#small loft conversion
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loftlifee · 1 year ago
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lordansloftsuk · 1 year ago
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Dreaming of expanding your living space without breaking the bank? Converting your loft can be a game-changer, adding valuable square footage and boosting your home’s value. But who says a loft conversion needs to be budget-busting?
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poppy86579 · 2 years ago
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5 Modern Ideas To Add A Loft Conversion To Your Home
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Loft conversions have always been popular, they stand the test of time because they are one of the most straightforward and cost-effective ways to add more accommodation to your home. Basic loft conversion ideas are possible on a reasonable budget and then the space can be developed further at a later date. Contact Doran Bros to discuss your loft conversion design ideas. We are specialists in loft conversion design and loft conversion plans whether your roof space is currently unused or you want to upgrade or repurpose an existing conversion.
Loft conversion ideas
Loft conversions in homes are enduringly popular because they avoid moving house, adding accommodation to a property that you love and without having to encroach on outside space which is always the downside of an extension. Plus, many loft conversions don’t even need planning permission.
5 Modern Loft Conversion Ideas and Tips
Create a guest bedroom – this is the ideal use for a small loft conversion which just not be big enough for regular usage. A kids bedroom is another option if there is limited headroom
Embrace the space – your loft conversion might be an unusual shape or just rather small. Decorate the interior with light colours that open up the environment and make unusual architectural elements like a chimney breast or exposed brickwork a real feature
Plan the furniture layout at the design stage – it is a common mistake to create the space without really thinking how it is going to work for the room. This can prove to be a disaster when it comes to adding ensuite bathrooms. Plan the space in its entirety before you start the project
Add a home office or studio – with the increase in homeworking during the pandemic, every house should have a dedicated workspace
Create open plan living – a living area with small kitchen can be linked to a bedroom and bathroom below to create a self-contained annex within your home Doran Bros can help you breathe life into your loft conversion design ideas plus we have lots of experience and input we can offer suggesting design concepts you may not even have thought of. We have expertise and have been creating loft conversions for years across all types of properties. Contact us for advice even if you are just thinking about basic loft conversion ideas. We can help you draw up loft conversion plans and advise you every step of the way.
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eliteconstructionslondon · 6 months ago
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celestie0 · 1 month ago
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gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]
in holy matriphony ch9. counting sheep
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ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)
ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency department, just got broken up with your boyfriend of 7 years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation with him is worth any amount of money.
ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw slight age gap bc gojo in this fic is 34 n reader is 29
ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!
ᰔ chapter. 9/x
ᰔ words. 20k
a/n. hellooo my lovely ihm readers!! thank you so much for tuning into another chapter of ihm :'') it means sm to me. as always i don't have much to say here lol but i'll see you at the bottom for some notes!!! hope you enjoyy. apologies for any typos or mistakes i was in a bit of a rush editing this lol
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Counting sheep.
It was the only thing that helps you sleep now.
For as long as you can remember, it was how you ended every night.
You’re not exactly sure when the habit started. Was it when you graduated nursing school and began to work the night shift? And you were awake at 3am, feeling stranded at sea in your own home on your days off, with 15mg of melatonin in your bloodstream yet it still was never enough to put your thoughts at ease or your bones to rest. 
Or was it ever since your mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? How about cancer? Was that when it became too terrifying to close your eyes at night because you feared you’d miss something that wasn’t meant to be missed?
There are days where you do feel tired. You feel sluggish, wearisome, somewhat feverish. Tonight was one of those nights. Wearing a white lace nightgown, one far too big on you as the hem drags across the fabric of the upstairs loft, you cross your arms across your chest to keep yourself warm as your fingers soothingly rub the taut skin over your elbows. 
It was the dead of night, no light other than the pale moon casting its glow onto the surface beneath your feet through the windows as you put one step in front of the other, meandering towards the master bedroom.
Gojo isn’t home tonight. He’s away for the weekend for some conference for work that his brokerage firm sent him on. Something about new foreign sales techniques and investment strategies. He shared the brochure with you so that you didn’t have to ask too many questions, but you would’ve preferred the conversation with him over lines of text to read. Two months ago, you would’ve preferred the former. It’s funny how fast things can change. 
You almost wish you worked every night. At least when you’re at the emergency department, you’re surrounded by life, even in the face of death. There’s fluorescent lighting above you, the beeping noises of machinery, the airy sound of the overhead announcements at every hospitalist callback, code call, and triage update. Your coworkers were there along with you, that sense of camaraderie making it easier on you.
But on your nights off, you often find yourself wafting around the halls and rooms of the house, almost like a ghost haunting every corner, finally coming out of hiding in the safety of silence. There are nights where you do this for hours. Seriously, hours. Until your calves hurt and you’re starving but can’t bring yourself to do anything other than the routine foot in front of the other. 
You finally push into the master bedroom with a weak palm on the door, the inside air chilly to your senses, and you figure that you’re not truly a ghost if you know what cold feels like. 
The bed is neatly made up, as Gojo had tidied it up before he left, and as it always is in the hours where he’s not resting in it. You wonder if he sets it up right after waking up, if it’s some sort of ritual for him.
Without thinking, without glancing at any other corner of the room as if you’d find something waiting in one of them that would frighten you, you slip into the heavy covers that are foreign to you, but the familiar scent of him envelopes you in its entirety, relaxing every bone in your body.
The warmth is welcome. Head heavy on the pillow, you close your eyes.
You wonder what sort of sights your mother is seeing right now. Is she also asleep? Is she peacefully dreaming? You wonder if she remembers you in her dreams, at the very least.
One sheep, two sheep.
You wonder what sort of sights Choso sees right now. You’re scared to find out. He would always be a phone call away for you on nights like this, where you couldn’t sleep. And on some, he would be right there with you. How does he spend these hours of the night now if not to comfort you? Does he feel it as less of a burden now?
Three sheep, four sheep, five. 
You wonder what sort of sights Gojo is seeing right now. And when you can’t picture anything at all, besides the dusty fan of a hotel room hanging from the ceiling, you realize you don’t know him. Even laying in his bed, surrounded by the ghost of his presence, surrounded by the proof of his life in this room, you realize you don’t even know what his favorite color is or how he likes his eggs in the morning. Or if he ever thinks of you sometimes, too. 
Six sheep, seven. Eight. Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve sheep.
You’ll be better tomorrow.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen sheep.
Happier. You’ll be happier.
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
Tomorrow will be better. 
Nineteen, twenty.
Tomorrow, you’ll be a better person.
Twenty one, twenty two.
Someone new.
Someone you’re happy to be.
Twenty three. 
It’s a promise.
.
.
.
.
.
——————
“Hey. Did you sleep in my bed while I was gone?”
You glance up from where you’re leaning your hip against the kitchen island, completing this morning’s crossword puzzle because of course Gojo is the only person in the neighborhood that actually picks the newspaper up from his driveway.
“Five letter word for communications device? Any ideas?”
“Phone. Now answer me.”
“Mmm….nope, starts with an r.” You tap the eraser end of the pencil to your bottom lip, deep in thought.
“Radio.”
“Oh! Thank you,” you say before you set the paper down on the table and scribble in the letters. “And no, I didn’t. It’s the same way you left it, no?”
“I always tuck the corners.”
“Of fucking course you do.”
He sighs, turning around to face you, leaning back on the kitchen island as his espresso machine rumbles quietly before slowly dripping out a shot. “Just be honest with me, y/n. Because if it wasn’t you, I’m going to need to get cameras installed everywhere around the house.”
You sigh. “Yes…I slept in your bed.”
“How come?”
“Change of scenery.”
“Really? That’s it?”
You let out a slow exhale.
You know what sucked about having slept in Gojo’s bed?
Is that you slept like a baby.
For the first time in such a long time, you slept just fine.
And the slightest dusting of a blush brushes across your cheeks when you realize it’s probably because the scent of him on those sheets was in some way comforting to you.
You wish you could write it off as some weird pheromone biological response,
But you had a professor in college who told you that humans have no such thing as pheromonal responses.
You simply like the way he smells. 
You glance up at him again. He’s stirring something into his cup of coffee now. 
“I don’t know. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately,” you say, and by lately, you mean years, “and just…felt like trying something different would help.”
“And did it?”
“What?”
“Did sleeping in my bed help?”
Your eyes widen, not expecting the direct question.
“I–...” you start, “...yes, actually. It helped a lot.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Alright. Just sleep in the master then.”
“What–...but–”
“I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom. It’s all the same to me.”
You blink at him, confused because you thought he meant sleep…together. As in, in the same bed. And even if that wasn’t exactly what he meant, he still one-hundred percent would’ve at least tried to tease you about it. So you’re surprised that he didn’t.
You straighten your spine up, narrowing your eyes at him slightly, contemplating his words and his offer, and push your hand into your hair and scratch at your scalp. And scratch. And scratch a little bit more.
Gojo watches you the whole time. 
“Uh,” he starts, “I mean this in the nicest way possible…but don’t you think you should wash your hair? It looks a little…”
“Mm?” you look at him, wide-eyed, “a little what?” You ask with innocence as you continue to scratch your scalp.
“You’re really going to make me say it?”
“Say what?”
He sighs. “It looks a little greasy.”
A soft, offended gasp leaves your lips.
“Wh—......What?!?!?”
You hate him with a burning passion (most of the time), yes, it’s true.
But, and it’s torturous to admit this to yourself, he’s right.
You do have a tendency, and a somewhat misfortunate habit, of neglecting washing your hair when you’re busy.
You’ve worked five night shifts this week, ran back and forth between your mom’s hospice because she had a UTI and became septic again, you’ve been running around trying to get everything in order in your house so that you can sell it as soon as possible, and every night when you get home, you sit down at your desk only to be reminded of how much debt you’re in. You’ve barely had enough time to think about yourself, and although you never neglect a daily shower, it’s possible that you may have forgotten to wash your hair while you’re in there. 
You let out a huff of hair, narrowing a glare at Gojo before crossing your arms across your chest. “I seriously cannot believe you’re insinuating that I look ugly.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” he says, setting his mug down in order to put his hands out in front of him in vindication, “I never said you were ugly.”
“You just said my hair looks greasy.”
“You still look nice, just…. a little greasy. Like a french fry. But who doesn’t love french fries?”
“Satoru!”
“I’m joking,” he laughs, “well, not about your hair being greasy. But, what I’m saying is, you still look hot. In your own…weird way.”
“I seriously want to slap you.”
He crosses the distance between the two of you in one stride to where he’s now standing in front of you, and you blink up at him in a panic when his hands slide across the island countertop on either side of you, caging you into it. 
“Go ahead,” he says with a boyish grin on his face, dangerously close to you as his gaze flickers down to your lips. 
“Has this weird attraction of yours towards me only begun simply because I threaten to physically injure you all the time?” you ask him, narrowing your gaze further as you look up into piercing blue eyes that look darker to you somehow, more dilated.
“No, I’ve always thought you were hot,” he says, his gaze moving up to make eye contact with you, as if he really wants you to know he’s being honest, “since the day I met you.”
Your heart feels like it’s beating a mile a minute in your chest. “Then why do you always roast the hell out of me?”
“Because I like to,” he says, gaze dropping to your lips again, and this time his tongue passes over his own, “and because I know you can take it.” He leans further into you, that scent of his that you like so much sending your head into a dizzy haze to where you can’t even think, the heat from his body felt against your own. “Not a lot of women can.”
Your blush doesn’t just reach your cheeks, it’s a heat that you feel spread across your entire body. “Th–...That’s offensive to women.”
He tilts his head at you, now studying the slight sheen to your lips. “Can we just skip the part where you rant about the patriarchy so I can kiss you already?”
You push your palm up against his chin, entirely swerving the kiss, making sure his face is looking straight up towards the sky so he knows exactly where you’re going to send him if he ever calls you a french fry ever again, and then say, “go fuck yourself.”
“What–”
You duck underneath his arm that was still caging you into the kitchen counter, swiftly moving past him as he stays still in his confining position, blinking at you with dumb blue eyes as you stomp across the living room towards the front entrance.
“I’m leaving,” you shout out, “and I’m taking your car,” you grab his keys, “And I’m–” You see his wallet at the foyer table, flip it open, and pull out some bills, “and I’m taking a hundred-and-twenty bucks. Don’t ask questions.” And before you could even give him a chance to verbally express any confusion, you’re out the door, and slamming it shut behind you. 
.
.
.
.
.
——————
“Hana, please, I’m begging you. I’ll even pay for brunch!” you say into the receiver of your phone as you stroll the ashy paved sidewalks of Dayton county’s downtown during a rather busy Saturday afternoon. “Your French boyfriend’s uncircumcised penis can’t be that fuckin’ good for you to blow me off like this when we’ve had these plans for weeks!”
You hush your voice towards the end of the sentence because you remember that you are quite literally in public.
“I know, I know, I’m so, so, so sorry,” Hana’s voice comes off somewhat distant in the phone, “he just looks so pale, and he’s been running an insane fever, I’d hate to leave him like this.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever happened to hoes before sexy Frenchmen, I’ll never know,” you sigh into the phone and then hang up on her, but right as you pull the phone from your ear, you trip over a crookedly lined cement panel on the ground, gasping as you stumble forward, barely able to steady your feet but at the expense of your phone slipping out of your hand and devastatingly towards the hard, rocky ground–
Before it gets caught about six inches above the surface by a rather large, masculine hand.
You blink at the sight, then trace the hand up into the arm, and eventually up into the face of the person that was sitting at this outdoor cafe’s table, and just so happened to have enough arm wingspan to prevent you from having to sell your kidney in order to buy a new phone.
He blinks at you with deep purple eyes, his lashes splaying over his upper cheeks as he glances down at your phone again, as if he himself is surprised by his own reflexes, before his gaze flickers up to yours again.
You straighten your spine, now looking down at him. He looks painfully familiar. Glossy long black hair underneath a sun high in the sky, half of it tied up and out of his face, but with some strands that have escaped the confinement, tendrils that frame his sharp jaw and complement his complexion. He sits cross-legged, dressed in all black with some sort of sophistication that makes him easily look like an outcast in a run-down town like this, but he doesn’t seem to even remotely hide the fact that he doesn’t belong.
And that’s when you remember.
That he doesn’t belong here.
“Ah! It’s you,” you exclaim.
His eyes widen slightly as the recognition of you flashes across his face as well.
“The mysterious man who drinks pulp-free orange juice made for kids,” you continue.
He blinks a couple times before his face relaxes into an easy smile. “Weren’t you eyeing the same carton?”
“That–” you stutter, “……...it’s very possible.”
He lets out a short exhale through his nose, somewhat reminiscent of a laugh. 
“Here,” the man says, stretching his arm out towards you to hand you your phone, “I would really put a case on that, though.”
You take the device from him somewhat hesitantly, the pads of your fingers brushing against the side of his palm. You notice he doesn’t really let go of the phone until he’s sure that it’s in your hand.
“I know…” you say, assessing your phone for scratches, which you hope he doesn’t take as an insult to the efficacy of his reflexes, “they’re just kind of expensive,” you blurt out, immediately regretting it. Because what kind of cheap-ass do you look like, now?
“More expensive than having to get a new phone?” he questions.
“That’s fair. Although, I don’t enjoy being lectured about the wellbeing of my belongings by strangers,” you say.
“Sit, then,” he offers, gesturing to the chair in front of him across the grated black round cafe table, “let’s get acquainted.” 
Slightly stunned by the proposal, yet weirdly inclined to oblige, you breathe in deeply, and then let the air out slowly as you slip into the chair across from him. Well, your plans got cancelled anyways, might as well take this opportunity to better understand this mysterious entity that has arrived in your town. 
“I’m Suguru,” he says, extending his hand out to shake, and you accept it, “Suguru Geto.” The handshake is firm but you can’t help but notice that his hand feels cold to the touch. 
“I’m y/n,” you say, “it’s nice to meet you. Well, formally, I guess.”
He presses his lips into a thin smile. “Likewise.” He leans forward a little, uncrossing his legs, then points towards the inside of the cafe. “Want a coffee? On me.”
“You know what, yes. I’ll have an iced vanilla latte,” you say.
It was at least somewhat of a courtesy that you ordered a quick drink to make, and one that was cheap. It really shouldn’t matter, since you would’ve just used one of the twenties that you stole out of Gojo’s wallet before you left, but it was merely a polite gesture, anyways.
“So, y/n, do you live nearby?” he asks as he takes a sip of whatever he was drinking, all you know is that he ordered it hot. 
“Yes, just a few miles away,” you say, “I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“Really?”
“Yup! Dayton county, born and raised,” you chirp.
“Hmm,” he hums pleasantly, “don’t tell me you’ve lived in the same house your whole life too.”
“You’re not going to believe this.”
He laughs. “You’ll have to show me around town.”
You tilt your head at him. “You’re just visiting, right? From…” You search your mind for the memory, or if he had ever told you at all. 
“New York,” he says before taking another sip. You entertain a sip from your own coffee too, wanting to match his pace.
“Oh, right, and were you able to visit those old friends you were here for?” you ask him, the memory of the conversation coming back to you somewhat.
“Ah, not really. I’m…well, I guess I’m searching for someone.”
“Searching for someone?” you snort, “what are you, Christopher Columbus? It’s the 21st century, you can’t just call them?”
He laughs again, fuller this time, coming from his chest. It’s a smooth sound, stable and sturdy. “You’re kind of charming. And way too direct.”
“Oh, I–...” you blink at him, your shoulders dropping slightly, “...I just like to get to the point.”
He laughs again, more of a close-mouthed chuckle as he glances down through the grates of the table’s surface towards the ground. 
“What?” you ask, somewhat impatiently. 
He shakes his head, the motion swaying some of the tendrils of dark hair that frame his face, and he brings his cup of coffee to his lips again. “Oh, nothing,” he says softly before taking a sip, “you just remind me of someone I know.”
You swallow gently, the furrow to your brow relaxing slightly. His eyes don’t meet yours, just continue to cast his gaze at the ground, but he has a rather melancholic look on his face. You love to get answers, and you love to be nosey, but you also know when a question shouldn’t be asked.
“As for why I don’t just call them,” he says suddenly, sitting up straighter in his chair, crossing his legs, pushing his shoulders back and settling into his chair more, “I don’t really think they want anything to do with me anymore.” He answers candidly.
“Why look for them then?”
His gaze flickers up towards you. “y/n, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think people can change?”
“That’s a rather cryptic question to change the topic of conversation to.”
“Just humor me for now.”
