tense on the table, as if he’s bracing himself for something.

Something isn’t right.

Dostoevsky is cunning. Intelligent. He’s been lethally sharp in every universe that the other Dazais have encountered him in. He wouldn’t send Tolstoy and Nabokov into this meeting with them at each other’s throats like this without an ulterior reason. Dazai is missing something critical; he knows it’s not something as simple as wanting to give off the appearance of a divided front as means to get Dazai and Mishima to lower their guard. Nothing is that easy. There’s some ulterior motive that Dazai has to figure out.

Cao’s presence. Tolstoy and Nabokov’s blatant hostility toward one another. Mishima’s words from earlier, warning him that something seems to be brewing, that Tolstoy and Nabokov had been on edge since he arrived at the event hall. Dazai’s head hurts, and he can’t focus, not when you’re in the other room without him.

Already, he feels as if he’s been separated from you for too long, he’d been hoping this meeting was only going to last thirty minutes at most, and it’s been thirty minutes already and hardly any progress has been made. If Dazai didn’t know any better, he’d think that…

He’d think that Tolstoy and Nabokov were stalling.

At once, Dazai starts catching onto the things that he missed. The way Nabokov keeps glancing up at the clock on the wall above Cao. The way Tolstoy’s gaze keeps flickering to his phone. The way Cao’s attention seems to be elsewhere. 

Cao Xueqin. A Dream of Red Mansions. A scrying ability.

His heartbeat slows and Dazai blinks. Once. Twice. Blood roars in his ears as his gaze twists down to where his phone is laying on the table in front of him, on its face. Tachihara should have texted him to let him know that he got to you. Him or Chuuya. He usually reports to Chuuya anyway, so Dazai figured that Chuuya would’ve gotten the confirmation. He turns his head to the side to look at the executive from the corner of his eye, trying to keep his breath as slow and steady and natural as possible when he realizes that Chuuya is frowning with furrowed brows, looking at his phone. Unsure.

Dazia reaches for his own phone, fingers deceptively steady despite the way his insides are curdling with a sudden jolt of anxiety. His eyes zero in on the top right corner of his phone. No signal. Dazai has been to this event hall countless times in this life and dozens of others—there’s always service throughout the building. 

Unless it’s being jammed, that is.

Dazai’s blood runs cold, gaze dragging from his phone to the door that leads to the hallway connecting to the event hall where you are. He feels as if he’s been doused with icy water and lit on fire all at once. For a second, he doesn’t move—he’s not sure if it’s anxiety or fear, or both, but he knows it’s because you’re out there and Dostoevsky is plotting something while trying to keep him out of the picture in this meeting. 

He should have known better. Mishima had assumed that Dostoevsky wasn’t in the building—he had his three best scouts prowling the whole building trying to place the real leader of the tripartite but had failed. Nabokov had apparently told him that Dostoevsky had to stay back to handle residual business in Russia, a blatant lie, one that has had Mishima on edge all night.

The one with the overcoat. The clown.

Dazai stills as he remembers the white haired man who hung around Dostoevsky in some of the other universes. Not all of the other Dazais encountered him—in fact, Dazai thinks there were only half a dozen other universes where he met the man, he can hardly remember his name, but when he did…

Spatial linking. Of course Mishima’s men hadn’t been able to hunt down Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky would’ve predicted that the Sun and Steel would seek out the mastermind with their scouts. He used the clown to enter the building without anyone knowing after the scouts finished their hunt.

Dazai had missed a critical piece on the board.

Dazai rises to his feet abruptly, mind numb, eyes distant, and lips parted to speak but no words escape them. Tolstoy and Nabokov exchange a sharp, pointed look, pausing in their hostilities, and Dazai knows. He knows.

Dostoevsky is going after you. 

He hears Chuuya and Kouyou calling after him but it sounds like a distant buzz. His throat feels clogged, his heartbeat is erratic and uncontrollable, his ears are ringing. His surroundings are blurry, a part of him doesn’t even know where he is: the event hall, your apartment, in the cafe below the Armed Detective Agency, it’s all blurring together.

This is it.

His vision swims and his head spins. The hallway seems impossibly long, much longer than it was to walk to the room. He can hear Chuuya spitting curses, scrambling out of the room, and he’s sure that his other executives and the other mafiosos aren’t far behind, but Dazai’s mind is on a single track. He doesn’t know how fast he’s moving—fast enough that Chuuya is chasing after him but can’t catch him. Something is heavy and cool in his hand—his gun—numb fingers moving to click the safety off.

This is it.

He might enter that hall and find you dead, slumped over the bar he’d last seen you sitting at, blood splattered across your face. Limp, cold. Just like you were on your bedroom floor. In the booth at the cafe. He’s pulling you from the water. He’s screaming for Yosano when he’s with the Agency. He’s screaming for Mori when he’s with the Mafia. Sometimes he’s alone, and he has no one to call for help, so all he can do is hold you and cry. 

It’s his fault. He knew this would happen from the beginning. He knew that being with you would lead you to the same fate that you’ve met in every other universe because of him. He knew that being with you would be your death sentence, but he couldn’t stop himself. 

His vision swims again, the red and gold patterns on the walls of the event hall are indistinct blobs, he feels someone try to grab his wrist—Chuuya, probably—but Dazai rips himself free and pushes himself into the event hall.

He ignores the eyes on him and the way people all instinctively move away from the sight of him with his gun out, he’s sure he must look deranged but he’s hardly even keeping himself grounded to this reality. Pages pile around him, every single one has variations of the same scene that’s haunted him for almost eight years written on it; one is being written before his eyes, he can see the words appearing on the blank sheet. He needs to find you before it’s complete. He has to stop it.

His eyes cut across the room, toward the bar he’d last seen you at, and you’re there. You’re there. It’s almost enough to make him scramble to put his gun away, cover up his steep spiral of paranoia even if you are looking right in his direction and see the gun in his hand. He can hardly come to terms with the consequences of this, how you’re seeing him right now, because his gaze tunnels right in on the person sitting next to you and his world comes to a halt. 

He lifts the gun. He ignores as people shriek and scramble to the edges of the room. He ignores the look on your face as he moves closer to where you’re sitting with Fyodor Dostoevsky. He ignores the way Chuuya and Kouyou and Piano Man have all skid to a stop somewhere behind him, trying to figure out what to do. Dostoevsky’s hand is mere inches away from brushing against your body, it would only take the slightest movement and you would be dead. It would be a game of who’s faster: Dazai’s trigger finger or Dostoevsky’s ability. Dazai’s always been quick to pull the trigger but now, faced with your life on the line, when he should be at his best because of what’s at risk, he finds himself scared and unsteady. 

He can’t lose you. He can’t watch it happen.

He paces toward you slowly, steadily, he swears each step he takes echoes across the suddenly silent event hall. He doesn’t stop until the muzzle of his gun is pressed against the back of Dostoevsky’s head.

“Stand up.” Dazai’s voice is deceptively cold and steady for the rage and fear that’s clawing at his chest, threatening to take control.

Dostoevsky turns his head to the side to look at Dazai, faint amusement in his eyes. “Are you sure you really want to do this here, Dazai?” 

The mocking lilt his voice takes is almost enough alone for Dazai to pull the trigger. And if that wasn’t, the way Dostoevsky smiles at Dazai like he’s won is certainly enough to push him over the edge.

Before he can, he feels Chuuya grab his bicep hard. 

“You can’t do this here,” he hisses quietly. “If you kill him now on neutral territory, we’ll have all of the mafias in the Eastern Hemisphere coming after you and the government on your ass. You can’t do this here and you can’t do it in public.”

Dazai doesn’t care. He doesn’t care how many mafias come after him for killing on neutral territory when invited as a guest. He doesn’t care that the government will come after him for such a blatant murder. All he cares about is getting Dostoevsky away from you.

“Chuuya is right,” Kouyou murmurs, low enough for only Dazai to overhear. “We can cover this up as is. If you pull the trigger, there’s no hiding what happened here. You know better than this, boy. You won’t be the only person this affects if you do this. Think of her. She will be implicated for coming here with you. Lower the gun and let us handle sweeping this under the rug.”

Dazai can’t even bring himself to look at you. He’s scared of what he might find. But he doesn’t even consider lowering the gun, not until Dostoevsky raises his hands and slips off the bar stool to step away from you. Even when he does, Dazai keeps it trained on him, still tempted to blow his head right off his shoulders.

“I meant no harm,” Dostoevsky says smoothly. “I was intrigued, wanted to know the girl who’s managed to capture your interest. I must say, I see the appeal. Beautiful and intelligent, you have quite the eye, Dazai.”

Dazai’s lips stretch into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s not kind, and it’s mildly feral, and Dazai’s pretty sure he must look entirely deranged from the way Dostoevsky’s eyes widen in a mixture of surprise and entertainment, just enough to be noticeable.

“If you ever go near her again, I’ll put a bullet through your fucking skull, Dostoevsky.”

He should do it now. He should. Fuck Chuuya and Kouyou’s warnings, he should put a bullet in his head and be done with it, move onto handling Christie so that both of the major threats to your life are gone. But he can’t. If he takes this opportunity now, if he kills Dostoevsky so blatantly on neutral territory, the Pale Flame and Three Deaths will come at him in full force, and Dazai is sure the Red Chamber won’t be far behind them with Cao’s recent interest in expanding his business into Japan. And you’ll be caught in the crossfire of all of it, Dazai has ensured that by bringing you here. Dostoevsky must have accounted for all of this. He knew that Dazai would be put in a situation where either way, whether he kills him or lets him go, he’d be throwing himself onto a blade. 

Is that it? Killing you wasn’t the goal, was it? Exposing Dazai was. Forcing him into this impossible decision.

Did he really just fall into Dostoevsky’s hands so easily? Even with all of the forewarning the other universes have given him?

It’s you. You always make him reckless, his mind is never as sharp whenever you’re involved, muddled with thoughts of you, plagued with spirals of paranoia and anxiety that make him double guess himself. It’s like this in every universe—he becomes stupid, he becomes rash, he becomes careless. It’s you.

You.

Suddenly very hyper aware of your eyes on him, Dazai lowers his gun, gaze turning in your direction. Dostoevsky lets out one last snide comment, something toward you, telling you ‘don’t you see’ but Dazai doesn’t even process it, heart in his throat as he looks at you. He doesn’t know what he expects—fear, betrayal, even anger. He’s not prepared for the emptiness. He can’t read a single emotion on your face, your eyes eerily void of any feeling as you stare at him. 

He says your name quietly. His voice cracks. He should be embarrassed, so many people watching the scene play out, so many of his enemies and allies and subordinates, and he’s staring at you like a lost child with an unsteady voice, but he can’t bring himself to care. The fingers of his free hand are trembling, and the ones wrapped around the grip of his gun are so wound so tight that his knuckles are white. 

You’ve never looked at him like this before. Not in any universe. 

He thinks he might throw up. 

You’ve been mad at him before, scowling at him whenever he distracts you from your work and snarling whenever he makes messes that he never cleans up, but your eyes always stay soft in spite of the venom you spit. He’s seen betrayal on your face a few times before, screaming at him through tears when he got a bit too close to a successful attempt, cursing at him for trying to leave you, but you hold him so gently that it makes up for the harsh words. You’ve been scared of him once, when he lashed out so badly during one of his slumps that he nearly hurt you, but even then, you were more concerned for him then you were scared for yourself, speaking to him softly to settle him down.

He’s never seen this. He wants it to go away. Desperately.

“I’d like to leave,” you finally say after a few moments of silence, and your voice is so vacant of emotion that it leaves him feeling even more sick.

Dazai nods, because he can’t bring himself to speak. 

He holds his hand out for you, waiting for you to take it.

You don’t.

You haven’t spoken a word since the event hall, and Dazai doesn’t know what to do. He used to find peace in silence—for years, he’d become accustomed to it, isolating himself from everyone around him, keeping everyone at arm’s length. The most he ever spoke was a few sentences to give out orders to his executives; his voice had become hoarse and raspy over the years of self-imposed isolation, unused to being utilized. But the past few months with you have utterly obliterated any semblance of comfort Dazai had found in solidarity. 

It’s become entirely intolerable, the silence is making him sick with anxiety; he has hundreds of lifetimes worth of memories with you and he can’t even vaguely predict what to expect from you right now. You’ve been tense and cold since leaving the event hall. Dazai tried to open up a conversation in the car once but found himself promptly ignored. Chuuya tried to say something to you but only received the same cold shoulder. Even Albatross tried to lighten the mood when the four of you got in the car, but all you did was stare out the window with your back to Dazai. 

Now, you’re back up in his penthouse with him. You haven’t sat down. You’ve hardly budged from where you’re standing near the elevator—Dazai wonders if you’re scared of him now, if you want to be as close as possible to the only exit in fear of him lashing out at you. The thought makes him even more nauseous.

He doesn’t even know what to do with himself. He doesn’t want to sit down, he’s uncomfortable standing in the living room, waiting for you to say something, and he can’t bring himself to try to break the silence because if there’s one thing he learned very swiftly, it’s that he can’t handle being ignored by you. He’d prefer anger and hate to the stonewall iciness you’re giving him.

He can’t even fathom what you might be thinking right now. You’re not looking at him. You’re staring at the window that looks over the city, he can see the bright flashing lights from Cosmo World flickering faintly in your eyes. It’s so quiet that he can hear the distant honking of horns, police sirens coming from the streets below. 

He just wants you to say something, do something. Yell at him. Scream at him. Hit him or punch him. Anything is better than this. 

It feels like an eternity before you finally move away from the elevator. You still don’t speak, but Dazai watches raptly as you make your way into the kitchen. You fling open the cabinets, searching for something, and Dazai’s lips part to ask what you’re looking for but he decides against it. You stop with your jerky movements when you catch sight of the numerous bottles of sake Dazai has stored in his cabinets—room temperature, because Dazai can’t stand cold drinks, they make his teeth hurt. He watches you struggle to uncap it and his body itches to move toward you to help but he knows it won’t do any good. It’ll probably just piss you off more.

When you get the cap off, you’re immediately bringing it to your lips. One. Two. Three. Four large gulps before you put the bottle back down on the counter and turn to look at him. The emptiness in your eyes is gone, replaced by something caught between hurt and anger and betrayal. It makes his heart sink, but he thinks it’s preferable to the emptiness.

“You lied to me,” you finally rasp out, shaking your head as you pace behind the counter. There’s a whole length of a room separating the two of you and Dazai longs for your touch but he forces himself to stuff his hands in his pockets and keep still. “You lied to me, Dazai.”

“Osamu,” he corrects quietly without thinking, not liking the switch up. He’d finally gotten you to call him by his given name earlier in the night, he doesn’t want to lose it so quickly.

For the briefest of seconds, the hurt and betrayal in your eyes disappears and only fire rages in them. “Dazai,” you spit out pointedly. 

Dazai almost draws back, not having expected that. In all of the other universes, you’ve always been gentle with him even when you’re livid. You speak his name softly, even with a tight jaw and fisted hands—his given name, you’ve never used his surname against him like this before. Probably because most of the major fights he had with you in those other lives, it was months into the relationship; it’s only been a few weeks in this life so of course-

Dazai realizes, a bit dizzy, that he’s about to lose you.

You found out too soon. You found out through Dostoevsky, through Dazai's own loss of control. You found out in the worst possible way and you found out too soon.

Dazai is about to lose you.

“Okay,” he murmurs, not wanting to test your temper anymore, giving in as a means to try to soothe your anger, regardless of how much it might wound him because being wounded is nothing compared to losing you. “Dazai.”

His compliance seems to do nothing to quell your anger from the way you just scoff and shake your head again, looking away from him. You stare out over the city, dozens of emotions cloud your expression but Dazai still can’t predict what you might do next. He feels out of his depth, in murky waters with an anchor tied to his ankle.

