#so instead of like half ass it last night i wanted to wait to answer it today so i could give a proper responce

[writeriguess]

I think you wrote CEO Bakugo x secretary reader fic once? Could you write another please? Plot can be whatever but please include smut 😝

Insubordination

The click of your heels was sharper than usual when you stormed into Bakugo’s office.

"You rescheduled my vacation time again," you said without preamble, tossing the printed memo onto his desk. Your jaw was set, eyes flashing. "That’s the third time."

Bakugo didn’t even look up from his monitor. "Your vacation doesn't matter if your department's falling behind."

You scoffed. "You mean your schedule’s falling apart because you refuse to hire a second assistant."

Now he looked at you. Slowly. Like a predator sizing up the one thing stupid enough to challenge him in his own den.

"You’re my assistant. You don't get to dictate shit."

"And you don’t get to keep pulling this control-freak crap every time you feel—threatened," you snapped, voice low. "I’ve kept your world spinning for three years. If I vanish for four days, the company won’t burn."

He stood so fast his chair scraped back across the floor.

“You wanna find out what happens when you vanish?” His voice was a growl, each word dripping threat—and something else.

You stared, breathing heavy, defiant. You wanted him to break. You wanted something to break, because god, it had been building for too long. The late nights. The friction. The glances that lasted a second too long. The silence that buzzed with things unsaid.

He crossed the room in three strides.

"You think you can talk to me like that and walk away?"

Your back hit the glass wall of his office. “What are you gonna do about it?”

His hand slapped the glass beside your head. The other gripped your chin, tilting your face up to his. His breath was hot on your cheek, his gaze fierce and unreadable.

“I should fire you.”

“You won’t.”

"Why?"

"Because you like it when I talk back." Your voice came out rough. Shaky.

He didn’t answer. He crushed his mouth to yours like he was starving for it.

And fuck, you kissed him back like you’d been starving longer.

Bakugo shoved everything off his desk with one violent sweep — your planner, his laptop, even a framed plaque with his name on it crashed to the floor — and hoisted you onto the wood like he owned you. Like you were just another part of his empire to bend, conquer, ruin.

"Been waiting for a fucking excuse," he muttered, tearing open your blouse with both hands, buttons flying.

"You're such a goddamn control freak—" you gasped, arms around his neck, thighs tightening around his waist.

"And you're a pain in my ass." His mouth found your throat, biting down hard. "But you're mine."

The word should’ve made you flinch. Instead, you pulled him closer.

He gripped your jaw, forcing you to meet his eyes. “You walk around this place like you don’t know what you do to me. But I see how you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”

Your breath hitched. “You’re always watching.”

“Damn right I am.” His voice dropped to a low, possessive rasp. “Watching you bend over my desk. Watching you talk back in that tight-ass pencil skirt.”

You reached down, fingers fumbling at his belt, but he swatted your hand away.

“No. Hands on the desk,” he ordered. “You started this with your mouth. Now keep it shut unless you’re begging.”

He pushed your skirt up roughly, tugged your panties to the side. The air hit your soaked heat and he froze, growled.

“Fuck. You’re already this wet?” His thumb slid between your folds, drawing a sharp moan from you. “All that attitude today—you just wanted me to snap, huh? Wanted this.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

He unzipped his pants, pulled himself free. Thick, hard, flushed at the tip. The sight of him made your hips shift involuntarily.

“No condom,” he warned, voice ragged.

“Don’t care.”

That was all he needed.

He lined up, grabbed your hips, and buried himself inside you in one brutal thrust.

Your cry echoed off the office walls, half-shock, half-relief. The stretch was obscene. You felt every inch of him.

He didn’t wait. He fucked you like he was claiming territory — one hand braced against your lower back, the other tangled in your hair, pulling your mouth to his. His pace was punishing, all gritted teeth and panting curses against your lips.

“Always giving me that look—like you’re better than me,” he snarled, pounding into you. “Say it. Say you want me.”

You gasped, nails digging into the desk. “I want you—Katsuki, please—”

He groaned like the sound of his name on your tongue split him open.

“You feel that?” he growled, slamming deeper. “No one else gets this. No one else gets you like this.”

Your orgasm hit fast and hard, ripping through you without mercy. You bit your own wrist to muffle the scream.

“Fuck—fuck, I can feel you coming—” His rhythm faltered, hips stuttering. “I’m gonna—shit—”

He came with a broken growl, burying himself to the hilt, his whole body trembling against yours.

Silence settled thick after. Just your ragged breathing, your shared sweat cooling on skin.

Bakugo pulled back, still braced on the desk, chest heaving. His forehead dropped to yours.

“This doesn’t change shit,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “Still your boss.”

You let out a breathless, shaky laugh. “Yeah. And I’m still your problem.”

His smirk returned, slow and wicked.

“Damn right you are.”

[eclairemaire]

Meeting the Missus pt.3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Part 5

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Wife! Reader

Category: Fluff

Summary: The Team finds out Bob is married and wants to meet the missus.

Warnings: Reader is described very similarly to Rhea Ripley, Reader and Bob are very much in love, No mention of Y/N used, Southern Reader (she's like all southern ladies sweet like iced tea, but can knock you on your ass if she has too), Express mentions of reader and Bob's Child, Lemme know if I missed any.

Word Count: 1.3K

Notes: This is the third part of 'Meeting the Missus'. I'm genuinely so surprised at how many of you are reading this; it makes my heart swoon. I hope everyone enjoys!

Heading to the cafeteria for lunch, as soon as Bob sits down, he’s surrounded by the rest of the squad. Phoenix on his right, Fanboy on the left, Rooster across from Bob, Hangman across from Phoenix, Payback across from Fanboy, and Coyote on the other side of Hangman. All of them leaning towards him as though they were high school kids waiting for the newest piece of gossip. Fanboy was almost completely pressed against Bob’s side as he started to unpack his leftovers from last night’s dinner.

“So are we going to get to try any of your Missus’ lovely food at this cookout that you mentioned yesterday?” Fanboy asked as he ogled the food that looked mouth-wateringly good. Bob hummed as he got up to reheat his food, like a pack of strays, the rest of the squad started to get up to follow him to the microwave.

“You will,” he said non-committedly as he put the food in the microwave and started it up. Looking up and seeing the team still surrounding him, he quirked up a brow, “Don’t y’all need to go get your own food?” Watching with an amused glint as the team seemed to realize they did not, in fact, have any food of their own to eat for lunch yet, and seemed to scatter to retrieve their respective meals.

Meeting back at their table, Bob was quietly typing on his phone and smiling fondly while waiting. Once everyone arrived, he stowed his phone into one of the pockets of his uniform. “Missus has decided that the cookout will be next Saturday, you will be expected to bring food or drink, you don’t have to bring both, but if you want to, you can to get in my wife's good graces.” He said after finishing the first bite of his lunch, letting out a low hum of satisfaction at the flavor.

“So what can we expect from this cookout? Will there be games? Any more munchkins besides yours?” Hangman asked as he started to dig into his food, Coyote nodding along beside him.

“Is it going to be similar to the one Riley talked about from when you were stationed at Lemoore?” Phoenix drew her attention to Bob as he thought of an answer to the questions.

Deciding to answer Hangman first, “There will be games, board games, and some digital. Maybe some dogfight football if we’re lucky. As for other kids, I’m not sure,” there might be some of Rileys friends, but that entirely depends on whether you wanted to host a sleepover, which wasn’t likely; your social battery would be pretty drained after having so many people over all day. “ We’ll likely be eating lunch around one-ish, do games for a little bit afterwards, then Riley’ll konk out for like an hour and a half for a nap, and then it’ll just be us adults for a while.” Turning to face Phoenix, he answers her question.

“Yes, and no, none of our relatives are going to be here this time, and her friends likely aren’t either. It’ll be the same in the sense that it’s essentially a party of sorts, but with y’all instead of our families.” He stated while continuing to eat his food.

“Ok, so for food, does anyone have any allergies that might have detrimental effects if said allergen is ingested?” Fanboy asked as he examined the group and turned back towards Bob. Nos and nope's flowed from everyone's mouths after pondering for a moment. “Great!” he exclaimed, shifting back towards his food.

“Sounds like we’ve all got an idea what to expect. What time should we be there?” Rooster asked.

“Shoot for around 12:30, that way Missus can have a time to have everything fresh and hot to go,” Bob stated. 

After that conversation flowed as usual, talking about drills and other happenings going on throughout the base, and the day continued. 

Before leaving, Maverick pulled Bob aside, “What’s this I hear about a cookout?” he inquires as he looks at Bob with curiosity.

“Oh,” Bob fumbles briefly, “My wife and I are hosting a cookout next weekend, and we invited the squad over. Are you interested in coming as well, Mav?” Bob asks, while twiddling his thumbs behind his back at the sudden inquiry about personal plans.

“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to meet your wife, whom I’ve heard so much about from Penny. Is Amelia welcome to come as well?” He asks as he looks at Bob’s face. Bob relaxes, remembering that you get along quite well with Penny and have been mentioning wanting to introduce her to Riley

“That sounds like a good idea, sir. I’ll make sure to let her know that you all are coming as well.” Turning to leave, Bob remembers that he needs to tell Maverick to bring food or a drink. “Sir, please, bring a drink or food dish with you, otherwise my wife may not let you into our home.” He smiles sheepishly before heading to the parking lot. Once in his car, he messages everyone your home address and the date and time to be there. 

~

Arriving home followed a similar fashion as the day before, Bob was greeted first by Nuggs, who was eagerly awaiting pats, before almost being bulldozed by your second dog, Beans, who was significantly larger than Nuggs. Followed by a “Welcome home, Sweetheart,” being shouted from the direction of the kitchen. 

“We’re still making dinner,” you say as Bob enters the kitchen to see you sprinkling cheese over a pizza. “How was work?” you ask as you grab the pizza stone to put it into the oven. Riley runs over to Bob and gives his legs a squeeze and a big grin at him before going into the living room, where he then proceeds to hear the opening of ‘Magic School Bus’ play in the background.

“Good, everyone has a vague idea of what to expect for next Saturday,” He says, coming up behind you and wrapping you up in his arms, and pressing a kiss to your temple. “Mavrick heard about the cookout, I’m assuming Hangman and Rooseter were talking about it in the hangar,” He mumbles into your hair, as you hum as a response and turn to start cleaning up the kitchen while you wait for the pizza to cook, Bob clining to you like a koala all the way.