“Well, I think it goes without saying. Of course people can change.”
“Right?” he says, as if he didn’t ask the question out of skepticism, but rather to affirm his own belief. “Well, anyways, let’s just say I’m here to make amends. Tie up loose ends.”
Closure. This man wants closure.
“I don’t necessarily want to bore you with the details,” he says, “but it’s likely I won’t be leaving town until my business here is resolved.”
“What if it takes forever?”
“It won’t,” he says.
“But what if?”
As his eyes bore into you, they look muddy. Less of that purple-ish hue that you see when light reflects off of his pupils, and you notice that it has nothing to do with the light, but rather the yellow that has sunk into the irises of his eyes.
“It won’t,” he says, barely above a whisper, his smile dampening as he sees right through you.
You feel the need to change the subject.
“You know,” you say, “you’re, like, the fourth person I’ve met in the past couple of years that has come here from New York City. What’s up with that?”
“There’s a mass exodus,” he says, “out of there.”
“Really?”
“No. My lame attempt at a joke.”
“Oh,” you say dryly, “let’s, um, let’s not attempt those anymore.”
He smiles at you, like he knew that would be your exact reaction to a sloppy joke thrown into the song and dance of a first-time conversation. You dislike how well he reads you. 
He leans forward on the table, setting his elbows up onto it, gaze boring into yours. “Not a huge fan of pulp-free, by the way. Just thought I’d try it.”
“So you like it with the pulp?” you ask.
He nods his head.
“I knew it. I knew you were a sociopath. Totally have the face for it.”
You find a strange pleasure in your ribs at the genuine laugh that evokes out of him.
.
.
.
.
.
——————
You let out a soft sigh of relief as you stroll down the streets of downtown, swinging the bag you were carrying around with the rather jovial pep to your step. You’ve been needing new shoes for a very long time, especially since being on your feet for twelve hours straight during shifts does hardly anything good for your early onset plantar fasciitis. And with the little pocket change you stole from Gojo, you now had a new pair of New Balances as well as…..four dollars and fifty-two cents left in your pocket.
It’s a bit of a windy but rather sunny day, the breeze rustling the branches of the trees that lace the otherwise nicer part of town. The part that houses all domestic tourism, likely a grand total of fifty people a year if the county was lucky. It was safe to say Dayton Council doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on hospitality towards outsiders, or tax dollars for that matter, but if you were to ever show someone new around the place, it would be to this particular more well-kept street downtown. 
As you walk past a coffee shop, you catch a waft of jalapeno cream cheese bagel, the fresh scent of carbohydrates rousing a grumble from the pit of your stomach, making you aware of the fact that you were hungry. Despite the fact that you just recently parted ways from the mysterious Pulp-Free Orange Juice man hardly an hour ago, and that lemon loaf you ended up getting on your way out was still metabolizing in your bloodstream. But you realized you still wouldn’t be opposed to a cream cheese bagel at the moment.
The jingle of the little bells above the cafe’s entrance ring in your ear as you step inside, the A/C unit blowing a harsh puff down on you as it attempts to keep the heat of late August away from the cool interior. The place didn’t appear busy, but as you approached the register to place an order, a woman who was standing in line caught your eye.
She was dressed in a black suit from head to toe, with a feminine flare at the seams of her sleeves and silver silk lines running down her pants, elongating what was a very flattering figure, making her appear taller than the lift that the three inch heels of her shoes already do. And a closer look has you realize they’re Louboutins. She was easily taller than you, even without the heels. Her shoulders appear angular from the blazer of her suit, but you can tell they’re frail underneath the fabric. She has pin-straight mid-length hair that falls just past the curve of them. The ends of her hair look healthy, as if freshly cut, and she lifts her hand to toss some of it back with a delicate flick of her wrist, the gold-plating of her small watch catching your eyes. Her gaze is set upwards towards the menu, a small crinkle to her brow as she studies the words. Sophisticated and feminine were the words that came to mind as you looked at her. But the more you stare…the more you trace the feline lift of her eyes…the more you notice the slight pout of her lips…you just swear that you know her from somewhere. But–...but where?
“Excuse me, are you waiting in line?” some dude from behind you calls out.
“Ah.” You glance over your shoulder at him, “no, sorry, go ahead.” You step aside for the guy to get into line, directly behind the woman in the suit. 
After taking a couple of seconds to look at the menu, you decide on what you had already decided on before you had even entered the premises–a jalapeno cream cheese bagel. You wonder if you should get something to drink too, but wait patiently in line as the old couple at the register finish ordering.
The guy who had lined up just ahead of you had sparked up a conversation with the woman in the suit. You can tell he’s trying to make friendly, if not flirty, conversation with her, and you roll your eyes. Really? Dude’s ass-crack is peeping out from the low hang of his washed out blue jeans, and his turned-backwards baseball cap on his head makes him look like that creepy middle aged guy that loiters around a skate park to sell some kids some crappy weed. What on God’s Green Earth has given him the bravado to flirt with a woman like that? Out of his league wasn’t enough to admonish the audacity.  But you witness the disaster regardless. 
“You from ‘round here?” you can hear him ask her.
She doesn’t even turn a single degree to look at him, just continues to stare forward with her hands folded in front of her, a chic black clutch dangling from her shoulder. “Ahh, no, just visiting.” Her voice is soothing, a little soft, one that makes it hard to eavesdrop, but you were determined.
The man looks over his shoulder behind himself towards a group of guys seated at one of the tables, and he flashes them a grin, before he turns back forward and takes a step towards the woman. 
“Damn, they’re takin’ kinda long, huh?” he says to her, directly behind her ear.
“I suppose,” she says, shifting her feet forward a little to create distance.
“Well, I always say the wait’s better with a pretty view,” the dude practically purrs, dipping his nose towards the crown of her head, but far enough to where she wouldn’t get a sense of just how close he was to her. “Which is you, by the way. If it wasn’t already obvious.”
You see her shoulders rise and drop with the sigh she releases before she shifts her weight towards her right leg, crossing her left one over the other, balancing on one heel as she attempts to contain her composure. Your blood starts to boil on her behalf.
You hear the table of men off to the side laughing loudly in witness. As if in slow motion, the man’s hand lifts from his side and reaches out to grab her by the waist, “c’mon sweetheart, gimme something to work with here–”
Before you can even step in to yank him off of her, to your surprise, and likely the surprise of everyone else in the cafe, the woman elbows the man in his ribcage, making him recoil with a hurt gasp backwards, and then she swiftly spins on her heel, lifting her leg to kick the dude straight in the face, the pointy toe of her shoe digging straight into his cheek before she sends him flying off towards the left and crashing right into the table of men that had been watching this entire time. 
You blink in awe, staring at the woman who gently places her foot back down onto the ground with a level of balance only a ballerina would possess, and she dusts off her hands with a disappointed look on her face. Then she turns back around to continue looking up at the menu as if the whole cafe wasn’t staring at her.
You hear the growl of one of the other men at the table, offended by the emasculation his buddy just faced, and he lunges towards the woman while her back is facing him, and in a moment of no higher-thinking, you lift your bag of New Balances and swing it so that it smacks the guy right across the face to attempt stopping him from getting any further. But all it does is smack against his cheek rather ungracefully, and then now he’s glaring at you instead.
“Uh-oh,” you say, sheepishly staring up at this tall, burly, bald man that looks like he could powder steel to dust if he wanted to.
He makes a move to grab your shoulder, and you can see the woman in your periphery reach out to try to pull you away from him, but then you remember–
You’re an ED nurse.
How many times have you had to tackle a patient because security wasn’t doing their job?
How many times have you had to roll over a patient by yourself because the techs were too busy playing hooky in the break room?
You pull your fist backwards, winding up a punch with a white-knuckled grip, fingernails digging into the skin of your palm, and it all happens in slow-motion–the moment where you slam your knuckles right into the man’s jaw with all the force you can muster, and it seems enough to where you knock out a tooth and mutilate the cartilage of the bridge of his nose.
“Oh–” you stutter, blinking with wide eyes as the man entirely recoils, hunching over, screaming a strain of profanities to himself as he holds his nose which was now bleeding all over the cafe’s floors. You glance at your hand and see blood on it as well, then up at the woman who was now staring at you with wide eyes too. Along with the rest of the cafe. 
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” the man screams over and over again, and when he lifts his head to look at you, he’s crying. Straight up tears streaming down his face with a quivering lip.
Another one of the men lunges towards you to avenge the second man who was trying to avenge the first man, and this time, you flinch backwards, tripping slightly over your ankle, giving the man enough time to almost grab your arm but in the blink of an eye, you see the woman step in front of you and she knees him straight in the sternum, making him fall backwards.
It’s at this point where the rest of the residents in the cafe finally intervene, grabbing and pinning down all of the men in the midst of this cafe altercation, so that they can’t try to hurt the two of you anymore.
You turn to the woman, eyes wide, ears ringing slightly from the adrenaline, and then you say– “thank you.”
“Gosh, no, thank you,” she says with a small laugh, politely shaking her hand in front of her as if your gratitude was the last thing necessary. 
“No but seriously,” you say to her, blinking with wide eyes in awe as the chaos of pinning the men down in the background continued, hearing people shout threats to call the police, “I mean, your reflexes–...and that crazy kick! That was black-belt level of self defense.”
“Ahhh thank you,” she says, hanging her head a little in modesty before nodding, and you notice not a single one of her hairs is out of place, “I am actually a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”
“Wow,” you say, “that’s really amazing.”
She smiles at you, then neatly tucks some of her hair behind her ear.
And she still looks so familiar.
So uncannily familiar, and yet you can’t quite place it.
Never someone you’ve met…but just someone you know somehow.
Like you’ve seen her somewhere. 
But the feeling in the pit of your stomach was an unwelcome one, and not a curious one. 
“Is your hand okay?” she asks you, her brows furrowing with worry as she glances down at it. You see the men being carried outside the cafe by a bunch of the other patrons. 
“Oh! Yes. It’s the other guy’s blood, not mine.”
She grins at you. “You’re the cool one.” She glances over to the right at the register where the guy who was manning it was staring at her in awe. “Here, hold on one sec.” She then crosses the distance with flawless balance on her heels and a swaying set of silky hair as she makes her way up to it.
You awkwardly stand where you are before she comes back out with a small cup of water and some napkins. She grabs your hand in hers and gently starts dabbing a wet napkin to your hand to wipe the blood off of it. The gesture is somewhat tender to you with the way that she takes care in doing so. Gentle swipes of wet napkin over the valleys of bone, meticulous enough to where no red pigment dares to threaten the pearly french manicure that adorns her nails. When she’s close to you, you catch a waft of the delicate lavender perfume on her clothes.
“There! Lovely, all better,” she says, then reaches into her purse for some hand sanitizer. “But seriously, thank you,” she says, “I wasn’t expecting that other guy to lunge at me. If it wasn’t for you, that would’ve ended badly.”
“Oh, of course,” you say, “it was actually really satisfying getting to punch the shit out of someone.”
She laughs. It’s contained. “I’m glad.”
“Excuse me, ladies?” a voice towards the right calls out, and you both turn your heads to see a police officer standing there. And when he makes eye contact with you, your eyes widen. “Oh. It’s y/n.”
“Ah,” you say to him, “Leon.”
Leon was Choso’s patrol partner for most shifts, and his right-hand-man more or less. They were good friends, and have been coworkers for the past three years or so. Given you were Choso’s girlfriend for the entirety of his career as a cop so far, you’ve gotten to know a lot of his fellow deputies. From being his plus-one at Christmas parties, and BBQ picnics, and dropping into the Police Department for lunch with him on his grueling weekend shifts. Y’know. The typical girlfriend stuff. 
“You’re the one that punched that guy?” Leon says with disbelief as he points his thumb over this shoulder behind him. You glance through the glass panes of the cafe and see a police car outside and another cop placing those men in handcuffs.
“Yes. What about it?”
“Damn. Would hate to see what the place looked like when Choso dumped you.”
“I’m the one that dumped him!!!!” you shout a little too loudly to vindicate yourself.
He pulls a spiral notebook out of the velcro pocket of his black vest, then clicks the pen to his chest before placing his wrist on the paper. You’re almost surprised he knows how to read and write. 
“I’m going to need some testimony from you two,” he says.
The woman’s phone starts ringing in her pocket, and she says softly, “yes, just excuse me for one moment,” before she steps off to the side to take the call.
Leon glances at her over his shoulder. “Who’s your friend?”
“Huh?
He jerks his chin towards her general direction.
“The woman you’re with. She single?”
You roll your eyes. “Out. Of. Your. League. Seriously! What the fuck is up with you penis-havers?!”
You didn’t understand why you were being particularly protective over this woman against the sloppy men of your hometown, but it was almost like you couldn’t help it. You’ve spent most of your life knowing that you live in one of the most forgettable, unsophisticated, lame and unheard of places in the entire country. You felt it was a duty to at least protect the visitors to this town against any of its regular bullshittery, including its residents, of whom you know very well.
Leon sighs, as if this behavior from you was no surprise, likely because it wasn’t, and then he presses his pen to paper again. “Alright. Just give me the story.”
You finishing recounting the incident to Leon, and when the woman comes back, she finishes telling her side as well, then Leon walks the two of you outside to get assessed for any injuries by the paramedic he brought with him on stand-by, and aside from a small band-aid the paramedic places over your knuckle, the two of you had left unscathed, and then the place becomes vacant of any lawful authorities.
“Um,” the woman says, wincing a little, then points towards the ice cream shop next to the cafe. “Please? As a thanks? I feel bad.”
You give her a soft smile. “Sure.”
The two of you entered the store, and you stand near the back of the store as the man behind the glass scoops together two cones of ice cream for the woman, and even though she tried to pay for them, she ended up getting them for free by the starry-eyed college student working behind the counter. Pretty privilege, you thought to yourself. 
“Here,” she says, “this one is yours.” And she extends her arm out to give you your ice cream cone as the two of you leave the store.
“Ah! Thank you,” you say, graciously accepting it, somewhat awkwardly, but it felt like a reward.
“It’s dripping,” she says, voice soft in a slight panic as she sees that her cone is dripping too.
You both lick off whatever cream was threatening to roll down into your hands, and just as you taste sweet sugar on your tongue, you hear a loud engine rumble next to you, along with the crunch of tires underneath rough road as a man in a truck drives by the curb, rolling his window down to yell, “DAAAAAAAMNNNN SLUTS!!!!! Y’all make that ice cream look gooooooood, fuck!”
Your jaw drops. Pure rage fills your every bone and you start chasing the car down the road, yelling “IT’LL LOOK EVEN BETTER SHOVED UP YOUR FUCKING NOSE YOU DIRTY FUCKING FREAK!!!”, then hurl the ice cream cone at his car, aim perfectly hitting his passenger side mirror, covering it in vanilla, before the cone bounces off, falls to the ground, and you hear the kick of his engine again as he speeds away.
You’re huffing and puffing, panting even, as you stand at the edge of the curb and notice that there are quite a few townsfolk staring at you with amused looks and wide eyes.
The woman in the suit appears in your periphery, and she’s laughing. “You’re so–” she’s hunching over a little now, “you’re so funny, oh my god.” The laugh was hearty, full of spirit, unlike the prim and curated one she has given you so far. 
You exhale a puff of air and stand up straight. “I’m so sorry. Some of the men in this town are so degenerate and fucked in the brain.”
“No, no, no, it’s fine,” she says, letting out some more laughs as she swipes under her eye to collect a laughter-induced tear from the corner of it, and she checks her finger for any smudge of makeup underneath it before she smiles and gleefully swats a hand at you. “I’m used to catcalling.”
You blink at her. 
“Oh! I mean–...because I’m from the city!” she clarifies, suddenly stiffening. “Gosh, not because I’m beautiful. I just realized that was a little self-centered to say…And now I feel self centered again for clarifying that it wasn’t self centered. Oh gosh. I promise that I am not self centered.” She lets out an awkward laugh then tosses her hair over her shoulder rather elegantly.
You awkwardly smile at her. “No, um, I mean, I don’t think it was self-centered to say. And besides, you are very beautiful.”
“Thanks,” she smiles. It’s a pretty one, rounding out her eyes into crescents. “You as well.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“Ah, I just realized I never introduced myself. I’m Sylvie,” she says, stretching her hand out for you to shake it. You’re a little surprised by the gesture but you accept it. She gently squeezes your hand. “And you?”
“y/n,” you say.
As a group of men walk by down the street, you notice that a few of them glance Sylvie’s way, gazes lingering for a moment, but she doesn’t seem privy to it at all, even when those gazes turn into blatant staring before they’re no longer in proximity to stare for any longer. And you can see why. She’s insanely pretty, and in that way where it’s something she was simply born with and never taught to question. Classically beautiful, rather than the trendy or posed kind. And the men in this town aren’t exactly used to seeing a woman like her in a place like this. Like locals who can sniff an outsider from a mile away. Or a vintage birkin. Like the one hung over her shoulder. 
“Would you like to sit down?” she asks.
You blink at her. “Sure.”
For the second time today, you find yourself sitting across a stranger in outdoor shop seating on a rather sunny Saturday afternoon. The person that is seated across from you also feels familiar to you in the same way that Mysterious Pulp-Free OJ man did to you as well, but you still can’t quite place where you’ve seen her before. 
She uses a spoon to scoop up the ice cream from her cone, bringing it to her lips, somewhat dainty when she pulls the spoon out of her mouth, now clean of any cream. “So, y/n, what do you do for work?” she asks you, eyes flitting up to yours. 
“I’m a nurse,” you tell her simply, “what about you?”
“I’m in investment property management for high-profile clients.”
You blink at her, gently scooping up some ice cream from your cup. “Oh.” It sounded like an elevator pitch that rolls off her tongue with the ease of a million past recitations. “Kinda like real estate?”
“Yes, I mean, my line of work is a little adjacent to that, but yeah! I started off in general real estate and then moved into more of the investment property space as opposed to primary residence.”
You nod slowly, wondering if she always speaks about her job with buzz words like she’s constantly at a job interview. “My husb–...uh, my neighbor is a realtor,” you say in an attempt to connect.
“Oh!” she chirps, tilting her head at you, “that’s interesting.”
“Mhm.”
“I’m actually here because I heard there was a bit of a realtor shortage in the area.”
“Oh? So you’re looking to move here?”
“Ahh, maybe.”
“I see. Just a heads up, you won’t find any high-profile clients here. The last celebrity that visited this town was Adam Sandler, and he was only here because he got lost on his way to Seattle.” You wave your spoon around in the air. “I only know that because the local news covered it for like a week.”