“I knew it, you know?” you finally say quietly. “I knew it from the beginning, honestly, but I kept making excuses for you. I mean, the guns. The secrecy. You weren’t really subtle about it. Did you think I was stupid, or something?” 

“Never,” Dazai says honestly, without hesitation. He sees your gaze flicker down to the ground at his words, but you don’t make any move to speak again so he takes the opportunity to, in hopes that you’ll finally listen. “You’re the smartest woman I know. I-”

You interrupt him with a sharp laugh, it’s loud and almost cruel, and Dazai turns in on himself at the sound of it. He feels small and unsteady, like a child who’s being scolded by a parent. When you look at him again, your eyes are wide and wild, half-crazed in sheer disbelief. You don’t believe him. Of course, you don’t. It’s plainly displayed on your face. And why would you anyway? He’s given you every reason not to. 

“If you think I’m so smart, why didn’t you think I would figure it out?”

He tries to say that he knew you would. That he’s been living in fear for weeks that you’d finally see him for what he is but when he opens his mouth to say it, no words leave him. Like he’s frozen in fear, ice crawling through his veins, stones weighing on his tongue; he can’t respond, and he knows that he’s only condemning himself more. He tries to force something out but he can’t even make the barest hint of a sound. The mindkiller. He’s never responded well to fear, much less when you’re involved. 

You click your tongue, as if to solidify that his silence proves your point, or maybe you know what he can't bring himself to say and you just don't believe him. His stomach churns again, and dread spreads through chest when you say: “If I’m so smart, and I was going to figure it out anyway, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“You would have left.” Dazai is finally able to speak, but he speaks the wrong answer, clearly, from the way you let out another humorless, breathless laugh, eyes wide in disbelief. You look at him like he’s the most audacious man in the entire world. Maybe he is.

“Yeah, I would have,” you agree and Dazai flinches. “Without hesitation, without even looking back. And now, I can’t because you made me fall in love with you without even warning me about what I was getting myself into.”

Dazai’s heart should be leaping through the roof at your confession, but if anything, he feels even worse. His throat feels clogged and his chest feels so heavy. You’ve never regretted falling in love with him before. Not in any lifetime.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out, because he doesn’t know what else to say. The words are still foreign on his tongue, he doesn’t think he’s ever apologized to someone in this life before the last twenty-four hours.

“No, you’re not,” you say bitterly, looking away. “Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to care so much about you that when you finally tell me who you are and what you do, I won’t be able to leave.”

Dazai stares at you, lost. He remembers how just the other day he was finding comfort in the way you could read him so easily, knowing he didn’t have to speak for you to know what he needed at the moment. He thinks he hates it now, because you’re finally reading deeper into his soul and seeing him for the sick, twisted monster he really is. Just like he feared from day one. Manipulative. Selfish. Undeserving. His fingers tremble in his pockets, nails biting into his palm so deep that he can feel blood trickling down his skin, but not even the stinging pain can distract him from the numbness spreading through him. 

“I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what?” you interrupt him. “You didn’t think I’d be upset? You didn’t think I’d be angry? Or maybe you didn’t think it would happen this soon? Is that it, Dazai? You thought you’d have more time to win me over in hopes that I’d take the news in stride. News flash, Dazai, no amount of time or charm would have made me accept this easily. Accept you easily. How could I ever accept any of this?”

Nausea rises to his throat so suddenly that he almost gags. He feels dizzy, taking a step back so that his back is against the wall, keeping him steady. Your last words echo through his head over and over again, he can’t escape them. The one person who’s always accepted him in every lifetime, the only person he was ever able to find a home in—how could I ever accept you? 

His cheeks feel wet, his eyes are wide as he stares at you. He doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t even think he could if he knew how to respond to that. His lungs are burning and his throat feels so swollen that even just the thought of trying to speak is painful. 

You let out a sharp breath, caught between a hysterical laugh and a sob as you press your hands to either side of your neck and pace across the kitchen. “What am I supposed to do, Dazai?” you ask, voice hoarse. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

He thinks it might be a rhetorical question, but he still forces out: “Don’t leave me.”

You scoff again, louder and harsher this time. Dazai’s eyes flutter shut as if to futilely minimize the blow. “I wish leaving you was still an option for me.”

Oh. He’s going to throw up. 

He wants to blame it on the alcohol he drank earlier in the night. He wants to blame it on the stress of the past few weeks. He wants to blame it on anything but this, even though he knows damn well that this conversation is what triggered the bile that rises to his throat. He forces himself to move, nearly tripping over his feet to get to the bathroom because he doesn’t want you to see him vomiting up his guts.

He hardly makes it to the toilet, crashing to his knees and clutching at the seat as he dry heaves. Nothing comes up—he hasn’t eaten enough the past few days to have anything solid in him, too busy with preparations—but he can’t stop gagging, eyes stinging with tears and throat burning. He doesn’t know how long he stays crumpled at the toilet, losing track of time entirely, a part of him just wants to stay there forever so he doesn’t have to go back out and face you. 

Evidently, he doesn’t have to go back out and face you because you come to him. 

He’s gagging again when he feels your hand brush his back, hesitantly at first and then firmly. Your touch is warm, and Dazai thinks he must look pathetic as he turns his head to the side to look at you. Your expression isn’t as harsh now, your eyes are still conflicted but your face is softer. After a moment, you take a seat on the floor next to him—you don’t say anything, but you let out a soft puff of air as you slip your arm around his shoulders once he stops heaving. 

He crumbles into your chest, body collapsing against yours. You wrap your arms around him, and at once, the numbness starts to fade away. His fingers clutch at your dress desperately, afraid that you’re going to disappear, but you only hold him tighter. You bury your face in his hair, forehead pressed to the top of his head.

“You’re so unfair, Osamu.” Your voice cracks, you’ve lost all of your fire, but Dazai finds no solace in it.

“I know,” he croaks out, throat scratchy and voice wavering. “I know.”

And then words are spilling from his lips before he can stop them, jumbled and hardly intelligible and he’s not even sure that you’re understanding what he’s saying but he can’t stop himself: “I tried. I tried to stay away, I tried so hard, you don’t understand. I knew it would turn out like this, I knew I would ruin you so I tried to stay away, but I’m selfish. I’m so selfish, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I knew better, I’m going to-you’re going to-”

The panic is returning, the words he wants to say but can’t push out are too damning: I’m going to get you killed. You’re going to die because of me. Dazai is breathing but the air isn’t getting to his lungs, his chest burns, and now even with your arms around him, the numbness is returning. It’s rapid now, spreading from his chest to his arms, down his abdomen to his legs; it’s going to consume him entirely, he can feel it, he can-

Oh.

Your lips press to his. Tilting his head back to angle his face up toward you, you lean down and press your lips against his, swallowing his words, his air, his panic. One of your hands cup his cheek while the other cradles the back of his head, Dazai can hardly kiss you back, his lips feel cold and prickly, but his eyes flutter shut as your lips move slowly and carefully against his.

Not for the first time, he thinks that he doesn’t deserve this. Especially not now. He tastes something wet and salty against his lips—he doesn’t know if you’re the one crying, or if he is, and he doesn’t want to know, so he forces himself to move. His arm feels heavy and clunky, and his fingers feel stiff, but he’s able to bring them up to your face, palms cupping your cheeks as the tips of his fingers tangle into your hair. He kisses you until his lungs are screaming for air, and even as he starts to feel lightheaded, he kisses you still, because your lips are the only thing able to push away the numbness overwhelming him. 

When you break away from him, you keep your foreheads pressed together, nose nudging against his. You share the same thin sliver of air and Dazai feels dizzy, he wants to kiss you again but he doesn’t think he’s capable of moving yet, so he only stays crumbled in your arms, waiting for you to grace him with your lips again. 

“I wish I still had the chance to be a better man,” Dazai says hoarsely, honestly, gaze searching yours desperately. “I would be. For you.”

Please believe me, he thinks to himself helplessly, because it’s the truth. He would try to be. For your sake. He might fail, he might be too far gone, his soul corrupted beyond salvation and his blood black beyond purification, but he would try. He would try so hard for you. But he can’t, not in this lifetime, not without risking everything he’s strove to protect since coming in contact with the Book. He has to stay the criminal, the monster, the demon so that you and Odasaku can live out your lives here. Until Dostoevsky, Christie, and any other person that could turn out to be a threat to either of you are killed, Dazai has to keep playing this role. He has to. 

You don’t respond. Dazai thinks it’s because you don’t believe him and it makes him feel sick again. His lips part to repeat himself but you only press yours against his, as if to silence him. 

You don’t believe him, the kiss confirms it, and his heart sinks but he can’t even bring himself to protest, to insist that it’s true. Instead, he decides if he can’t prove it through his words, he’ll prove it through his actions. Even though his limbs still feel leaden and clumsy, he forces himself into a better position, sitting up a bit more and bringing both of his hands up to cup your cheeks. He tilts your head back, leaning into you and slowly pressing you back against the floor and distantly Dazai recognizes that this is not the place for this but the thought is only fleeting, he’s too lost in the feeling of your lips against his and your body pressed to him.

And you let him ease you back against the floor. You let him tilt your head back and when his tongue darts out to swipe against your bottom lip, you part your lips for him. He doesn’t have to knock your knees apart, because you spread them just enough for him to slot his hips between them to keep your bodies flush. He wonders if you can feel how clunky his movements are—his fingers still feel heavy against your face and he can hardly hold himself up above you. He hopes he’s not crushing you with his weight, he might be, but you don’t seem to care. 

He pulls back to ask if you’re okay with this but you chase his lips and he lets out a soft, muffled noise when you tug gently at his bottom lip and bring your free hand up to cup the back of his head, fingers tangling with his hair, pulling him back down to you. You drag your lips from his to slide them down his neck to the edge of his bandages. He twitches a bit at the feeling, wondering if you’re going to ask to take them off, but instead, you just trail your lips back upward, nipping at his jaw, and he shudders.

And then he finally hesitates, pulling away and not letting you chase after this time. He weighs his options in his head anxiously. He feels like he should do something, that he owes something—a lowering of a mask, a show of vulnerability, you’re entitled to at least that much after everything he’s done. Aren't you?

You give him a curious look and he tries to respond—he does, his lips part for him to speak but nothing leaves them. He swallows thickly, eyes fluttering shut as he braces himself before trying again, bringing one of his hands to yours and wrapping his fingers around it gently, lifting it from his chest to the bandages covering the left side of his face.

“Take them off,” he tells you, voice hoarse and shakier than he would have liked.

Your eyes widen, and he shudders a bit when your fingers smooth against the bandages, uncertain. “Are you sure?” you ask him softly, bringing your other hand to his opposite cheek, cupping his face in your hands again, eyes searching to make sure he means it.

Is he sure? Dazai doesn’t know. He can’t speak again as he stares down at you; a part of him is nervous, and he doesn’t even understand why. You already know who he is, what he is, but a part of him still fears that once you actually see him, something will change. And it’s ridiculous, so many other universes you’ve seen him without his bandages and you’ve never made him feel uncomfortable about it. But you’ve also never used his surname against him during an argument in the other universes, you’ve never regretted loving him, and you’ve certainly never wished you could leave him. 

So, yeah, he thinks the anxiety of you removing his bandages and then seeing him in a different light might be more of a possibility in this universe than any other one. His body is more covered in scars than not, and he knows it’s not attractive; he thinks if he sees your expression shift in a negative way when the bandages come off, it might shatter him entirely.

Just the face bandages then, he bargains with himself, swallowing thickly as he forces himself to nod. You sit up from where you’re still laying back against the tiles, propping yourself on your knees to shift closer to him. 

Dazai thinks his heart might be in his throat when he feels your fingers unclip the clasp holding the bandages together around the left side of his face, eyes fluttering shut as you slowly unwind them from around his head. He isn’t sure why he’s so nervous for this part—there are no scars on his face, but he still feels distinctly vulnerable, like he’s giving you a window into himself that might reveal more than he means to. He can barely breathe as he feels the last of the bandages fall to the floor, he can hear you push them to the side. 

Still, he keeps his eyes shut, counting each second that passes. He’s anxious, can’t even bring himself to look at you until you cup his cheeks again. 

“Look at me,” you say quietly.

Dazai does as you ask, he always does. He doesn’t know what he expects when he opens his eyes to meet your gaze; he prepares himself for the worst, for a twisted expression or thinly veiled pity, but he finds none of it. Rather, your eyes are soft and fond, tracing over his face, looking between each of his. He can feel the pads of your fingers gently brushing over his cheekbones, tracing absent patterns.

“You’re so handsome, Osamu,” you whisper, one of your hands sliding behind his head, intertwining with his hair. “Why do you wear them?” 

Dazai doesn’t know how to answer that. His throat feels swollen at your words, eyes a bit misty and fingers trembling against your thighs. Instead, he breathes out, “Kiss me.”

And you do. 

God, when you kiss him again, it’s so intense that it has his head spinning. He doesn’t know how long he sits there kissing you, back against the cabinets with you half in his lap. It could be a few seconds, or a few minutes, or a few hours—he has no concept of time whenever his lips are against yours. It’s only when you press your hand against his shoulder, murmuring for him to get up, that he finally pulls himself away from you.

Dazai forces himself to push up to his feet—it’s much more difficult than he thought it would be, nearly tripping over his own feet, but you follow him up to your feet, steadying him when he almost tumbles over. You bring your hand up to rest against his cheek, fingers gently toying with the edges of his hair. He leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut for just a moment before he forces himself to look you in the eye. 

“You’re so frustrating,” you say softly, but all of the fire is gone, replaced by that same soft look you’ve directed toward him—not him—hundreds of times before. “You are so frustrating, Osamu.”

His throat feels tight again, the sound of his name on your lips causing a wave of warmth to spread through him, the numbness slowly subsiding.

“I know,” he whispers, swallowing thickly, and you sigh, gaze averting to the side for a moment before you look back at him. He still can’t fathom what you might be thinking and it scares him.

But then you kiss him again, your other hand coming up to his other cheek and his hands fly to your waist, holding you close. You walk him backward, out of the bathroom and into the hallway. His back hits the wall and you press your body close to his, and this time it’s you whose tongue is darting out to brush his bottom lip, urging him to part his lips for you. He does, and he thinks he might be in heaven when he feels your tongue dip into his mouth, sliding against his tongue. His eyes flutter shut, rolling back just a bit when you trace the back of his teeth with your tongue before sucking gently on his bottom lip.

Your hands slide down from his face to his chest, over his jacket, down to his waist. Your fingers hook in his belt loops and Dazai groans as your lips ghost from his down to his jaw, breath shaky as trail slow, wet kisses to the sensitive spot behind his ear. He can hardly do anything but follow along as you guide him from where he’s been backed against the wall into his bedroom, dazed and entirely consumed by your touch. His head already feels a bit fuzzy, breath hitching as your teeth graze his pulse point, kissing down to the edge of his bandages and then across his throat.

He barely even knows where he is until he feels the back of his knees hit his bed and he topples backward until he’s laying flat on it. His chest is heaving, head dizzy and breath shaky as you straddle his waist. You don’t kiss him again and Dazai wants to drag you down for another but he can’t even bring himself to move. His body refuses to cooperate, nervous that he’s going to make the wrong move.

“Do you want this?” you finally ask after a moment, voice raspy as one of your hands squeeze his gently, as if to get his attention. 

Dazai’s brows furrow a bit, lips parting to respond but for a second, no words leave them. You wait with the patience of a saint as Dazai tries to process what you’re asking and respond to it. After what feels like an eternity, he nods once. Of course, he wants it. You search his eyes as if to make sure he’s not just agreeing to agree, and once you’re satisfied, you continue you with: 

“And do you trust me?” you ask softly, your gaze gentle as it searches his face for the next answer.

Dazai doesn’t hesitate this time, and he speaks as he breathes out, “With everything.”