“Is he coming?” You ask as you continue to maneuver around the kitchen.

“Yeah, he asked if he, Penny, and Amelia could come. I told him yes, I figured you’d likely hear from Penny about what she plans on bringing,” he answered.

“Amelia's coming? That’s good, I wanted to meet her soon, plus I think she and Riley would get along quite well.” You finally finished cleaning up. Spinning around in Bob’s hold to lean him against the counter. You give him a kiss and a sweet smile.

“What do you plan on making for the cookout?” He asks, there's a teasing smile on his face, the one that makes his eyes crinkle just around the edges.

“You’ll find out with everyone else.” You giggle as he starts to pout just a little bit.

“But I’m your husband!” He squawks indignantly, starting to gain a flush in his cheeks.

“And you’ll find out with everyone else,” giving him a mischievous smile, as reach your hands around him to place them right below his ass, and with a firm grip you hoist him up and over your shoulder and start to head to the living room where your daughter resides. 

He lets out a harrumph and then proceeds to yell, “Riley, come save me! I’ve been captured by your mama!” Entering the living room, you hear a squeal from Riley followed by uncontrolled giggles, as she sees you with Bob slung over your shoulder.

“Da–Dad–Daddy,” giggles, interrupting her as she tried to speak, “I can’t help you, Mama’s too strong!”

“You Traitor!!” He yells in false devastation as he feigns going limp in your hold.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Part 5

a/n: I swear we will actually get to the cookout in the next part, but I'm a sucker for buildup and domestic family fluff. Thank you for reading, and see you in the next part!!

[carlislefiles]

weight | fushiguro toji ╰►toji carries a lot of weight on him: the weight of his job, the weight of fatherhood, the weight of his fears, the weight of his past, and the weight of himself—his flaws, his failures, his mere pitiful existence…but that weight seems to fall off, pound by agonizing pound, when he’s with you. 9.5k words

a/n: honestly, this could be misconstrued as toji just weaponizing his incompetence, but I guess all I can say is that isn't how I meant it? he's just a guy, you know? and so if you see me doing laundry and cooking for a 6 foot tall assassin in his dingy apartment...leave me alone, I'm exactly where I wanna be <3 fr though this is very heavy and much longer than I anticipated it being, talks a lot about self-worth, hating yourself, regret, grief, etc. definitely would not recommend reading if you don't feel like you're in the right headspace for that. I would probably call this angst, but there's also a lot of comfort in here!! (take a shot every time I say 'maybe...' 26 fucking times)

he doesn’t keep much. a knife. a lighter. a photo half-burned at the edges—face blurred, but he knows who it was. a bracelet that never fit his wrist, tucked in the back of a drawer. a receipt for something he tells himself he should’ve stolen, but didn’t. junk, really. clutter he should’ve thrown out years ago.

he stares at it sometimes. doesn’t touch it. doesn’t move. just…sits. breathing slow. letting the weight settle. it’s not guilt, not exactly. he doesn’t deserve that word. guilt’s for people who tried, but that doesn't stop him from feeling it often. this is more of an ache. a longing for a life he might've lived if he wasn't such a miserable piece of shit. who is he kidding? he was never going to be anything else.

before you came around, these kinds of thoughts consumed him. chewed through the meat of him every night, before he drowned himself in the last couple sips of the bottle and passed out sideways on the floor. there was no one to catch him. he didn’t want to be caught. and then you showed up; unceremoniously, with little fuss. he doesn’t remember the moment clearly—just the aftermath. the echo of your laugh in a room too dark for joy. his number in your phone, typed with his own hands, even though he swore he didn’t give it out. him, calling you weeks later when he hadn’t answered a single text, hadn’t promised a damn thing, hadn’t even given you his last name, and you still came.

he was awful to you in the beginning. touchy when he wanted something, distant when he didn’t. gone for days, sometimes weeks. didn’t text back. didn’t explain. he expected you to leave, told himself that's what he wanted. expected you to look at him and see what everyone else had: a fun mistake. a lost cause. something to be ashamed of the morning after. and maybe you did see it—but you never treated him like it. most women would've dumped his ass without blinking. moved on to the next guy who remembered birthdays and didn’t smell like musky cologne and blood. but not you. time and time again, when he resurfaced like something rotten dragged in by the tide, there you were—dry towel in hand, quiet smile, no questions. just eyes that saw right through him and still softened anyway.

he let you in. not all at once. it was small things. letting you stay the night instead of slipping out before dawn. giving you his key without saying anything. cooking once, maybe twice, when he realized you skipped dinner waiting on him. it wasn’t conscious. it wasn’t strategic. it was survival. somewhere between fuck and forget, you’d stitched yourself into the parts of him he thought were too far gone.

he still remembers the first time you crawled into his bed like you belonged there. you didn’t ask. you didn’t need to. he was sprawled out like a corpse, half-dressed, barely sober, and you just curled around him like gravity itself had finally decided to be kind. he didn’t really sleep that night—too stunned. too afraid to move, like it might’ve all been a fever dream. but you stayed. and in the morning, when you stretched and kissed his shoulder like it was the most normal thing in the world, he knew something had shifted. fatally. beautifully.

he never asked you to move in. never said the words. you just stopped leaving. toothbrush in the cup. body wash in the shower. your coat hanging next to his like it had always been there. and now he doesn’t seem willing to let you leave. not ever.

not when the nights get too quiet. not when the weight in his chest flares up and threatens to tear him open from the inside out. not when he comes home limping, blood on his hands, and finds you waiting with warm food and gentler eyes than he’s ever deserved.

you’re not just something good in his life. you are his life. his whole goddamn center of gravity. and when he looks at you—really looks—he thinks: this is what the knife was protecting. this is what the bottle was numbing. this is what I almost missed. but he usually only lets himself think those things when he’s drunk, or pretending to be drunk, at least. because sober toji cannot bear that kind of responsibility...can he? he thinks, when you lean back against him in the miniature closet of his apartment, tapping your lip curiously, deciding what to wear, that maybe he can. 

and maybe he’ll always be a little fucked up. maybe he’ll always feel like a man made more from loss than love. but for once—for once—he’s got something worth staying for.

......

it’s a job. that’s it. in. out. blood on his hands, sometimes on his boots. he doesn’t blink anymore. doesn’t pause. this armor is muscle memory now. cold, quiet, efficient.

you don’t ask what he does. maybe you understand the extent of it. maybe you don’t. maybe it’s better you never say it out loud (he knows you know, you're too perceptive not to). but he sees the way you look at him when he comes home late. smell of copper still clinging to him. red scar on his cheek that wasn’t there this morning. you don’t flinch. you just hold the door open.

you make him take his shoes off. wash his hands. sit down. you talk about your day like he just came home from his nonexistent 9 to 5 day job. like he isn’t built from violence. like he’s still a man. and for a moment—just one—he forgets the weight. the blood. the cold. the armor doesn’t come off. not fully. but you make it crack. you make it crumble. and that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever done.

he doesn’t understand it, the way you love him.

it’s not a performance. not a plea. you don’t look at him like you’re trying to fix him. you just look. like he’s already something worth looking at. like the blood under his nails doesn’t scare you. like the things he’s done aren’t rotting inside him, leaking out through the cracks. 

he’s never been gentle. doesn’t know how. not with his hands. not with his words. but you—you laugh like you don’t notice. you kiss him like you do. and it breaks him. every time.

because you see him. you see the weight, the filth, the violence stitched into his bones—and you stay. you press your fingers to the jagged parts and don't flinch. you cook him breakfast like he isn’t a murderer. you hum while you clean his wounds. you kiss his temple, not his mouth, and he thinks he might actually cry. god, how long's it been since he's done that?

he tells himself it’s weakness. that you’ll leave, eventually. you’ll see what he really is and run. but until then? he’s yours. and that’s the scariest job he’s ever had. what he doesn't fathom quite yet, is that you already know who he really is and you're staying anyways. or maybe he does know that, but he can't possibly understand it; so he won't admit it, to you or to himself.

…… 

some nights, it hits him out of nowhere.

he’ll be halfway through peeling an orange at the counter—shirtless, scarred, domestic in a way he doesn’t feel entitled to—and then he’s not. he’s back in some shitty living room, smoke curling up the wall, a tiny pair of shoes by the door, and no strength in his arms to pick them up.

he wasn’t there. not really. even when he was. too consumed with jobs, debts, the sound of screams in his ears. he knew he was messing it up in real time. watched it all slip, and chose not to stop it. it felt like the only thing he was good at—leaving. you come up behind him now, wrap your arms around his waist like you always do when you know he’s drifting. he doesn’t flinch. he lets you anchor him.

“he used to get scared of thunder,” he says, voice gravel, soft like he’s afraid it’ll shatter. “wouldn’t cry. just…sit real still. like I did.” you rest your cheek on his back, listening. "I didn’t—” he swallows, hard. "I didn’t know how to comfort him. I just told him to sleep through it. like it’d make him tough. like that’s what a good dad says.”

he turns, face unreadable, eyes hollowed by something that’s been gnawing at him for years. “he was a good kid,” he says. "I just…wasn’t a good man.”

you don’t say that’s not true. he wouldn’t believe you. you don’t try to offer him redemption, not outright. just the kind of steadiness he never had growing up, the kind of steadiness he could never offer. the kind of forgiveness that isn’t flashy. it’s just there. “what would you say to him now?” you ask quietly, thumb brushing over the scar on his side.

toji hesitates, stares at the floor like the answer might be buried in the tile. “...that I'm sorry,” he says eventually. like that'd fix anything, he thinks. “that I knew better. and I still left. and that he didn’t deserve that.” his voice cracks at the end. he clears his throat too harshly, like he’s trying to scrape the pain out of it.

you pull him down to sit, and he lets you. he sits between your legs on the floor, head bowed, shoulders too big for the shame he’s trying to fold them under. you just run your hands through his hair. “you did what you knew,” you whisper, and that's all you can say. not you did the right thing, or it's okay because that's not true and you both know it.

he closes his eyes. “doesn’t make it right.”