She laughs. “Yeah, I’m…I’m still thinking. Still deciding. It’s nice being in New York, but…” She glances off towards the street in thought, her eyes lidding ever so slightly, lashes briefly dusting her high cheeks, “there’s a future for me here in this town.”
“Mm,” you hum before placing your spoon on your tongue, briefly questioning why someone would choose a small town like this over one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the country, especially when she looks and acts and talks like a city girl through and through, but you suppose to each their own. “You know, you’re the second person I’ve met today that’s visiting here from New York. Strange phenomenon.” Maybe there really is a mass exodus as Mr. Pulp-Free OJ so poorly joked about. 
Her interest is piqued. “Oh, really? Who was the other person?”
“Well, I originally met the guy at a grocery store. But I ran into him again today and actually had a chat with him, but now he’s only become even more mysterious to me than the first time I met him.” You sigh. “He’s kinda hot, though. And by ‘kinda’, I mean really.”
“Ohhh,” she coos, setting her napkin down on the table and setting her chin in the palm of her hand held up by her elbow, “if you’re single, you should ask him out the next time you see him.”
You let out a girlish laugh, shaking your head somewhat bashfully as your gaze flits downward, like you’re a teenager talking about boys with your friends at a sleepover. Sylvie’s eyes twinkle at hearing the sound. “Maybe I will.”
Your eyes flit up to the sky briefly.
Are you single? I mean, you are fake-married. But what does that mean if you were to hit it off with someone while you were in this diplomatic arrangement? Is there exclusivity in this situation? Or was there room to see other people? You have no idea. And you don’t really know how Gojo would feel about it, either. 
You two continue to chat, suddenly moving into a conversation about how shitty of an ex-boyfriend Choso was, and Sylvie is entirely enthralled by all the drama, but you realize she doesn’t really give up much info of her own. Nothing above the surface level & vague “one of my friends” this or “hahaha same” that. But either way, you kind of feel like you’ve made a new friend today, and the feeling is nice.
As you listen to Sylvie talk about what the weather's like in New York City, you twirl your hair around your finger, and then Gojo’s words from earlier this morning flash through your mind, making you instantly grimace with anger.
Sylvie blinks at you. “Oh, sorry, did I say something wrong?”
“No!” you quickly clarify, “sorry, I was just thinking about my hair.”
“Your…hair?”
You sigh. “Yes.”
“What about it?” She tilts her head. “Looking to get it cut?”
“Well, yes, that too, but also–” You pause. She’s a woman. Surely she could at least relate to the feeling of forgetting to wash your hair every now and then, and then feeling somewhat embarrassed by it. But given that her own hair looks like she just stepped out of a salon, along with every other inch of her body looking prim and perfect, you become more and more doubtful as the seconds pass that she could relate to you on that front at all. But you decide to give it a shot, anyways. Friendships are built on vulnerability, are they not? “I’m just a bit bothered by something my…neighbor said to me this morning.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“He said my hair looks greasy. Like a french fry.”
“Seriously?” she says with disbelief, “what a jerk!”
Your face lights up and you lean forwards towards her, delighted in for once finally sharing in the same distaste for Gojo that no one else seem to have. “I know, right?! Like, what the actual fuck.”
She shakes her head. “Men.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“What?”
“Shall we go get you that haircut?”
You blink at her. “R…Right now?”
“Yes!” she chirps. “What better thing to do on a Saturday than a haircut and a fresh blowout?”
There’s a feeling that swells in your chest. It’s a mixture of excitement and a mixture of fear. Where you’re thrilled to indulge in some of the finer things in life, but also worried that you’ve never come to deserve any of it.
“Come onnnnn, y/n,” Sylvie says as she leans further onto the table, both of her elbows on the surface with her hand folded over the knuckles of the other, both holding her chin up as she narrows those sharp eyes at you. “I can tell that you want to.”
You breathe in deep, then let it out slowly.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
.
.
.
.
.
——————
The golf course was the kind of place that almost felt sterile in its perfection. One thing about a small semi-suburban town bordered by rural farmland properties was that they got their golf courses right. Lush green rolled out onto the hills in laminar waves, trimmed and tamed along its borders. Instead of metal fences that gate the area, there were pine trees that lined the edges, and made the place feel more natural.
Gojo adjusted the glove on his left hand, more for performance than any real need, and he squinted his eyes out into the green hilly distance. The visor of his hat was barely sufficient to block the rays of sunshine, and he tucks the handle of his golf club under his arm so that he can lift his hat off and push back some of his hair that had escaped from it.
Choso stood a few feet away, watching him. His posture was rigid, entirely contrary to Gojo’s lax state, and he had his arms crossed, hands tucked underneath his armpits as if he was still on duty and in uniform. Gojo shifts a glance his way, and he’s not sure what sort of intel Choso intends to collect with a glare like that.
Gojo steps up to the ball, exhales a puff of air, draws his club back, and swings. The ball shoots off in a clean arc, and he watches its trajectory, but barely looks where it lands before he turns his back to it and stretches his neck from side to side.
“You always swing like you’re tryna impress someone?” Choso asks.
“Am I? That felt pretty relaxed to me.”
“Explains the finish.”
“Bummer. Still ahead, though.”
Choso grumbles something underneath his breath that Gojo doesn’t quite catch, then steps up to his ball, his shoulders stiff as he lets out some disgruntled noise as if the ball personally offended him by its existence. 
He tightens his grip around the club, flexing his hands open and close a few times, shuffles his feet as he gets into stance, and takes a deep breath in through his nose. Definitely more practiced and curated than whatever Gojo was used to seeing out on the field, and a lot less leisurely chatty. He lines his shot up in silence, head down, eyes forward, and then swings.
The ball takes off, high and fast, but veers slightly right on the descent. It lands with a solid thud in the rough, not far off the fairway, but certainly further than Choso probably wanted.
Gojo doesn’t say anything, at least not at first. He’s still watching the ball settle into the grass, arms folded, a sorely pleased smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Not bad but,” he says, “a little stiff.”
“Shut up.”
“You wanna drive this time?” Gojo asks, but is tossing the keys to Choso before he can even respond with—
“Fine.”
As the game goes on, and the heat starts to get to the both of them, conversation begins to fray open a bit more than it was at the beginning. A lot of it was just Choso quizzing the hell out of Gojo regarding his new wife, as if him not knowing what your favorite color is would be anything intensely incriminating in court. But even if it was, it’s fine, because he did end up knowing what your favorite color was. And also when your birthday is. And, surprisingly, which middle school you went to (your mother once showed him your 7th grade portrait on the fridge when he went over to fix the A/C).
“I just don’t get it. I mean, she hated you,” Choso says as Gojo walks up to his ball, “seriously. You know how many times I heard her cuss out your entire ancestry over that boat you leave out on your driveway? Like, I’m pretty sure she’s cast some nasty ass spell on you by now.” Gojo tightens his glove with his teeth and then grips the handle before drawing his club back in preparation to swing as Choso keeps talking. “She told me that she thinks you’re pretentious, and obnoxious, and self-absorbed, and difficult, and entitled, and sleazy, and—”
“Okay, man, I get it,” Gojo grumbles, trying to sound detached from the insults and your poor opinion of him, but when he swings, it’s way too flat.
“Damn, what the hell was that?” Choso asks, raising a hand up over his eyes to watch the arc of Gojo’s ball in disappointment. About a half hour ago, the two men would’ve taken great satisfaction in seeing the other completely shank a shot. But now, they’re rooting for at least some good competition. 
Gojo sighs with irritation, then makes an excuse. “Something in my eye.”
He wonders for a moment if he should just fess up. Tell Choso, yes, the marriage is a scam. Was it not incredibly obvious for all the aforementioned reasons? But also, to urge Choso to just leave it alone. To not let some blinded rage get in the way of this little marriage scheme because, ultimately, it really benefited your financial situation. There’s no way Choso would be that petty about your alleged and swift moving on from him to where he’d genuinely put you in any real legal danger, right? 
But he keeps his mouth shut, as his gut instinct insists. 
“We—” He starts, unsure of how to continue, but he felt like he needed to at least address it. “We’ve got that whole, you know, opposites attract thing.”
Choso squints his eyes at Gojo, then his shoulders slump before walking up to his ball. 
“What?” Gojo asks.
“Nothing,” Choso says, his tone even as he shuffles his feet apart to get into a swinging stance. “Opposites attract.” He echoes Gojo’s words. “She always used to tell me she hated that kinda stuff.”
Gojo doesn’t say anything in response, just watches as Choso’s eyes flicker with something heavy, maybe confusion or regret or irritation, but he shakes his head like he’s trying to get rid of it. Gojo clears his throat, a question formulating in his head that he wants to ask so bad, but tries to stall it by poking his tongue to the inside of his cheek, until Choso draws the club back to swing, and there’s this weird strain he feels in his chest when he finally decides to just blurt it out and ask the guy—
“Are you still in love with her?”
The choke in Choso’s form would’ve been visible from a mile away, but he carries through the swing on pure momentum alone, hurling the ball up into the air along with a stunted patch of dirt and grass which cuts the trajectory short by about half of what he was likely aiming for it to be, and he watches with a frozen frame as it lands disgracefully on sand.
Gojo blinks ahead at it.
“Damn,” he says, “that’s gotta be one of the worst shots I’ve ever seen.”
Choso huffs an exhale, his shoulders sulking as he stares ahead into the grassy hills. Gojo glances at the back of his head, and lets out a sigh after a voice in his head tells him to just drop it.
He ruffles in his pocket for the golf cart keys, but then stares up at the distance between them and their rather disappointing shots. “Let’s just walk this one.”
Choso nods.
The heat is borderline sweltering, evident in the way Choso’s wiping the sweat off his forehead with the ball of his shoulder and Gojo’s tugging at the collar of his polo to get a bit of breeze onto his chest. And there was a weird sense of solidarity in their decision to torture themselves with eachother’s company over a game of golf. It was a bit humbling, too.
���How did the two of you meet?” Gojo asks Choso as they make their way up a hill.
“She didn’t tell you?” Choso asks, offended, as if he’s surprised that he wasn’t a topic of their pillow talk.
“Nope,” Gojo says, probably because there was no real pillow talk. You two quite literally sleep in different bedrooms.
Choso sighs, a little out of breath when he responds. “We met in college. I was also a nursing major, until I flunked out of organic chemistry. So I dropped out and went to the Police Academy. We stayed together, though.”
“Ah,” Gojo responds.
“Y’know,” Choso randomly speaks up, “I would think she cheated on me.” He wipes at a bead of sweat that perspirates on his chin. “With the way the two of you got married so fast after we broke up.”
Gojo’s brow furrows as he just stares straight ahead, despite Choso layering a testing glance his way, to see his reaction to that statement, and see if it was in any way incriminating. “Nah,” Gojo says, “she’s not the type to do something like that.”
He can see in his periphery that Choso raised a brow at that. “That’s the testament? A personality trait? And not a first-hand account from you?” 
It irritates Gojo. The assumption that you would do something like that. And he knows Choso wants to hear it from Gojo himself—the reassurance that he wasn’t messing around with his girlfriend while they were still together, ironically as if they were in some alternate universe where this marriage was anything other than business…but instead, he doubles down. 
“Yeah,” he says, “she’s just not that kind of person.”
.
.
.
.
.
——————
“Alrighty,” the hairstylist behind your chair says to you as he drags the wet ends of your hair to the front of your shoulders, eyeing them in the mirror. He ruffles up some of the overgrown layers in the back, the scent of sweet apple arousing your senses as you revel in the pleasure of the cleanest your scalp has ever felt in probably ever given the intensity in which the hairstylist scrubbed it out when he was washing it.
You have never been to a wet salon. Ever. You had always just resorted to SuperCuts or anything that was less than a twenty-minute wait and a twenty-dollar bill. But when Sylvie told you she did a drive-by of this place on her way to Dayton County from the SeaTac airport, she had sworn one of her high-class celebrity clients had endorsed it to her once and so she really wanted to go. You were reluctant, probably because just stepping inside the place already made you feel like you owed them some money, given the sheer luxury that surrounded you, but it was okay. I mean, how much could a single haircut cost?
“So, what are we doing today?” the hairstylist asks as he continues to pointlessly ruffle up your wet hair. He had silver grey hair and was wearing a rather tight grey vest with a turtle neck snug to his skin layered underneath, with matching grey trousers. He smelled just as expensive as the products he put in your hair to get the oil out of it. You no longer felt like a French Fry. You felt like some crisp iceberg lettuce. 
You open your mouth to answer him, but Sylvie cuts you off first.
“Ray, if you could just fix up the layers,” she says, speaking to him as if he were a lifelong friend despite the fact that she had also just met him, but the man seems to be thrilled by the friendliness from her, “and maybe some curtain bangs? Have them end here though, I think that would flatter her face.” She pulls some of your strands forward onto your face, and they tickle your nose.
You’ve never known what specifically flatters your face shape. You have been getting the same exact haircut since you were just a wee little lad. It was the one your mother used to do for you out in the backyard as you sat on a stool and felt the crunch of her scissors behind you while locks fell to the concrete of the patio. There was no further style or personality you asked of any of the hairdressers in your adulthood life, but only the small desire that they wouldn’t change too much about the shape your mother always left your hair in. It was just another small way that you felt you could cling onto the happy memories you have of her.
But you couldn’t even dwell on the sentiment for longer than two seconds before Ray was taking Sylvie’s suggestions and instruction to heart, immediately snipping away at your hair. He was sectioning your hair out into such small layers, almost microscopic, as if he didn’t want more than 100 strands in each before he made them all subject to his shears, and the process felt like hours. You couldn’t always see Sylvie in the mirror because Ray would often flip your hair over and into your face, but when you could peak at her through the strands of your hair, you could see she was watching Ray’s every move with her arms crossed over her chest as if you were some sculpture she couldn’t bear to see ruined. 
By the time Ray gets around to cutting your curtain bangs, you feel like an entirely different person. Your hair was still a little damp from the wash, but you could already see the gorgeous shape in which your hair was sitting in. The layers were stunning. And you could only imagine what it would look like once he–
“Alrighty, let’s blow this out,” Ray says, grabbing a round brush and a precision hair dryer. 
You could’ve fallen asleep in the chair, despite the loud volume of the hair dryer, from how lovely the gentle tug of each section of your hair against the brush felt as Ray continued to create tension throughout the strands of your freshly-cut hair. He curled the ends gently, slightly inwards, setting them with spray, all the way up to the fringe of your hair which he corrected with a hair straightener so that it all sits smoothly. And then, he turns you in the chair to face the mirror, and you’re shocked.
You seriously could not have imagined yourself looking the way you do right now. Your hair was stunning, each layer had personality, with the soft curls that have now gently fallen out but in a way that felt intentional, voluminous and alluring. You touch the ends of your hair and they feel so ridiculously soft, and pillowy, and smell so nice. And Sylvie was right. The curtain bangs at that specific length entirely flattered your face, and it almost made you look more youthful. After years and years and years of working nights, stressing out over bills, taking care of your sick mother, and having hardly any time to take care of yourself, you didn’t even know you still had the capacity to look this…pretty?
“Wow, stunning,” Sylvie says with a smile, clapping her hands together with satisfaction. “You’re a wizard, Ray.”
Ray helps you out of your seat, the three of you making smalltalk as he walks you over to the lady running the register. She asks Ray some questions about which tools he used and which products he applied, and then Ray leaves the three of you to it as he goes to clean up his station. You’re staring at the lady at the register in slight anticipation, but it was hard to stay anxious about the bill when you catch sight of your reflection in the mirror hung up on the wall behind the register.
“Alright, that’ll be three-hundred-and-seventy-two dollars,” the lady says, not even lifting her eyes once to tell you the damage as she continues to type away with long acrylics on the keyboard in front of her.
Your gaze is RIPPED away from your reflection in front of you,
And you guffaw at the register lady.
“I–...I’m–…excuse me?!” you exclaim.
Sylvie tilts her head at you, as if the cost was no surprise to her. 
“T-Three-hundred-and-seventy-two dollars for a haircut?” you exhale in disbelief, “I–oh my god, I cannot afford that!”
The lady behind the register nods her head slowly. “No worries! We have a six month financing plan with a low APR.”
You cannot fathom that there are people out there who would finance a haircut.
“That…I can’t do that, I’m sorry.” God knows what your credit score looks like right now with all of your unpaid debt. And you don’t want to face the humiliation of getting rejected from a three-hundred-dollar loan in front of Sylvie. “I, um, you know what? I’ll pay it back with hard work. I’ll—um, I actually make for a really great receptionist, and social media advertiser, and I used to cut a little bit of hair in college, and I could—”
Sylvie lets out a laugh from beside you. “Oh my gosh, y/n, you’re hilarious. It’s fine. I’ll pay for it!”
You blink at her. “I–...I’m sorry, what?”
She takes a step towards the register and pulls her black credit card out of her wallet. “I said that I’ll pay for it.” She inserts her chip into the machine.
“But–...I can’t accept that–”
“Seriously, it’s fine,” she says, “I have a feeling we’ll be friends, so, we’ll just open up a friendship tab!”
You look at her with an equal amount of worry because you’re not going to be able to pay it forward anytime in the near future.
She smiles at you. “Or…just let me do something nice for you. No questions asked. As a thanks for what you did back in the cafe.” She pulls her credit card out from the machine. “And in fairness, I am the one who dragged you to this salon.” She tucks her card back in her wallet. “Let’s leave now? I’m starving.”
“I–...” you almost feel like you could cry from the kindness, “...sure.”
She gives you a smile, hooks her arm around yours, and pulls you towards her, and then you both head out onto the street with in-tune gleeful laughter in the air.
“Any good patisseries in the area?” Sylvie asks, stumbling a little, taking you along with the sway of her body as she continues to anchor you to her by her hold of your arm, but she continues to strut forward down the street as you attempt to catch up. And you realize maybe there’s a bit of strategy to a stride like this, given the speed is just enough to cause a gentle breeze to tousle the curls of your hair, making you feel like a supermodel with a fan pointed right at you. Walk at this speed more often, you make a mental note to yourself. 
You glance up at the sky. Patisserie was quite the word, like something Hana would say to pretend she knows a lick of French after two months of her little fling with Jean Pierre, of whom is currently white with a fever back at her place. Normally, you would offer a belittling snort at the pretentious noun, but you find yourself matching Sylvie’s level. “There’s a suuuuuper cute one on Wisteria Street. Doucers de France!” you exclaim, and Sylvie laughs, picking up the pep to her walk as you do the same.