He can’t tell what you’re thinking, but your expression is still soft and your touch is still gentle as you run your thumb over his knuckles. Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the gentleness you show him. You lift your hand to cup his cheek and he leans into your touch, throat spasming beneath his bandages as he waits for you to say something. 

“Let me take the lead then,” you say quietly, his eyes widen a bit at your words. “I want to try something.”

He watches you carefully for a moment, guarded and studying you. He thinks this might be another first, and the thought alone makes him feel a bit giddy because he can’t recall any other life where you’ve ever been the one to take the lead like this, especially the first time the two of you sleep together. You look a bit anxious the longer he goes without responding, so he nods and says, “Okay.”

He’s pliant beneath your touch as you lean down to press your lips against his; he lets out a soft, muffled noise when he feels your hips shift, unintentionally grinding down a bit on his straining cock. He’s more hesitant this time in the way his lips move against yours, unsure of what to do with himself. His fingers twitch from where they're resting on the bed, itching to grab your hips but not wanting to make the wrong move.

This has happened every time one of you tries to take the next step, either he gets interrupted or he ends up getting cold feet because he’s scared of doing the wrong thing and making you uncomfortable. And it’s ridiculous because Dazai has so many memories, he should know at least vaguely what you like and what you don’t like but he thinks having the memories are a double-edged sword because he overwhelms himself if what ifs: what if he assumes you like something and you end up not liking it in this universe, what if he does something that you only liked after the two of you have been together for a while and you’re uncomfortable with him doing it because you’re not as comfortable with him. Maybe Dazai is just overthinking it all but how can he not when you’re involved. He wants everything to be perfect for you. 

“Is this okay?” you whisper, separating your lips from his just enough for him to answer your question. Your breath mingles with his and Dazai can hardly think straight; it’s hot, dizzying, there’s something so intimate about it that it makes his body fuzzy.

“Yeah,” he says, eyelashes fluttering as he looks up at you. “It’s okay.”

You kiss him again. His lips move against yours desperately, needy, he’d be embarrassed if you weren’t matching his energy, but you are. He can feel your fingers tugging at his hair, your hips grinding down against his. Every time you start to pull away, he lifts his head from where it’s laying flush against the pillows, chasing your lips. 

He needs you. His hands slide from your thighs to your waist, keeping your body pressed to his. He’s needed you since the day he came in contact with the Book and learned about you, since the day he met you at the club, maybe even since the day he was born even if he hadn’t known it at the time. He thinks his entire life has led to this, to the two of you being together; your souls have been entangled since the moment you were born and he isn’t sure how he ever thought a life without you was possible. 

“I need you,” he gasps against your lips, hips jerking up just a bit to try to alleviate the pressure building in his lower abdomen, desperate to reach down and unbutton his slacks, but wanting you to make the first move.

Whatever nerves that have made him get cold feet all of the other times the two of you have tried to take the next stop are long gone. You don’t give him any time to wonder if he’s doing the wrong thing—the fingers of one of your hands intertwining with his dark locks, just tight enough to make him hiss into your mouth, eyes rolling back at the pleasant sting. Your other hand slides across his chest, even through his dress shirt, your fingertips seem to scorch through to his skin, leaving his body tingling everywhere you touch.

“You have me,” you tell him, breathless, and Dazai can’t bite back the noise that slips from his lips, wanton and obscene, borderline pornographic—if he was any more coherent, he might be embarrassed but he can’t find it in him. Not when he’s finally getting what he’s wanted after all of this time. 

His hands fly down to his slacks, he fumbles with the button and zipper before yanking them down just enough to free his cock and he watches as you sit back on his thighs, eyes wide and lips parted as your gaze focuses in on his cock, watching as the leaking precum dribbles down his length, alongside the vein running along the underside of his cock. 

“Please,” he breathes out, fingers biting into your thighs as he bunches your dress up to your hips, another low moan spilling from his lips just at the thought of what’s about to happen, lashes fluttering.

You don’t even take off your panties, clearly driven by the same desperation that he is as you slide them to the side and position yourself above his cock and Dazai gnaws at his bottom lip when he feels the tip pressing against your entrance. He can feel how wet you are already, so drenched that your slick is dripping down the length of his cock. His hips stutter up instinctively, but instead of pushing inside, his cock slides between your folds and he whimpers, arm flying to cover the lower half of his face. You don’t let him, fingers wrapping around his wrist to pull his arm from his face and pin it to the mattress above him.

“Don’t hide yourself,” you say softly.

Dazai thinks there must be stars in his eyes as he looks up at you. You’re so beautiful, lips parted as you pant softly, an adoring expression on your face as you look down at him. He loves you. He loves you, god, he loves you more than he’s ever loved anything in his life; he thinks that nothing the other Dazais ever felt for any of the other yous could ever compare to how he feels for you.

When his tip starts to push into your tight hole, all he can let out is another loud, lewd noise; his head falls back against the pillows. His ears are ringing, but distantly, he can hear you gasp. His vision is blurry as he forces himself to look up at you but Dazai thinks you look otherworldly with your head tilted back as his cock starts to stretch you out, lips swollen and wet from the kisses you’d shared. He thinks he must look insane, pupils blown wide and eyes wild as he tries to focus on the sight of you. All of the clever wheels that usually turn within his mind are crumbling.

His fingertips leave crescents in your thighs as you sink down on his cock slowly—too slow, it leaves his head dizzy as your warmth slowly envelops his length. He’s imagined this so many times before. Dozens. Hundreds. He has so many memories of the feeling of your body flush to his, thighs over his shoulders as he fucks you deep and slow, swallowing your moans, but he thinks that nothing compares to this, the sight of you above him, watching your body tremble and face shift as his cock stretches you out. He barely refrains from letting out a string of strangled curses, barely able to hold his eyes open to watch you. 

You give yourself a moment to adjust, and when you do, you look down at Dazai. He thinks he must look a mess—chest heaving, breath erratic, eyes heavy and lidded and entirely glazed over—but he doesn’t care, not with the way your hand slides up his abdomen, fingers tracing patterns along the bandages covering his body. You look beautiful—you always look beautiful—but you look extra beautiful right now, and he thinks he could stare at you forever and never tire of it. 

Experimentally, you roll your hips—it’s still slow, agonizingly slow—and Dazai throws his head back, another obscene moan spilling from  his lips.

“Fuck,” he gasps, his fingers falling from your thighs to twist the sheets below him, knuckles white. “Feels so good. So good.”

You let out a hum that’s caught between a moan and agreement as you continue the slow rolls of your hips, hands sliding up and down his abdomen in a way that’s deceptively innocent and soothing compared to how his cock is dragging along your walls. His body shudders at the feeling of it, heat pooling in his abdomen so quickly that it has his whole body tensing as he tries to push it away. 

“You’re so perfect.” Words spill from his lips, more of a babble than anything else as you lean down to ghost your lips over his jaw, nibbling over the bandages covering his Adam’s apple. It bobs beneath your teeth as he lets out another shaky noise. “S’like you’re made for me. I’d do anything for you. Anything. You know that, right? Anything you want, it’s yours.”

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, clawing at the sheets and occasionally reaching for your thighs, and he doesn’t know what to do with his body, hips jerking up at an erratic pace, like he’s trying to meet your pace but his body simply can’t match the slow rolls of your hips, desperate for more. He doesn’t know how you’re so put together—maybe you’re not, he can see through a blurry vision how your lashes are fluttering with each roll of your hips, breath shaky, but you’re just not as far gone as he already is.

“Anything?” you murmur, and he can feel your lips curve up against his neck.

“Anything.” His breath hitches, fingers reaching for your hips as he rocks his up into you, a desperate attempt to get you to pick up the pace. “‘d give you the whole world, burn it for you, anything you want, I’d give it to you.”

His hands slide up from your thighs to your waist as you lean down to press your lips against his in a deceptively innocent kiss. He tries to chase your lips as you straighten up but you don’t let him, one of your hands curling around his throat—not choking him, but firm enough that it goes right to his cock, lips parting in a silent moan—while the other braces back on his thigh.

He thinks that nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of you picking up the pace. His breath hitches, he chokes over a moan, stars sparkle in his vision as the tip of his cock presses deep inside of you. You sigh out his name and Dazai thinks this might be the closest he ever gets to heaven: you on top of him, cock buried to the hilt in your cunt, the sight of your blissed out face above him as his head spins. 

“Oh, fuck,” Dazai cries out, back arching and hand flying to cover his face again but the hand you have on his thigh flies forward to snatch his wrist before he can, pinning it back above his head. Dazai’s eyes roll back, you’re leaning over him entirely now, leaning most of your weight on the hand that’s pinning his wrist but the new angle adds pressure onto how you’re squeezing his neck, paring his airways just enough to make his lungs burn. “More. Faster, fuck, I-ah-”

His voice falls off into another moan, head falling to the side to press his cheek against the pillow. He thinks drool is starting to pool at the corner of his lips but he doesn’t care, he can’t even think at this point, too lost in the lewd sound of skin-on-skin, the sloppiness of his cock fucking deep in your cunt, your soft moans and gasps, lost in the feeling of your tight walls clamping down on his cock, the warmth, the wetness, your fingers digging into his wrist and the sides of his neck. He wants to tell you that he needs more but the words are garbled, entirely unintelligible. 

He forces his eyes back open, feeling the tears spilling over his cheeks just from the intensity of it all, the intensity of you. You’re gentle with him even when your hand is wrapped around his throat and his cock is splitting you open—he can feel the soothing circles you rub with your thumb, he can see the way you’re searching his face to make sure he’s okay. Dazai is just so overwhelmed that he can’t stop the way his next moan breaks into a sob; acutely realizing just how deprived he’d been of any type of care or love before meeting you, and forcibly coming to terms with the fact that he is never going to be able to go without this again, without you again. He’d known it to some extent before this, the thought of losing you and the light you bring him has made his stomach churn violently but this…

He’s torn from his thoughts when you suddenly stop the rolls of your hips, halting the spreading heat in his lower abdomen desperately. The noise that escapes him is something caught between distress and betrayal, dark eyes wide as he looks up at you questioningly, but the expression on your face makes his breath catch. Your hand slides up from his throat to cup his cheek, your other hand releasing his wrist so that you can hold his face between your hands, thumbs wiping away the tears spilling over his cheeks.

Distantly, Dazai recognizes that he’s still choking over sobs and that’s probably why you’ve stopped and that only rips his chest apart more because of course, you’re still putting him above you—even when you’re mad, even when you’ve just fought, when he’s betrayed you in a way that should be unforgivable, you’re still kissing away his tears and putting aside your own needs to take care of him

He doesn’t deserve you. Not in any universe, but especially not in this one.

He thinks he could stay here for eternity. Fuck the rest of the world. Fuck the Port Mafia. Fuck his plan. He just wants to stay here with you, your lips brushing his, sharing the same sliver of air. He leans into your touch, groaning against your lips when he feels your walls spasm around him.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes out, unsure if you can even understand him. “You’re so-”

His words fall off into another moan, and he can’t control his hips as they thrust up sharply against yours, another string of incoherent curses escaping his hips as your breath catches and you straighten back up, head falling back as you gasp his name.

Your nails dig crescents into his upper thighs through his bandages as you brace yourself back against them. You move your hips again—faster, this time, harder, and Dazai thinks his head is in the clouds. He’s so deep inside of you that he can feel everything, jaw falling slack as heat spreads through his body too rapidly for him to get control over. He wants to throw a hand over his mouth to muffle the lewd, pitched moans spilling from his lips but he can’t drag his hands from where they’re clawing at your hips, desperately trying to help you meet him with each thrust.

“I-hah-shit, I’m gonna-fuck-”

He slurs out your name and several obscenities, trying to warn you that he’s going to cum when he feels his cock twitching inside of you and his abdomen tensing, but you only lean down to press a lingering kiss to the corner of his lips and Dazai is gone. He wants to watch you, he tries, but he can’t hold his eyes open, they’re half-rolled back as he chokes over moans of your name, hips stilling as he cums deep inside of you. His body twitches, expression twisted as he presses his head so hard into the pillow that he thinks he might permanently indent it. 

His head is spinning, lungs burning, sweat beading at his forehead and hair matted to his face—he thinks he’s never cum so hard in his entire life; all of the nights he spent alone, desperately trying to fuck his hand to the thought of you in attempts to mimic how you’ve made all the other Dazais feel, to give himself some semblance of the pleasure you’ve brought him in other lives to hold him over on particularly lonely nights, they’ve never felt like this.

You don’t stop, even as he squirms and lets out jumbled pleas beneath you, body shuddering at the overstimulation but you’re too lost in chasing your own high now. He spasms beneath you, nails digging into your thigh as you fuck his cum deeper inside of you, bouncing on his cock desperately. He doesn’t care that the sensitivity is pushing his body to the brink, letting you use him however you want if it means he gets to see you like this. 

Dazai’s head feels light, pins and needles pricking his body—he thinks he might pass out but he forces himself to hold on, enraptured by the sight of you on top of him with your eyes half-rolled back, lips parted and throat bared to him. Your tits are half-spilling out over the low-cut of your dress and Dazai thinks you’re fucking divine. The only holy thing in this godless world. He wants to spend the rest of his life worshiping you.

“I’m gonna-” you gasp, head falling backward as one final roll of your hips that has your clit grinding against his pelvic bone sends you spiraling over the edge. 

Dazai wants to sear the image of you behind his eyelids, watching as your nails drag against his thighs, drawing red lines even through the bandages, back arching, head tossed back—your body is trembling violently as you cum on his cock, expression twisted and entirely blissed out, sobbing over his name. He chokes and gasps at the feeling of your cunt tightening around his sensitive cock again, jaw tight and spots dancing in his vision as he’s so abruptly pushed over the edge a second time, the coil in his abdomen tightening and snapping all within the span of a few seconds.

He’s still reeling when he feels you slump forward onto his chest, burying your face in the crook of his neck, shivering in the aftershocks of your orgasm. He’s only half aware as he instinctively brings his hands up to rest on your hips, rubbing soft circles of your hip bones to try to soothe you. 

He shudders when you press a kiss to his neck right at the edge of his bandages, and then tilt your head up to press another on his jaw. One of your hands comes up to caress the back of his head, fingers carding through the dark locks in a way that has his eyes drooping shut. 

“We’re not done with this conversation,” you finally say after a few moments of silence, voice soft, breaking the silence. Dazai stiffens a bit, lips parting to respond but no words leave them. “... but let’s just lay like this for a while first, okay?”

He lets out a shaky breath, still not entirely convinced that he’s not going to lose you, so he lets his eyes flutter shut as he nods. He may as well bask in this for as long as he can, and if you notice the way his fingers dig just a little deeper into your skin after your words process, you don’t mention it. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “okay.”

Dazai wakes up the next morning and you’re nowhere to be seen. The bed is frighteningly cold next to him and his heart is instantly in his throat. He doesn’t waste a second before he’s sitting up in bed, looking around, eyes wild and heart racing. He doesn’t settle down, not until his eyes fall upon where you’re sitting curled up on the chair of the desk he never uses, eyes trained on the dark clouds outside the window, the beauty of the sunrise wilted by a morning storm.

“His intention was to make me leave you.” You’re not looking at him, but you must have heard him sit up. “Fyodor Dostoevsky. The things he told me, they were to make me leave you.”

Dazai doesn’t move an inch, throat swelling. He forces himself to ask, “What did he tell you?”

He isn’t sure if he wants to know.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say—Dazai thinks that it definitely does, but he bites back the questions that rise to his tongue because you’re clearly not about to budge on your answer. “Who is he?”

“A monster,” Dazai bites out, bitterness seeping into his tone as he leans back against the headboard, eyes still trained on where you’re curled on his chair, gaze distant. “You have to stay away from him.”