“no,” you agree. “but it means you'll do better.” he doesn’t respond. but his fingers curl around your ankle like a lifeline. like maybe, just maybe, there’s still time to learn what love looks like—without the leaving. and for tonight, at least, he stays. and who is he kidding? certainly not himself. for as long as you’ll have him, for as long as you allow his presence, he’ll stay. he’d never leave, not until you ask, because that’s what a good man does, right? 

the fear is the heaviest weight of all, and on nights like this, it drags him down under, and he’s so damn tired of swimming. fear of what, he doesn't quite know. fear of his past, though he thinks that sounds stupid. fear of you leaving, and that...that doesn't sound quite as silly to him. that is very, very real.

the grief comes quiet. doesn’t announce itself, doesn’t wail or scream. just settles into his bones like it’s always belonged there—grief for megumi, yes, but also grief for who he could’ve been. for the man he never got to grow into. for the kind of father he might’ve become if the world had given him just one more inch of slack, if he'd allowed himself to share instead of steal, let him give what he had instead of hoard it all to his chest; not just what little money he had, but the love he might've given, the care he might've shown.

you feel it before he even shifts. the way his body stills beneath your touch, the tight coil of muscle in his jaw, like he's holding back a scream that has nowhere to go. he doesn’t cry. of course he doesn’t cry. it’s not in him—not anymore. but you can feel the weight pressing on him, pinning him in place like a second skin.

he’s not thinking about just megumi now. he’s thinking about everything. the years spent as a blade, not a man. the people he’s killed. the blood under his fingernails that never quite washes off. the nights he should’ve slept but stayed awake because closing his eyes meant seeing their faces.

grief, regret, shame—what’s the difference anymore? it all tastes the same going down. bitter. rotting. permanent. you don’t say anything. you just lean into him, your head on his shoulder, your hand pressed flat to his chest like maybe if you’re close enough, you can keep his heart from collapsing in on itself.

"I never thought I’d live long enough to miss anything,” he mutters after a while, voice like sandpaper. “didn’t think there’d be anything worth missing.” his hand is on your thigh, holding tight—not possessive, just scared. of the dark. of the silence. of himself.

“but then you happened,” he says. “and now every time I look at you, I think about what I almost didn’t get to have. what I still don’t deserve.” the fear in his chest flares hot. ugly. alive. the vulnerability makes him nauseous. but he doesn’t look away from you. doesn’t bury it this time. just lets it sit there between you, raw and real.

and you, unshaken, still breathing next to a man the world tried to turn to ash, just whisper, “you do now.” and something in him cracks, quietly. like a storm on the horizon deciding to pass over. just this once.

……

he wakes up some mornings already braced for impact—heart hammering, mouth dry, stomach tight like he’s expecting a bullet instead of breakfast. 

but then there’s the smell of coffee. a plate on the table, still warm. the dishes in the sink—his dishes, his mess—already scrubbed clean. you don’t say anything about it. you never do. never ask him why he leaves nonperishable food out for himself everywhere, why he never eats more than a few bites, why he sometimes disappears for a day and comes back with blood on his soles and that hollow look in his eyes. you just wipe down the counter, hum softly under your breath, and hand him a fork.

he doesn’t know how to say thank you. not in words. not in the ways that count. his gratitude is jagged and half-formed, splintered beneath years of being treated like a monster, like a thing made for killing, not caring. and still, somehow, you never flinch.

he watches the way your hands move when you clean up after him. when you fold his laundry, not because he asked, but because he forgot to. when you take his hand and press it to your chest without speaking, like you know he’s about to spiral without needing an explanation.

it makes him physically ill, the way you love him. not out of pity. not out of naïveté. but wholly. steadily. willingly.

and there are nights he almost pushes you away for it. almost snaps. almost recoils. because he doesn't know what to do with love that doesn't come with strings, or shame, or screaming. but he doesn’t. he won’t. because a good man wouldn’t. and you—you—you’ve never asked him to be anything more than that. you ground him in ways he didn’t think possible. you ask nothing, demand nothing, expect nothing—and somehow that makes it worse. because now he wants to give you everything. the pieces of him still worth offering. the ones not soaked in blood.

so when his fingers twitch toward the doorknob in a moment of panic, when the air gets too tight and the guilt claws at his throat—he stops. breathes. thinks of your hands, your voice, your steadiness. and he stays. because a good man doesn’t run. and for you, he wants to be one. and with you, sometimes he thinks he can be because you’re so sure of him. so confident that he can deserve you, provide for you, earn you. some nights, you even whisper in his ear that he already has. 

……

he’s holding the knife like it’s a weapon. which—technically, it is. but probably not the way you intended when you handed him the cutting board and told him, so sarcastically it peeves him, “you’re on onions tonight, chef.”

toji stares at the onion like it insulted him. then back at you. you’re already halfway through prepping something complicated-looking with spices he couldn’t name if you offered him a million yen and a one-week head start. he mumbles something that might be a curse. might be his last will and testament. and then he starts cutting.

you don’t correct him. not when he massacres the first one. not when he holds the knife like he’s defusing a cursed object. not even when he somehow ends up slicing the onion vertically, horizontally, and diagonally all at once. you just hum along to whatever music you’ve got playing, give him a quick kiss to the jaw when you pass behind him, and toss a handful of salt into the pan like you’re dancing with it. he doesn’t understand how you do that. how you make this place—a cramped kitchen with uneven tile and a broken light—feel like sanctuary. like something holy. and how you look at him—him, of all people—with that stupid, stupid smile every time he gets something right. or wrong.

when he burns the egg, you coo like he’s a toddler. wrap your arms around his waist, press your a kiss to his bare skin—he shivers, it always tickles him—tell him, “you’re learning, baby.” he grunts. scowls. tells you to knock it off. but the tips of his ears go red and he doesn’t push you away. he can kill a man with his bare hands before breakfast. he’s outrun the best of the best. he’s been on every watchlist in japan at least once. but he can’t cook a fucking omelet without your help. and he hates how much he loves that.

because it means he gets to stand next to you, shoulder to shoulder, hips brushing, listening to you ramble about sauces and slicing techniques, and seasoning ratios he’ll never remember. it means he gets to clean the dishes after—not because you ask, but because you cooked, and he’s not a total bastard. not to you. it means, when you curl into him after the kitchen’s dark and clean, your belly full and your hair damp from the steam, he gets to close his eyes and pretend he’s someone else. someone who’s not just good with a knife. someone who knows what it means to make a home. even if he burns half of it along the way.

……

toji knows it’s a joke. this whole thing—the dinners, the quiet nights, the way you kiss the scar on his lip like it’s holy instead of hideous—it’s a cosmic, cruel joke. one day, you’ll wake up. you’ll blink twice. the spell will break. and you’ll see him for what he really is: pitiful, rotten, born wrong.

and you’ll leave. they all do. he doesn’t say it out loud. never has. he doesn’t have to because it lives under his skin, worms its way in between the silences. it clings to his shoulders when he watches you stir cream into your coffee or fold laundry wearing his clothes and humming along to your music that always seems to be playing. it creeps up his spine when you laugh at one of his dry, half-hearted jokes, like he’s actually someone worth listening to. and it chokes him, some nights, when he lies next to you—your head on his chest, your fingers soft on his stomach—and wonders how the hell someone like you ended up here, in his goddamn bed, with him.

you should’ve run by now. and maybe that’s what scares him the most. you haven’t. you know. you know what he’s done, what he still does. you’ve seen him, bloody and broken, dragging himself through the door after a job. you’ve kissed the bruises on his ribs. you’ve scrubbed his blood out of your towels. you’ve seen him with shiu—heard the way he talks, the shit they laugh about. you’ve stood there, gentle and glowing, while toji snarled and bristled like a guard dog when shiu smirked at you a little too long. and still, you stay.

you even made dinner for shiu once. sent him home with leftovers and told toji, “you could be nicer. he’s your friend, isn’t he?” toji had rolled his eyes and grunted something obscene, but he shut up. because whatever you say—whatever you say, whatever you say—is gospel. what you don’t see, what you can’t see, is how much that fucks him up.

because he’s not some battered stray you picked up off the street. he’s not some tragic redemption arc waiting to happen. he’s a killer. he’s toji fushiguro. and the longer you look at him like he’s worth saving, the more it feels like the air around him is thinning—like you’re pumping oxygen into his lungs with every kind word, every kiss, every goddamn meal. and he’s terrified of needing you too much. of building a whole second life out of your kindness, only to watch it collapse when you realize he’s still made of rot and regret underneath.

and yet—there’s this one night. you’re curled up beside him on the couch, watching something light and stupid. you’re both tired. comfortable. and you mutter something under your breath, more to yourself than to him.

"I wish I didn’t have so many freckles. I look like a connect-the-dots puzzle.” he stiffens.

“what?”

you wave him off. “nothing. it’s just funny, how stupid they make me look. I mean, why’d I end up with freckles head to toe and you’re like this tall, muscle pig—”

“don’t say that shit." it’s low. serious. sharp enough to cut. you blink up at him, caught off guard. he doesn’t blink. doesn’t soften. just watches you like he’s daring you to keep talking.

“toji…”

"I mean it.” his eyes are dark, hard. "I don’t wanna hear that kind of shit from you. ever. you got me?”

you soften. smile, faintly. “okay. I got you.”

but it this weight doesn't seem to settle, like his usually does when he's with you. not really. not when he’s still thinking about it an hour later, staring at your profile, at the not-so-faint dusting of freckles across your nose, at the way you bite your lip when you focus. imperfect? you? no. you’re perfect. you’re perfect.

and if he could dig into his chest and rip out every ounce of self-loathing and burn it at your feet just to deserve you, he would. he would. but he doesn’t know how. not yet.

this simple act, though, shows him a side of this relationship he didn't think he'd get the chance to see. for all your beauty, for all your saving grace, he could be right for you, too. as right as you are for him. he'll never be enough for you, nothing could ever convince him of that...but maybe you need him in ways he didn't see before. it's always been about how much he needs you, how he doesn't think he could survive this life anymore without you, as much as he's trained himself not to need anyone. you haven't. you're not afraid of needing him, of desiring him.

so he's found his new purpose: being needed by you. for some reason, as this occurrs to him with you snuggled up to the hard plane of his chest that night, softly snoring, he feels dizzy, light-headed, disoriented even though he's laying down. he feels like he's floating. he feels weightless.