As you two stroll down the streets of downtown, engaging in nonsensical chatter, you’ve noticed you’re getting stared at a lot, mostly by men, and it’s starting to make you suspicious.
You turn to Sylvie, “Do I have something on my face?”
“Hm?” She tilts her head at you. “No?”
“Weird, I feel like a lot of people have been staring at me.”
“Because you look gorgeous with your new hair, silly!”
“Hmnnn???” you furrow your brow at her, but lift your gaze up to glance at two men who were walking by, both of whom had their gazes locked directly on you, even as you stared them down, all the way down the curb until they both ran into a trashcan.
Sylvie laughs, covering her mouth with a hand. “See?”
“Interesting…” you say, tucking soft strands behind your ear, “hm.” You push your shoulders back a little and toss some hair over your shoulders in a new-found confidence. 
Sylvie is privy to the attitude shift, and squeezes your arm tighter, “shall we continue to Doucers de France?”
“Why yes. Yes we shall.”
The power you felt you held, courtesy of the hair on your head, was unmatched. You haven’t felt this hunted down by stares since you were in your early twenties club era. In a sense, you felt you had gained your novelty back. And you were eating it up. Well, eating up the opportunity to glare down men who stare with no shame. But at least you had quite a substantial amount of them to indignantly dissolve with a well-practiced glare. Like some game of pacman strolling down 183rd Street. 
As you two approach the cafe, you nearly run into a cop that circles around the alleyway in front of the block, and the two of you come to an abrupt halt. When you glance at the cop’s face, you realize it’s Leon again, except this time he has a coffee and a sourdough donut in his hand.
“Hello again, ladies,” he says with a gaze towards Sylvie, and when his gaze shifts to you, he says, “woah.”
“What?”
“You look real nice, y/n. How come you don’t wear your hair like that more often?”
“Time and resources, mainly.”
“I see,” he says as he one-ups you with his eyes, makes some linear conclusion in his head by the state of your appearance, then leans against the brick wall. “Hey, listen, so, I know you and Choso have some crazy history, but,” he runs a hand through his hair in a way that he clearly thinks is enticing, “do you think he’d be okay if we…” He points back and forth to gesture between the two of you.
Sylvie lets out a short exhale of a laugh through her nose and glances down towards the ground, and you narrow your eyes at the cop in front of you with disgust before you hold up a hand in front of his face. “Your desperation to get laid is so very entirely unsexy to me, so shut it.” And at your words, Sylvie lets out a more audible laugh, and it’s your turn to wrap your arm around hers and pull her towards you as you two strut past a wide-eyed, indignant Leon who seems more confused than offended by your words.
Once Sylvie’s giggling fit has calmed down, she manages to say, “seriously, you’re so funny, y/n.”
“Mm?” you hum, slowing down in pace a little when you see she’s having a hard time keeping up, either because of her heels or the laughter-induced intoxication she seems to possess now, a type of giddiness that was starting to rub off on you too.
“Ahh, I don’t know, I just love the way you say exactly what you’re thinking,” she smiles, “I wish I could do that.”
Your mind flashes back to what Pulp-Free OJ man said to you earlier today. You’re kind of charming. And way too direct.
“Is…” you start, suddenly feeling slightly self conscious, and you gently tuck some strands behind your ear as if to preserve some femininity in the face of this so-called brazenness of yours, “is that a bad thing?”
“Nooooo,” she coos, like she can tell you’re taking it the wrong way, “it’s fun! It’s entertaining. It’s refreshing.” She pulls you along with her to start walking. “Makes you seem kinda foxy. Which is an attractive thing.”
“Oh.”
She smiles, something that looks a little foxy herself, and glances at you as her sleek hair flares with the wind of her pace, “Maybe we should go see if we can find that hot mysterious New York man and you can ask him out on a daaaaaaateee.” She nudges your arm with her elbow teasingly. 
Your cheeks feel slightly flush at her words, and you blink at her a couple of times in consideration, but seeing how round her face is from pure glee, you’d feel awkward to show too much hesitation towards the idea of a good time, and so your shoulders settle down and your expression softens, before you return her smile and say, “mm, maybe.”
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——————
“I’ve learned,” Gojo says, sitting back in his chair as he sets his feet up on the cushion in front of him, picking his bottle of beer up off the outdoor patio table in front of the country club’s recreational bar, “in my experience with women, that’s it’s better to just be honest about where you’re going or what you’re doing and let her be mad,” he sloshes the beer around by the bottleneck, “than to lie to her about it and then she finds out later and she gets pissed off more reasons than one.”
“Reaaaalllyyyyy???” Choso slurs from next to him, leaning over the frosty glass surface underneath the overhead umbrella tent of the table, “I dunno man. I’ve lied to a lot of past girlfriends and I hev–nev–... ‘scuse me, have never gotten in trouble for it.”
“Seriously?” Gojo’s eyes flit up towards the blue sky in thought. “Shit. Maybe I’m just a bad liar then.”
Choso snorts and tips the top of his bottle towards Gojo like a salute. “Yeah, I think that’s it.” And then he takes a swig.
Something bothers Gojo, and his brow furrows before glancing over to the man next to him. “Wait. Why’d you lie to them so much anyway? Is it pathological?”
Choso shakes his head, tendrils of his hair that were stuck to his forehead still slick by the sweat from the earlier sun out in the grass. His head tilts off to the side a little in a daze before he casts his gaze off towards the golf course. “Nah, nah, nah. Just the usual stuff, yaknow? ‘Cause, like, she doesn’t need to know I blew off going to brunch with her and her mom on a Sunday because I wanted to go check out McClarens at the auto strip instead. ‘Cause who’s that gonna help?” He swipes the back of his hand across his upper lip. “Instead I just tell her I took her car to get a much needed oil change. And then bam. She thinks I’m a man who knows my priorities, I'm living within my means, and I’m helpful.” Choso snaps his fingers at Gojo. “She wins, I win.”
Gojo narrows his eyes at him. “A McClaren? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Choso groans, slumping in his chair, his arms dangling over the rests as he peers up at the sky past the visor of his hat, bottle of beer threatening to slip down the loose grip of his hand. “When I was twenty, I thought I’d be rich by the time I was twenty-five. I’m thirty-one now, and I still drive a Honda Civic.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a Honda Civic, man.”
Choso sits up suddenly in his chair, leaning to the side towards Gojo as he squints at him. Gojo keeps his gaze set forward, taking a reasonable drink of burnt amber as he anticipates being asked some sort of intrusive question.
“Well, what about you?” Choso asks. “You’ve got a boat, a couple of nice cars. I’ve seen the suits you wear–they’re not off-the-rack. What are you doing out here in bumfuck nowhere?”
The convoluted question starts to weigh heavy on Gojo’s tipsy mind, and he’s running out of the ability to navigate it, even though he’s the one that suggested three bottles of beer at 1pm on a Saturday on an empty stomach after two hours of golfing out in the sun, as if heat-soaked lethargy wasn’t enough. Sometimes he forgets he’s not twenty-two anymore, and there are certain things his body just can’t seem to handle at this age.
“I used to work in downtown Manhattan,” Gojo says, slightly deflecting the question, “I moved here about a year ago.”
“Yeahhhhhh, I remember when you moved here,” Choso says, slumping back into his lawn chair, “I fuckin’ hated you.”
Gojo glances over at him and quirks a brow. “Huh? Why?”
“Good-lookin’ guy moving in right next door to my girlfriend?” Choso says, “terrifying. But at least she hated you, too. Well, until she married you. And I still don’t know what the fuck you did to accomplish that, but fuck you anyways.” He holds a middle finger up at him, and then sets his bottle of beer down onto the glass tablet to hold the other one up as well. As if he at least still had the decency to know he wouldn’t have the dexterity to multi-task a grip and a flip-off at the same time. 
Gojo’s gaze dampens slightly, even at the hostility from Choso. It dips to where he’s glancing at the hot pavement in front of the two of them, right where the grass is pristinely cut at the border. He wonders if Choso truly believes that this whole marriage thing is real, or if he was just pretending. But why? Why would he pretend to this extent? It doesn’t make sense. But it has to look strange from the outside, right? He breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, and then three weeks later, she gets married to her next-door-neighbor? Someone who she allegedly hates. At least Gojo hopes it’s only alleged. But that’s a discussion for another time.
Point is, there’s no way that Choso believes all of this. There’s just no way. But at the same time, he acts the part so convincingly like he does. Like he’s really distraught over his ex-girlfriend moving on with the guy sitting next to him. And if he really was distraught about it, then why the hell is Gojo the one that is sitting right next to him? Choso’s a cop. He could easily shoot Gojo if he wanted to. At the very least, that would make things a bit more interesting. 
Gojo opens his mouth to speak, but Choso cuts him off,
“Why did you move out here, though?”
Gojo glances down at his hand that’s been turning the glass bottle of beer at the base as it sits on the table. He breathes in deep, catching the scent of lavender in the distance, a fragrance he finds a little too familiar, then exhales slowly. 
Not a great liar, but he can manage a half-truth. 
“To be closer to my family,” he says.
The heat begins to slowly dwindle in the late afternoon in passing, despite the fact that it was still a ridiculously sunny day, and it only takes one more beer from Choso before he’s got an even looser mouth and is practically trauma dumping all of the absolutely insane cop cases he’s had to deal with within the past few years, ranging from having to track down the hyena that escaped from the local zoo, to closing out a twenty year cold kidnapping case. There’s a comfort at the base of Gojo’s ribs when he realizes the biggest emergency he’ll ever face at his job is…running out of Open House flyers.
“That’s something I—” Choso takes a pause to make sure he doesn’t slur his words, “loved about dating y/n. I ever had a crazy story? Oh trrruuussttt me she had a crazier one from the hospital.” He shakes his head in disbelief, like he’s reminiscing on all of them. “And y’know, she’s stone cold emotionally so she would share it all without a bat of an eye, too.” He pretends to shiver. “She scares the shit out of me sometimes.”
“Really? I thought all of that was a defense tactic or something.” Gojo feels strange talking about you in the absence of you but he wasn’t above the buzz of a few beers either.
Choso raises an eyebrow at him mid-sip. “Huh?”
“Like, you know, she’s got a lot of stuff going on…but has a hard time talking about it…so she deflects. Or acts tough to get through it.”
Choso’s eyes widen briefly, but then he starts to shake his head vehemently in denial. “Nahhh that’s just her personality. She just doesn’t really care about most things, especially the sappy and sentimental stuff. She’s very practical. That’s why dating her was so easy when things were right between us. I didn’t have to overthink things. Like flowers or spontaneous dates or cheesy compliments and whatnot.” Choso shudders at the thought. “Because I guarantee you she’d just be bored by it.”
Gojo shifts uncomfortably in his seat, a little concerned about the derailment of this conversation, and he wonders if Choso’s had a few too many from how detached he seems to speak about you. Didn’t you guys date for seven years? He doesn’t exactly know the details since you refused to tell him, and he wouldn’t feel right getting that story from Choso instead, but his curiosity is really starting to itch at him. He barely knows you in comparison to Choso, but he knows that everything Choso is saying about you is just plain wrong. Sure, you seem to be generally irritated and weary by most things in life, but he knows it’s not because that’s just how you are as a person. It’s because of what you’ve been through as a person. 
He thinks about the look on your face when you ran out of your mother’s hospice room, tears streaming dow your cheeks, at the mere mention of someone promising to look after you. And he’s supposed to believe that you don’t care about sentiments? Or that you aren’t hoping to have a shoulder to lean on?
But, who knows, maybe Gojo is overestimating how well he thinks he knows you. At least, that sounds like something you’d say to him with a look of irritation across your face if you heard what he was thinking right now.
But he hates that Choso’s making him question it—this idea he has of you. It’s that same I know her…don’t I? dilemma he feels the entire time he’s talking to your ex. He's not thrilled by the idea that he could be projecting a softer version of you that doesn’t exist just because he hopes that it does.
“Wait, hold up, you’re married to her. And you don’t know this about her?” Choso remarks as he sits up in his chair.
Gojo brings his bottle of beer to his mouth. “Just doesn’t sound like the version of her that I know.”
“That’s suspicious,” Choso says, swirling around the bottle in his hand as he stares out onto the grass.
Gojo sighs. “People can change in short periods of time. I’ve always been surprised by it, too.”
“Yeah?” Choso responds, intrigued by the statement. “You’ve got any insane emotional baggage you’d like to share?”
Gojo sets his bottle of beer down on the table, and watches as a cold droplet of water makes its way down the condensing surface. “Can’t say I want to share any of it.”
“That’s fair. I’m just glad I know that you do have some. Makes me feel better.”
“Hm,” Gojo hums the acknowledgement.
“You know a lot of these guys?” Choso asks, pointing his index finger to a group of men walking to their golf cart in the distance, his other four fingers wrapped around his drink. “You kept getting stopped between shots.”
Gojo nods. “Yeah. A lot of them are clients of mine. Or their ex-wives are.”
Choso rolls his eyes. “Self-important pricks. I don’t know how you deal.”
“My client base in New York was way worse than this.”
“Really?” Choso asks, turning his torso to look at Gojo. 
“Mhm,” Gojo affirms before taking a swig, “I made better money out there, though.” Not that it bothered him much. He’d rather be homeless in Dayton County than spend another day in that city.
“Huh,” Choso huffs in consideration, “I still think it’s really strange you moved to Dayton County from New York City.”
“What’s that phrase?” Gojo says, glancing up towards the blue sky. “You’ve gotta leave the city to love the city, or something like that.”
“Well go back to the fuckin’ city and leave my girl while you’re at it,” Choso drawls, unable to fight the drag of his words this time, or keep his head up straight, really. And it occurs to Gojo that Choso’s not a very responsible drinker.
“If anything, I’d take her with me,” Gojo says, almost like he can’t help pissing Choso off.
“Fuck you. Hope that spell she cast on you bites you when you least expect it.”
“Shit. I hope so too.”
Choso is decent enough to nod a salute at that, and the two move to clink the neck of their beer bottles together, but just before contact, Choso says—
“May divorce be with you, dude.”
And Gojo curves his bottle away from contact at the last second, leaving Choso hanging, then brings it to his mouth to tip it back until it’s empty.
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——————
By the time you come home from your many morning escapades, it’s close to late afternoon, and you notice your car is parked inside Gojo’s garage, as opposed to parked out on the street where you had left it earlier.
You walk inside the house to find Gojo standing at the foyer table, looking through piles of mail. It mildly annoys you that he doesn’t even so much as lift his gaze from all the paper to look at you when you close the front door behind you. 
“Hey, why did you move my car into your garage?” you asked.
“I just washed it, and it’s supposed to rain overnight,” he says, ripping up one of the bills before tossing it into a pile of other shredded paper. 
Your eyes widen slightly. You had been wanting to get around to washing your car for weeks, it had been, admittedly, quite dirty on the outside. But it was just one of those things that kept getting away from you…and away from you…and away from you…
“You didn’t have to do that…” you mumble, slipping your shoes off at the door. 
“Yeah, I know, but–” He finally lifts his gaze off of light blue paper and drifts it over to you, and when he doesn’t finish his sentence, you glance up at him too, only to find he’s staring at you with wide eyes.
You blink back at him, wiping your cheek gently with your hand as some reflex, and then pet down the hair at the top of your head with self consciousness. “W-What?” Forgive yourself for being fussy with your appearance around him now given he literally called you a French Fry this morning.
He’s still staring at you, big blue eyes blinking with no particular rhythm, just pure surprise, and his mouth is even slightly agape. 
“What?” You practically snap at him.
You see his chest sink with the exhale he releases. “Nice hair,” he says finally.
“Oh.” You totally forgot about that. “Thank you,” you say, scooping all of it to the front of one of your shoulders, twirling the delicately curled ends around a finger, “just, uh…took a quick trip to the salon today…” you continue to twirl it, “in which they gave me a quick little style…of which costed a very reasonable amount.”
He snorts. “I’m not even gonna ask.”
“Three-hundred-and-seventy-two bucks.”
“What. The. Fuck?”
“Mhm,” you cross your arms over your chest.
“Where did you even get that kinda money?” he asks with disbelief.
“That’s irrelevant,” you quickly deflect, and even though you weren’t the one that paid for it, you were still going to give him hell for it, “this should teach you not to comment about people’s appearances. I was so distraught by your rude comment this morning that I ran to the nearest wet salon and ended up being scammed into this hairstyle because of you.”
“Okay well you look hot as fuck so the only thing I’ve learned from this is that bullying works.”
“You will not be getting out of this by complimenting me, mister!!!”
The corner of Gojo’s mouth ticks up slightly, and to provide some insight into his perspective, he was simply too distracted by how nice you looked and your choice to call him mister to really focus on anything else. As much as he should probably repent for admitting it, he liked pissing you off sometimes, purely because he likes how prissy and most of all hot you were when you looked at him like you wanted to choke him to death. But he’s also not sure if you really would strangle him in his sleep, and since he can’t necessarily put you above it, a shiver runs down his spine to where he figures he probably shouldn’t push it.
“Understood. No more calling you greasy,” he says, and holds his palm up to swear on it. 
You roll your eyes, but it still feels like an acceptance of the promise, until your gaze hardens with a different type of annoyance. “And where have you been all day?” you ask, trying to suppress the irritation in your voice, tapping your foot on the wood with impatience, “with Choso, I presume?”
He had half hoped you forgot about his admission to you about his plans for this weekend. 
“Yes,” he sighs, “I was.” And with the same demeanor of a dog guilty of tearing up a couch while its owner was away from home, he continues, “we went golfing.”
You breathe in deep, and exhale with shaky rage. 
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“Screw you,” you say, and then brush past him, storm up the stairs to the master bedroom, and then slam the door behind you.
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——————
It’s rare that Gojo will go for a late night run. He really prefers the mornings—rise of dawn, that crisp fresh air, sparkle of dew in the front of his lawn from the sprinkler spray of the night before, bonus points if he got around to mowing the lawn and it ends up looking neater because of it. There’s also just the right amount of people out on the sidewalks, and they’re usually elderly couples or other fellow morning runners like him, and in his experience, those sorts of people tend to be the friendliest. The weather’s best at that time, too. Feel a little bit of heat on your back to help warm you up but it’s not any sort of abrasive kind that would have you itching to get rid of layers that you don’t have. And maybe, as with most things in life, the ego was involved. Waking up at 5am to go for a run? It just screamed put-together, and more often than not, tended to set the day up for success.