“Well, I didn’t intend on seeking him out,” you say it so dryly that Dazai nearly finds humor in it. Nearly. The smile that rises to his lips is mirthless at best. You turn to look at him, finally, and Dazai finds only cool indifference on your face; the fondness, the softness, the gentleness from last night are all gone. He wonders if you regret it, but he doesn’t let that thought linger, it’ll only make him sick. “... He doesn’t seem like the type to give up.”

“He never is,” Dazai murmurs, ignoring the brief, questioning look you direct toward him, mind drifting off to all of the Russian’s incessant attempts to take you from him in all of the other universes. “Did he tell you what his plan was?”

Dazai doubts it, but maybe there was something he said to you that shed some light to it.

“He didn’t have to,” you say quietly. “He wants Yokohama, for whatever reason—couldn’t figure that out, I think he’s looking for something—and clearly, he has to get through you to get it. He thinks the best way of getting through you is by taking me away from you first. That’s what I’d gathered from how he was talking at least, what he was saying about you, the way he was phrasing it. I’d put together enough on my own during the night to fill in the blanks. He told me things about what you’d done as… what you’d done as boss of the Port Mafia—things you’ve done to enemies… to allies. He told me that I’d see the real you as soon as you realize that the meeting he set up was a farce; that the mask you put up would crumble and I would see you for the demon that you are.”

Dazai doesn’t respond, jaw tight as he averts his gaze to the window—he’d played right into Dostoevsky’s hands. He can hardly bring himself to look at you; he wonders if you do see him differently now that the cloud from the night before has worn off, but he can’t bring himself to ask. Now’s not the time anyway, there are more pressing matters.

“... He’ll come after me again, won’t he?” you ask quietly. “Getting me to leave you willingly didn’t work. If he’s so set on me being the trigger to your downfall, then he’ll come after me again.”

He would. As he always has. Of course, Dostoevsky would try to get to him through you, he’s tried it in every universe, and Dazai hadn’t been careful enough. He hadn’t been smart enough. He���d known this was going to happen and was still arrogant enough to believe he could somehow prevent it. He was a fool, and he was a fool at the cost of your safety. He doesn’t know how to respond to you, he doesn’t want to confirm your suspicions, he doesn’t want to admit that this is all his fault, that he knew this would happen and was selfish enough to pursue you anyway.

“... I’m scared, Osamu,” you finally say quietly, and you suddenly look a lot smaller from where you’re sitting on his desk chair, hunched over with your knees tucked to your chest. “I’m really scared.”

Dazai’s heart claws up to his throat and he pushes himself out of bed, still dressed haphazardly in his suit from the night before. He makes his way over to you and kneels in front of you, hands curling around your ankles as he looks up at you.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he tells you, voice a bit more raspier than he intended for it to come across as. “I don’t care what I have to do to ensure it, how low I have to stoop. I will not let anything happen to you, do you understand?”

Your eyes meet his, and he can’t help but notice that doubt still riddles your gaze as you search his face, as if you want to believe him but can’t bring yourself to. A pit starts to grow in his stomach, wide and gaping as he realizes that this is all really about to happen, and one mistake on his part could lead you to the same fate you’ve met in so many other worlds because of him.

Finally, the doubt slowly clears as you let out a soft breath, nodding, and Dazai inhales sharply, laying his forehead against your shin as he lets his eyes slide shut.

He won’t let it happen. Not again. 

again there was NO plot development in the smut - you guys didn't miss out on anything, pinky swear. i restructured the scene to fit the only notable scene (bandage removal) into the part before the smut, so if that felt a little forced, that was why </3 it wasn't supposed to be there. i was struggling trying to figure out how to move it upward a bit. the only arguable "plot" development was dazai letting go of his control freakiness to let her take the lead

[pomefioredove]

Hiii!!! May I order a Sugar cookie, #19 with candy cane & chocolate drizzle please? Thanks!

Happy Holidays!🎄

hi all,, sorry I haven't been writing much lately, I've been kept busy at home + working on person projects (˶˃⤙˂˶) hope this makes up for it

order #19, sugar with candy cane and chocolate drizzle

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ a matching set

tropes: exes to friends to lovers characters: riddle additional info: romantic, gender neutral reader, reader is not specified to be yuu, not proofread, riddle is going to kill all of them except for reader after this dw

It wasn't really, actually, truly his fault.

You knew that, even though Riddle hadn't given you a definitive reason for breaking up; he hadn't really given you a reason at all. He was uncharacteristically anxious.

...Checking the time, avoiding your eyes, fidgeting with the sleeve of his dorm uniform, babbling something about his schedule and his studies and how irresponsible and careless it was for him to date...

He didn't say it was his mother, but you knew.

Since then, you had been trying and failing to get him to talk about it.

Or talk to you at all.

It had been two months already, and you hadn't seen him even once. He'd blocked your number, unofficially banned you from Heartslabyul, and kept hiding behind Trey or Ace or whoever was taller (which, for him, is most people) when you walked by.

You had almost lost hope.

"Hurry up!" Ace shouts, "What part of emergency don't you get?!"

"I'm coming!" you wheeze. You'd been dragged all the way across campus to Heartslabyul by the plucky first year.

"Wh-what's wrong, again?"

Ace scoffs. "It's just an emergency, okay? And if we don't fix it, we're gonna be in ankle-deep sh-"

"There you are!"

Without a word of warning, Deuce grabs your other wrist and drags you inside the dorm with Ace.

"We've been waiting!"

Waiting? you think, and then there's a hand on your shoulder.

"Good, you found them," Trey says to the first years. "Cater's waiting in the kitchen."

The kitchen? "What's going-"

"Hey, hun!" there's that familiar smile and a hand on your lower back.

You're surrounded now, hands all over you, almost as if you're being restrained or something-

"Quickly, he is not happy!" Cater chimes, dragging you into the kitchen with the other three.

You look between them. "He. He? Oh, no-"

And, suddenly, you're alone again. The pantry door slams shut behind you, and something clicks.

You try the doorknob. It's locked. "Guys?"

"This is for everyone's good!" Ace shouts. You can't see his face, but you know the exact look on it.

"He's been a royal pain ever since you broke up!"

He. You turn from the door, and there, simmering in the corner with his arms crossed and brow knotted, is your ex-boyfriend.

"Hello," Riddle says. "This was not my idea."

You blink. "...Yeah, thought so. What's going on?"

"We're not letting either of you out until you work through your drama," Cater says from behind the door.

You grimace.

"My thoughts exactly," Riddle murmurs. "Don't ask me to take down the door. Damaging school property is abhorrent, and this would violate rule number 234-"

"-In argument with a wife, or spouse, one must take to the law, stand on his head, or somersault to a door," Trey finishes. "We took some liberties with that one. Ace's idea."

"I've taught them too well," Riddle sighs.

You sit beside him in the corner.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm no good at somersaults,"

Riddle is quiet. In the dark of the pantry, you could swear something like guilt passes over his face, but then he's looking ahead, towards the door.

The chatter of the four on the other side become whispers, and then nothing at all. The door remains locked and blocked by something heavy, but the people are gone.

You sigh. "Should we-"

"There's nothing to talk about,"

You stare. You wait.

"Is it about your-"

"I said," he interrupts, holding a finger to shush you. "Nothing"

And so, you wait.

And wait.

And wait...

He checks the time every so often. Thirty minutes, an hour, two hours, three.

No one comes. The silence is deafening, the dark is suffocating. This is the least fun you've had, ever.

Finally, you stand.

Riddle scoffs. "Don't tell me you intend to break down the door,"

"No," you say. "I'm sorting."

And you do. You begin to dust and sort the pantry in the way he taught you to, some time ago.

Riddle raises an eyebrow, and stands, to watch. He cradles his chin in his palm.

He says nothing.

After a few minutes, he begins doing the same, sorting the jars of tea leaves and baskets of fruit, checking for spoiled food, mumbling to himself.

"I count eight hundred and twelve sugar cubes, which is thirty-eight less than there should be at minimum capacity,"

"There's a surplus of flour,"

"Too much flour," he nods. "I'll have Trey do bake over the weekend, so it goes to good use."

"Ask him for something with cherries, there are lots of jars,"

"Good thinking,"

You smile, a little. "White tea would pair nicely with a cherry tart,"

He smiles back. "Yes, it would,"

The silence feels a little softer.

By the time the door opens, dusting you with moonlight from the forgotten outside, the entire pantry has been sorted to perfection.

"Seriously? Five hours in here and you clean?" Ace says.

Riddle scoffs as he leaves the dark confines of the pantry. "There was hardly anything else to do,"

He offers his hand to you, and you take it, letting him pull you into the moonlight.

"Did you at least talk things through?"

You and Riddle share a look.

"...Somewhat," he admits. "We... mostly spoke of the next unbirthday party."

Cater snaps a picture of the aesthetically pleasing pantry, and Ace rolls his eyes.

"You two are really a matching set, huh?"

Riddle looks at you, a small, almost mischievous smile on his lips.

It's a strange look on him, but a good one. You smile back.

"I suppose we are,"

[lila-lou]

✨Taking her in - Pt. 5✨

Summary: After Dean Winchester saves your life, he brings you into the safety of the bunker. As you grow older and stronger, Dean refuses to let you join the hunts, his overprotective behavior intensifying. But beneath his fierce protectiveness lies something darker—conflicted feelings he can’t face. As your 18th birthday approaches, Dean struggles to keep control, torn between his duty to protect you and emotions he’s buried for too long.

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Warnings: HUGE Age Gap, Immoral, Underage Reader, Language

Word Count: 6736

A/N: English isn’t my first language, please be lenient. 💜

The date had gone far better than you ever could have anticipated. Jake turned out to be not just nice but genuinely thoughtful and respectful. He was in his early twenties, and you learned that he had recently come out of a long-term relationship, which explained his maturity and the way he approached things. He made it clear that he wasn’t interested in one-night stands and that he just wanted to get to know you better, which put you at ease. It was refreshing to be around someone who didn’t seem to have any hidden agendas, who was just enjoying spending time with you.

Midway through the evening, after the movie, Jake had offered to take you home, but you politely declined, mentioning that one of your “roommates”, who you explained were like brothers to you, would be picking you up. Jake didn’t push the issue and seemed to respect your boundaries completely. After the movie, he suggested going to a nearby diner for some food and milkshakes, and you agreed, thinking it would be a nice way to end the evening.

Now, you were in the restroom of the diner, having just finished dinner, while Jake waited at the table for the milkshakes to arrive. Your nerves were fluttering, but not in a bad way. The whole date had left you feeling giddy, your head buzzing from the attention Jake had given you. He had been a perfect gentleman, and the way he looked at you made you feel… noticed, in a way that was new and exciting.

Standing in front of the mirror, you smoothed down your dress and took a deep breath. The evening had been wonderful, but there was one more thing you needed to do before it ended. You pulled out your phone and dialed Dean’s number, your heart racing as you listened to it ring.

Dean had been lying on his bed at the bunker, attempting to distract himself with a movie, but his mind kept drifting back to you. The last three hours had been torture, his thoughts consumed with wondering how your date was going. He kept picturing you with Jake—laughing, talking, maybe even kissing—and the thought of you letting that guy get closer to you in ways he had only dared to imagine made his heart race with a mix of jealousy and anxiety.

Every time his mind wandered too far down that path, he forced himself to focus on the movie, but it was no use. The idea of you with someone else, someone who wasn’t him, gnawed at him relentlessly. He knew he had no right to feel this way, that he should be happy for you, but the feelings were there, simmering just beneath the surface.

When his phone buzzed and your name popped up on the screen, his heart skipped a beat. The first thought that flashed through his mind was relief—at least you were calling, which meant things hadn’t gone too far. But almost immediately, a darker thought crept in. What if something had happened? What if Jake had crossed a line or if you were in trouble?

Dean sat up quickly, his heart pounding as he answered the call. “Hey, you okay?”, he asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice but failing slightly.

“Hey, Dean”, you replied, and he could hear the lightness in your voice, the giddiness that told him things were okay, maybe even great. “Yeah, I’m fine. The date’s going really well, actually. We’re just finishing up some milkshakes at a diner, and I was wondering if you or Sam could pick me up in about thirty minutes?”.

Dean let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, relief flooding through him. “Yeah, of course”, he said, his voice a little steadier now. “I can come get you. Where are you guys?”.

You gave him the address, and he noted it down, his mind already shifting gears. The thought of seeing you again, of making sure you got home safe, calmed the storm of emotions that had been raging inside him all evening.

“Great, I’ll see you in a bit then”, you said, and there was a warmth in your voice that made Dean’s chest tighten in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

“See you soon”, Dean replied, trying to sound casual, but there was an undeniable sense of urgency in his tone. He hung up the phone and took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair as he tried to calm the conflicting emotions swirling inside him.

As he grabbed his jacket and headed out to the Impala, another thought crossed his mind—what if Jake had really gotten to you tonight? What if you’d let your guard down, and things had gone further than he was ready to accept? The idea made his stomach churn with a mix of protectiveness and something darker, something he didn’t want to admit to himself.

Dean pushed those thoughts aside as he started the Impala and pulled out of the bunker’s garage. He needed to focus on getting to you, on making sure you were safe and sound. Everything else could wait.

As he drove toward the diner, Dean couldn’t shake the feeling that things were changing—between the two of you—and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for what that might mean. But for now, he’d put those feelings on hold.

Dean pulled up in front of the diner, his heart pounding in his chest as he spotted you and Jake standing off to the side. The way you were both smiling, clearly enjoying each other’s company, made something twist painfully in his gut. He watched from the car as you leaned in to hug Jake, his hand lingering on yours as you started to pull away. Dean’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, his knuckles turning white as he fought to keep his emotions in check.

Jake stepped closer to you, and Dean felt his breath catch in his throat. His mind raced with all the things he wanted to do—march over there, drag you away, anything to keep that guy from getting any closer. But he knew he couldn’t. This was your moment, your choice, and as much as it killed him, he had to let it happen.

Dean’s eyes narrowed as Jake gently cupped your face, leaning in closer. For a split second, Dean was sure he was going to lose it, his stomach churning at the thought of seeing you kiss someone else. But then, instead of kissing your lips, Jake placed a soft kiss on your cheek, making you shiver and smile brightly.

Dean’s chest tightened at the sight, a mix of relief and jealousy flooding through him. The way you smiled after that kiss, so genuine and happy, made it clear that you had enjoyed the night. And as much as Dean wanted to be happy for you, it only made the ache in his chest worse.

“Bye, (Y/N)”, Jake said, his voice warm and sincere. “Hope I’ll see you soon”.

You nodded, your smile still bright as you replied, “Yeah, I’d like that”.

Jake gave your hand one last squeeze before stepping back, giving you space to turn and walk toward the Impala. Dean watched you the entire time, his heart racing as you approached the car. When you finally reached the passenger door and opened it, he tried to compose himself, forcing a neutral expression onto his face.

“Hey”, you said softly as you slid into the seat, your cheeks still flushed with excitement.

“Hey”, Dean replied, his voice steady, though there was a tightness to it. “Had a good time?”.

You nodded, your smile still lingering as you buckled your seatbelt. “Yeah, I did. Jake’s really sweet”.

Dean nodded, though he couldn’t bring himself to say anything more about Jake. Instead, he just shifted the car into drive, pulling away from the diner.

As you rolled down the window, letting the cool night air wash over your flushed face, you tried to calm the fluttering in your stomach. The night had gone so well, better than you could have imagined, and you were still processing everything that had happened. The breeze helped a little, but your mind was still buzzing with the memory of Jake’s gentle kiss on your cheek and the warmth of his hand in yours.

Dean glanced over at you, biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep his emotions in check. The way you looked—flushed, a little dazed, with that smile still playing on your lips—was driving him crazy. He couldn’t stand the silence any longer, couldn’t handle not knowing what had happened between you and Jake.

“Something happen?”, Dean finally asked, his voice tight with barely concealed tension. He kept his eyes on the road, but his whole body was tense, as if bracing himself for an impact. He was afraid of your answer, but at the same time, he needed to hear it. He needed to know what he was up against, what had changed between you and this guy who had managed to make you look so damn happy.