……

the wind howls outside like it’s trying to claw its way in, bending the trees, rattling the walls of your apartment until they groan in complaint. the kind of storm that seeps into your bones, into your dreams, and makes it just a little harder to fall asleep. toji knows that. he’s been home for only a few hours, fresh off a hit that took longer than usual—two, maybe three days of radio silence. longer than you're used to. not longer than he’s used to, but much longer than he’s okay with being away from you. you usually fill those first moments back together with chatter—telling him about every little thing that happened while he was gone, like your voice can patch the aching silence that clings to his skin like a film of sweat.

but not tonight. tonight, you don’t speak. you don’t need to. you’ve already said everything you needed to in the shower, the warm water washing away days of grime and distance. you'd missed him. you always missed him, and something primal inside him lights up at being missed.

he never says it out loud, but it thrills him, this domesticity, this relationship of being dependent on each other. that caveman instinct, the one he pretends he doesn’t have, gnaws at his ribs like a hunger: the need to protect you, to provide, to make sure you're okay. he watches you eat like he's witnessing art, watches your eyes get heavy like he’s earned a trophy.

and god help him, he loves cleaning you. lathering shampoo into your hair like it’s sacred. drying you off, dressing you in one of his sweatshirts—hanging off your frame like a blanket—and those tiny shorts you wear to bed that he thinks are criminally short, though he'd never complain. you brush your teeth next to him and nearly fall asleep against the sink, and all he can do is watch, dazed.

he doesn’t say much. he rarely does. but when he finally crawls into bed next to you, he's a man unraveling.

toji doesn’t cuddle. that’s what he says. but here he is, wrapping himself around you like a vine, tucking your smaller frame against his chest, burying his face in the crook of your neck as if you’re the one who’s been gone, and he’s trying to remind himself you’re real. he squeezes tighter than he should—just shy of bruising. you make a sleepy noise, more instinct than complaint, and he eases up immediately, but not much. he can’t. he needs this. needs you.

you could leave him.

that thought hits him harder than any punch he’s ever taken. you could just...decide you’re done. not with malice, not with drama. just simply, with love of course, as you do everything. you’d just slip away. like mist. like the dreams he can’t ever seem to hold on to. he presses his nose into your neck and breathes you in. you smell like his shampoo, like his soap, like a person-shaped sanctuary. he presses a kiss to the spot beneath your ear, feather-light, almost reverent. he wants to say something, but doesn’t trust his voice not to crack.

you shift against him, and it takes his breath away. just a twitch. a tiny sleepy sound. but your hand finds his where it's splayed against your waist and holds it like it's second nature. like he belongs there. you don’t even open your eyes.

sometimes, when he comes home late and you’ve already drifted off on his side of the bed, he slides in quietly, trying not to wake you. and without fail, without thought, you reach for him. groggy and half-asleep, you find him, pull him in, curl yourself around him like your body knows he’s home before your brain catches up. he doesn’t always sleep well. years of sleeping with one eye open will do that to a man. but when you pull him close like that, when you press your cheek to his chest and hum in your sleep, he thinks maybe he could unlearn that. maybe he wants to.

he’s not a romantic. never was, never will be. but this? this is romance, in its rawest, ugliest, most basest form. holding you close, letting you sleep while the wind screams outside and the whole world feels like it’s falling apart—that’s what love looks like for a man like him.

you shift again, half-waking, and mumble something into his shoulder. he doesn’t catch it all, but he hears the words “you’re home.” said with relief, like you were worried he wouldn’t be. and suddenly, he can breathe a little easier. he closes his eyes.

……

he almost dies. again.

that’s not hyperbole. you find him half-conscious in the doorway, shoulder wedged against the frame like it’s the only thing holding him upright. his jacket’s soaked with blood—his or someone else’s, you can’t tell yet—and when you lunge forward, hands shaking, toji barely reacts.

his head lolls. your hands catch it before it hits the tile. "jesus christ, toji—"

but he’s not hearing you. not really. his mouth is slack, his breathing shallow. you press your fingers to the side of his throat and feel it—there, barely—his pulse, weak and stuttering, like it’s trying to decide if it wants to keep going. you call his name again, louder this time. your hands are everywhere—his neck, his ribs, his jaw, trying to anchor him to this world—and when his eyes flutter open just enough to register your face, he flinches.

not from pain. not from the blood or the busted rib or the gash over his eyebrow. from you. like he didn’t expect you to be there. like he wishes you weren’t.

you drag him to the couch somehow, your body aching from the effort, your voice breaking as you bark orders he’s too out of it to obey. but he lets you tend to him. lets you strip off the ruined jacket. lets you clean the blood from his temple and cradle his face in your hands like it’s something fragile, something worth saving. he hates that. hates the way your touch makes him feel real. present. human. like a man with something to lose.

he lies there in the dim light, body trembling from pain or shock or the sheer effort of holding himself together, and he watches you. you, barefoot in your sleep shirt, crying softly as you press gauze to his shoulder. you, who should’ve left the first time he came home like this—broken and near-bled dry—but didn’t.

“you shouldn’t have to see me like this,” he mutters, voice like gravel. “not like this. not ever.”

you don’t answer right away. just lean in, forehead pressed to his. "I chose you, toji. I don’t just get to pick the easy parts.”

and that wrecks him. splinters him. because all he can think about—his blood still warm on your hands—is how easily he could disappear. he could do it. tonight. leave while you're sleeping, soft and unsuspecting. take some cash, take nothing, it doesn’t matter. he’s done it before. closed the door so quietly they never even knew he was gone. maybe you’d convince yourself he was a dream. just some violent little hallucination in your bed for a while. maybe that would be kinder. cleaner.

but the thought of you waking up alone makes something inside him howl. you’d cry. you’d blame yourself. you’d look in the mirror and ask what you did wrong. and that? that’s the thing that nails him to the floor.

so instead of running, he says nothing. he lets your fingers card through his sweat-damp hair. lets your lips brush the corner of his mouth, gentler than he deserves. lets you tuck the blanket around his battered frame like he’s something precious, something yours. because he is. god help him.

later that night, you fall asleep upright, curled at his side with your cheek resting lightly against his shoulder. and toji watches you, throat tight, eyes burning.

his head nearly fell off. in the literal sense. and the metaphorical one. and still—you held it steady.

he wants to weep from the absurdity of it, from the wonder. he doesn’t.

……

toji’s hand settled firmly at the small of your back, the warmth of his touch a steady anchor as he guided you through the dull hum of the apartment building’s hallways. the elevator dinged open, and you stepped inside, still blindfolded, your breath catching slightly with the mix of anticipation and nerves curling inside your chest. he was always touching you in some way or another—fingertips brushing your arm, the occasional rough palm at your shoulder—but this was different. this touch was leading, showing, promising something new.

he’d run through dozens of ways to make this moment perfect. carry you bridal style over the threshold, surprising you with a soft “welcome home.” or maybe telling you the night he signed the lease, forging your signature because he couldn't do it legally. no fuss. but in the end, he chose surprise. you’d been working all morning, tired and unaware, and he only had a limited window. shiu had helped him move everything from that shabby, hellhole of an apartment you’d shared—the one with peeling wallpaper, the creaky floors, the lingering smell of smoke and regret—into a small, weather-beaten trailer parked out back.

neither of you had much stuff, and most of the busted furniture he’d left behind. but he’d packed up the things that mattered: the pictures of you, the quiet memories wrapped in faded frames; every cooking utensil you owned, all the cleaning supplies—anything he thought you’d want to keep. it was a collection of fragments from the life you’d built together, crammed into a few boxes like a secret treasure.

now the elevator stopped. toji’s grip tightened slightly as he moved you forward. the jingle of keys sounded before the door clicked open. you still couldn’t see, but you caught the faint scent of something new, clean—unlike any place he’d ever lived before. he guided you inside, his steps steady but deliberate, careful not to rush the moment. when he finally removed your blindfold, you blinked against the flood of light, taking in the space. it wasn’t huge. small, really. you probably always wanted small. but it was clean—no stains on the floors, no moths buzzing in the corners, no stale smoke thickening the air. it smelled fresh, like new paint and hope.

your eyes darted around. the kitchen caught your breath: a real kitchen, with a working oven and microwave, a stovetop free from grime or burnt bits, counters you could actually cook on without worry. no mystery stains, no peeling tiles. it was home. yours and toji’s. and somewhere in that simple, honest space, toji was on his knees, eyes bright with something that looked like gratitude—maybe awe—that he was lucky enough to share this with you.

you walked around, taking it all in, and couldn’t help but scold him a little. “why didn’t you let me help move anything? you must be exhausted.”

his chest swelled, pride making his rough edges soften. “I did it for you,” he said, voice low. “didn’t want you busting your ass over a couple ‘a boxes.”

you unpacked slowly, quietly—unpacking wasn’t glamorous, but every box opened felt like laying down another brick in your new life. you arranged the few things you’d brought, marveling at how this place could feel so alive, so full of potential. you told toji how proud you were, not just of the apartment, but of him. how he’d made this happen, even when everything else seemed like a mess.

he stopped you before you could go on, voice firm, a little rougher than usual. “I ain’t doing nothing for you that you don’t already deserve.” you shook your head, feeling tears prick your eyes. he looked like he wanted to say more but didn’t. instead, you just stood there in that small, bright room, knowing that this—this was home. and he knew that it was because of you.

the next few days stretched long and sweet. you found it hard to leave the apartment you shared. you threw on some paint-stained overalls and a tank top, plastering the walls with broad, uneven strokes of color—rose floral wallpaper for the kitchen, bold and a little bit feminine, just like you.

toji tried to help, but there wasn’t an artistic bone in his body. his idea of decorating was hanging things where they fit and making sure the pipes didn’t leak. he grumbled a little about your wallpaper choice, but deep down, he loved it. loved how you’d made the place yours, the toaster you’d picked out, the way you’d organized everything like a promise for the future. he installed shelves, tightened screws, hooked up the stove and the fridge, always grumbling but never complaining when you asked for his help.

you bought painfully comfortable blankets for the bed, small luxury items—a tiny tv you both knew you wouldn’t use much, a new kettle because god only knows how long you’d gone without one that didn’t sputter or leak. you weren’t quite wealthy enough for this, but for the first time, that didn’t matter. this was your space. your home. no expense too small, no detail insignificant.

one evening, toji came home late from a job. something easy to make ends meet, the kind of work he’d been taking more often lately. you barely blinked at his worn boots or the grease under his nails. you liked these simpler jobs he seemed to be taking, though he was complaining about them. they pay like shit, he’d whine. but money was no longer the constant weight in the pit of his stomach. you’d unconditioned toji’s hoarding habits, slowly but surely. there was no more cash hidden under mattresses or tucked away in boots or secret cupboards. when he needed money, he knew it was there—your joint bank account, two cards that made life easier and more secure. and when the money ran low? you both made do, scrimped by a little, and nothing bad happened.

the only thing toji hoarded these days was you. you lay together in your new bedroom, soft warm lamps casting lazy light across the walls. you talked quietly, about everything and nothing—hopes, plans, memories. his hand found yours under the blankets. he traced slow circles on your skin, breathing in the way your voice filled the room, the way your laughter loosened the knots in his chest. he loved the sound of you. more than anything.

months later, the apartment still smelled like fresh paint and new beginnings. but it also smelled of you and him. the scent of love, hard-earned and fiercely protected. the weight of the past was still there—heavy, yes—but it no longer dragged him down. it anchored him. you had taught him that. anchor, anchor, anchor. and this small space, these simple walls, were your anchor too. together.