But instead, tonight, he finds himself outside in the pitch black, past 10pm actually, for his second jog of the day. Clad in black sweatpants, a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, it felt unnecessarily incognito but he can’t lie that it felt nice to run without feeling like a single soul is around you.
And also, it was strange. This feeling that something was calling him into the night. He’s not incredibly superstitious, but he definitely felt thickness in the air.
About a mile into his run, he turns a corner of the park, onto a slimmer brick-laid road surrounded by hundreds of trees that cut visibility of the parameters to a fraction, and slows down to a stop. He checks his Apple watch for the time, but when the small screen of it doesn’t light up, he’s annoyed.
Through barely bated breath, he grumbles as he pulls on the strap and says, “did I not charge this thing?”
After a few more seconds of messing with it, he sighs and shrugs, figures he’ll just run laps around the park and head back the same way he came, but when he jogs forward for less than three seconds, his feet come to a halt.
But it’s a quicker one, a more alarmed stop.
Because he sees a figure looming off to the side within the trees.
He huffs a breath, cranes his neck towards what almost looks like a statue in his periphery, until he confirms that it’s a person, and the recognition of who it is draws all the color out from his face, and rounds his eyes wide with pure shock.
He isn’t even given the courtesy of a few moments before he hears the most painfully familiar voice say—
“Hey.”
Gojo nearly feels his heart stop—no, sink—he feels his heart sink in his chest with a feeling he can’t discern. It’s a mixture of a lot of feelings, actually. Surprise, anger, confusion, disbelief. He just stands there, his chest swelling with faster breaths than when he was running, as he stares at the brooding figure in front of him.
Eventually the shock tapers off, and his shoulders drop, and he presses his lips into a thin line before exhaling slowly through his nose. His brow furrows, eyes squinting slightly to verify once and for all that the person in front of him is really who he thinks it is, and he finds that he’s not mistaken.
The figure steps out from near the trees and into the light, and Gojo acknowledges him with a simple say of his name.
“Suguru.”
The dark-haired man smiles in response to his name, it’s a forced one, one that Gojo would argue is borderline sinister but he knows that it’s not. It’s just the way he’s learned to see it now.
“It’s been a while,” Suguru says, stopping his movements to get closer when he’s satisfied with the distance.
Gojo swallows hard. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Suguru nods. “Thought I’d go for a late night stroll.”
“Don’t fuck with me right now.”
Suguru’s smile drops into a frown, acknowledging the hostility, and Gojo finds that he’s clenching fists at his sides.
Suguru sighs. “I understand the last time we saw each other, it was under unsavory circumstances, but I hope you’ll forgive me for showing up like th—”
“Just tell me what you want.”
To justify Gojo’s short temper towards the man across from him to any spectator witnessing this would require a hell of an explanation, one that doesn’t just date back to a year ago, or a few years ago, a decade ago or even two. It wouldn’t be enough, not unless he started from the beginning. But he doesn’t want to give it the time of day. He doesn’t even want to give it any more than the short-tempered rage he’s been offering so far.
Suguru hangs his head a little, studying the brick underneath him, then glances up again. “I’m here to make amends.”
“Make amends?” Gojo finds himself mocking those words the second he hears them. “Who the fuck asked for that?” 
“I knew you wouldn’t be happy that I showed up like this—”
“You’re right. I’m not.”
“But—” Suguru sighs again, and it makes Gojo’s skin crawl. The way he acts like the inconvenience of him showing up was anything other than his own fault. “I mean it. I really am here to make things right.”
“What makes you think flying all the way here and showing your face to me was going to make things right?” Gojo snarled.
“When you left,” he says, “it was so abrupt. I had expected you to be angry. To cuss me out, yell at me, punch me in the face, I wouldn’t even be surprised if you pulled out a gun.”
It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t occurred to him at the time.
“I’m not saying that I know what you need to move on from this,” Suguru continues, and Gojo narrows his eyes at the man even further, “but I thought I’d at least give you the chance. The chance to get your frustrations out.”
Gojo quirks an irritated brow. 
“A pass to punch the shit out of me with no consequence or witness,” Suguru says, and the words made Gojo feel like he was some pity project.
“You…” Gojo trails off, more with confusion this time rather than anger, “…want me to punch you?”
“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” Suguru says, “ever since that night. But you held back.”
“What I want is for you to never show your face to me ever again.”
“And I won’t,” he says, “I promise. I promise that after today, it’s done.” He takes a step forward. “But that’s why I offer this closure to you. Because—” He hesitates. “It’ll be the last time you have the chance.”
Gojo’s eyes widen slightly when Suguru steps into the light, illuminating some of his features, and it’s the first time he sees his old best friend fully in the flesh ever since that night. He noticed what used to be evenly toned olive skin now has a sandalwood tint, a hue that matches the dull one in the whites of his eyes, yet the bloodshot to them still shows through. He’s lost weight, with sunken cheekbones, there’s exhaustion visible all over his face. It was like Gojo was cognitively cleansed of the memory he had retained of him since the last time he saw him, now replaced with the version in front of him.
It’ll be the last time you have the chance.
All this nonsense about finally honoring Gojo’s wish to stay the fuck away from him,
It felt like a red herring to that statement.
What kind of cryptic bullshit was he alluding to?
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about,” Gojo says, “but I’m not going to punch you. We’re not teenagers anymore.”
Suguru’s eyes widen slightly, as if surprised by the restraint, before he relaxes and a small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. It was too pleased of an expression for Gojo’s liking, that is until it morphs into something eerily fake when that smile only widens and he takes a step towards him.
“And if I told you I don’t regret any of it?” Suguru says, and Gojo can physically feel the muscle in his jaw tic with rage, “if I told you I stand here in front of you with no remorse at all?” He continues to take steps towards Gojo in provocation, less than three feet away now, and Gojo’s hands further condense into white-knuckled fists when Suguru makes his final stride and is now right in front of Gojo, “if I told you that I enjoyed every,” he sneeringly enunciates each word, “Single. Second of it?”
The sound of knuckle harshly colliding with bone reverberates down through the echoing pavement of the park, which was the medium for the sting of Gojo’s fist released through his best friend’s jaw, cracked so hard that the dark-haired man entirely recoils from the blow, hurled off to the side out onto an out-stretched hand to brace fall onto brick ground.
Gojo’s breathing heavy, fast, stuck still in the aftermath, his vision almost spotted white with pure rage, and yet of all the feelings coursing through his body, the most physical one of all—the one centered to the rounded bones of his knuckles—only felt numb. And soon, every other emotion followed.
Suguru exhales a shaky laugh, stumbling slightly on the ground before he pushes himself up and back onto his feet. “Wow,” he breathes out, brushing tendrils of his hair out from his face, rubbing the back of his hand down the line of his red jaw, dabbing at the blood dripping from his nose and the top gums of his mouth, and he pulls his hand away to take a look at the red pigment dipping into the valleys of his trembling hand. “Honestly, I thought I could handle provoking a couple more out of you, but,” he lets out a half-stunned laugh, “I think we’ll have to leave it at one.”
Gojo watches as Suguru tips his head back and shakes his head, that same borderline amused smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, and his shoulders slump. There was no glory in the sight, nor the feeling. No satisfaction. No release or closure. For fucks sake, he just felt worse. He felt even worse now than he did a minute ago when he wasn’t staring at Suguru’s bloody face.
He just felt numb.
“I really am sorry, Satoru,” Suguru breathes out as he tips his head back, sniffles viscous blood, and wipes away whatever had already dried above his lip, “for everything. And I hope that—” He takes a deep breath, “whatever life you build for yourself from here on out is better than the one I took from you.” He tightly shuts his eyes close. “That’s the only thing that will bring me peace in all of this.”
Gojo hears the words, but he doesn’t feel them. It’s that same dull ache throughout his body, the same one that haunts him in those moments when the nights are too still, and the mornings are too quiet. Mostly numbness, with the slightest tracing of pain as if to remind him that he was still alive.
“Whatever, man,” Gojo mutters, not even able to lift his gaze to look at the person he once called his best friend as he wipes his chin with the back of his hand, and his voice is a broken shudder when he speaks again, “whatever.”
He turns on his heel, away from this scene he can’t bear witness to anymore, and he feels as if there are anchors tied to his ankles as he drags his feet away. And away. And away. And away. And away. He couldn’t tell you for how long or how far he just dragged the soles of his shoes across brick, then concrete, then gravel, then grass. It could’ve been two minutes, it could’ve been two hours, but it couldn’t have felt any more torturous. And the whole time, he feels that enigma that he left behind at the park behind him, somewhere in the distance.
The same one he desperately tries to ignore,
One he desperately wants to hate,
One he desperately wants to despise with all his being,
But he just can’t.
.
.
.
.
.
——————
The clock strikes midnight as you pace around the floor of the master bedroom, the hem of your floor-length satin nightgown brushing across the flooring with each back-and-forth pivot and stride that you make, and you switch between irritatingly tucking your hair behind your ears and crossing your arms across your chest and letting out annoyed puffs of air at every other minute as your mind races an hour a minute.
You’ve been trapped up here (by your own doing) like some princess in a tower ever since Gojo admitted to you that he hung out with Choso today, just bubbling with a sense of rage that you so badly want to unleash on him but when you stepped out of the room a couple hours ago, you realized he wasn’t home, and his Apple watch was missing from the little paper crochet bowl on the foyer table, so you assumed he had went for a run. As for why he still isn’t home, you don’t know, but you feel like you simply cannot be put to rest until you tell his ear off about something as a way to release your frustration.
You know that Gojo is a social whore. And that he likes to be liked. Perhaps you just can’t relate, because you’ve never extended yourself so far to be liked by the likes of strangers. Sure, when you’re committed to having a person in your life, you do what you can to make them pleased by you, but people who you don’t even really know? Why on Earth would you choose them over yourself?
And so your lack of sympathy towards Gojo’s desire to be buddy-buddy, friendly-friendly, and innately curious about the people around him is foundational to your rage at the moment. 
Why does he need to be friends with your freakin’ ex??? Is his desire to be liked by everyone he comes across really THAT large??? 
And, in a thought that makes you a little sad, you ask yourself—
Why can’t he add you to that list of people to please?
You stop pacing the room with the sobering thought, and glance over at the reflection of yourself in the window. You hate how defeated you look. 
You know that you give him a hard time. You’re snarky and defensive and lose your temper with him perhaps a little too fast. And also fail to show any real gratitude for most things he has done for you. But it was almost like you couldn’t help it. You couldn’t help acting that way around him. And maybe it’s because you know, you just know, that if you ever harbor any semblance of affection for him, and he decides to never return any of it at all, you would be ruined. It would ruin you.
He just has that effect on people,
And you just didn’t want to admit that you wouldn’t be any sort of exception.
You let out a frustrated noise from your throat and plop down on the bed.
Ew, gross. Feelings? Were you trying to gaslight yourself into thinking that you would have feelings for him if your stubborn heart gave you the chance?
As if.
It’s so silly to even picture.
…Or was it?
You don’t know.
You just don’t know.
It’s too many emotions, all at once, and as per usual, the anger is the one that decides to stick around, and you hop back up onto your feet.
“Frickin’ golfing…” You mumble to yourself, “they went golfing together…” You pace to the foot of the bed and then up to the headboard, “I bet they talked shit about me too…”
You hear some noises downstairs, gasp a little and run out into the hallway and peer over the staircase railing to see some mysteriously dressed man at the front entrance close the door behind him. You can’t see his face since he was dressed in a black hoodie with the hood pulled over his head, but when the man pulls his sleeve back and releases the strap of his watch, you realize it’s Gojo.
Well, that was a relief. But also, eye roll, it’s Gojo. Perhaps a serial killer would’ve been more preferable.
You quickly run back into the master bedroom, push the door wide open in the process, turn on your heel so that you have a perfect view of the entrance, and cross your arms over your chest. Tapping your foot impatiently, you try to display the most annoyed expression you can manage, and you hear the third to last creak of the stairs as you see Gojo make it to the second floor and into the loft, then approaches the master bedroom.
“Good, you’re home,” you say to him with your gaze narrow in a glare, and you try to think of ways to chastise him for his actions but the best punishment you can come up with is a list of annoying housekeeping tasks, “as soon as possible, I’m going to need you to mow the lawn,” you list them off with the fingers of your hand, “fix the leaking fridge again, install that shelf in the kitchen that you promised me you’d do over two weeks ago, fix the tilted leg of the dining table, finish the—”
You didn’t notice in your yapping that he was closing distance towards you, his expression hard to read under his hood and the fringe of his hair, but before you could tell him about the unfinished paint job in the bathroom, you feel his arms slip past your waist, crossing behind you, and he pulls you in towards him.
“Eh?” you squeak out in surprise, tripping slightly over the hem of your nightgown and straight towards his chest, your cheek pressing against the soft cotton of his hoodie, and you feel him tuck your head underneath his chin in an embrace.
There’s just a brief moment of silence as you stand still in his arms amid moonlight shining through the windows of the room, and when he seems to realize that you aren’t going to push him away, he breathes a sigh of relief and pulls you in tighter, pressing his cheek to the crown of your head. 
“Satoru—” you try to protest. 
“You can hate me in the morning,” he says into your hair, his voice deep near your ear as you feel the rumble of it in his chest, “but just let me hold you for now.”
Your arms, that had been otherwise stiffly raised as if to not want to make contact with him, relax slowly as they drop, and a small puff of air leaves your lips.
He sounds exhausted, numb, drained. There was no mirth, or ignorance, or sarcasm or amusement in his voice like you were so used to hearing.
You lift your arms once again, meekly swallowing, and this time, you gently wrap them around his torso, and press your cheek against his chest even more as you settle yourself into him. He smelled so nice, that same scent of his that was so comforting to you, one that could soothe you to sleep. And you feel his heartbeat in his chest, and how it seems to be faster now than it was just one second before.
He shakily releases a breath when you hug him back, and if you thought he was holding onto you tighter before, you realize that it wasn’t enough for him. He holds you to him so closely to where you can’t even move, like you were a real life teddy bear for him, and the warmth of his body makes you realize how painfully human he is.
You lift your cheek away from his chest, the movement making him pull his chin away from the top of yours, and you crane your neck up to look at him, and he looks down at you too. Beautiful blue eyes meet your gaze, dull in the nighttime compared to the daylight, but still sparkling. You swear there were constellations in those eyes, millions of stars, and gazing into them was enough to take your breath away.
You can see that his chest is heaving slightly as he looks at you, and your eyes lid gently, maybe in a daze or maybe it was the softness of the moment that was gently lulling you closer to sleep. He releases an arm from your waist, his hand lifting to your forehead where he gently brushes some of your hair out of your face in a movement so tender it sends a shiver through your body, and with a strong arm still anchoring your waist, he slowly walks you backwards, until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed, and you fall onto it together in a clumsy tangle. His hands catch himself on either side of you as he holds himself up, hovering over you, and you bring your balled up hands to your heart to see if you can quiet the pace in which it’s beating.
Gojo’s eyes dart across your face, his brow furrowing deeply as if he’s caught in a thought—or maybe a million. It flickers across his expression, whatever the emotion was. Considering…questioning…maybe even afraid. You feel as if you can’t breathe under the weight of his thoughts.
But then he exhales. Runs a hand down his face. Whatever thought he was mulling over, he just lets it go. Drags it away with the rough of his palm and the tight shut of his eyes, before he disappears from your sight when he falls onto his back on the bed with a small grunt next to you, then stares up at the ceiling.
You blink at the ceiling now, too, a little stunned to even move or think or breathe or exist. And you feel like this moment, whatever it was, was over.
But then his hand finds your waist, palm smoothing over satin before you feel his arm curl around you, the weight of his muscle against your skin as he gently pulls you toward him and nestled up against him, your back to his chest on soft linen sheets. Firm and certain, that was the way he held you to him, and his nose nuzzles at the soft hair tucked behind your ear.
He says nothing. He almost doesn’t need to. Because you understand.
You’ll hate him in the morning. The anger tax is what you’ll call it. He’ll pay interest. But for now, you just let him hold you.
And for once, you don’t have to count sheep to fall asleep.
.
.
.
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.
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.
.
[end of ch9. 'counting sheep']
song of the chapter: 'quiet, the winter harbor' by mazzy star
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a/n. ahhhh thank u so very much for reading :'') i truly hope you enjoyed this chapter!! it was kind of intense to write bc of all the split scenes and also all the character dynamics being explored. lot of hmm i guess nuances to juggle?? also this is the longest chapter of anything i've ever posted...so much for trying to make these chapters smaller hahah. but i loved writing the little scene in the end……….i just wanna be held by gojo until i fall sleep how hard is that to ask big shout out to my ihm beta readers leni n josie for helping me out with parts of this chapter n giving me some wonderful suggestions <3 i really appreciate and adore you guys. ahhhh ihm is 100k+ words now!!! that’s crazy!!! yippeeeeeeee also, i did mention this briefly in another post, but because of the length of ihm, i'm planning to split it into "seasons"! so the next chapter (ch10) will be the last chapter for this first part of the series, where i'll put the fic on a bit of a break as i focus more on kinda wrapping up kickoff, before i start the second part of ihm. i anticipate there will be three total parts! and i'll make a new masterlist for each of the new seasons. idk i just feel like it's kinda better to consolidate the chapters like this, so yea! hope to see you in the next oneee!! tysm to everyone who supports my fics w likes, reblogs, n comments <3 it truly means a lot to me
➸ take me to chapter ten!
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mannequinreligi0n · 9 months ago
Text
Mating Season
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get bred, loser
pairing: dante x reader (female anatomy, gn pronouns)
wc: 2.2k
warnings: NSFW - breeding kink, monster-fucking, blood/blood play
author’s note: i’ve been meaning to write this for so long but unfortunately i am a depressed adult with a full time job, and finding time/energy to write is difficult :’) sorry if this isn’t up to standards or there’re mistakes. enjoy, smooches.
links: ao3
Twelve missed calls, six voicemails, and twenty-three texts from Dante is what you’re greeted with upon waking up - and it’s barely noon. Scrolling through the texts, you’re met with the ramblings of a madman, pleading for you to come over, to see him, to cancel your plans for the day. With a quick shower and change of clothes, you oblige in his wanton demands and head over to the loft.
You only manage a single knock before the door swings open and Dante is dragging you inside by the sleeve of your sweater.