You hesitated, not because you wanted to hide anything, but because you were still trying to sort through your own feelings. “Well”, you started slowly, your fingers playing with the hem of your dress. “Jake was really sweet tonight. He…he kissed me on the cheek when we said goodbye”.

A kiss on the cheek. It was innocent, sweet—exactly what he should have expected from a guy like Jake. But even that was enough to make something twist painfully inside him.

“Just on the cheek?”, Dean asked, trying to keep his tone casual, though it was clear he was struggling to do so.

“Yeah”, you replied, nodding. “Just on the cheek. He was really respectful. We talked a lot, and he didn’t try to push anything. He was… I don’t know, different from what I expected”.

Dean nodded, though he didn’t say anything for a moment. He was relieved that it hadn’t gone further, that you hadn’t done anything more intimate. But the knowledge that someone else was making you feel special, that someone else was getting close to you in ways he hadn’t, was eating him alive.

“That’s good”, Dean finally said, though his voice was tight. “Sounds like he’s a decent guy”.

You glanced over at him, noticing the tension in his jaw, the way his shoulders were hunched slightly. “Dean, are you okay?”.

He forced a smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… want to make sure you’re okay, that’s all”.

You smiled at that, touched by his concern. “I’m okay, Dean. Really. Thanks for asking”.

Dean nodded again, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that things were changing between you, that you were slipping through his fingers in a way he wasn’t prepared for. And that scared him more than anything else.

As you and Dean walked into the bunker, the familiar warmth of the place was comforting, but it did little to calm the nerves still fluttering in your chest. The evening had been a whirlwind of emotions, and you were still processing everything that had happened.

Inside, Sam and Jody were sitting at the library table, both looking up as you entered. Jody had come to visit to discuss a case near her home with Sam, and they had been deep in conversation, but the sight of you and Dean caught their attention immediately.

Sam’s face lit up with a teasing grin, and Jody wasn’t far behind, her smile warm and welcoming. “How’d the date go?”, Sam asked, his tone playful. Jody echoed the question, clearly just as curious, her eyes sparkling with interest.

Dean, who had been walking beside you, immediately veered off toward the corner of the room where he kept his stash of whiskey. He didn’t say a word as he poured himself a glass, the tension in his shoulders evident as he took a long, deliberate sip. The thought of hearing you recount the details of your date once again was more than he could handle sober.

You couldn’t help but blush at the attention, but there was a part of you that was happy to share. The date had gone so well, and you were still riding the high of it. “It was really nice”, you said, smiling shyly as you sat down across from Jody. “Jake was great. We went to see a movie, and then he took me to a diner for dinner”.

Sam raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair as he folded his arms across his chest. “And? Any sparks?”.

Dean’s grip on his glass tightened, but he kept his gaze focused on the amber liquid, taking another sip to keep himself from saying something he might regret.

You hesitated, your cheeks growing warmer as you fumbled with your words. “I… I don’t know… I mean… maybe”, you whispered, the uncertainty in your voice clear. You weren’t entirely sure what you were feeling, but the night had definitely left you with a lot to think about.

Dean, still standing by his whiskey stash, emptied his glass in one long gulp. The burn of the alcohol did little to ease the growing tension inside him. Without a word, he refilled his glass, his movements a bit more deliberate this time, as if he were trying to focus on the task to keep his thoughts in check.

Jody leaned forward, her smile soft and understanding. “It’s okay not to know right away. First dates can be complicated, and it’s all about getting a feel for each other”. She glanced over at Sam, who was watching the whole exchange with a mix of amusement and curiosity.

Sam gave you an encouraging nod. “Yeah, there’s no rush. Just take your time, figure out how you feel. If it’s meant to be, you’ll know”.

You nodded, appreciating their support, but your mind kept drifting back to Dean, who was conspicuously quiet. You could feel the tension rolling off him in waves, and it made you uneasy. You glanced over at him, catching the way his jaw was clenched, the way he was avoiding looking at you or anyone else in the room.

Jody, ever perceptive and quick to lighten the mood, glanced at Dean and couldn’t resist a tease. “Dean, you should stop playing the worried dad. She’s a big girl; she can handle herself”. She winked at you, trying to ease the tension she sensed in the room.

Dean forced a tight-lipped smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He knew Jody was just trying to lighten the mood, but the words hit too close to home in ways she couldn’t possibly understand. It wasn’t just worry gnawing at him, and it sure as hell wasn’t anything paternal. A dad wouldn’t feel the burn of jealousy deep in his gut, wouldn’t have the irrational urge to keep you from dating anyone else. A dad wouldn’t be fighting the overwhelming desire to kiss you, to claim you in ways he knew were wrong, to protect you not just from the dangers of the world but from any man who might take you away from him.

He downed the rest of his whiskey, the burn of the alcohol barely registering as the emotions he was trying so hard to suppress threatened to bubble over. He didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to face the truth of what he was feeling, but it was becoming harder and harder to deny.

“Come on, Dean, lighten up. She had a good time, that’s what matters”.

Dean’s grip tightened around his empty glass. He could feel the weight of your gaze on him, the unspoken questions hanging in the air between you. He knew he needed to say something, to offer you some kind of reassurance, but the words wouldn’t come. He was too afraid that if he opened his mouth, everything he’d been holding back would come spilling out.

Instead, he just nodded, forcing another smile that felt more like a grimace. “Yeah, you’re right”, he muttered, his voice rough. “That’s what matters”.

But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t enough. The jealousy, the possessiveness, the desire—it was all still there, simmering just below the surface, threatening to spill over at any moment. And the worst part was, he had no idea how to make it stop.

Sam, sensing the tension in his brother, shot him a concerned look but didn’t press the issue. Instead, he turned his attention back to you, trying to keep the conversation going. “So, are you going to see Jake again?”.

You hesitated, your mind still on Dean and the strange vibe you were getting from him. “I’m not sure yet”, you said softly. “I guess I’ll see how I feel in a few days”.

Jody nodded, clearly satisfied with your answer. “That’s a good approach. No need to rush into anything”.

One week later, the tension that had lingered between you and Dean had lessened slightly, but it was still there, a quiet undercurrent in every interaction. Dean had been acting a bit odd, more distant than usual, but he wasn’t as on edge as he had been right after your date with Jake. Still, something felt unresolved, like there was an unspoken conversation hanging between you that neither of you was ready to have.

Sam had gone off with Jody to work on a case, leaving you and Dean alone in the bunker. The day had been uneventful, with Dean spending most of it working on the Impala, a six-pack of beer keeping him company as he tinkered away. You knew that when Dean worked on the car all day, especially with that much beer involved, it usually meant he was trying to work something out in his head. He wasn’t one to talk about his feelings, but his actions often spoke louder than words.

As evening fell, you found yourself pacing in your room, nerves fluttering in your stomach. There was something you needed to ask Dean, something that had been on your mind ever since that conversation in the car a week ago. You didn’t know how he would react, and the thought of it made your heart race. But you also knew you couldn’t keep avoiding it, couldn’t keep pretending like everything was normal when it wasn’t. It was naive and so fucking stupid, but you wanted to do it anyways. You had to.

Dean had just come out of the shower, the steam still clinging to the air in the hallway as he moved back to his room to get dressed. You could hear the faint rustling of clothes as he rummaged through his drawers, the sound barely audible over the pounding of your own heart.

Taking a deep breath to steady yourself, you walked over to his door and knocked softly. The sound seemed to echo in the quiet hallway, and for a moment, you wondered if you should just walk away, pretend like you hadn’t come to his door with this burning question in your mind. But before you could second-guess yourself, Dean’s voice came from the other side, a little rough around the edges from the beer and exhaustion.

“Yeah? Come in”.

You hesitated for a split second before pushing the door open, stepping into his room. Dean was standing by the bed, shirtless, his jeans half-buttoned as he looked up at you with a curious expression. His hair was still damp from the shower, droplets of water clinging to his skin, and the room smelled faintly of his soap and aftershave.

“Hey”, you greeted him softly, trying to keep your voice steady. Your eyes flicked to his bare chest for a moment before you forced yourself to meet his gaze. “Do.. uh.. do you have a minute? There’s something I wanted to talk to you about”.

Dean raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued, but there was also a slight wariness in his eyes. He could tell this wasn’t just a casual conversation. “Sure”, he said, finishing buttoning up his jeans before grabbing a t-shirt from the bed and pulling it over his head. “What’s on your mind?”.

You hesitated for a long moment, feeling the heat rising in your cheeks as you prepared yourself to say what you’d come here for. This was one of the most nerve-wracking things you’d ever done, and the last thing you wanted was for Dean to think you were being silly. But you couldn’t shake the feeling that you needed to do this, needed to know where you stood before your date with Jake tomorrow.

“I… I think I need you to sit”, you whispered, your voice barely audible as you looked anywhere but directly at him.

Dean’s eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion, but he could see how serious you were, how much this seemed to mean to you. “Alright”, he said softly, moving over to the bed and sitting down on the edge, his gaze fixed on you. “What’s going on?”.

You took a deep breath, trying to calm your racing heart. The room felt too small, the air too thick, but you pressed on. “I have another date with Jake tomorrow”, you began, your voice shaky. “And I… I’m kind of freaking out about it”.

Dean’s expression softened at your words, his protectiveness instantly kicking in. “Hey, it’s just a date”, he said gently, trying to reassure you. “I told you, you don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for”.

You nodded quickly, appreciating his concern, but that wasn’t exactly what was on your mind. “I know, I know”, you replied, fidgeting with the hem of your shirt. “But it’s just… well, there’s something I’m really nervous about, and I didn’t know who else to ask”.

Dean’s concern deepened, but he stayed quiet, waiting for you to continue.

You took another deep breath, trying to push through your embarrassment. “I wanted to know if… if I’m any good at… kissing”, you finally managed to say, your voice barely above a whisper. The words felt strange and heavy in your mouth, and your cheeks burned with embarrassment.

Dean blinked, completely taken aback by your request. Of all the things he’d expected you to say, this wasn’t even remotely close. “You want to know if you’re… good at kissing?”, he repeated, clearly trying to process what you were asking.

You nodded, your heart pounding in your chest. The vulnerability in your eyes was unmistakable, and Dean could see just how much this meant to you. “I just want to know… if I’m any good at it”, you admitted, your voice trembling slightly. “I don’t want to mess up with Jake. I just… I want to be sure”.

Dean’s mind was racing. He’d faced down monsters, demons, and all manner of supernatural threats, but nothing had prepared him for this. You, standing in front of him, asking him for such a thing —it was the last thing he ever expected, and it was stirring up emotions he didn’t know how to handle.

He wanted to protect you, to be the person you could rely on. But this? This felt like crossing a line, like stepping into territory that was dangerous for both of you.

Dean struggled to find the right words, his thoughts a chaotic whirlwind of emotions. This situation was so far beyond anything he’d ever anticipated, and it left him feeling completely out of his depth. You had always been like family to him—like a little sister or even a daughter in some ways.

He knew this was dangerous territory.

How could the two of you ever face each other after this? How could he look at you the same way when his mind was already racing with thoughts he had no business entertaining?

Dean swallowed hard, trying to push down the turmoil inside him. He needed to be strong, needed to be the protector you’d always relied on, not someone who complicated things by letting his emotions get the better of him.

“This is crazy”, Dean finally managed to say, his voice thick with hesitation. He looked at you, seeing the vulnerability in your eyes, and it only made it harder for him to keep his composure. “I mean, you’re like… you’re like family to me, you know? This is… this is a damn stupid idea Y/N”.

You bit your lip, uncertainty flickering across your face. “I know it’s weird”, you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. “But I trust you, Dean. And I just… I don’t know who else to ask”.

He could feel the weight of your words pressing down on him, every instinct telling him to stop this before it went any further. But the vulnerability in your eyes, the trust you were placing in him, made it nearly impossible for him to turn you down. He wanted to protect you, to be the person you could rely on, but that same instinct was pushing him toward a line he knew he shouldn’t cross.

You seemed to sense his hesitation, and you took a step closer, your voice soft, almost pleading. “Dean, please… I won’t tell anybody”, you mumbled, your eyes earnest and filled with a mix of hope and uncertainty. “This absolutely doesn’t mean anything. I just… I need to know, and I don’t know who else to ask. We don’t ever have to talk about it again, I promise”.

Dean clenched his jaw, his mind a chaotic swirl of emotions. He knew you meant well, that you weren’t trying to complicate things, but the simple fact was that this already was complicated. He wanted to tell you no, to protect both of you from what could happen if he gave in to your request, but the way you were looking at him—so desperate for reassurance—made it incredibly hard to deny you.

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath as he tried to push down the conflicting feelings inside him. When he opened them again, you were still standing there, your expression so open, so trusting, that it made his chest ache. “You really don’t get it, do you?”, Dean said quietly, his voice filled with a mix of frustration and something else.

You looked at him, confused by his words. “Get what?”.

Dean shook his head slightly, not sure how to explain the turmoil he was feeling without revealing too much. “This isn’t just about practice, okay? Kissing… it’s not just some technical thing you can get better at with a little help. It’s… it’s emotional. It means something, even if you don’t want it to”.

You opened your mouth to argue, but Dean held up a hand, stopping you. “I get that you’re nervous, and I get that you want to be ready for your date with Jake, but this… you and me… it’s different. I don’t want to mess things up between us”.

You took a deep breath, trying to find the right words to convince him. “Dean, I’m not asking you to make this more than it is. I just… I need to know that I’m not going to embarrass myself, that I’m not going to mess up. And you’re the only person I trust enough to ask”.

Dean’s resolve wavered as he listened to you. He knew you weren’t trying to complicate things, that you genuinely just wanted his help, but the feelings he’d been trying to keep buried were threatening to spill over.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he tried to steady himself. This was a moment he never imagined he’d find himself in—a moment where he had to balance his protective instincts with feelings he wasn’t ready to fully confront. He knew this could change everything, that crossing this line could complicate things between you in ways he wasn’t sure he could handle. But the trust in your eyes, the way you were looking at him like he was the only one who could help you, made it impossible to refuse.

The minutes streched.

“Alright”, he mumbled eventually, his voice barely above a whisper. He opened his eyes, his gaze meeting yours, filled with a mix of emotions he couldn’t quite hide. “C’mere”, he nodded towards the spot beside him on the bed, his heart pounding in his chest.

You hesitated for a moment, feeling the gravity of what you were about to do.

For Dean, this was about so much more than just a kiss. He knew deep down that it was wrong, so fucking wrong—wrong to blur the lines between protector and something more, wrong to let himself indulge in feelings he had tried so hard to bury. Just so fucking wrong. But a part of him, a part he wasn’t proud of, was desperate to know if this would be enough to finally shake the hold those feelings had on him. Maybe, just maybe, if he allowed himself this one moment, he could get it out of his system and go back to being the version of himself that you needed him to be. He was stupid. As stupid as your idea.

You slowly inched closer, your heart pounding so loudly in your chest that you were sure Dean could hear it. The tension in the room was thick, almost suffocating, but you pushed through it, trying to keep your mind focused on the reason you’d come to him in the first place. For three long years, you had dreamed about this moment, imagined what it would be like to be this close to Dean, to feel his breath on your skin. But now, with the reality of it staring you in the face, your mind was a mess of conflicting emotions.

You told yourself that you were doing this so you wouldn’t mess up things with Jake, that this was just a practical step to make sure you were prepared. But deep down, in a place you weren’t quite ready to face, you knew there was more to it.

This wasn’t about Jake.

It was about the feelings you’d been harboring for Dean all this time, feelings that you had tried to push aside, to ignore, but that had only grown stronger the more you were around him.

As you sat down beside him on the bed, the proximity made everything feel more intense. Your knees brushed against his, and you felt a shiver run through you, a mixture of nerves and something else—something that made your stomach flip and your breath catch in your throat. You glanced up at Dean, noticing the way his eyes were darker than usual, his expression conflicted.