……

toji steps inside, and immediately the proof of your shared life is everywhere. two pairs of shoes sit neatly by the door—his heavy boots and your delicate ballet flats—silent witnesses to the everyday rhythm you’ve built together. on the small table by the entrance, two metal water bottles stand side by side, worn but cared for, like trophies of a quiet domesticity he never expected to want.

his eyes drift to the kitchen window above the sink, where a printed photo leans against the glass. it’s from that night at the club—him, sharp-edged and fierce as always, but gazing at you with something softer, something almost sacred. you’re breathtaking, the dress painfully beautiful, your hair done up in intricate curls that frame your face like a halo. he’s not smiling, but the reverence in his eyes speaks volumes, like you’re a goddess only he can see.

the scent hits him next—a perfect mix of your perfume and his natural musk, a heady blend that clings to the air. it wraps around him like a second skin, comforting and intoxicating. he remembers leaving this morning, not even noticing the faint smudge of your lip gloss still lingering on his cheek until shiu caught it mid-tease. that bastard grinned, poking fun, but toji just grumbled, wiped it off, and let a secret smile break through. yeah, suck it sideways, shiu, he thought, I’ve got a girl who loves me at home, and you don’t.

this—this was different. it used to scare him, this softness, this intimacy. the idea of someone caring for him, of him caring back, shook him to his core. but now? he craves it. he asks when you’ll be home, not because he needs to control your schedule, but because the answer settles him. he assumes you’ll be sleeping in his bed, and when you are, the room feels whole.

at night, he plugs in your laptop without a word. he eats the lunches you make, savoring every bite like it’s a love letter. in the kitchen, the two of you stand wrapped in each other’s arms, chores forgotten in the warmth of your closeness, sharing soft kisses like secrets no one else knows. it’s not just a place. it’s a life. it’s home.

……

you don’t ask much of him. not really. toji works—hard. not the kind of job with clocks or breaks or performance reviews, but the kind that leaves blood in your mouth and bruises blooming beneath your ribs. hunting. tracking. killing. it’s brutal, and it's not without its toll. there’s a version of him—older, colder—who might’ve used that as an excuse to do nothing else. a man who would've let you clean up after him, cook for him, nurse him back to health while he rotted on the couch like a king on a crumbling throne. but not this version. not anymore.

this version keeps the living space clean. your living space. he wipes down the counters, sweeps the floors, keeps things tidy with quiet, obsessive precision. he doesn’t just help cook because he enjoys watching you zone out while you dice vegetables, even though that’s a major draw. he does it because it feels good. it feels like providing, and for the first time in his life, that word doesn’t taste sour in his mouth, it’s not just financial means. he likes knowing you’re full and warm and safe. he likes the idea of taking care of you, he relishes in it.

it took him longer than it should’ve to realize: the more time he devotes to taking care of you, the less he has to spend inside his own head. the less space regret takes up in his chest. it’s not healing, not really, but it’s something. a survival tactic that smells like lavender laundry detergent and sizzles like garlic in butter. sometimes you let him cope this way. sometimes you don’t. you’ve said it before—you’re not here to fix him. if this is how he wants to keep the darkness at bay, you’ll allow it. but you won’t let him kill himself in the process.

you find him dozing off on the couch, sprawled sideways in the dim afternoon light. not a rare sight—but it’s rare that he doesn’t immediately snap upright the second he hears your key in the lock. that worry itches at the back of your mind. you set your bag down, shoes off, quiet as can be. then you pad over and settle beside him, curling a hand around the back of his head. your nails graze gently through his scalp, soothing, grounding. it’s a lullaby touch—but instead of sinking deeper into sleep, it stirs him.

he blinks awake fast, guilt chasing the sleep from his bones. “shit,” he mumbles, dragging a hand down his face. “fuck, I forgot. I was supposed to—groceries—I'm sorry. I’m so fuckin’ sorry, I meant to—” his voice is thick with sleep, apology pouring out like a busted faucet, but he’s distracted. you’re smiling. soft and sweet, like you’re indulging a child. your fingers are still in his hair, still combing through the overgrown strands, and you’re thinking it might be time for a trim—but you don’t say it, he doesn't want to hear it. you just let him talk, even though you’re not sure he even knows what he’s saying.

you know what he means, though. he’s terrified of disappointing you. it clings to him like a second skin. not because he thinks you’ll scream, or slam doors, or walk out—but because he knows you won’t. because you’re kind to him. and that is infinitely more devastating. you keep smiling. and it guts him. why aren’t you mad? why aren’t you yelling? why isn’t this devolving into an imperfect argument, filled with bitter silence and slammed cupboards? why aren’t you leaving him—not just over the groceries, but over everything?

you hold out your hand.

“c’mon,” you say, voice light as the breeze coming in through the cracked window. “let’s go to that taco cart for dinner.”

he blinks. “but…what about…we were gonna cook. the list—the stuff you needed—”

“we’ll grab it after,” you shrug. like it makes perfect sense. and to you, it does. you reach for your bag again, grab your keys, and press his wallet into his hand. “then we’ll come home and go to sleep.” you raise a brow, giving him a look that’s more affectionate than scolding. “someone needs it.”

it’s so simple. so casual. so…domestic, it makes parts of him shrivel up in disgust. it’s sickening, in the best way. your tenderness feels like someone peeling off his armor with bare hands. not a weapon in sight. no bullets, no blades. just you. and you’re deadlier than anything he’s ever fought. not with a gun to his head or a knife to his throat, not with a target spotting him from his spot, not during any sex he’s ever had, has he felt more vulnerable, more naked than he does when you’re smiling up at him like that. 

he can’t speak. he just looks at you, bleary and stunned, like you’ve slayed him with a smile. he wants to ask—why aren’t you mad? why do you always forgive me? why are you so good to me? but you’ve told him before. when you’re brave, when you think he needs to hear it—when you just want to say it—you’ll look him in the eyes and say: because I love you, because you deserve it, because I want to. he’d begged you to stop, once. voice cracked and fists clenched, like it physically hurt to hear. but you didn’t. you never do. and though it makes him squirm, sometimes miserable, it also makes him feel—blissfully, painfully—happy. you’re already at the door now, holding it open with a look. you coming? he stands slowly. he doesn’t say a word. he would follow you anywhere.

……

the first time you ask to cut his hair, he scoffs. the second time, he ignores you. the third time, you plead—and something about the tilt of your head, the way your fingers curl around his wrist and your voice goes soft with sincerity—it breaks past whatever wall he's built around himself.

so now he’s here, in your bathroom, perched reluctantly on a low stool that still doesn't make him small. even sitting, he’s nearly your height. his knees brush against the vanity, arms crossed loosely over his chest, like he’s trying not to look too invested. he’s not. Probably. but he lets you touch him.

your fingers start slow, carding through his thick black hair, tugging gently as you tilt his head this way and that. he grunts under his breath, but doesn’t move. not away, at least. the pads of your fingers massage his scalp as if you’ve forgotten what you came here to do, nails skimming gently, almost apologetically.

“this a haircut,” he mutters, “or a spa day?” you smile, but say nothing. you keep touching him like that—light, aimless, reverent—and he thinks maybe this is some form of slow death. or slow mercy. he can't decide. he should tell you to knock it off. to hurry up. he opens his mouth to say as much. nothing comes out.

instead, he leans into your touch, almost involuntarily. his eyes slip half-lidded. his shoulders—always so tense—lower by degrees. you haven’t even made the first cut yet, and he already feels like you’re disentangling him.

eventually, you start snipping. the sound of shears, soft and rhythmic, punctuates the silence. hair falls to the tiled floor in quiet flurries, dark strands catching the light like feathers. you move with surprising skill—no hesitation, just quiet confidence as you circle around him. he tracks you in the mirror until he doesn’t. at some point, his eyes close again.

and the strangest thing happens. he relaxes. fully, wholly, in a way he didn’t know he was capable of. your touch is so practiced, so sure. he lets himself imagine—for just a second—that he’s something soft enough to deserve this. that the hands moving through his hair aren’t just being careful. they’re being kind.

the air smells like your shampoo and your skin. you’re breathing softly, and the rhythm of it is lulling, almost hypnotic. he feels lighter already, and not just from the hair. like something else is being cut away. something heavy. something he’s been dragging around for years. you finish before he wants you to. his eyes open slowly at the sound of your voice. “all done,” you say. there’s a flicker of pride behind your smile, a quiet triumph like you’ve just completed a work of art. you point to the mirror. “what do you think?”

he looks. it’s…the same, mostly. the same rough cut he’s always worn. nothing fancy. nothing new. but there’s something about it now, something that wasn’t there before. it’s yours. you did this. with your hands, your touch, your steady love. he doesn’t say much—he never does—but the look in his eyes is molten.

“yeah,” he says, voice a little too quiet for him, almost a whisper. “looks good.”

you beam. he looks away quickly like it burns to witness you that happy over something he can’t even explain. what he doesn’t think is this: he’s had a hundred haircuts in his life. barbershops, backroom shears, blade-over-sink jobs. none of them made him feel like this. like he could close his eyes and let someone else take care of him. like it wasn’t just about cutting hair, but about cutting away the pieces of him that no longer serve him.

he doesn’t say any of that. he just sits there, feeling weightless. and when you lean in to brush the stray hairs off his cheek, he closes his eyes again—just for a moment. because this is what mercy feels like.