“Dante! The hell has gotten into-“
”No time. Don’t ask.”
He pulls you straight into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him. Throwing you over his shoulder, he launches you onto the bed with a ‘thump’, your smaller form springing on the mattress. Dante reels over you, snatching your coat off and ducking his head into the curve of your neck with a deep inhale, nose sniffing your skin like a damn bloodhound.
”You showered,” he mopes, teeth pulling at the fragile skin of your throat. You squirm under the weight of him, hands pushing at his chest to levitate some of the burden.
”Yeah, so what?’
“You weren’t supposed to - I said not to. Did you even read my texts?”
”Dante, you’re being ridiculous. Do you even hear yourself?” You lift your head up to look at him, pushing him off of you. Dante makes a sad whine, a demeaning sound coming from the devil hunter. His messy locks flop down in front of his face and he lets out a long sigh, hands pawing at the fabric of your pants.
”I’m sorry, babe. God, you don’t have any idea how hard this has been without you,” he mumbles sheepishly, eyes fixated on the faint red mark he left on your neck. His hands trembled against your legs, clearly trying to hold himself back in order to have a coherent conversation with you. “I thought I could handle this alone, but I keep thinking about last week…how warm you felt, like that pretty little hole was made just for me,” he interrupts himself with a groan, hunching over as if in pain. You reach a hand up and push back the already sweaty strands to see his face, feeling his fevered skin brush your fingertips.
”Why didn’t you call me over sooner? You know I would’ve came,” you murmur, observing his needy state with a bit of concern.
”Didn’t wanna be a bother. I thought I could handle it on my own, y’know? I always have, but with you in the picture now-“ He lurches toward your hand on him, nuzzling into it with a choked breath. “Please…please, just-….just let me-“
You pet his cheek as you think over the proposition, mouth pursed. You finally agree with a small nod, pulling your hand away.
“Is it safe?”
”I won’t hurt you. I would never,” Dante reaches for your wrists, thumbs rubbing at the pulse points. He stares at you with his best ‘puppy-dog’ look, a pout on his lips. “I’ll be good, I promise. God, please, just let me fuck you - you got a man begging here.”
You chuckle and shake your head, pulling him back to you with a mumbled ‘c’mere’. Dante wastes no time latching himself back onto you, pulling your shirt off and biting down on your shoulder with a chesty groan. His hands work at your pants as he marks up your skin, the bites hard but nothing compared to the ones you’ll receive soon enough from his fangs. Clothes gone, you writhe under him and he sits up and sheds his own clothes, sparks of red already flitting off of his skin. Blue eyes morph red and he squeezes your thigh reassuringly, throwing you a shaky smile.
”You remember the safe-word, sweetheart?”
”Ciabatta.”
“Right.”
With a quick peck to your forehead, Dante rolls out his shoulders, cracking a few joints in his spine and neck. Warm, amber light coats his bedroom and Dante’s body morphs into his devil trigger, his nine-foot form casting a daunting shadow over your bare skin. Your breathing quickens at the sight - you’ve seen his DT before, but never like this, never between your legs and teeth glistening in your direction. Sensing your fear, Dante runs a knuckle over your cheek, mindful of his claws. A low, rustling rumble echoes from his vocal chords, bending down to meet his ghastly face to yours.
”It’s still me…” he breathes out, voice altered but still holding his signature lilt. Wings cocoon your body, cradling your form as he lifts you up to dangle in front of his chest. The heat of the flames rippling over his scales threaten to scorch your delicate flesh, the heat making your sweat glands break open and perspire. Dante’s mouth opens and an orange tongue lined with bumps and grooves laps a line across your own chest, taking in the decadent taste of you. Despite your trepidations, you can’t hold in the moan that drops from your mouth, eyes fluttering closed. Transparent, tangerine saliva drips down your abdomen as his tongue roams around, stimulating nerves from your throat to your navel, bumps dragging across smooth skin.
“My mate…Mine, mine,” Dante growls out, clawed fingers pinching at your thighs as he pushes your knees to your chest, wings supporting your weight from behind and below.
”Dante, c-careful, Jesus,” you whimper out, laser-focused on his claws dangerously close to shredding your skin open. All you get in response is another resonant growl, steam pillowing off his breath. Before you can warn him again, the sandpaper tongue swipes at your hole, making you shudder and go limp against his wings, forgetting your train of thought. One thing about Dante was that on the surface, he came off as reckless, impulsive - but it couldn’t be further from the truth. He had backup plans for his backup plans, and thought out every little thing. As much as your body was sounding off alarms to scramble away from the devil, he was taking the time necessary to warm you up before indulging himself - a preliminary ‘thank you’ for being a willing victim. You look up at Dante’s face, or what used to be his face, and lock eyes with the fiery orbs glaring down at you. It was hard to tell, but you could swear that little shit was smiling down at you, knowing you’ve put two and two together. A bass of laughter shakes his form, leaning forward to bump his forehead to yours as carefully as possible.
”Told you. No harm.”
You let out a shaky breath at his smartass remark, but it’s futile to steady your breathing. Dante’s tongue pushes into your hole, pointed and flexed as it slides between your inner walls. The feeling is indescribable, and for lack of a better word: devilish. Your juices coat the length of his tongue as it assaults you repeatedly, twisting in and out while talons keep you folded upright against your squirming. Heat floods your core as your release builds upon itself, gasps and symphonic moans invading the quiet room.
Dante can’t hold his instincts back when the taste and smell of your essence is practically reducing every cell in his body into a lust-driven beast. Ejecting his tongue, his wings cradle you down to the bed, knees kissing your ears in a mating press. Your thighs quake against his scaled palms, missing the fullness of his tongue. You open your mouth to ask what he’s doing, but the words jumble into a whine of pain as his head propels to take a bite at your shoulder. Fangs puncture skin and the devil seems to purr as the crimson nectar dribbles from the bite and into his mouth. The receptors in his brain are screaming at him to bite down again and again and again til you’re a battered, bloody mess - every centimeter of flesh peeled back and consumed in the most carnal way.
Thankfully, the human conscious in him refrains and with another nibble to your neck, he withdraws and centers himself with the pulsating warmth beckoning him in. He doesn’t need to check how wet you are - he can smell it, the pheromones rippling off your sex in waves that rivaled a tsunami. A bulbed shaft stretches into your slick and your head shoots up with a scratchy yelp, pain radiating to your hips. A huff of steam leaves the devil’s nostrils, halting to save you more pain despite his needs. Dante watches your fingers go white against the bedsheets, hanging on for dear life, and you can see his wings wilt at the realization he’s letting his devil instincts get the best of him. A clawed hand grips both of small ankles to hold you in place, the other letting go to scoop up one of your hands. Scales run over the skin gingerly, your fingers curling around his thumb for security.
“Deep breaths, baby. Big, deep breaths for me,” he hums out, the mechanic whirring of his vocal chords carrying his voice past your panicked thoughts. You obey, chest rising and falling as your blurred eyes trace the flame spitting from the top of his head. Dante can feel your walls unclench around him and he takes it as a sign to keep going. It’s a slow and painful process, but inch after inch, he manages to squeeze about half of himself in before hitting your cervix.
‘Damn human anatomy,’ Dante curses internally, but makes peace with the complication, thankful enough that you're taking it like a champ. After a moment of stillness, ensuring you’re okay, he starts to move. Armored hips lurch in and out of your tight hole, hushed growls filling your ears. All you can do is lay there, pliant and accepting. Your hold on his finger tightens as your body rocks around with the thrust of his unnatural cock, his name the only coherent word you can manage while he jabs at your g-spot continuously. Dante’s teeth find their way back to your flesh, leaving bloody constellations along your legs. So consumed by the fullness of his girth, you don’t notice the ruby fluid dripping down your limbs from the bites, barely registering his tongue greedily licking you clean. Bursts of white spot your vision, core muscles tightening as your orgasm tears through you and a scream of pleasure brings tears to your eyes.
“Mine…Mine to fuck, mine to…to take…gonna look so good when you’re full of my cum…” Dante snarls against your skin, pounding his cock into the wall of your cervix with ferocity. He can’t take it anymore - he needs to come, he needs to watch it drip out of you precious cunt. Securing his hand around your ankle, Dante runts himself into your hole, gusts of wind sending goosebumps down your frame as his wings flap behind him with excitement. With a bellowing roar from him, you can feel the powerful deluge of seed swarm your body, gushing out and down your center. You feel like you’ve been hit by a semi-truck, limbs trembling and aching as you lay lifeless under him, gasping for air.
A glare of red light makes you wince, eyes straining against the light to see Dante devolve to his human form, dripping so much sweat it’s like he jumped in a pool. Dropping your ankles, he pushes himself between your legs and plants a sloppy, loving kiss on your mouth, hands threading in your hair. You kiss back weakly, shaky hands holding onto his arms. Pulling his head back, he examines you for any serious injuries, eyes conveying a battle of concern and satisfaction.
“You okay? Hurt? Was it too much? God, sorry- sorry, I-“
“Dante, I’m fine,” you let out a wavering chuckle, sitting up slightly. “That was…incredible. You were incredible.”
Dante meets your eyes again with a surprised laugh, in disbelief you’re praising him in a state like this. His fingers trail down to the bites along the outside of your thighs, vaguely recalling how your skin felt between his fangs in his primal craze. He remains plugged inside you, the intimate mixture of releases leaking between your bodies.
“Look at you…” Dante traces along a more gnarly mark in admiration, blood trickling over his finger. “How’d I get so damn lucky, huh?”
He brings his fingers to his lips and sucks off the blood, that all-too-familiar teasing gleam in his eyes as they lock on yours. A throaty moan leaves him as he swallows, fingers falling away with a string of spit. The scene goes straight down to your heat, walls closing around on him with need. Sitting all the way up, you grab his hand and playfully nip at his wrist, dilated eyes devoted to memorizing him in this moment.
“Can we go again?”
“Again?” Dante laughs, raising both eyebrows at you. “Honey, I don’t think th-“
“Please,” you pout at him, kissing along his hand til you can slip two of his fingers between your lips. Dante’s jaw goes slack, a heady breath fanning over your face as his cock twitches inside you from your plea. With a hard swallow, he nods, free hand cupping your face.
“Fiiiiine,” he sighs out, putting on a show of dramatics before a smile tugs at his lips. “Flip over for me, princess.”
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nemo-writes · 21 days ago
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𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 I epilogue
(dr. jack abbot x nurse!reader)
⤿ chapter summary: the last box is sealed, the key turned, and the future is now smaller, quieter—measured in soft laughs, careful steps, and the warmth of someone who stayed. there are still aches, and some ghosts linger, but they no longer lead.
⤿ warning(s): panic attacks
⟡ story masterlist ; previous
✦ word count: 2.6k
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Boxes line the hallway like a trail of breadcrumbs—taped, labeled in your tidy block print: LINENS, TEA, FRAGILE, MISC OR MEMORIES. Every lift sends a dull ache through the ribs that never fully forgot the fall, but you manage, pacing yourself the way physio taught: lift with legs, breathe, rest. Sun slants through the doorway of the apartment you kept so neat for so many years, catching dust motes that dance like reluctant confetti.
Mr. Donnelly hovers near the radiator plant that once refused to die. He’s thinner, cardigan buttoned crooked, but his grin is boyish. “Raccoon-proof lid’s coming with you, right?” he teases, voice cracking with emotion.
“It’s practically an heirloom,” you answer, sliding the lid into an open box. The laugh costs a twinge of pain, but the heaviness in your chest feels lighter than it did months ago.
Donnelly’s eyes mist. He pulls you into a gentle, grandfather-safe hug—arms careful of your still-tender shoulder. “Neighborhood rounds won’t be the same,” he murmurs.
“You’ll keep the stairwell in better shape than I ever did,” you reply, patting his back. When he lets go, he presses a spare key of his own place into your palm. “Just in case,” he says. You squeeze it once, then tuck it into your pocket.
A knock—two quick, one slow—taps on the open door frame. Jack steps in, shouldering a duffel and wearing that battered leather jacket you once accused of having more patches than cow. He’s kept the beard, now trimmed but defiantly scruffy, and the sight sparks warmth behind your sternum.
He surveys the room, eyes dancing.
“Thought I’d missed the heavy lifting,” he says, setting the bag down. “Turns out you’re ahead of schedule.”
“Blame the chronic insomnia,” you answer, wiping a wisp of hair from your forehead with the back of your wrist.
Jack’s eyebrow arches, the playful one. “Doctor’s orders were no solo heroics.”
“Doctor wasn’t here at 5 a.m. when the tea crate mocked me,” you shoot back. That earns a low chuckle.
He crosses the small distance, palms settling on the sides of your face—careful of the tiny scar above your brow—and steals a kiss: warm, deep, edged with laugh lines. It tastes of peppermint gum and promise. You kiss him back until Donnelly coughs politely into his sleeve.
Jack eases away, eyes unashamedly bright. “Morning, Mr. Donnelly,” he offers, handshake firm.
“Take good care of her,” Donnelly tells him, voice gruff. “She’s got more lives than my ex-wife’s cat, but let’s not test that again.”
“Plan to keep her bored,” Jack says, scooping up the TEA  box. “New place has zero rooftop access, improved locks, and a big kitchen.”
The mention of your new place still hums strange in your ears—half thrill, half fear. You’re not moving into Jack’s loft (that conversation ended with both of you laughing at the idea of one bathroom), but you did choose an apartment two blocks from his, sunlight slanting through south windows, rooftop well-secured.
Little by little, independence and closeness found a compromise.
Jack hefts another box, the LINENS one, pausing when you wince adjusting your knee brace. “Break time,” he declares. “Physio rules.”
You don't argue and perch on the lone chair left unboxed while Jack and Donnelly ferry cartons outside. From that seat you can see the empty wall where photos once hung and other small details that showed this place had truly been lived in. The place doesn’t feel haunted anymore, just emptied of relevance—ready to be someone else’s normal.
The quiet invites reflection, so you pull out your phone and open the family thread—one you swore you’d never leave on read again after Laura discovered second-hand how close you’d come to dying. Your thumb hovers a moment, then you flip the camera and frame the living room’s bare walls, the single chair, the roll of bubble-wrap like an un-popped promise. Officially moved out. You type beneath the photo. New chapter loading. Love you three—updates soon.
Laura’s reply dots appear almost instantly, but before words land, a tiny GIF of confetti rains across the screen courtesy of Paul, followed by Lily’s voice memo: a giggling Good job, Auntie! Don’t forget the glitter in your new house! Laura’s text arrives last: Proud of you. No more martyr radio silence—daily report accepted in emojis and cake photos. ❤️ You send back a selfie—sweaty, mascara smeared a little at the edges, but smiling—then tuck the phone away, promise kept.
As if on cue, Jack returns, wiping sweat with the hem of his sleeve. He kneels, resting his hands on your good knee. “Pain scale?” he asks softly.
“Three,” you admit. “Maybe four when I breathe wrong.”
“Breathing’s overrated,” he says, smile crooked but eyes serious. “We’ll ice in the truck, med when we unload.”
You nod, trusting him the way you learned to on a roof at sunrise. Chronic aches will linger; nightmares still punch through sleep some nights. But therapy, good food and Jack’s hand during the worst waves—they’re scaffolding that holds.
Donnelly waves from the doorway, keys jangling. “Everything’s loaded. I’ll follow in my jalopy—make sure you two don’t ditch that raccoon lid on the highway.”
You laugh. Jack rises, helps you stand. Your body doesn’t argue today; maybe tomorrow it will. He threads fingers through yours, guiding you to the threshold.
“You ready to lock up?” he asks.
You glance around at the bare walls, the echoing floors, and despite the bittersweet tug, your answer surprises even you:
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
You turn the key, hand it to Donnelly for the landlord, and step into the bright corridor. Mr. Donnelly pats your shoulder one last time, then heads for the stairs. Your knee aches, your ribs protest, but the pulse at your wrist beats steady under Jack’s thumb, reminding you that healing, like love, is rarely quick but always possible.
Down on the street, autumn wind flutters loose tape on cardboard. Jack opens the passenger door, steadies your brace, and kisses your temple before you climb in. The window frames Mr. Donnelly waving like a proud uncle. Jack starts the engine, turns the dial to your favorite blues station, and pulls into traffic heading east—toward sunlight, tea, and whatever comes next.
. . .
The plan had been simple—Friday-night tapas on Carson Street, your first real evening out since the cane went back in the closet.
You showered early, traded compression sleeves for a floral blouse, even swiped on lipstick you hadn’t worn since for ever. But as you twisted at the sink to add the finishing touches to your look, a bolt of pain speared from rib to spine—nerve lightning you’d hoped was dying out. It stole your breath, and with the breath came memory: slick scaffold, the whump of bone on metal, Moylan’s whisper in your ear.
The bathroom lights tilted. Steam from the shower crowded close, suffocating, and suddenly you were back on the roof fighting for oxygen.
You braced both hands on the counter, forcing slow inhales the therapist drilled into you—four counts, hold, eight counts out—but your heartbeat wouldn’t quit sprinting. Jack’s text chimed and it up your phone—Leaving now. Can’t wait to see you twirl.
You stared at the words until they blurred, anger flaring hotter than pain. Twirl? With this body? With memories clawing up your throat? You silenced the phone, locked the screen, and curled onto the bath mat, palms over ears as if that could dam the noise inside.
Ten minutes later someone jiggled the front-door key—Jack’s spare you’d given him “for emergencies and forgotten lunches.” You didn’t answer. Keys clacked, hinges sighed, and his boots crossed hardwood, steady, searching.
“Hey, running late?” he called, voice light but laced with concern.
He stopped outside the bathroom when he heard the stifled breaths. The door cracked; you shoved it hard, catching him in the shoulder.
“Go away,” you snapped, vision tunneling.
Jack didn’t flinch. “Pain spike?”
“Not your problem.” You backed against the tub, arms wrapped around ribs as if that could bolt them in place. A sob escaped, acidic with shame. “I-I can’t even button a shirt without seeing him—how am I supposed to go out like nothing happened?”
Jack stepped in, slow, palms visible. “Then we skip everything,” he said softly. You glared, chest heaving. “Skip tonight, skip me—doesn’t matter.”
“Well, it matters to me.” You snapped as he crouched, careful of your knees, and you shoved him again, heel of your hand against his chest. “You want ugly?” you hissed. “This is it. Panic attacks, rage, the works. Go date somebody whole.”