Dean was trying so hard to stay in control, to keep his thoughts from straying. But the second you sat down beside him, so close that he could feel the warmth of your body, he knew he was in trouble. This wasn’t just a simple kiss for practice—this was everything he had been trying to deny for years, everything he had buried deep down so that he could be the friend you needed, not the man who wanted more than he should.

Dean’s heart pounded in his chest, the weight of what was about to happen pressing down on him. The room felt too small, the air thick with tension, and he struggled to keep his emotions in check. You were so close, your presence overwhelming, and every rational part of his mind was screaming at him to stop, to step away before he crossed a line he couldn’t uncross.

He took a deep breath, his voice quiet and tinged with hesitation as he finally spoke. “(Y/N), are you… are you really, really sure about this?”. His gaze searched yours, looking for any sign of doubt, any indication that you might not want to go through with this after all.

The truth was, he wasn’t asking just for your sake. He was asking for himself too. Because once this happened, once he gave in to the temptation of your lips, he wasn’t sure if he could ever go back to the way things were. The feelings he had kept buried for so long were threatening to spill over, and if you gave him the green light, he knew there was no turning back.

You looked up at him, your eyes wide and filled with a mix of nervousness and determination. “I’m sure, Dean”, you whispered, your voice steady despite the fluttering in your chest. “I trust you”.

Again. Those damn words. They hit him like a punch to the gut. You trusted him, and he didn’t want to betray that trust. But the way you were looking at him, the way your eyes held his, made it impossible for him to walk away. He knew in that moment that he couldn’t deny you, couldn’t deny himself, even if it meant complicating everything between you.

His breath hitched at your words, the weight of them settling heavily in his chest. The room seemed to shrink even further, the air between you charged with a tension so palpable it was almost suffocating.

His hand was gently cradling your cheek, and he could feel the heat of your skin beneath his fingertips, the subtle tremor that betrayed your own nerves. Despite your words, he could sense the same mix of anticipation and fear that was churning inside him. This was a moment of no return, a step into uncharted territory for both of you.

Slowly, deliberately, Dean leaned in closer, his heart hammering in his chest as his resolve began to crumble. He was a breath away from your lips, close enough to feel the warmth of your breath mingling with his, but he paused, giving you one last chance to pull back, to stop this before it began.

But you didn’t. Instead, you closed the gap between you, your lips brushing softly against his in a tentative, almost hesitant kiss. The contact was light, feather-soft, but it sent a shockwave through Dean that he wasn’t prepared for. The years of buried feelings, of unspoken desires, surged to the surface, overwhelming him with their intensity.

He deepened the kiss, his hand sliding from your cheek to the back of your neck, pulling you closer. There was a gentle pressure in the way his lips moved against yours, a cautious exploration as if he was trying to memorize the feel of you, to commit this moment to memory. His other hand came up to rest on your waist, the warmth of your body seeping through the fabric of your shirt and into his palm.

Your lips were soft and warm against his, and he could taste the faint hint of whatever lip balm you’d applied earlier, a sweet, subtle flavor that made his heart ache with something he couldn’t quite name. The world outside seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of you in this moment, this connection that felt both right and so, so wrong.

Your hands came up to rest on his chest, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as if to steady yourself. You could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your palms, a rhythm that matched your own racing pulse. The kiss was everything you’d imagined it would be and more—tender, intense, filled with a depth of emotion that you hadn’t expected.

Dean could feel your inexperience in the way you kissed him, the way your lips moved tentatively against his, searching for a rhythm that matched his. It only made the moment more poignant, more charged with meaning. This wasn’t just about practice, not anymore. This was something deeper, something that had been building between you for far longer than either of you had been willing to admit.

The kiss deepened, the gentle pressure of Dean’s lips against yours becoming more insistent, more urgent. The heat between you intensified, a fire that seemed to grow with every passing second. You could feel the warmth pooling between your legs, a sensation that was becoming almost overwhelming, a stark contrast to the tender, slow rhythm of the kiss.

Dean’s scruff brushed against your face, the sensation both rough and tantalizing. It made your skin tingle, adding a new layer of sensation to the already charged moment. You could feel a slickness between your thighs, a sign of the arousal that had been building since the start of this intimate connection. It was unfamiliar and intense, and it sent waves of both excitement and anxiety through you.

Dean, on the other hand, felt a painful tightness in his jeans. The physical reaction was impossible to ignore, a stark reminder of the line he was crossing. Yet, despite the discomfort, he found himself unable to pull away. The kiss was consuming him, the taste of you, the feel of your lips moving tentatively but eagerly against his, igniting a primal part of him that was difficult to control.

As you felt the heat between you intensify, you dared to gently press your tongue against Dean’s lower lip, a tentative but clear invitation. The movement was slow, almost experimental, as if you were testing the waters of this new and thrilling connection.

Dean’s reaction was immediate and intense. He gasped slightly at the touch, his breath hitching as his body responded to the added intimacy. He couldn’t ignore the surge of desire that coursed through him, the way your tongue against his lip ignited a fire that seemed to burn away any remaining doubts he might have had.

His hand on your waist tightened, pulling you closer as he opened his mouth slightly, giving you access. His own tongue met yours in a slow, exploratory dance, each movement filled with a mixture of longing and caution. The kiss deepened, becoming a complex interplay of sensations that both of you were navigating together.

As the kiss deepened even more, you instinctively pressed your thighs together, the growing warmth and intensity between your legs becoming impossible to ignore. Your hands, trembling slightly with a mix of nerves and excitement, slowly reached up to cradle the back of Dean’s neck, fingers tangling in the damp strands of his hair. The connection between you was electric, each touch and movement intensifying the charged atmosphere in the room.

But just as the moment seemed to spiral into something more, reality hit Dean like a freight train. The weight of what was happening, of what it could mean for both of you, came crashing down on him. His protective instincts, which had been momentarily overwhelmed by desire, surged back to the forefront. This wasn’t just a kiss—it was a step that would change everything.

Dean’s breath hitched, and with a mixture of regret and determination, he carefully grabbed your face, his hands trembling slightly as he guided your head away from his. He needed to stop this, to bring both of you back from the edge before it was too late.

———————————

A/N: Please let me know what you think.🥰 

-

Part 6

-

Taglist: @blackcherrywhiskey @baby19sthings @suckitands33 @spnfamily-j2 @lyarr24 @deans-baby-momma @reignsboy19 @kawaii-arfid-memes @mekkencspony @lovziy @artemys-ackles @fitxgrld @libby99hb @lovelyvirtualperson @a-lil-pr1ncess @nancymcl @the-last-ry @spndeanwinchesterlvr @hobby27 @themarebarroww @kr804573 @impala67rollingthroughtown @deans-queen @deadlymistletoe @selfdestructionandrhum @utyblyn @winchesterwild78 @jackles010378 @chirazsstuff @foxyjwls007 @smoothdogsgirl @woooonau @whimsyfinny @freyabear @laaadygisbooornex3 @quietgirll75 @perpetualabsurdity @ladykitana90 @fullbelieverheart @chainsawsangel @zaratahir @rebecca-hvnstn @maackiimoo @mayafatimakhan @ladysparkles78 @lachelledavies-winchester @kamisobsessed @kr804573

[honeyhoshi]

you do it naturally

summary: the hiding, the secrets, and staying back to watch him shine has never been an issue. until today.

it’s the night before the biggest show of his life, but it’s soonyoung's turn to show her that he’s her biggest fan.

this is a part of the playlist universe

genre: social media au/trad fic hybrid, solo idol au, celebrity x non-celebrity

wordcount: 4,606

pairing: solo idol!hoshi x afab!reader

warnings: discussions about self-esteem issues, body image/weight, feelings of jealousy, plenty of frustrated tears, afab reader, female anatomy, fingering, squirting, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, creampie, crying during sex (good!!), dirty talk (lovingly), pussy drunk hoshi (canon), implied chubby/bigger reader

author's notes: unfortunately i am horribly in love with hoshi so this is my humble contribution to his smut tag

As someone whose life revolved around sugar, butter, and flour, this was a new world. The tension in the air is palpable and the flurry of activity is so different from the kind of rush you’re used to. You’re nearly tripping over your feet trying to catch up to the member of the staff who's been sent to assist you. This must be so out of their scope of work, it's almost embarrassing how clueless you are to all of this.

It’s been three years since you started dating Soonyoung, and while you’ve never missed one of his shows in Seoul, this is your first time attending one of his rehearsals. He’s notorious for being laser focused and demanding of his team, making sure everyone remembered their collective goal of an amazing show. You never wanted to get in the way of that or to be considered a distraction. 

In fact, that’s always how you’ve operated as his girlfriend. You understand where you stand, what your role is, and when it’s time to work, you will stand back and let him shine.

But when you make it to the front of the stage, taking a seat close to Soonyoung’s managers after giving them a friendly smile, you can’t help the wave of pride that comes over you as you take everything in. The stage is massive, the largest Soonyoung’s ever had, and over thirty dancers are on stage with him as he adjusts the blocking and tweaks steps.

Then he catches your eye.

His eyes disappear as he smiles and you can’t help but do the same. You fight off the urge to wave, wanting him to get back to what he’s doing knowing full well they have limited time to go over everything before resting for the evening. You can’t take your eyes off him though. Preparations for concerts usually take him away from you for weeks at a time, and with the scale of this one, you hadn’t seen each other in the flesh for a month.

Just seeing him in front of you now already makes you feel sated.

“Can we do another run of the new song with the pair choreo. We just want to see which works better,” the director calls from the tech booth.

“Nari-ssi, please come up. Everyone else, take 5,” the choreographer on stage with them calls into her mic.

Soonyoung had mentioned he was debuting a new song at the concert. It was something he and Jihoon had worked on last minute that he couldn’t stop talking about, wanting to drop hints but also saying he wanted it to be a surprise for when you would see it at the show. He had dropped the topic dead a few weeks ago.

Nari bounds up the stage with a glorious spring in her step, bare faced but glowing. Her practice clothes fit her like a glove and her overall vibe gives off the energy that she herself was an idol.

That ugly feeling starts to simmer in your stomach as what you suppose is the song starts to play. The intro is slow and sultry and the sweat in your palms starts to grow uncomfortable. Only an idiot wouldn’t understand the sensuality of this song from the get go.

The love of your life is standing right there but you can’t take your eyes off of Nari as she finds her blocking before the verse starts. Nari smiles at Soonyoung and makes a comment you can’t hear from your seat. You feel sick.

Soonyoung and Nari are facing each other with one of his hands on her chin, lifting her gaze to him. His other hand is resting on her slender hip and in a three count from their choreographer, they move in unison.

“Three, four, five, ‘oh baby, cause I’ da, da da!”

The MR only covers the backing vocals but still you know that’s Soonyoung’s crooning and matched with the way his and Nari’s hands and bodies move, you’re transfixed. Horribly.

You avert your eyes, unable to focus and try to play it off as replying to an urgent message, but you’re startled when you hear a loud “SOONYOUNG FOCUS!”

Your head flies up to find Soonyoung staring you down from the stage, eyebrows furrowed and looking, dare you say, nervous.

“We need to see how this is actually going to look like tomorrow, so please let’s put more effort into this. Poor Nari’s giving it her all, Nyoung-ah.”

Soonyoung tries to communicate with you wordlessly but your unwillingness to keep eye contact makes it difficult for Soonyoung to get whatever it is across.

The music plays back again and they return to their starting positions and you know he’s turned it On.

The look on his face, the focus in his eyes. This is what he looks like when he’s locked in, and when his body starts to move, everything falls away.

But Nari.

They move seamlessly, sensually, and just Right. She matches every beat, wave, and touch he gives her. And gives back that same sultry energy with a flick of her wrist, dip of her hip, and when she leans her head back on his shoulder, allowing him to move her body to the music.

You could never move like that. You could never fit in his arms like that. 

The song ends and the dancers around them hoot and jeer and Nari blushes as she and Soonyoung finally break their grazes, breathless.

They would never cheer for you like that.

This has never gotten to you this badly. Usually, the distance between the two of you allows you to compose yourself when things get muddled in your head, able to piece yourself together when the fear and insecurity claw up your throat. But your usual proximity is nonexistent and the gap has been closed.

Being with an internationally acclaimed artist meant busy schedules and only being able to squeeze in the littlest dates every now and then. You had time to prepare for those, give yourself the pep talk of It’s been three years. If he wanted you gone, he’d have said something by now.

In preparation for the show you two had made prior plans you would stay with him, an impromptu long weekend “getaway” you had put in at work almost 3 months ago. But now it feels like you’re trapped. You’ve been short with him since his rehearsals wrapped and you’d met up with him in his private dressing room. You could only stomach to say surface level good jobs and you’re always so amazing!

There’s no way he hasn’t picked up on it yet because the air in the car was nonexistent. It was stifling and you could feel the waves of anger simmering underneath Soonyoung’s skin, just waiting to burst forth the moment the two of you were alone.

He knew something was wrong. He always knew. 

The ride up the elevator to his unit felt like the longest and shortest elevator ride of both of your lives and the second Soonyoung had let you into his place and locked the door behind him, you wanted to cry.

“Can we finally talk about this?” He starts. 

“What?”

“Babe.”

“Soonyoung.”

“Are we really doing this?” He sighs, exasperated.

You feel bad. But the sadness is gnawing at your head and heart and neither are working correctly.

“We’re not ‘doing’ anything, Soonyoung.” You say as you toe off your shoes and put down your bag before facing him.

And what a glorious face it is. He’s always been the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. He looks best like this, you think. Soft and free of makeup and tired and home.

“I’m sorry,” you start, face beginning to crumple and the sting of hot fresh tears threaten to spill.

“No, no, no, baby. Come on, come here,” Soonyoung’s scrambling to pull you into his arms, “Hey, hey, shhh. Look at me, talk to me.”

He pulls her face into his hands and tries to lift her gaze towards him. But she fights and tries to keep her head down.

“Baby, you have to talk to me, okay? You have to talk to me and tell me what I did wrong, hmm?” He respects your refusal to look at him and instead hugs your head to his chest, resting his chin atop the crown of your head.

Soonyoung wraps his other hand around your shoulders and maneuvers the two of you to lay on the couch, You’re still sobbing, large tears falling from your eyes and dampening the shirt he’s wearing.

When he moves to lay down on one of your favorite spots to cuddle in his home, you freeze in his arms, sobs stopping and shoulders going rigid. You push yourself off of him, hands going up to brush the tears off the face.

“No, no, I’m too heavy, I'll crush you.” It is almost business-like how you snap back into this cold tone.

Soonyoung stops, sits up straight, “What are you talking about?”

You groan, “Soonyoung, I don’t want to get into it. Please, you’ve had a long day, tomorrow is going to be—“

“No,” he cuts you off, “We don’t get to talk about tomorrow until we talk about today. Until we talk about what’s going on right now.”

“Soonyoung—I just. I don’t know how to talk about this. I’m just blowing things out of proportion. It’s nothing, I swea—“

“It isn’t nothing, though, is it?” He says, softer now. He reaches up for your hand, “You’re upset. You’ve been upset since I saw you after rehearsals. We have to talk about this, baby. We promised each other we’d talk things through.”

Your eyes sting again, a fresh batch of tears ready and threatening to make their appearance. That sharp feeling in your nose is there, any second now.

“Tell me how I can make it better, baby.”

The dam breaks and you fall boneless into Soonyoung’s embrace. You straddle his lap and wraps your arms around him, pressing the two of you chest to chest.

You bury you face in Soonyoung’s neck and let out a shuddering sob.

“I’m sorry, I’m being so, so immature and so unreasonable. You didn’t do anything,” you say, still slightly unintelligible from the tears.

“You’ve never done anything that’s made me sad or angry, Soonyoung. It’s me, it’s me and my stupid brain.”