......

toji didn’t know shiu was dating. like—dating dating. sure, they’d both had their fair share of late-night texts and bar meetups that ended in someone else's bed. it was practically a hobby back then. occasional hookups weren’t newsworthy. temporary girls came and went. but this? a double date? toji hadn't thought shiu had it in him. hell, he hadn’t thought he had it in him. but then you slept over that first night and... that was it. like something clicked into place. like his body had been hardwired to want you there, limbs tangled in his sheets, warmth soaking into the mattress. he never looked back.

and somewhere along the way, shiu must’ve seen that. maybe he saw how you curled into toji on public benches, or how toji texted you back with uncharacteristic quickness. maybe he saw how soft toji looked when he watched you talk, like you were made of glass and starlight and he was just a guy trying to be worthy of either.

now here they all were. a table for four, a place with real lighting and menus that didn’t come laminated. it wasn’t exactly michelin-star territory, but it was definitely not their usual corner food cart with grilled meat skewers and soda cans. the place even had cloth napkins.

toji had taken a long moment to size up the woman shiu arrived with. pretty. confident. comfortable in her own skin. her nails were the kind that made clacking sounds on phone screens and held wine glasses like weapons. she kissed shiu on the cheek and adjusted his collar like she’d been doing it forever. and shiu? that cocky bastard just grinned, let her. pride throbbed through toji’s chest unexpectedly. he hadn’t realized he’d been the blueprint. not that he’d ever say that out loud.

you slid into the booth beside him, and instinctively, toji threw his arm across the back of the seat behind you. he didn’t even realize he was doing it until the waiter showed up for the third time in ten minutes—refilling your glass like it was the holy grail and completely ignoring everyone else’s. toji glared. the kind of glare that held no subtlety. he didn’t like the way the guy looked at you. didn’t like the fake smile or the way he angled his hips toward you while pretending to check on the table. toji’s hand dropped from the booth to your waist, a silent little minefield of possessiveness. you leaned into it, like it was nothing new.

"think our waiter wants to fight you," you murmured, sipping from the now suspiciously full glass.

"let him try," toji muttered. his fingers tightened slightly at your hip, like he was physically anchoring you to him.

meanwhile, you and shiu’s girl hit it off like wildfire. she was funny. you were funnier. the two of you commiserated about how the boys drove like hellspawn and never rinsed the damn dishes. you swapped book titles, music playlists, compared manicure preferences. she gasped over your new apartment and sighed theatrically about how she was begging shiu to move.

“he still lives above that loud-ass karaoke bar, right?” you asked.

“yes, and it gets worse,” she said, flicking her eyes toward shiu. “he insists he likes the ‘ambiance.’”

toji barked a laugh, low and guttural. “she’s got you pegged.” shiu rolled his eyes but didn’t deny it.

you kept talking. they kept listening. at some point, toji noticed he and shiu were just…watching. you two were in your own world, giggling over who knows what. your eyes sparkled under the restaurant’s soft lighting. shiu’s girl tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled at something you said. and suddenly, toji felt it—that sharp twist of how the hell did we get here?

he caught shiu’s eye across the table. they didn’t say anything. didn’t need to. the silence between them was filled with mutual disbelief and unspoken realization. how the fuck did a couple of losers like us get so damn lucky? they’d been wreckage not long ago. men built from smoke and bad decisions. and now here they were—sitting in some semi-fancy restaurant with two women who loved them, who laughed and teased and didn’t look the least bit afraid of their shadows.

toji blinked slowly, like maybe this would vanish if he looked too fast. like it was all some trick of the light.

after dinner, shiu mentioned they lived nearby, and it felt natural to walk. the streets were quieter here, less chaotic than downtown. you all stopped at a late-night gelato place on the corner—just to “peek,” according to shiu’s girl. you got a small cup of chocolate hazelnut and fed toji a bite off your spoon. he pretended to scowl. you did it again just to annoy him. he let you.

shiu’s pda was subtle, but it was there. an arm draped low around her waist, thumb brushing idle circles into the curve of her hip. protective, sure. but also a little amazed. like he still couldn’t believe she existed. the four of you meandered toward their apartment, voices low and full of warmth. toji didn't talk much. he didn’t need to. the warmth of your hand in his said enough. when you got to shiu’s building, the goodbyes stretched long—talks of next time, maybe a game night, maybe cooking something weird and homemade. she hugged you tightly. you liked her. you could tell.

then it was just you and toji again, walking toward the metro. he noticed you were quieter now. the city around you was humming in a low buzz, but your steps slowed near the stairs that led underground.

“I’m happy for him,” you whispered, almost like you weren’t sure if you should say it. your voice barely carried above the city’s rhythm. toji looked down at you. your hair was blowing a little in the wind. you looked tired but beautiful. soft. still glowing from the night.

he gave a small grunt that barely masked the emotion behind it. “yeah?” he said. “me too.”

the train station lights flickered softly as you descended, the sound of your shoes echoing lightly against the stairs. he held your hand the entire time, firm and unyielding. you leaned into him, shoulder against chest, warmth on warmth. there was a time when the idea of domesticity would've made him scoff. the word itself sounded foreign—fragile, like something you could snap in half. but now? now it was everything he had. everything he wanted. and seeing it bloom in someone like shiu, someone just as wrecked and unfinished as he’d once been?

it made toji believe a little more in miracles. or at least in second chances.

that night, as the train rumbled forward and the city blurred by in streaks of yellow light, toji didn’t say much. but he held you tighter. because love like this—real love—it didn’t need words to be understood. it just needed staying power.

……

toji comes home late tonight, the kind of late that smells like dust and smoke and too many footsteps running from something worse than pain. he’s not bleeding—at least not enough to worry you—but every muscle in his body is screaming exhaustion. it’s a deep, bone-deep tired that nothing fixes except the kind of peace you wouldn’t think he deserves.

you’re there. you shouldn’t be. not with him like this, not with him angry at the world, angrier at himself, not after the day he's had. but here you are anyway, and he’s not letting the moment slip through his fingers. he grabs your wrist, hard enough to anchor his weight down, to keep from collapsing. his tall frame bows down, nearly breaking his own rules about keeping his distance, dipping his face into the curve of your neck. your scent—soft, warm, a strange kind of sanctuary—hits him like a punch he didn’t know he needed. he breathes it in, slow, like it’s the only medicine that’ll put the fire out.

you feel the weight of him as he presses you back against the doorframe, steady and relentless. it’s not just fatigue—it’s loneliness wrapped up in muscle and scars, something almost desperate. he’s letting the world fall off him here, pound by agonizing pound.

you don’t say anything. you don’t need to. he just holds you, steady and silent, like he’s trying to memorize the way your skin feels beneath his calloused hands. sometimes, when toji lets his guard slip, he lets you hold him—wrap your arms around his shoulders, cradle the mess of pain and pride. but not tonight. tonight, he’s possessive, almost feral in his need to claim this moment, this quiet, this fragile tether to something good.

you sink into the couch, and he lets you stay there, letting his head rest heavy against your collarbone, your heart, your existence. hours stretch out, wordless and raw. just two broken people breathing, one holding on because he’s too tired to fight, and the other holding him because somehow, that’s enough.

he’s never going to be a saint. hell, he’s never wanted to be. toji isn’t built for white picket fences or sunday morning brunches. but he’s yours and you’re his.

he can’t undo the past—not the nights he wasn’t there for megumi, not the hands that pulled triggers, not the ghosts that haunt him in the dark. he doesn’t believe in miracles, only in the small victories: better hits, higher pay, more room in his heart for this love you seem to freely give, a better ability to reciprocate it. 

it’s not about the dreams he's never given the time of day. it’s about the ones you have—the quiet kind that don’t need fancy fences or spotless lawns. and yeah, maybe that’s why, no matter how hard he tries, he’s never quite left the job. it’s the life he knows, the path he walks. but he’s learning to walk it better, with less weight crushing his steps.

he cooks now. sometimes burns the vegetables. cleans without being asked. takes care of himself, because taking care of you means being a man who’s still standing at the end of the day. because taking care of you means taking care of himself, and that's all he's ever wanted to do, really.

by god, he’ll die trying to take care of you—in every way he knows how, in every way you’ll let him.

the weight he’s carried with him for so long—the guilt, the shame, the regret—it doesn’t vanish. but around you, it loosens. just a little. like a heavy coat in the summer heat, slipping off, forgotten on the floor.

and in that quiet space, between your hands and his scars, toji finds something he never thought he could hold onto: love. love is a weight of it’s own, a kind of weight he’s more than happy to bear.

[runningincircl3s]

Untitled Bestfriend!Noah x Reader Series

Part 3 (finally) (sorry for the wait!!)

okay i'm sorry for the wait!! it's been almost a month since i posted part two but i've been super busy lately, but i wrote this last night so i'm hoping it doesn't seem too rushed!! the series masterlist is here and you can join the taglist here :) (and i promise i wont make everyone wait another month to post part 4 lmao)

warnings: NSFW!! porn with little plot- each chapter is basically a oneshot, oral (f and m recieving) i don't wanna spoil too much...

You were stood in the middle of Noah’s room, your makeup half-done, your dress still draped across the back of his chair, your curling wand sat unplugged on his desk. You were supposed to be getting ready, but instead, you were pacing with a knot in your stomach.

“I don’t want to go.” You muttered, not really to him, more to yourself.

Noah was sprawled across his bed, wearing his black fall out boy shirt, black jeans and of course his red beanie, scrolling on his phone. 

“We’ve been planning this all week,” he reminded you without looking up. “You were excited yesterday!”

“Yeah, well,” you sighed, flopping onto the bed beside him. “That was before I found out who else is gonna be there.”

Now he looked at you. 

“Those girls?”

You didn’t say anything, just pulled a face and sighed. Noah knew enough to fill in the blanks.

“You don’t have to talk to them.”

“I know but I don’t even want to see them.”

He set his phone down and turned onto his side, propping his head up on his hand. 

“So let’s just go for an hour. We’ll grab a drink, say hey to everyone who isn’t a bitch, and come back here.”

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you rolled onto your back and stared at the ceiling, letting the quiet settle between you two. The room was warm with the heat of the summer, and smelled like him, as always. His playlist played quietly in the background, some new Bring Me the Horizon song you weren’t too familiar with. 

“You really don’t want to go, huh?” You could feel him watching you, even without looking at him. 

You shook your head. 

“Not if I can just stay here with you.”

“What are we gonna do,” he smirked, “Watch Twilight for the fifteenth time?”

“Maybe.” You tilted your head toward him, eyes narrowing. “You wanna go that bad?”

“I kind of do.” He rolled onto his back next to you, his tone playful. “I was looking forward to free beer that tastes like ass and watching dudes try to flirt with you.”