He caught your wrist—not in restraint, but as if pinching a bleeding line. “Whole is a myth,” he murmured. “I’m missing a leg, remember?”
The quip should have made you laugh, but tears crushed it. You slid down the tub, hands over face, shoulders shaking. Jack sank beside you, back to the cool tile, and said nothing else. A minute. Five. Just the two of you breathing, your ragged inhales gradually syncing with his measured ones.
When words returned, they were whisper-thin. “It still hurts,” you confessed—ribs, knee, the memory. “Sometimes I hate this body.”
“I love this body,” he answered, eyes bright. “It’s the one that came back to me.”
Silence again, but softer. You let him guide your hand to his chest, feel the even pound there. After a while the pain eased to a livable hum, the room finally steadied.
“Tapas another night,” he said, pushing a stray lock behind your ear. “Tonight: couch, rice packs, bad rom-com?”
A shaky laugh. “And tea.”
“Always tea.”
He helped you up, pain flaring then ebbing under his grasp. In the living room he propped pillows just so, tucked the heating pad under your ribs, queued the cheesiest movie he could find. Halfway through, when the heroine tripped into the hero’s arms, you caught Jack studying you—not with pity but with fierce, patient affection. You thought of your shove, your anger, the ugly side you’d warned him about.
“Still here?” you murmured.
“Still here,” he echoed, and kissed the scar at your brow like a vow.
The movie’s credits crawl in silver letters across a pink-and-cotton-candy sky. Your tea sits half-finished on the coffee table, steam ribboning into the lamplight. Jack’s arm is a warm bar across your shoulders, palm idly tracing circles at the curve of your upper arm—slow enough that your ribs hardly complain.
You clear your throat, voice still raspy from the surge of panic. “I… also did something today.”
Jack’s thumb stills on your arm, waiting. “Yeah?”
“I handed Gloria my formal notice.” Saying it aloud again makes your pulse skitter. “Two weeks. I’m officially done.”
A beat of silence—then his arm firms around your waist, not possessive, just steady ballast. “How’d she take it?”
“She understood—signed it right away, actually.” You swallow. “I wanted to tell you over dinner, make it a celebration.” You gesture at his rumpled blouse now half-untucked. “But instead—boom.” You tap your temple, wincing at the memory of white-hot pain and rooftop ghosts. “Another episode.”
Realization crosses Jack’s face. “So quitting—good news—but also the straw on the haystack.”
“Pretty much.” You offer a shaky smile. “Sorry the fancy tapas plan went to hell.”
He shifts, starfishes a hand over your ribs in a gesture equal parts apology and promise. “This counts as a whole ass party when the news is this huge.” His eyes search yours. “And for the record—I’m proud of you. Even if the landing was messy.”
His beard is rough velvet against the fine hairs along your hairline. The living-room lamp has dimmed to a single amber pool, and the rain’s soft percussion muffles the city to a hush so complete you can hear the faint tick of the second hand on your thrift-shop wall clock. It’s the same beat that once timed your post-op vitals; now it keeps tempo for a quieter life.
“And Margot—” warmth swells behind your sternum just speaking her name— “pulled strings at Allegheny Community College. They need a clinical educator. I have an interview Tuesday morning.” You exhale, half terrified, half thrilled.
Jack leans back, eyebrows climbing. “Look at you. Should I start calling you Professor?”
“Please don’t,” you groan, though the grin won’t be contained. A bubble of giddiness rises—half fear, half freedom—and escapes in a laugh that shakes your sore ribs. You wince, and Jack’s hand instantly stills.
“Easy,” he murmurs, though he’s smiling too. “I’ll need you in one piece when I fend off every starry-eyed first-year who develops a crush on the hot new teacher.”
You snort. “Hot? They’ll be too busy watching me limp past the whiteboard.”
He kisses the crown of your head. “Trust me—limp or not, you’ll spark academic heart palpitations. I’ll swing by on my dinner break, flash the ER badge, scare ’em straight.”
“Jack Abbot, campus watchdog.” The idea dissolves you both into breathy laughter. When your mirth fades, a hush settles—thick with kettle heat and bergamot. Jack’s fingers resume their lazy circles.
“So,” he says quietly, “new job, new apartment, no rooftop drama. Think we can call this a fresh chapter?”
“Feels like one.” You study the living-room shadows, faint tremor still in your knee but nowhere near the earthquake it once was. “There’ll be bad days. Pain spikes. Flashbacks.”
He smiles against your hair. “Whatever comes, we handle it."
The word settles warm and sure. You melt farther into him, head on his chest. Beneath your ear, his heartbeat drums a steady four-four rhythm—no alarms, no rooftop wind, just the man who stayed even when you shoved him away.
Another siren wails somewhere—life moving at hospital pace—but it fades under the domestic hush of this small room. You picture your future: wax-polished halls, rows of curious students. No scalpels, no midnight pages anymore. It hurts, but the possibility of teaching, guiding...nurturing, it swells your heart, still fragile, still hesitant.
“Hey,” Jack murmurs, thumb brushing your cheek. “What’s first on your syllabus?”
“Drain-labeling protocol,” you say without hesitation.
Jack tips his head back and groans—half agony, half delight. You’re still laughing when he lunges, gentle but unstoppable, scooping you sideways onto the sofa cushions. His arm braces your ribs just right, the other cradles your neck, and his mouth finds yours with a hunger that’s all slow burn, no rush. His beard rasps your skin, sparks everywhere your nerves remember how to feel good.
Suddenly, the kettle in the kitchen clicks to a rolling boil—an impatient little whistle. Jack break of the kiss with another groan and starts to rise, murmuring something about pouring before the leaves scorch, but you fist the front of his shirt.
“Stay,” you whisper against his lips. “It can wait.”
He hesitates only a breath—long enough for you to drag him back down. The second kiss melts any lingering protest: slow, exploratory, tasting of bergamot and promise. Your fingers slide into his curls; his hand skims the healed curve of your waist as though relearning a map he hopes never to misplace again.
Steam puffs into the room from the unattended kettle, curling like a curtain around your laughter when you finally surface for air. Jack presses his forehead to yours, breath warm, eyes bright. “First you quit Surgery, then you corrupt tea-brewing standards,” he murmurs. “Total anarchist.”
“Only the important rebellions,” you reply, catching his lower lip between your teeth just enough to make him grin.
Somewhere beyond the rain-streaked window, streetlights blink through mist, buses groan, and life rolls its everyday credits. But inside this circle of lamplight and residual steam, beginnings feel soft as fleece, endings quiet as a held breath, and the two of you—tangled together on a well-loved sofa—taste what comes next one kiss at a time.
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goaskangel · 6 months ago
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dad's bestfriend!nanami x reader
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a/n...had really good ideas 4 this and it kinda WORKED OUT??? i fu want more lmk!! im a sucker for older dudes (and ONLy them) nanami will save us all EEK. also i see hiromi as y/n's father, that's what i had in mind writing this!!! THIS HAS SLIGHT CORRUPTION STUFF, LIL GUILT STUFF, LOTS OF KISSIINGGG
you usually paid no mind to the people your father brought over. mostly colleagues or just a few friends to drink and converse with in your shared apartment. one friend he’d seem to bring over a lot had caught your eye. as if his ever-changing ties and snug khakis weren’t enough to make you grin, his mannerism was much too attractive. greeting you respectfully, listening and chuckling to your rare comments and jokes to their discussion over drinks in the kitchen. getting comfortable to just speak to you while your dad’s out or busy with something, always listening with intent. 
it’s so sexy, you think, your hands up to your face as you lay to your side in bed. dreaming conscious thoughts of what his big hands would feel like on you, or the same breath he smokes out against your neck. your guilt no longer dragging you down after all this time. 
once, you sit close to him, smiling and trying to make your staring of his ringless finger unnoticeable. he wonders, aloud, how don’t you have a boyfriend? you shrug, “jus’ not very interested.” you smile when he chuckles, most likely at your thought process. part of you hopes he doesn’t ask what you're looking for because you’d go straight to overworked suited-men. skip over the blonde and big traits just to seem more vague. of course you were interested, you were interested the moment he mentioned he had no family. no wife, no kids. just focused on his work and drinks, a few cigars and baked goods. the absence of your father to run a quick errand wasn’t helping, your eyes zigzagged down his undone tie and exposed blue button-up, his blazer down beside him. you’d thought about taking the garment or increasing the loft’s heater just to see him get all worked up and hot but being this close to him gave you the same thrill. the topic of marriage came up.
“you shouldn’t wait too long, i waited too long.” he says with sincerity. 
“hehe. with all truth, mister, i think you’re doing it on purpose. you are handsome.”
he sits up at the title, a confused smile at his face, “yeah? i could say the same thing about you, pretty.”
god, if you were any worse, the first time he’d use that petname you would’ve pounced on him sooner. “dad says guys my age are after one thing and i agree. you wouldn’t disagree with my dad, would you?” your head tilts and waits for a response to your bratty remark. “well, i suppose your father knows a thing or two.” he nods, crossing his arms. your eyes trail again, watching the toned muscle flex casually against his rolled sleeve. you swallow the pool of spit in your mouth. 
“he’s strict, though. haven’t you noticed?” you get up from your seat and walk to pour yourself another glass of water, “doesn’t ever let me have anybody over.” 
“uh-huh.” his brown eyes stare at you intently to understand your point. 
“it gets lonely, mister.” instead of sitting back down, you stand right in front of him. placing your glass on the glass table. his arms now rest out on the table as he traces delicate circles on the rim of his half empty cup of whiskey. “i obviously can’t tell my dad that so i’m telling you and i just know you’d understand.” your hand rests atop his and slowly curls under his big palm.
he clears his throat of the sudden nervousness, “well, yes. i know that feeling all too well.” you hum a response when he turns his body to face you better. you mumble gently, “my dad won’t be home.” your hand squeezes him tighter. you notice how his brows furrow just the slightest bit as he lowers his head down, letting out a small sigh. but he doesn’t oppose it. doesn’t move when you lead his hand down to your hip, the tips of his fingers riding up your shirt. so pliable, his other resting hand now being guided up, up, up your shirt. his warm palm against your much softer skin. “won’t tell anyone, nanami.” 
his breathing is shaky and his eyes seem to have gotten heavier, but he scoots almost off the seat, to get closer. his vision glued onto the bump of where his hand is underneath your shirt, beneath the wire of your bra. 
“i’ll let you do anything you want to me.” fucking hell, you made this so fucking hard. 
“you’re damn irresistible.” he slurs through his teeth, swearing to himself that his mouth dried when you gripped his hand to squeeze the fat beneath your breasts. you feel dizzy, so good that he’s not resisting, that he can’t resist. he kneads and gropes the side of your hips and thighs, getting closer to your ass. impatiently, he stands and manhandles you closer to his bigger frame. you hear how his breathing’s stabilized but heavier, his expensive cologne finally hitting you when you lean up against his neck. he damn near groans when he gets his hands on you properly. dragging his hands on your back, pushing your body right against his much warmer one. your knees grow weak, if his grasp was any looser, you could’ve collapsed right on him. you take your arms and wrap them firmly against his broad shoulders and thick neck, moaning quietly against the veins under his ear. he feels his khakis getting tighter with every breath you take. a smile grows against your cheeks when you feel the slight stubble at his jaw, you kiss at it. 
still moaning between kitten licks against his mature skin, he turns to press his lips to yours. quick little pecks between breaths, he savors each one and quickly returns for more. the sour taste of his bitter whiskey intoxicating you from his much sweeter mouth.
“been..wanting..this..nana–mi..!” you can’t contain your grown obsession to which he shushes you. nodding slowly against your mouth while he keeps your head in place. when you pull away, you take his hands and lead him into your open bedroom. the idea of your father coming home slowly fading the closer you got what you wanted. you got so eager when he sat you on the edge of your bed, standing between your hanging legs. your hands wanting to hold onto his belt, to slowly unbuckle it but he caught them beforehand, kissing and sucking on your soft wrists and forearms. his lips find their way to your neck and ear where he whispers. 
“it's wrong, i know. so, so wrong, but my god…” he holds onto your neck and carefully grinds himself into your clothed cunt, making you arch your back and buck your hips into him, whining. you could cry from all the teasing he’s doing. “shouldn’t be doing this, sweetheart…dad can’t know, okay?” he keeps his now firm bulge against you. you moan another cry and kiss him again a bunch, nodding, rubbing tongues and messing up the gel in his blonde hair. the very open door reveals the sound of clinking keys and chains, doors opening and closing. too dizzy and much too dazed to even frown, you just stare into his soft brown eyes. they get farther away as he gently lets you go, kissing your temple for good measure before heading to the bathroom, leaving you with shaking legs. hopefully his plans of staying over stays the case.
masterlist
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kitchenisking · 2 months ago
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The Key by aussiebee - (Rating: G, Words: 7,450)
Eligible bachelor Derek Hale has announced that whomever can take the key from around his dog's neck will be the person he marries. Stiles Stilinski think this is utterly ridiculous.
The Moon Gave Me Permission by Melpomene (Aconitehart) - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 57,572)
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Scott says, eyeing Stiles’ fries. “But Derek Hale is back in town. I saw him at the gas station the other day.”
This piques Stiles’ interest. Oh yes it does. Like any good true crime aficionado, Stiles has his favourite case. His pet cold case. His hometown murder. The thing he brings up when he’s tired of small talk and just wants to get real.
The Hale Family Fire and the suicide of Katherine Argent.
Stiles knows this case inside and out. He’s racked up thousands of karma points on reddit for his thoughtful analysis, his pictures of the crime scene, and of his reporting of local gossip. Beacon Hills is a small town, small enough that Stiles is the only one on the Unresolved Mysteries subreddit to have actually seen the burnt out shell in person.
He’ll tell anyone who listens what he finds fascinating about the case. Absolutely no shame. He’s read all of the articles, he’s pestered his father’s deputies for more information, and he’s read every cold case compilation book that so much as mentions it.
No one knows this case like Stiles does.
-
In which Derek Hale is a man with a dark past, and Stiles is completely obsessed with him.
you know you're on my mind by bibliosexual - (Rating: T, Words: 16,371)
If there’s one thing Derek’s learned in life, it’s that crushing on someone who lives on an entire other fucking continent is probably a bad idea.
An Understanding Passed In Silence by cjr  - (Rating: G, Words: 4,464)
It started off as something of a joke. One moment he was talking Scott’s ear off about some homework assignment and Scott made a joke that Stiles couldn’t spend a day without talking if he tried.
A Little Less Conversation by sweetbutterbliss - (Rating: T, Words: 1,316)
From anon on tumblr "A prompt if you are interested. Derek telling Stiles to shut up, like usual, but then, to the surprise of everyone, he does. And continues to do it, never speaking in Derek's presence and asking the pack to warn him when Derek arrives. Derek then needs to find a way to get the spastic kid to START talking."
Desperate by Hedwig221b - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 12,175)
Derek understood perfectly well how young Stiles was. Just how many times did he stop himself from digging his teeth into that lovely neck to claim him?
Maybe, next time he shouldn’t.
The thought, wild and sudden, came to him, and once it did, there was nothing he could do to get rid of it. If he got Stiles pregnant, then the omega would be his. Fully his. They would be bound for life. Stiles wouldn’t refuse the mating bite, then.
Stiles was his omega. Derek would do anything to keep him.
Anything.
dashing through the snow by EvanesDust - (Rating: G, Words: 636)
…or the one where Stiles and Derek created new traditions.
Did You Really Mean It by In_Over_My_Head - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 1,846)
Looking around the empty loft, Derek reminded himself that he liked to be alone. It wasn’t too quiet with no one there, he repeated to himself for the hundredth time that night. The relief that flooded through him at the sound of his text message chime might have worried him if the message hadn’t been so confusing.
Stiles: you’re beautiful
Derek stared at the message for a minute not sure how to react. His heart raced, palms went a little sweaty, his breathe caught in his lungs, but that was just because he wasn’t used to hearing things like that from Stiles, right? It wasn’t a sign of any sort of emotion on his side. It couldn’t be. He’d squashed that a long time ago. This was Stiles, spastic, skinny, trip on his own shoelaces Stiles. The man that didn’t see Derek in any sort of romantic way and never had. There’s no way he really meant that, right?
5 Times Derek Experiences Sensory Overload + 1 Time Derek Experiences Sensory Joyby Warlock_Nerd - (Rating: G, Words: 5,604)
Derek is Autistic but he hasn’t told anyone in fear of not being taken seriously as an Alpha. Stiles, however, figured it out and made it his mission to help Derek not only for Derek’s Betas but for Derek to finally accept himself.
In other words, Derek has sensory issues and Stiles helps him through each one. :3
Ps - Author is Autistic and sees a lot of Autistic traits in Derek :3
Like Clockwork by quackquackcey - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 6,111)
In which Stiles meets a handsome higher-up in his company by chance one afternoon and falls for him, hard.~ 💘
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hometoursandotherstuff · 2 months ago
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This is cute, b/c it's not a huge bank conversion, it's a smaller building with a reasonable price. Plus, the layout isn't awkward. The 1900 building in Cumby, TX has 2bds, 2ba, 1,524sqft, and was reduced $10.1k to $264,900. (Proceed with caution, b/c every day Tumblr nabs my posts for content reviews and this one is dead-on sexy.)
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It's cute, you can't tell that it was a bank, and it has a nice staircase going up to a lofted area.
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I like the spacious living room.
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Then, step down to the kitchen. Looks like an original brick floor and some nice two-tone cabinetry.
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It has a nice exposed brick wall and a side door.
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There's a small area to the side of the front door that could be a little office area, or even a nice art studio, and then they used the original vault door and vault and to make a bathroom.
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This is lovely. The sink looks like it may have been an original piece of bank furniture.
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This large bedroom looks like it may have been an office. It looks like they kept a lot of the original files.
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The primary bedroom is in the loft and has a lovely ensuite.
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And, also a walk-in closet.
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Looking down from the loft.
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There's a long back hall.
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It looks like it leads to this cute little private courtyard patio.
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This is the kitchen door and the gate to the patio. It's on a 1,742.4sqft lot.
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https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/201-W-Main-St-Cumby-TX-75433/243395593_zpid/
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loftlifee · 2 years ago
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lordansloftsuk · 2 years ago
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In terms of adding extra room and monetary worth to your house, a loft conversion near me may be a beneficial addition. These are some of the best ideas and techniques for styling a loft conversion if you use it for the bedroom.