“Hey, hey, no. Please please don’t say that, hmm? Let’s work this out together,” Soonyoung coos.

“I-i-i just felt so horrible, Soonyoung!” You finally cry, “She looked so beautiful and perfect and just so RIGHT in your arms and God, the way you two moved and how everyone watched the two of you.”

Soonyoung pulls away, grasping you face in his hands and finally locking eyes with you.

“I know I said I’m okay keeping this a secret and keeping everything simple and under wraps, and it’s fine! I promise, it really isn’t that.”

“Then what is it, baby?”

You’re quiet for a bit as Soonyoung traces the path of your tears with his thumbs, wiping them away.

“I’ll never be able to do what she can. Nari. I’ll never look like her or act like her or move like her. I can’t even dance with you without looking like a fool.”

Soonyoung feels his heart sink. His own eyes start to grow bleary and when he blinks a tear falls to his cheek. He drops his head to your chest and breathes you in.

“I’m sorry—“

“Oh no, Soonyoung it isn’t yo—“

“I’m sorry that things have gotten this far that you’ve grown to feel that way. I’m sorry because I know in some way or form all of this has become that and I didn’t catch it.”

When he lifts his head, tear tracks mark his pretty face and his nose is red.

“But you have to know,” he starts, eyes very serious, and not daring to look away from you, “You have to know that you are everything. You are everything to me. You’re even more than that.”

“And we are going to dance. Oh we are going to dance all the time. I am going to dance with you in the kitchen when we’re waiting for focaccia to bake, we are going to dance in the bedroom when we change the sheets, and we are going to dance when I marry you. And everyone will have their eyes on you and they will clap and cheer because just look at the woman I love.”

“Soonyoung—“

He stands with a start and you instinctively wrap your arms around him, elbows hooking over his shoulders. His hands are under your thighs, fingers pressing into the soft flesh. He’s carrying you into his room.

The lights automatically flicker on as he enters and kicks the door closed behind you, “In fact, baby, why don’t we start now hmm?”

“What, start what?”

He grins and any semblance of sadness has vanished from his face. He smiles and something in your heart is elated.

“Dancing, of course.”

Soonyoung is known in the industry as an ace — able to sing, rap, compose, choreograph, and above all things, dance. And dance with you he does.

The way he can make your body move is unexplainable because once he placed you at the center of his bed, he’d strummed at your body, mouthed at your pulse and had gotten you out of your top and jeans before you could even fully comprehend.

His mouth is hot on yours and he breathes in your air as soon as you exhale and you’re growing lightheaded as his hands continue to undress you. In an attempt to get some air in both your lungs, he pulls away to frantically tear his shirt over his head, not daring to take his eyes off you. He flings it over his shoulder unceremoniously, not a care in the world where it lands and makes quick work of his sweatpants. 

“What, you thought you’d get lucky tonight?” You quip at him, “Even when you knew I was feeling tilted?

He’d gone commando.

“Good mood, bad mood, whatever the fuck mood, I want you,” he laughs as dives back in to kiss you.

His hands are everywhere, like he doesn’t know what and where to touch, wanting to feel you everywhere before settling on the thickness of your thighs. He spreads your legs slightly so he could slot himself in between them, cock pressed perfectly to your center. 

And then he grinds. The head of his cock nudges perfectly at your clothed clit and you let out a mewl.

“There you go, let me hear you,” he groans into your ear, “Y’sound so good for me, sweetheart.”

“Soonyoooouung,” you can’t control the drawn out moan of his name. After everything you’re pent up and everything feels too much already.

He lets his mouth trail wet, open mouthed kisses from your jaw to your neck as his hands busy themselves undoing the hook of your bra. He scrambles to get it off of you and immediately pulls one nipple in his mouth, nipping and soothing it with a slow lave of his tongue.

He grips your other breast in his palm and squeezes, biting his lip at how your flesh molds to his touch.

“Fuck your tits are fucking perfect.”

This man was groping and grinding against you, and you blush as he compliments your breasts.

He continues kissing down the valley between your breasts and you hold your breath as he starts pressing his lips onto your stomach. It dips and springs back as he moves and your eyes zero in on the deeper colored lines of your stretch marks. There are more on your thighs to match.

But he makes no comment. 

He instead groans whenever he stops to suck a bruise and to run his tongue over the mark he’s made. 

“You’re so,” he starts, almost breathless, “You’re everything.” He laughs at his own inarticulate thoughts before hooking his thumbs into the elastic of your underwear.

He pulls them off and moves back up to press a deep kiss to your mouth, “I want to make you come three times, love.”

“What?” You’re dazed.

His right hand moves down to trace your ass and hook under your knee so he can spread you open.

“First, I’m going to fuck you open on my fingers,” he breathes, “then when you’re nice and wet and open for me, I want you to sit on my face, alright?”

With all his talk distracting you, you’re suddenly startled when you feel his thumb on your lower lips, starting to spread you apart.

“Then when you’ve come all over my face, I’m going to fuck my come into you, just how you like it. Right, baby?”

He slips in two fingers into you with no warning and you keen, high and wanton and uncontrollable.

Soonyoung is rough and quick when he fingers you and no matter how slow and sensual the lovemaking is, this will always be fast, hard, and messy.

While one hand is busy pumping two fingers into you, the other pinches your clit and quickly rubs, wanting your first orgasm to come as quickly as possible.

Your lower lip is close to bleeding as you try to keep your voice down but Soonyoung only chuckles when he sees your attempts at restraint.

“Baby we’re soundproofed in here. Make all the noise you want.”

You want to slap at his chest playfully at least, get him to feel some semblance of shame, but just as you try to make some quick remark, his fingers brush that spot inside of you and he presses down hard.

You’re unable to hold in the scream that rips through your throat as his arm flexes and he roughly thrusts his fingers in and out of you.

You clench your eyes shut as you finally let him have your first release. It’s almost explosive and you spill messily all over his fingers and arm, his other hand making a bigger mess, spraying drops of your release letting them fly further.

Breathing comes hard but he’s already pulling out of you and moving your body around until you’re on your knees.

Soonyoung lays on his back and tugs at your hands to grip at his headboard, “Fuck I’ve wanted this for so long.”

“Soonyoung, what if—“

“If you want to stop, we’ll stop. Just say the word,” he says, propping himself up with his elbow.

“You have to do the same,” you say shakily, still trying to get your bearings after the mind blowing first orgasm.

“Unlikely, but you know I’ll tell you everything, love.”

And just like that he lays back again, looking more eager than you could have ever imagined. You kneel over his chest and slowly inch upwards before lowering yourself over his mouth.

Soonyoung’s always loved eating you out. He loves when sex is wet and messy and loud. He loves the taste of you and making so much noise while he’s pressed up against your pussy it almost seems like he’s the one getting release.

Every flex and curl of his tongue has you whimpering and you can’t help the way you throw your head back as his nose nudges at your clit, still sensitive from your first orgasm.

He coaxes this second one slower but it hits you just as strongly as he continues to mouth at your core even when you’re crying and shaking from the sensitivity. You almost topple off the bed as you climb off Soonyoung to lay back next to him on the bed.

You turn your head to Soonyoung and the entirety of his lower face is wet with your release and your face burns. But Soonyoung is aglow with arousal and just so much love.

He coaxes your mouth to meet his own and it is a reprieve from how quickly he moved for you to reach your high twice in such a short period of time.

You can taste yourself on his mouth but it makes you groan as his tongue pushes its way to mingle with your own.

Despite the desperation at which you both moved, this is slow and quiet. Just you lips moving against each other and the sheets rustling fills the space.

Soonyoung pushes himself off the bed cautiously, desperate to keep his lips on you as he positions himself between your thighs.

Just like that a switch flips and the urgency to have him starts once more. He pressed his cock against your entrance and let the underside slide against your wet cunt. It offers you little relief, the friction hardly enough to get you there.

He pulls away and brings one hand to your face as the other holds him over your body.

Soonyoung’s hooded lids and glazed eyes are a sight to behold. His hair is damp and the shorter strands that frame his face are plastered onto his forehead. There’s a bead of sweat that’s clinging to the cut of his jaw and you ache to press your mouth to it. 

His thumb traces the curve of your cheek, the plumpness of your lower lip, and slowly he’s pressing the finger between your teeth. You press your tongue against the pad of his thumb and wrap your lips around the finger, and suck.

God, I love this man. I will always only love this man.

“I love you,” he gasps as he finally presses in and sinks into you.

Any other day and it would be embarrassing how close you both are to the edge, but you both know that his evening was far from normal. Your heart is hammering in your chest so hard you feel like it’ll rip itself out of its confines. Everything feels too good and too much and you want it. You want this every single day if you could.

Soonyoung sits up and uses both hands to grip onto your hips and to brace himself. What he does next makes your head spin.

“I’m so close, baby. You gotta say it.” He stands on his knees, changing the angle slightly. Then he lifts your hips just right and the noise you let out as his cock sinks into you perfectly is completely pitiful.

“Say it.”

“Soonyoung!” you cry out. It’s a sob, really. Depraved, almost, in the desperation and the raw fucking feeling thats burning through your nerves.

“Just say it baby, you know the words. Say it and I’ll make good on the very last fucking promise I made tonight,” he says, the edge in his voice making itself known. He wanted to make this evening soft, slow, and for every movement to have meaning. But he has always been hungry.

Hungry for the stage, bigger venues, brighter lights, more challenging steps, and of course for you.

He breathes in through his nose sharply and tries to exhale slowly and paced, “Just say it baby, I know you can.”

“You’re mine.”

“That’s it. I’m yours. I’ll always be yours.”

The years of precise practice and this industry expertise has made the man you love into the most exquisite lover.

He thrusts quick and deep and the undulations of his hips have you seeing stars and tearing up once more. He’s everywhere, in your eyes, head, lungs, heart and you’ll be damned if you ever let him go.

The insecurities and the problems and the people will always be there, they will always cause uncertainties but this is one thing you will always be sure of. You will always be sure of him.

Soonyoung comes with a cry of your name and the most beautiful gasp against your mouth as he pumps you full of his cum, pushing you over the edge and he swallows the cry you let out.

He pulls away to press breathless kisses against your face and any other part of you he can get his lips on mumbling, “I’m yours, I’m yours. I’ll always only be yours.”

It starts slowly, warm, and comfortable. The rustling of the sheets and the hot wet press of his mouth slowly coaxing you into that soft space of barely awake, but able to slip back to sleep if you stayed quiet enough.

“I gotta go, baby,” is Soonyoung’s whisper, cheek resting atop your head. 

You hum in response, not fully coherent to put together words after he’d pulled endless strings of moans and cries from your lips the night prior.

He presses a kiss to your hair, “Didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. I’ll see you tonight, gorgeous.”

You feel the way the bed dips and the blankets move as he goes to stand. He slips on his shoes and, unable to leave so easily, moves back towards the bed and kneels by where your head rests on a pillow.

“I love you, think about what I said last night, okay?”

You tried to keep yourself collected, keep the frantic energy sizzling in your veins at bay. Soonyoung had put on the show of his life, something that happens just a few times in a performer’s life, you’re sure. Pride had swelled so grandly in your heart. You had been so lovestruck watching him that it felt like he could see you whenever he had turned his head in your general direction.

Backstage is still abuzz from the end of the show. You’re sure people are still running around making sure the egress goes smoothly, that all the fans are able to exit the stadium safely. But everything comes second the moment you hear his voice.

“Has she been escorted from her se—“

You can’t help it. You’re so happy, so excited, and so in love with him. You’re running toward him. He’s changed out of his encore outfit and into a sweater—oversized the way he likes them— and sweatpants. He could slip into bed any second now it looks like.

“Soonyoung!” You call out, stealing his attention.

He turns to you and the most breathtaking smile spreads on his face and you throw yourself into his arms. He catches you and you wrap your legs around his slender waist.

“It was amazing, you’re so amazing. Congratulations, oh my god!” You’re blabbing, you can feel your mouth going a million miles an hour but you can’t stop.

You pull him into a crushing hug as he gently puts your feet back on the ground, keeping your arms around his neck.

“And that new song, Jesus you weren’t kidding, it’s so good and the choreo! The way you moved! You changed the choreo last minu—“ In a split second, his lips are on yours and you can’t help but smile against him.

You break away, breathless when you remember, “Soonyoung, everyone can see.”

He gives you a silly quizzical look, “Only thinking about that now and not when you jumped into my arms?”

You’re speechless. He’s right.

“I’d be happy if everyone knew,” Soonyoung says simply and pulls you in again for another kiss.

When you pull away, you suck in a large breath and say, “Okay.”

There’s a small smile that he can’t hide as he asks, “Okay…? To what, exactly?”

You blush and bury your head in his chest. You want to while, he’s so annoying.

“To everything. To everything you said last night,” you mumble into his chest, trying to muster enough confidence to keep going.

“Okay, I’ll move in with you. Okay, I’ll tell all my friends about you. Okay, let’s make us public.”

-`✮´- if you've come this far, thank you. if you’d like to drop a like or reblog this, it would mean the world to this new author!

[dean-winchester-is-a-warrior]

Every Fucking Time

Summary: You want to help Dean, but he knows you can't.

Warnings/Explicit 18+: Lots of angst! Smut! Unprotected PinV sex. Slightly rough sex. Dean being an asshole. Dean being a broken boy. Hurt/comfort.

Pairings: Dean x Reader (You)

Word Count: 2,737

A/N: So, I just rewatched 13x18, Bring 'Em Back Alive, and the scene at the end never fails to break my heart. I just wanna make Dean feel better! 😫 But it got me thinking about how unlikely Dean would be to accept that help, and how his anger might manifest. Anyway, this is what spilled out of my brain as a result.

A/N 2: The title is a reference to Dean's line, "Every time we get close, it all falls apart. Every frickin' time." I have changed it to the non-network TV version because we all KNOW that's actually what Dean said.

You just wanted to help. You needed to help. You needed to make it better for him. 

Dean had slipped back home through the rift barely an hour earlier, talking about the apocalypse world Charlie and how he'd left her and Ketch behind, promising he would come back with reinforcements.

Then you, Cas and Sam had given him the bad news; no one could go back, you couldn’t send reinforcements. Gabriel was gone, taking all his archangel grace with him.

“So if it’s gone, then that means that we can’t open that door again. If we can’t open the door, then I shoulda never come back!” He'd shouted.

He'd tried to tamp down the rage and anger that simmered just behind his forced calm. Nevertheless, it exploded out of him making you all jump.

“Son of a bitch!” He'd screamed, sending books and papers crashing to the ground as he swept them from the table. “Every time!”

You could feel his frustration and pain like it was your own as his voice dropped, defeated and broken for the millionth time. “Every time we get close, it always falls apart…every fuckin’ time.”

When he walked away, looking as though the weight of the world was once again on his shoulders, you’d tried to follow after him, but Sam had grabbed your arm gently, holding you back.

“Leave him for now, Y/N. He needs time.”

You should have listened to Sam, but you could feel Dean’s pain like a lance in your side and you were desperate to heal him. So less than an hour later, you went looking for him. But he wasn’t in his room, or the Dean cave. The kitchen was empty and so was the garage. 

You finally found him in the infirmary. He was sitting on one of the beds, sewing together a nasty looking bullet wound.

“Dean!” You called out worriedly as you rushed down the steps. He glanced up at you but then went back to stitching himself up. “Why didn’t you tell us you’d been shot?” You reprimanded him.

He shrugged his unwounded shoulder. “No big deal. Ketch patched me up on the go, just didn’t have time to sew it up properly.”

You watched him silently for a moment, wincing every time the needle pierced his inflamed skin. He’d taken his shirt off so he could tend to his wound, and you couldn’t help but take an inventory of his other numerous scars. Jagged knife cuts, more round bullet holes, and a few waxy looking old burns, all marred his otherwise perfect, lightly freckled torso.