“You’re such a liar.” You snorted. 

“Fine,” he said, grin widening. “I was looking forward to watching dudes not flirt with you.” 

“Only because they think you’re my boyfriend!”

“So you’re saying I’m the reason guys don’t hit on you?”

“If you saw a guy sat with his arm around a girl, you’d assume they were dating, right?”

“No…” Noah smirked, “I’d go up and ask her first.” 

“Well, that’s you, Noah. Not everyone else is so… experienced.” 

A silence settled over you two again for a moment, until you turned to face him again. 

“Do you really want to go?”

Noah hesitated, thumb grazing the seam of his jeans. 

“I mean… I was kinda looking forward to it.”

“Right,” you said quietly.

“But I don’t care that much.” His eyes flicked to you again. “Not if you’re not feeling it.”

You gave him a weak smile. 

“I just don’t wanna be around people who make me feel like shit, y’know? It’s not about ruining your night.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he said, stretching his arms above his head, making his shirt ride up a little. “Staying here with you sounds like a pretty decent trade.”

“Yeah, right.” 

“Hey, I mean it.” He turned his head to look at you, something softer in his expression now. “I’ll stay in with you, we could chill, throw on a movie. I’ll even let you pick. I’ll even sit through Twilight again.”

You bit your lip. There it was again, that pull. You didn’t mean to feel it, but it was always there with him. Comfort and heat, tangled up in the same breath.

You sat up a little against the headboard. 

“What if I gave you a better reason to stay…”

He raised a brow, intrigued. 

“Better than Twilight?” He asked, voice laced with sarcasm. 

A small smirk tugged at your lips. You crossed your arms, tilting your head. 

“What if I let you eat me out?”

The smirk fell clean off his face.

His mouth parted, eyes widening just slightly like he wasn’t sure if you were joking.

“You’re serious?” He said slowly.

You nodded, suddenly very aware of how warm your skin felt.

Noah sat up, legs folding beneath him as he faced you properly. His voice dipped low. 

“You know you don’t have to offer sex to keep me here.”

“I know that.” You met his eyes, steady now. “I just… I’ve been thinking about what you said. That night, when we were at my place.”

He stilled, remembering instantly. 

“I meant that,” he said, voice getting lower now. “I meant every fucking word.”

You swallowed. 

“I know.”

A quiet beat passed between you. Then he leaned forward, hand resting near your thigh on the bed.

“You sure? Really sure?”

You nodded again. 

“I want to. I want you to.”

His eyes darkened, his gaze sweeping over your face. Then, softer, more serious, he whispered.

“I'm gonna ruin you for everyone else, y’know?”

You huffed a laugh. 

“You’ve already ruined me. This has been all I can think about lately. I want it. I want you..”

That was all he needed.

He kissed you then, slow and hungry, but still careful. You let yourself sink into it, into him, as he shifted you gently beneath him. His hands moved with purpose, but not rushed, he was taking his time, like he was savouring every second.

He pulled your top off with ease, leaving a trail of warm kisses down your sternum, across your stomach. When he got to the waistband of your shorts, he paused, resting his forehead just above them.

“You okay?” He asked, his voice low, his hands gentle on your thighs.

You nodded again, breath shaky. 

“Yeah. Just… A little nervous.”

He smiled, lifting his head enough to press a kiss over your navel. 

“Just relax,” he murmured. “Let me show you how good it feels- but if you want me to stop at all just say, okay?”

“Okay.” You nodded.

Then he started again, slower this time- teasing kisses on your thighs, nipping gently at the sensitive skin until you were writhing. He took his time easing your shorts down your legs, kissing as he went, not breaking eye contact when he finally pulled your underwear aside.

The first kiss he pressed to your clit made your whole body jolt, and he smiled, the smug bastard, because he knew. 

He knew he was about to show you something you’d never forget.

“Yeah?” he murmured against you. “That feel good, baby?”

You could barely form a sound, let alone words, your breath caught between a gasp and a moan.

“Good,” he said, lips brushing you again. “You just lay back and let me take care of you.”

He hooked his fingers under the waistband of your underwear, pausing.

“Okay?” he asked again, voice low, eyes flicking to yours.

You gave a breathless nod, and he smiled gently before pulling them down, watching every inch of skin he uncovered. Once they were off, he let his gaze linger, and you squirmed instinctively under the weight of it.

“So fuckin’ pretty.” He murmured, almost to himself.

Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he leaned in and kissed the inside of your thigh, then the other, trailing his mouth so close you whimpered. His breath ghosted over you before he gently used his thumbs to part you, inspecting every reaction.

“Look at you,” he whispered, brushing the pad of one thumb over your clit so lightly it made your thighs tremble, “Can’t believe I’m the only one who can play with this.” 

You couldn’t even form words, your fingers curled into the sheets, hips twitching when he pressed a kiss right over your center, then your clit again, still teasing, still taking his time.

He looked up again, eyes dark but soft. 

“Tell me if it’s too much, okay?”

You nodded, breathless, and then his tongue met you fully, licking a slow stripe up from your hole to your clit, like he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment. Your back arched instantly, a moan slipping from your lips before you could stop it as his lips wrapped around your clit. 

Noah groaned at the sound, hands spreading your thighs a little wider as he settled himself between them. 

“Fuck,” he muttered. “You taste even better than I imagined.”

You couldn’t believe how good it felt- sure, your friends had talked about it before, and you had heard stories from other girls about what your best friend could do with that mouth, but you never imagined you’d get the chance to experience it. You were feeling dizzy at how overwhelming and warm and intimate it all was. The way he looked up at you, making eye contact while he did it, like you were the only thing that mattered in the world, fuck it made your head spin.

And then he started talking, sending vibrations with every word. 

“Sooo soft, so warm” he murmured between strokes of his tongue. “So sweet. You’re doing so good, baby. How’s it feel?”

You whimpered, hips lifting against his mouth before you could stop yourself.

“That’s it,” he praised, voice rough as he placed a hand just below your navel, holding you down. “Just like that. Let me feel how much you like it.”

You were already trembling, his hair tickling you as your thighs tightened around his head, and he didn’t even slow down. If anything, he seemed to enjoy how sensitive you were, how new it all was to you, how he knew he was the first to ever touch and feel and see you like this. He was so gentle, but every flick of his tongue made your pulse spike.

And then he took your clit between his lips, looking up at you through his lashes as he gently sucked, and you could’ve sworn you saw god. 

“Mmm Noah!” You gasped, hands flying to his hair without thinking.

He grinned against you, clearly loving how wrecked you sounded. 

“Yeah? You gonna come for me, baby?” He asked between kisses to your cunt, before his tongue circled your clit again. 

You nodded quickly, barely able to breathe as your fingers tangled in his hair.

“I… I think so-”

His grip on your hips tightened, his voice dropping even lower. 

“That’s it. Let me feel it. Let me feel you cum for me, make a mess, baby.”

Your whole body was trembling, the knot tightening in your belly, ready to snap, every nerve ending lit up like a live wire. You could barely hold on, your hands gripping his hair like it was the only thing anchoring you to earth.

And he didn’t let up.

His tongue moved like he knew exactly what you needed, what would make you come undone completely. And he did. He knew your body even better than you did. Every tiny gasp, every twitch of your thighs, every shaky exhale only made him more focused.

“You’re so close,” he whispered, voice thick and dark with want. “I can feel it.”

You whimpered again, hips rocking against his mouth helplessly.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he urged, lips brushing your clit as he spoke. “Let it happen.”

That was all it took.

The orgasm hit so hard it almost had your vision going white, a choked moan spilling from your lips as your body arched off the bed. Noah held you through it, his mouth still working you through every wave of pleasure, until it became too much and you whimpered, tugging gently at his hair to tell him it was too much. 

He finally eased back, giving your thigh one last kiss before lifting his head, his face flushed and glistening, lips swollen, eyes half-lidded and so fucking smug.

You couldn’t even find your voice, still catching your breath, your limbs boneless.

“Holy shit.” You whispered, blinking at the ceiling.

Noah chuckled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before crawling up beside you to give you a kiss, before lying on his side so he could trace slow circles on your hip.

“You okay?” He murmured, voice soft again.

You turned to face him, cheeks warm, lips parted. 

“Fuck, yeah… Where the hell did you learn to do that?”

He shrugged modestly, but the gleam in his eye gave him away. 

“Years of being a slut.” At least he was honest.

You burst out laughing, and he leaned in to press a soft, open-mouthed kiss to your shoulder, pulling you gently against his chest. You didn’t resist.

After a moment, you whispered, 

“Noah?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for being so… gentle.”

“Always.” He kissed your forehead. 

You stayed like this for a moment, your head on his chest, forehead tucked under his jaw as he traced patterns over your back. You shifted a little, trying to get comfy, but then your knee brushed over something hard, and you felt Noah’s breath catch as you did so. 

“Is that… Are you…?” You felt your face heat up, pulling back just enough to look at him, eyes wide.

Noah gave a breathy little laugh, cheeks tinged pink. 

“Yeah. Uh… sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you said quickly, eyes flicking down before meeting his again. “I just… didn’t realise.”

He gave you a lazy smile.

“It’s fine. I can take care of it myself later. That was about you.”

Something about the way he said that made your stomach flip. He meant it. This wasn’t a transactional thing, he genuinely wanted to make you feel good.

But still…

“What if I don’t want you to take care of it yourself?” You asked softly, fingers tracing the ink on his arm. 

Noah blinked, eyes searching yours. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” You swallowed, nerves fluttering in your throat. “What if I want to do more? I want to… do it again.”

He was quiet for a moment, his gaze sharpening as he searched your face for any hesitation. 

“You’re sure?”

You nodded, even as your voice came out small. 

“Yeah. I want to.”

His hand came up to cradle your jaw gently. 

“You don’t have to, baby. I meant it, I’m good just like this.”

“I know.” You leaned into his touch, your heart thudding. “But I want to.”

Noah watched you for a moment longer, thumb brushing over your cheek. Then, slowly, he kissed you again, soft at first, then deeper, more purposeful, like he was giving you time to change your mind.

You didn’t.

He rolled you gently onto your back, shifting to settle between your legs, kissing you slow and sweet. His hands roamed your body with practiced care, but never rushed, he was so good at this, and even though it made you nervous, given he was far more experienced at this, but it also made you feel safe.