Some of the things you may do in loft conversions: Key Points
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bonus-links · 2 months ago
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Eeee Directors commentary for HOMESICK, pt. 13? (I’m particularly interested in Wake’s POV on Ganondorf’s character & exactly when he began thinking of him as someone who cares about more than just power?—If sharing that wouldn’t be a spoiler of/c.)
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HI EVERYONE!!
okay so funny story about the castle. for some reason I had gotten it into my head that the castle was definitively located directly below the tower of the gods. I think it's because that's where the portal to enter it is located in the game. but it did not occur to me until I had literally already drawn it in this update that it. does not have to be that way. and probably makes more sense if it's not HAHA so anyway just go with this being the former location of the castle lol I needed them to be able to see it from outset
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lots of people caught this but Wolf being like. hey wait a second I know that fucking guy
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scary ganondorf silhouettes compared with the decidedly human version of him we met last update
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and on that note: Wake is not necessarily arguing that Ganondorf was actually good all along. He's uncomfortable with dehumanizing him fully. He's kind of half trying to make a joke here about the stories he grew up with about Ganon, a joke Wolf takes very seriously lol. To your question about when exactly Wake started to actually think about Ganondorf, at the time of his first quest he mostly didn't take much of what he said seriously. Priority #1 was saving Aryll. In the years since though, he's had more time to consider Ganondorf's position. I don't think he likes or even sympathizes with Ganondorf, but he has begun to understand where he's coming from.
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In Wolf's defense, his experience of Ganondorf was VERY different than Wake's lol. He knows his version of Ganondorf to be capable of puppeting disasters like this behind the scenes, and he also knows that Ganondorf has pulled off seemingly impossible feats before (divine prank, anyone). From his perspective he's like. in the fucking twilight zone right now. pun intended. what do you MEAN you're defending Ganondorf in front of me. what do you MEAN this isn't enough evidence for what is clearly a proven pattern of behavior. etc. ARE YOU PEOPLE NUTS???
I love conflict and arguing and being locked into your own worldview <3
lots of this chapter has just been me unpacking the different ways WW and TP respond to OOT as sequels SHJGKGJ
one thing I regret about last update in hindsight was not having Ganondorf say like. one line mentioning Wake. But also something something overshadowed by the Hero of Time even in this, so maybe it makes sense he didn't.
Slate and even Loft are both kind of outsiders to this conversation. Originally Slate was supposed to be in that 4th panel on the last page typing up notes on his Sheikah Slate, but I ran out of steam to draw him HAHA anyway he's not contributing to the argument much but he's definitely connecting some dots in his head. also Slate whistling to get everyone's attention is so funny to me
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top ten favorite loft moments I also love lying liars who lie. anyway I'm sure he's being really normal about all of this in that noggin of his. adding: can and will lie to his list of character traits lol this is a little bit of a defining moment for him even tho it's small
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I have a secret about this outset background. It's literally just this panel from pt. 4 zoomed in and blurred. I've been using it every time they're on this beach 😂 it's been a life saver for real
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I might have more to say later but I am very tired KJHKLJDGKJ so that's all I've got for now. thanks for reading! we're really really almost to the end of ch2 now!
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eliteconstructionslondon · 7 months ago
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Hassle-Free Loft Conversions in London 2024 with Elite Constructions in London
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our commitment to quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction, you can trust us to deliver a stunning loft extension in London that exceeds your expectations.
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zegrasdrysdale · 6 months ago
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“shh! they’ll hear us”
with nico hischier
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part of the 1k celly event
summary : Nico and his girlfriend host a Christmas party on the eve of the holiday for the Devils before their roadie begins right after Christmas
warning(s) : nsfw ! sexual content, fingering, oral (f receiving), public teasing, dirty talk
author’s note : happy holidays to all who celebrate ! decided that my gift to y'all is another installment of the 1k celly series. enjoy whatever holiday you and your family celebrate <33
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Something is wrong with Nico.
Not physically wrong, but he’s just acting different. This behavior didn’t start until his teammates and coaches began showing up at their loft apartment for the party they’re hosting for the Devils players and staff. She been playing captain's girlfriend and has answered every doorbell then began making rounds to greet each player and coach.
All while Nico keeps a hand on her.
Her boyfriend isn’t usually the one to be affectionate in public so his hand constantly being on some part of her body is throwing her off her game. She’s more focused on his touch than conversing with her guests.
She doesn’t know what brought on this side of Nico, but she kind of likes it. She’s always wanted to be more affectionate around their friends and family, but Nico was never a huge fan and she didn't push it. All eyes were already on her since she's Nico's girlfriend so early on, she didn't care.
Right now though, she's curious.
Coach Keefe and his family arrive last, which signals the end of her time greeting teammates and coaches that arrive at their apartment for the party. She focuses on conversing with her guests and making sure everyone is okay.
What usually feels like a very large apartment feels very small at the moment. There is an entire NHL team scattered throughout the loft with their families. She can't even escape to the kitchen like she often does when there are so many people because there is a catering group preparing the meal.
Nico doesn't leave her side as they socialize amongst the players and coaches in attendance. He doesn't stop touching her either. He rests a hand on her waist or on her lower back now that they've started to have longer conversations and not running to the door to answer it.
Okay, that's very different. His behavior is making her very curious. It makes her wonder if there is something going on that he's not telling her.
Dinner is served around six. A mix of vegan and non-vegan options so everyone has something to eat. They've brought in extra tables and chairs so the adults can fit around the dining room table. Within their parents' eyesight, the kids sit at a smaller table together to eat. They are out of earshot though so the adults can have conversations that little ears shouldn't hear.
Her first serving is lasagna. It's probably the best lasagna she’s ever had. Perfect cheese to sauce to pasta ratio. Some of everything in every bite she takes. She lets out a borderline pornographic moan as she chews the bite.
Nico laughs beside her as he eats some of the steak he grabbed. “That good?” he asks with a grin.
“So good, Nico,” she tells him with a full mouth. “Oh my God. We are absolutely going to get this catering group again next time we host a party. Fuck.”
He laughs again and takes another bite of his steak.
She begins a conversation with Kristen Haula on her left side. The women talk about how well the boys have played, complimenting the other’s significant other as they talk. Their laughs are among others as small talk continues at the table.
Everyone’s plates are nearly empty about a half an hour later. Erik has jumped into her conversation with his wife while Nico converses with Jack and Luke on the other side of him.
Yet, his hand comes down on her knee under the table cloth. She folds her hands and holds them in front of her mouth as she presses her lips into a line. She listens to the Haulas share a story about their kids, and Nico’s hand slides up her thigh to the hem of her skirt.
Bold considering his teammates and coaches surround him. If any of them see him, he’s probably going to be incredibly embarrassed since it’s very rare that he’s this affectionate in public. Even in his own apartment.
She doesn’t stop him though. She should, but she lets him keep going. Even after his finger dip under the hem of her tight skirt. Her teeth pull at her bottom lip behind her hands. She begins to tune out the story that Kristen is telling her, focusing on Nico’s touch that moves closer to her uncovered core. Yes, she decided to go without a pair of panties because they would have shown through her dress via lines. Her dress is skin tight and she didn’t think she’d be doing much leaning over.
Little did she know that Nico’s fingers would be inches away from said core while his teammates and coaches sit at the table around him. She didn’t think that Nico would try to do this while at the table with his friends.
His fingers trace shapes under the skirt, teasing her since they’re so close to her core. She can feel butterflies begin to flutter in the pit of her stomach, the possibility of getting caught like this turning her on.
She’s about to make a comment about the story that the Haulas shared when Nico’s fingers dip between her crossed legs and graze her clit. His fingers run between her folds and dips into her.
She gasps at the action and covers her mouth as if she let out a hiccup.
“I, um …” she trails off as Nico shallowly fingers her. “I’m going to run to the ladies room very quickly. Excuse me.” She pushes her chair back and Nico’s hands slides out from under her skirt.
As normally as she can, she disappears down the hallway toward the bedroom she shares with Nico. She closes the door and leans against the wood. She clears her throat and lets out a heavy sigh.
The feeling of Nico’s hand between her legs is still there and she presses her thighs together to get some kind of friction.
Why would he do that? Now of all times? He has every opportunity in the world to finger her and he does it at Christmas Eve dinner with his team around him?
Something is wrong with Nico.
A soft knock rings throughout the empty room. She is quick to turn and open the bedroom door, coming face to face with her boyfriend.
“You are insane, you know that?” she questions. “God. If anyone saw what you were doing-”
“Good thing no one did then.”
He steps into the room and shuts the door with a click. Her mind races a thousand miles a second as Nico looks at her. “You are genuinely the craziest person I have ever met,” she reiterates.
“Mhm,” Nico hums as he takes a step toward her. “Tell me more.”
She takes a step back every time he takes a step toward her. “You did all that for what?” she asks. “You go from rarely every touching me or holding my hand to putting your fingers inside me at a table filled with your coaches and teammates. If that was your way of telling me that you want to be more affectionate in front of people then good job-”
Her knees hit the edge of the mattress and she is forced to sit when she falls. She looks up at Nico, who nudges her knees apart and stands between them.
“Are you done?” he asks as he traces her jaw with the game fingers he had inside her a few minutes ago. “Or are you going to let me finish what I started at the table?”
Heat rushes to her cheeks when Nico mentions the table. She nods in response to his question.
Nico sinks to his knees in front of her. Her eyes track his moment as he pushes her knees apart to get a perfect view of her glistening core. His lip drags across his bottom lip before he presses a trail of kisses up her thigh from her knee.
“Oh my God,” she gasps when his lips touch her core. She leans back and props herself up on her elbows. She drops her head back at the same time Nico pushes her skirt up so it pools around her waist.
His tongue runs through her soaked folds and she sighs at the feeling. Nico hasn’t shaved in a few days either so it feels really good to have his mouth on her. She arches her back when Nico’s tongue pushes inside of her.
“Fuck!” she cries out. “Nico!”
“Shh!” Nico tells her. “They’ll hear us. You need to be a little more quiet. Or I’ll have no choice but to stop and leave you like this.”
She shakes her head and Nico smiles up at her before he puts his mouth on her core. Her jaw drops when he slips a finger inside of her. It takes everything to not cry out his name again as he fingers her closer to her inevitable orgasm.
Between his mouth and his fingers, it won’t be long until she comes anyway.
Nico slowly works her closer to the edge, quickening and slowing his pace to keep her from coming before he’s ready to let her. She’s a panting mess under his touch and the knot in her stomach tightens to the point where it’s almost painful.
Her legs shake where they rest on Nico’s shoulders. She looks down and finds Nico looking up at her through his eyelashes.
His fingers curl in a ‘come here’ motion inside her at the same time he sucks on her clit. “Fuck,” she sighs. “Fuck, Neeks. Wanna come. Wanna make a mess on your face and fingers. Please, please please please. Wanna come.”
“Come then,” he mumbles against her sensitive skin. “You wanna make a mess on my face? Then come, baby.”
It only takes a few more curls of his fingers and sucks on her clit before she’s coming. Her entire body tenses as she comes. She cries out his name in soft whispers so their guests don’t hear her. Her vision whitens and she sees stars behind closed eyes.
Her body melt into the mattress beneath her. She whines at the loss of contact. Her legs drop off his shoulders as he stands up. He grabs something to clean her up. She sits up when he’s done, grabbing his waist before he has a chance to clean his face.
With wobbly legs, she stands up and wraps her arms around his neck. “Come here,” she breathes out. Nico smiles and leans down, initiating a soft kiss. She hums when she tastes herself on his lips. She deepens the kiss a bit and runs her fingers through his hair.
“What you did at the table was kind of hot,” she mumbles against his lips. “The idea of getting caught with your fingers inside me kind of turned me on. I won’t lie to you.”
Nico grins and pulls back from the kiss.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
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MASTERLIST | 1K CELLY EVENT
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spiderb00 · 6 months ago
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netflix and (not) chill
Lara Raj x reader 
“It was a good idea to watch a movie with your girlfriend, until you complimented one of the characters” 
Genre – Fluff   Warnings – None  (request)
Now playing – The boy is mine, By Ariana Grande 
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"Okay, I think we've got it all here!" You said, walking up to your girlfriend, Lara, who was sitting on the couch in your apartment.   
Lara loved to go to your loft, it was cozy and away from the noise of the Kats. Not that she didn't love those girls, but whenever you two needed some alone time, this was the perfect place. Today, you and your girlfriend were in deep relaxation mode, and all you wanted was to watch a good movie and snuggle up together on the couch. 
The smell of the homemade pizza you two made was all over the air, and the bottle of wine you'd opened was already ready to be poured into the fancy glasses you'd bought for dates like this. It was Lara's turn to choose the movie, so after a long conversation she decided that you would see "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham", an Indian movie, which according to Lara was "One of the best movies I've ever seen!", so you gladly accepted, excited to know more about your girlfriend's movie tastes and culture. 
"Then come join me, baby." Lara said as she patted the seat next to her on the couch.   
With excitement, you sat down quickly on the couch, snuggling next to Lara as you handed her a glass of wine, which you had poured.   
"All right, we can start." You say, before you press play, Lara turned her head in your direction.   
"Okay, listen to me, cutie. Whatever you're thinking of doing, save it for after the movie, I really want to watch it until the end." Lara said, knowing your history of almost never watching the movies until the end when the two of you are alone.   
"I promise, I wasn't even thinking about it, pretty girl." You say, showing your pinky, hoping that Lara would intertwine hers with yours. 
With a snort and a laugh of amusement, Lara intertwined her pinky with yours, pulling you lightly towards her and giving a small kiss on your lips.   
"See, you're the one who always starts-"   
"Shii, the movie is going to start." Lara said, smiling at the red-haired girl's antics, you started watching the movie, taking sips of wine and eating your slices of pizza.   
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The movie was fantastic, you couldn't remember the last time you were so involved in such a long movie. You loved the filmography, the character development, the story, everything was simply artistic and very well thought out. Lara would make some comments about the movie occasionally, just talking about how she loved some scene and how she remembered watching the movie with her parents and sister.   
You really understood why she spoke so highly of the film, it was really captivating. You laughed when one of your favorite characters appeared on the scene, playing her role beautifully and making everything look funny and professional at the same time. You learned that the actress's name was Kajol (courtesy of Lara), and she played Anjali Raichand, married to Rahul, one of the main characters. 
"She's so funny." You said, a harmless compliment. "It's kind of charming, she's very beautiful." Another innocent compliment, at least for you.    
Lara, who was very focused on the film, had her attention diverted for the first time. Had you just said that a woman was beautiful in front of her? I mean, she knows she's an actress, and she's a lot older than you, and that you're probably never going to see each other in your life, but so what? Had you just said that a woman was beautiful in front of your girlfriend?  
You continued with your attention focused on the movie, not even noticing the enraged look your girlfriend was giving you right now. You know Lara is jealous from birth, but you didn't mean it badly, you just innocently let it out.   
Stretching your arm to place it on Lara's shoulder, you quickly felt the Indian girl shrug her shoulders, a silent motion to get you off her. Looking at her, you saw her arms crossed over her chest, the girl's eyebrows were furrowed, and for a moment you wondered if you had done something wrong.   
"Baby, what's wrong?" You asked, puppy eyes looking at the girl who seemed indifferent to your doubts.   
"Nothing, I'm just too hot here to be hugged." Lara said, shrugging once again, the girl's eyes glued to the TV. Oh, something was very wrong.   
When the movie was finally over, you stood up, putting the dirty dishes and glasses in the sink and coming back to tell Lara that you would go upstairs to the room in a minute, only to no longer find the fire-haired girl on the couch. Confused, you went back to the kitchen, washing everything very quickly and going up even faster.   
When you entered the room, you saw your girlfriend already in her pajamas, one of your shirts - which were too big on her - and only a black panty. Getting closer, you crawled until you were on top of the distracted girl on her phone, starting to distribute kisses down the back covered by the fabric of her (your) shirt. 
"You look so pretty in my clothes, baby" You said, startled as your girlfriend quickly turned on the bed, knocking you off her.   
"I thought I wasn't pretty enough for you." Lara says, getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom, starting to smear some skin care products on her face.    
Dazed on the bed, you stood up, still trying to process why she would have said that. 
"Baby, I don't understand. What does that mean?" You asked, scratching the back of your neck, leaning against the bathroom door frame.   
"Ask Anjali." That was all the Indian girl had to say to make you know why she was acting like that.  
"Baby, no. Please, let's not do that." You said, throwing your head back before approaching the girl who was looking at herself in the mirror of your bathroom, putting your arms around her waist.   
"Do what? I thought you thought she was pretty. Why don't you ask her what you were going to ask for me?!" Lara says, turning around in your arms and arching an eyebrow as she looks at you.  
Deciding to mess with the girl, you shrug, taking your hands from her waist and turning around to leave the bathroom.   
"Alright, do you know if she has Instagram? Maybe I'll DM her..." 
You barely finished speaking when you felt a tug on your shirt, pulling you back into the bathroom and pinning you against the sink.   
"YOU WHAT?" Lara said, a smile starting to escape you. "Yn, I swear if you laugh I'll snatch that little smile off your face!" Lara said, pointing at you with the sharp nails she wore.   
"Wow, calm down Freddy Krueger, I was just kidding." You said laughing and taking Lara's hand in yours.   
"What did you just call me?" Cutting off the red-haired girl's speech, you kissed Lara in surprise. 
Lara gave a small punch on your shoulder before giving herself completely to the kiss. You knew she wasn't really mad, she just wanted a little reminder that she was the woman of your life, and that you would always be with her.   
"Are you calmer?" You said, hugging the Indian girl and kissing the top of her head. "Look, there might be a thousand beautiful girls all over the world, they got nothin’ on you, baby." You said, rocking your body along with hers in your arms.   
"Did you just recite Bruno Mars?" Lara said, looking up to meet your eyes. A smile on your face, making the shortest girl mirror your action. 
"Of course, he gets the message across." You said, winking at her. But letting out a little "Auch" when the girl slaps you again, this time on your biceps.    
 "If a thousand beautiful girls were around you, you'd be wearing a blindfold."  
Oh, how you loved this woman. 
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Hey guys, I love this request! It sure is Crazy Girl!Lara and Yn coded.
Speaking of movies, have you seen the Golden Globes? What did you think? I was particularly happy for Fernanda Torres and Demi Moore. I was hoping that Mikey Madison would win something from Anora, bc everyone was saying she looked fantastic in the movie, but maybe next time.
stay safe, I just learned about fires in LA, and I'm sending all the positive energy to the people who were affected by this.
xoxo, spider.
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