Some of the scars were very faded, barely noticeable, while others were newer; some of them were still red and angry looking. They were a patchwork of pain - a tapestry of more than thirty-five years of hunting, fighting, falling, getting up, and fighting again. 

It made you exhausted just to see it; it made your bones ache.

You stepped a little closer to him, but he kept you at arm’s length with an aura of silent, repressed anger that you could practically see pulsing off of him.

You wanted to help him so badly.

“Dean, I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head, not looking up from his work. “No, let’s not. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

You let out a small sigh. Of course you don’t. You thought with a flash of frustration.

You were quiet another minute as he finished the last few stitches. Then you smiled a little, trying a different tactic. “So, there was a Charlie over there? That’s amazing. What was she like? Was she the same as our Charlie?”

Dean didn’t answer right away. He snipped the thread he was using and tossed the small silver scissors back into the first aid kit he had open on the bed beside him. He took some rubbing alcohol and poured it onto a gauze pad, holding it to his wound and sucking in a breath through gritted teeth before answering.

“Yeah sure, she was like our Charlie.” His voice was a growl of pain. “She was a badass, determined to fight injustice, sticking up for her friends, risking her life for them. And yeah, just like our Charlie, I left her on her own to be butchered.”

Tears pricked your eyes. “Dean that’s not true…you didn’t-”

“Seriously, Y/N. Just fucking don’t.”

You were silenced again, watching him clean up and toss the bloody bandages into the trash as he stood up from the bed. He reached for his flannel and tried to put it on, slightly hampered by his newly bandaged shoulder. You stepped forward to help him with it, and when it was on, but still unbuttoned, you slid your hands inside, down over his ribs.

You kissed his chest gently, and felt him twitch slightly. 

“Y/N.” He said quietly and you could hear the warning in his tone. 

You knew he was in a bad place, and the two of you had only recently begun to move your relationship out of friendship and into something more, so sex was still new between you. But you felt the overwhelming, screaming need to help him, to hold him close and let him feel your love shine through. You’d been in love with him for a long time, but you’d never told him. You suspected he didn’t love you back, though you hoped he might someday.

For now, though, you’d settle for being a soft place to land, if he’d just let you.

“Dean.” You said softly, kissing his chest again. “Let me help you.”

He pushed you back and turned away. “I don’t need help.”

You persisted, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind. “We all need help from time to time, Dean.”

“Y/N!” He said again, louder this time, his earlier anger resurfacing. “I told you, I’m fine. Just drop it.”

But you couldn’t. You wanted to help him, whether he accepted it or not.

You moved around him, so you stood in front of him again. “Dean, you’re not fine. I just wanna help you.”

Dean scoffed. “Well you can’t fucking help me, Y/N. You can’t make it better.”

“I could try.” You cupped his cheek, but he pulled it out of your grasp, turning his head. You stood on tiptoe to try and kiss him. “Let me try, Dean. Let me try to help you.”

Dean grabbed your wrists from around his neck, glaring down at you, eyes blazing. “You fucking can’t, do you not hear me? You can’t help me, no one can help me! Because all I do is fuck up; all I do is leave my friends and family to die. And fucking you isn’t gonna change that; unless you have some kind of magical cunt that can open portals to another dimension, you can’t fucking help me!”

You felt your stomach drop, and an immediate ache started, high in your gut, clenching your insides and making you feel short of breath. You stepped back from Dean and swallowed convulsively, trying not to let go of the tears that clogged your throat. But it was a losing battle and they were soon coursing down your cheeks.

You nodded slightly. “K, yeah.” You didn’t know what else to say, turning away just as remorse began dawning in Dean’s emerald eyes. “Sam was right…I shouldn’t have come.”

You took off, bounding up the stairs as Dean called out to you. You ignored him, desperate to get away before you collapsed completely. 

You heard Dean following you, chasing you down the bunker hallway and you sprinted away. You got to your room just in time to slam the door and lock it just as Dean skidded to a halt outside.

He banged on the door, but you just moved over to your desk, dropping into the chair and swiping at your tears over and over, unable to make them stop.

“Y/N, come on! Open the door. Look, I didn’t mean that, okay? I just...just let me in.” He banged again. When you wouldn’t open it, he just kept banging. Finally he yelled at you through the wood.  “You know, I can just break down the fucking door! Let me in!”

He slammed his hammer like fist against the door again, rattling it in its frame. You jumped up and ripped open the door just as he was about to start pounding again. So his fist was raised and his features were twisted in a snarl as you looked up at him. But you were calm, even though tears still leaked from your eyes.

“Enough.” You said quietly. “Look, I shouldn’t have kept bugging you, you made it very clear you didn’t want me there and that I couldn’t be of any help. So, it’s fine. I’ll leave you alone now, and you can please stop raging at me and trying to smash down my door.”

You swallowed tightly and then nodded at him. “Goodnight.”

You closed your door softly and walked back to slump onto the end of your bed. You dashed your tears away as quickly as they fell, trying to dash away Dean’s angry words too, but failing miserably. 

After nearly half an hour your tears finally dried up and you decided to get ready for bed, sadness and hurt making you slow and sluggish. As you pulled your big sleep shirt on over your head, however, a noise caught your attention just outside your door. 

You walked softly to the door in your bare feet, cracking it open an inch to look out into the hallway. What you saw made brand new tears cloud your vision.

Dean was sitting across from your door, his back against the wall. His knees were bent slightly with his elbows resting there and his feet planted on the floor. His eyes were shut, his head leaning back against the wall with tears streaming silently down his cheeks. Or almost silently. As you watched, his face spasmed with pain and his breath seemed to catch in his throat, making the muffled sound you’d heard; it sounded like his pain was choking him.

You opened the door wider and Dean sensed you, his eyes springing open. At first it seemed like he might bolt, but then he shook his head as he stared at you. “Baby, I’m so sorry.” His voice was a harsh whisper. “I swear to god, I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.”

He thumped his head back against the wall twice. “I just break things. Everything.” He punctuated the word by slamming his elbow back into the wall as well, hard enough that you were worried he’d break the bone.

You hurried forward to kneel on the floor in front of him, squeezing in between his knees. You pulled his hands into yours as you tried to reassure him. “Dean, that isn’t true. You don’t break everything; you fix things, save things. It’s in your DNA to try to right all the wrongs in the world, but sometimes you just can’t.”

He stared at you intently and once again you found yourself desperate to try to ease the bottomless ache you could see in his mossy green eyes.

His voice was barely a whisper as he reached out to run his thumb across your cheekbone. “Did I break us?”

You took a deep breath. “Your words hurt me.” He closed his eyes and nodded. “But…”

You were quiet a moment before deciding it was worth taking a chance, so you just said it. “But I love you, and my love doesn’t break that easily, even if my heart does.”

You took his hand from your cheek and held it against your chest, over your heart. “Not ever. No matter what the future holds, my love is unbreakable, even when you try to smash it to pieces with both hands.”

Dean’s expression was closed off, and you couldn’t see through it to his thoughts. After a moment he shook his head. “Don’t love me, sweetheart. I can’t…I can’t protect you if you love me. Something will come and take you from me - use you to hurt me somehow.” He closed his eyes again and repeated his words from earlier in the evening. 

“Every time I get close, it always falls apart.” He opened his eyes slowly and stared intently into your soul. “Every fucking time.”

He gazed at you for a long time, and you let him, hoping he could see that you weren't afraid to love him, and you weren't going to be scared away.

Suddenly he reached out to yank you into his lap and slam his mouth down on yours. You gasped into the kiss and then whimpered as he clutched you tight to him.

He pulled away from you, breathing harshly. “Am I forgiven? Because I was such a liar. I do need you.” He dipped his head to nip at your pulse point and flick his tongue against your salty skin. “I need you so fucking bad.”

You nodded, flushed and aching for his touch. “You’re forgiven.”

He crushed your lips with his once again, standing up without letting you out of his arms. He pushed you backwards through your bedroom door and closed it with a soft click, as he yanked your t-shirt off over your head, getting you naked in one quick motion.

You pushed his open flannel down his arms, being careful not to aggravate his newest injury. You fumbled with the button on his jeans for a moment, hands trembling, as he palmed your breast and squeezed, pressing his hard, blunt fingertips into your yielding flesh.

You threw your head back as he pulled your nipple into his mouth and bit it gently. You sank your hands into his short hair, tugging sharply and moaning loudly. He pulled away, just far enough that he could spin you around to face the wall. With a hand against your upper back, he bent you over slightly and lifted your arms, so that you braced them against the brick.

Then he raised your right leg, wrapping his forearm over top of it and spreading you open. You felt the knuckles of his other hand brush over your dripping wet core as he unbuttoned his jeans. Seconds later, you felt his tip pressing against your entrance and then you let out a scream of pleasure as he slammed into you hard and fast.

As he fucked up into you, he pulled you open even wider, reaching down with his free hand to rub circles into your clit with his calloused fingertips.

Eventually he dropped your leg, and pushed your feet apart while he pulled your hips back towards him. He never faltered or slowed his pace, just manhandling you into the positions he wanted.

You were bent at a ninety degree angle now, hands still braced against the wall, with your head hanging between them as Dean continued to pound into you so deep that he was almost lifting you off the floor with each thrust. 

He clamped his hand on the back of your neck, using it as leverage to piston his hips forward like a jackhammer. He tilted your pelvis forward slightly and suddenly he was perfectly, relentlessly hitting your g-spot over and over until you were screaming out his name and crashing into a hard wall of pleasure. You shook with your climax, but Dean didn’t stop, riding you through your first orgasm and into several more.

Your throat was hoarse from shouts of pleasure before Dean finally cursed loudly, shouting your name and surging into your body. With one last driving push,  you could feel him spurting into you hot and thick. He rocked his body against yours a few more times as his cock continued to twitch inside you.

Finally he stilled, both of you breathing harshly now, bodies slick with sweat. He laid his chest against your back, his arm still wrapped around your waist, keeping you close, keeping himself locked inside your slick warmth.

“Y/N.” You could hear the thick emotions even in his soft whisper. “You know, you save me. Every time I think I can’t recover, every time I think I won’t get back up. You make me think I can. You tell me I will.” 

He paused and his voice was velvety and warm as he breathed out across your skin. “You save me.” He kissed your shoulder gently. “Every fucking time.”

Jensen RPF and Any/All Characters:

@lyarr24

@lacilou

@deans-spinster-witch

@globetrotter28

@suckitands33

@alwaystiredandconfused

@evznackles

@jackles010378

@impala67rollingthroughtown

@krazykelly

@candy-coated-misery0731

@envyaurora95

@spnwoman

@deans-baby-momma

@luvr4miya

@arcannaa

@viviwatchestv

@winharry

@ladysparkles78

@kr804573

Dean Fics Only:

@roonthelittlespoon920

@slamminmine

@zepskies

@safiyas-world

@aylacavebear

@waywardcheshire

Any/All Fics Regardless of Character or Fandom:

@kazsrm67

@slut-for-evans-stan

@sexyvixen7

@nancymcl

@hobby27

Everything Incl. Fan Edits:

@k-slla

@leigh70

@eevvvaa

@kickingitwithkirk

@foxyjwls007

@notinthislife50

@roseblue373

@mishkatelwarriorgoddess

@avanatural

@mrsjenniferwinchester

@all-alone-he-turns-to-stone

@deangirl96

@stoneyggirl2

[lavendermin]

jing yuan is definitely the type of man to take your hand and kiss your fingers one by one WHILE keeping eye contact (literally STARING, waiting for u to break, become flustered and look away), and when you do, he would say smth along the lines of "look at me" / "is something wrong? why did you look away?" with that shitty grin of his

We’re dealing with a whole general in charge of the Luofu. That man is trained in the art of finding weaknesses to use to his advantage and effortlessly play off them. This partially translates into Jing Yuan’s methods for expressing love as well.

And he wouldn’t call these aspects your weaknesses per se. No, he would never degrade you like that. But he knows what makes you tick, what makes you short circuit, what buttons to push and when. Jing Yuan is well versed in the little things that draw out his favorite reactions from you. Something akin to cuteness aggression some might call it. His fondness for you is just that great. And your relationship is one that is lighthearted and filled with playful banter.

cw | suggestive, fem reader

He knows how to make your heart leap. Takes you to some secluded gardens past the hustle and bustle of the main city areas, away from prying eyes. He’s someone who prefers to love you in private, wanting to bare his soul to you and you only. The light breeze brings a beautiful rain of delicate petals from the plum blossom trees in the vicinity. With his tall stature he picks a low hanging flower from the tree without much effort, delicately placing it in your hair as he continues the pleasant conversation without missing a beat. It’s something that makes you momentarily fall out of step, caught a little off guard with the gesture. Your pulse quickens and the smile he wanted to see finally beams on your face, albeit shyly.

He knows what little things to do that get you looking at him with that lovesick gaze. During brief breaks between meetings he’ll bring you to the gardens in his estate, a blanket sprawled out for a quick afternoon snack to enjoy in good company. Some are favorites, other little additions are new and some just readily in season or imported. Jing Yuan always wordlessly insists on hand feeding you himself. Loves the flustered look in your eyes as he puts a slice of fruit to your lips, slowly parting them and glossing them with the nectar that drips from the treat. A sigh of contentment leaves you and he can’t help but smile fondly, leaning in to quickly place a peck on your lips.

Your eyes twinkle, heart full with the notion that he imported one of your favorite delicacies from a neighboring star system—and with such a limited season they are available in. He licks his lips, the sweetness from the kiss he stole lingering in his mouth with the taste of you. An ideal afternoon he wishes could be longer than thirty minutes before he’s off again. Might as well spend them with you.

He pulls you onto his chest as he lays back on the picnic blanket, eliciting a squeak of surprise from you.

“Just for fifteen minutes, let’s stay like this,” he whispers, pulling you down to press his lips to your forehead. It’s an intimacy that simmers and leaves your hearts full longer.

And with a smile you can’t help how love-struck you look at him, so prettily under you. Something that he mirrors equally as you both settle into the tranquil moment.

He’s especially good at teasing—knows what little habits you have and how to exploit them for his amusement (in good fun). And there are a lot of little habits that come with your shy demeanor.

You bite into the flesh of a peach, the juices running down your hands. He’s quick to seize an opportunity to take your hand, kissing each of your glistening fingers slowly—hungry gaze steadily holding yours. The action has you holding your breath without even realizing it. It warms your face with the intimacy of his soft lips pressing to the pads of your fingers—a heat quickly surging through your body like a wildfire. And you can’t move even if you wanted to (you don’t), his grasp firm on your wrist.

It’s almost like a little game of endurance. You’ve never felt more like a doe in a lion’s den than in these kinds of moments. His lips move to press to the second finger, the third finger…

“Eyes on me, little dove,” he mutters, voice an octave lower than usual. Commanding. The smirk on his lips reveals the mischief in his intention. “Don’t look away. Not for a second.”

Your eyes that had desperately tried to dart anywhere else are immediately back on him. Almost involuntarily. You can’t help but worry your lip to try and suppress any little gasps and whimpers that may threaten to leave you.

“That’s my sweet girl.”

He kisses the fourth, a subtle tremble on your own hand he can just barely feel. The glimmer in his honey eye tells you he wants to play with to his dinner today. You can only pray your weak heart can withstand what teasing he has in store for you as he slowly drags his tongue up your index finger. His mouth chases the sweetness of the fruit as it coats your hand, your eyes following the wet muscle with an involuntary whimper and shift of your thighs when he licks sensually between your index and middle finger.

And just like that he places a kiss to your palm and leaves you hot and bothered. Trembling and breathing a little uneven with a want settling deep in the pit of your belly.

“Were you hoping for something more?” Jing Yuan asks with that mischievous, innocent-looking smile he wears. His thumb swipes at the corner of his lips to catch remnants of the sweetness he stole from your delicate hands.

Sly goddam fox.