He reached down, guiding himself against your entrance, but paused just before half the tip was was already in.

“We didn’t prep you, not properly,” he murmured, brows drawn together. “I should’ve gotten you ready, you're still so new to this-”

“It’s okay, I can take it,” you whispered, hooking your legs around his hips, even though it already felt like too much. “I want to.”

But when he pushed in just a little more, your whole body tensed.

It burned, it wasn’t painful but it was far from comfortable. You winced, your eyes screwing shut as you drew a sharp breath. 

"It's okay..." You tried to reassure him, though you struggled to even convince yourself. "I'll... I'll get used to it."

Noah stopped instantly.

“Hey,” he said gently, kissing your cheek. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend it’s okay if it’s not.”

You blinked up at him, shame prickling at the edges. 

“I’m sorry-”

“No! Don’t be sorry,” he said firmly, brushing your hair back. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just-” he swallowed, still hovering over you, “-I’m not gonna fuck you if you’re in pain, okay? I’d rather wait… Make sure we do it properly so it feels great for the both of us, yeah?”

You bit your lip, nodding, even though you hated how disappointed you felt. You wondered if he'd ever had this before, or if this- if you were the first person he had to stop for.

He saw it.

“Look at me,” he whispered, coaxing your chin up so your eyes met. “I want this again, too. So bad it almost hurts. But not if it’s gonna hurt you. I'd never do that.”

You nodded again, your heart melting at the way he said it. He wasn’t frustrated, or impatient. Just… tender.

“But next time?” You whispered.

He smiled then, slow and warm, pressing a kiss to your lips. 

“Next time, we’ll do it right. I’ll get you all ready, baby. Take my time. Make it feel so good you won’t want to stop.”

Then, he pulled you close again, pressing his forehead to yours as he held you. 

You lay there for a little while, tangled up in each other, his hands drawing soft shapes along your spine as your heartbeat settled. Every so often, you'd feel him twitch against your thigh, still hard, still aching, but he didn’t say anything about it. He was too focused on you.

But you noticed. You couldn’t help it. 

And after a few moments of silence, you shifted slightly, looking up at him through your lashes.

“Noah?”

“Yeah, baby?”

You hesitated, your voice barely above a whisper. 

“Can I… try something?”

His brow lifted slightly, but his gaze stayed soft. 

“What kind of something?”

“I wanna try giving you a blowjob, if that’s okay?” Your cheeks flushed.

He blinked, surprised, and for a second you thought maybe you’d overstepped, but then a slow, crooked grin tugged at his mouth.

“Fuck,” he breathed, eyes darkening. “You sure?”

You nodded, heart pounding. 

“Yeah. I wanna learn... Will you teach me?”

He exhaled like it physically pained him to hold back, reaching up to cup your cheek and kiss you again, this time deeper, more heated.

“Yes of course, baby,” he said against your lips. “I’ll show you everything.”

He lay back, undressing and then letting you settle between his legs. You glanced down, swallowing hard at the sight of him. He was thick, flushed, leaking at the tip. He was definitely bigger than you remembered from the first time, and that little flutter of nerves in your stomach returned.

“Start slow,” he murmured, voice hoarse. “Don’t go straight in, use your hand first. Get used to it.”

You reached for him tentatively, wrapping your fingers around his shaft. He let out a low groan the second you touched him, eyes fluttering closed.

“Fuck… Just like that, yeah,” he praised, hips barely twitching up. “You’ve got perfect hands, so fucking soft.”

You stroked him slowly, watching his reactions, learning what made his breath hitch and his thighs tense. When you leaned in, hesitating just before your lips touched him, he opened his eyes again.

“Start with your tongue,” he said gently, brushing a hand over your hair. “You don’t have to take a lot. Just go slow, get it wet first.”

You nodded, licking a shy stripe from the base up to the tip, pressing a little soft kiss to it before doing it again, feeling a little braver when he moaned your name.

“That’s it, baby. Shit… It feels so good. You’re so good.”

You wrapped your lips around the head, letting him in little by little, trying not to gag when you took it a little too far. He was patient, guiding your movements with soft praise and the occasional gentle tug in your hair.

“Don’t go too deep,” he said softly. “Use your hand on what you can’t fit. That’s it, fuck. Just like that. God, you’re such a quick learner.”

You looked up at him through your lashes and the sound he made was almost desperate.

“You keep doing that and I’m gonna lose it.”

You hollowed your cheeks, copying what you had seen when you had attempted to watch porn a while ago when you were desperate to get yourself off. You moved your hand in rhythm with your mouth, watching the way his stomach flexed under your touch. He was getting close, you could tell by the way his voice grew rougher, his hips bucking just the slightest. 

“Baby- Shit, wait.” He gently pulled your head back just before he was about to cum, even though his body clearly didn’t want to. “Don’t take it in your mouth.”

You blinked up at him, confused, your hand still moving.

He let out a breathy laugh, brushing your hair back from your face. 

“It doesn’t taste good. I don’t want that to be your first memory of this.”

You felt heat rise in your cheeks, but his tenderness made it melt into something warm and grateful.

“So what do I do?”

“Just your hand,” he said, voice tight. “Finish me off, just like you were doing. Fuck… you’re doing perfect. Best I’ve ever had.”

You stroked him faster, watching his face as his jaw clenched, his chest rising sharply.

“I’m gonna…” he groaned, eyes locked on yours. “Keep going- yeah, baby, fuck- just like that-”

He came with a hoarse moan of your name, spilling across his stomach and your hand, his muscles tight as a bowstring. You watched, completely mesmerised, as his whole body shuddered under you.

When he opened his eyes again, you were still staring, flushed, curious, a little breathless yourself. You reached out, hesitating for just a second, then dipped your finger into the mess on his stomach.

His brows lifted, surprised. 

“Curious little thing, aren’t you?”

You shrugged with a small smirk. 

You brought your finger to your lips and tasted it, just a flick of your tongue, your face scrunched a little.

He laughed, low and warm. 

“Told you.”

“Yeah,” you said with a wrinkle of your nose. “Not my favourite.”

“But you’re my favourite.” He said, tugging you up toward him, guiding you to straddle his waist again. You lay down on him carefully, bare bodies pressed together, and he kissed your temple, nose, then lips.

“We better clean up.” You suggested, and Noah- still coming down from his orgasm- nodded with a lazy smile. 

“Yeah… Good idea.” 

You’d both cleaned up quietly, exchanging soft smiles and playful touches as you got dressed again. You were still a little shaky, your heart light and full as Noah grabbed his hoodie from the floor and tugged it over his head, running a hand through his messy hair. 

He glanced at you once he was dressed, that gentle, post-orgasm glow still in his eyes.

“You hungry?” he asked, stepping closer to wrap his arms around your waist. “I was thinking I could make us something.”

You looked up at him, pleasantly surprised. 

“You cook now?”

He chuckled. 

“I mean, I can make a sandwich. That counts, right?”

You smiled and nodded, letting him guide you downstairs to the kitchen. The house was quiet, his friends/roommates left for the party a couple hours ago. And you were definitely not regretting staying in, and you knew Noah wasn’t either. 

Noah opened the fridge and started rummaging through ingredients while you leaned against the counter, watching him with fondness in your chest you didn’t quite know what to do with.

“My parents are both away this week,” you said after a moment, your voice a little smaller than before. “Work trips.”

He glanced up, curious.

“Both of them?”

You nodded. 

“Yeah. They leave Sunday night. I’ll have the house to myself until Friday.”

Noah froze for a second, then closed the fridge and looked at you fully.

“So you’re gonna be here alone all week?”

You shrugged, trying to sound casual even though the truth tugged at your insides. 

“Yeah. It’s not a big deal. I’m used to it. Just… don’t really like going back to being alone after we’ve spent time together, y’know?”

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes softening.

“You don’t have to be alone,” he said. “I can stay.”

Your heart skipped.

“Like, for dinner?”

“No,” he said with a soft chuckle, stepping closer again. “Like… there. With you. I can bring clothes, stay the whole week if you want? Keep you company.”

Your breath caught. 

“You’d do that?”

He nodded, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. 

“Yeah, of course. You know I’d do anything for you… I mean, if you want me to. We could hang out, watch movies, order takeout. Sleep in the same bed.”

Your lips twitched into a small smile. 

“You wanna have sex on every surface in the house?”

“Eventually, yeah.” He smirked, “But I meant I just wanna be there with you. So you don’t feel alone.”

You smiled. There was something so sincere in his voice that it made your heart ache, and the look in his eyes was nothing short of pure love and care. 

“Okay,” you said softly. “Stay. Please.”

He smiled and pressed a kiss to your forehead, then another to your lips, lingering there.

“I will,” he murmured. “Now sit your cute ass down and let me make you the best post sex- or… whatever we just did- sandwich you’ll ever have.”

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

i've been doing this shit for years and i STILL cannot proof read my own smut without feeling weird LMAO

@dominuslunae @chey-h @xxkittenkissesxx @theasowle @renegadebirch @super-btstrash-posts @skulla-rxcks @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @ami--gami @h4tef6ck @lilrubles @amelia-acero @uselessperson69 @ichoosetenderomens @dostoievskitty @formula1loversstuff @c0urt-0519 @animal4princess-blog @swissy23

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 8 - I Just Find My Way Back

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: I have heard the unanimous pro-long chapter response, and present you with 9.3k words of plot progression and 10k words of banter, backstory, and a secret third thing. Enjoy! Chapter Title is from Cinnamon Girl by Lana Del Ray

Word Count: 19k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: Ben makes a choice, and you try something new. Self-inflicted starvation and unhealthy contraceptives.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, fluff, angst, light smut, pining

Read on A03!

Chapter 7 - Chapter 9

Taglist: @lordofthunderthr @kritara @sukunassfinger, @justiceforquentin @acciditties

@c1gs-coffee @manicjk

Want to be tagged? Just ask!

The sun had long risen into the sky before Ben moved from her side. He hadn’t slept, only watched her chest rise and fall in smooth movements and failed to smother the thing in his chest—how it would've been content there forever—before realizing he needed to piss, and no amount of stupid, confusing fucking feelings could make him hold it longer.

After, instead of returning to the bed, Ben left her room and made his way down to the kitchen. He put the coffee on, roughly spreading something called “strawberry cream cheese” She’d introduced him to across a bagel—it was almost as good as crack, and given that the CIA was full of uptight pussies who wouldn’t buy him the real shit, it had to do—as he waited for it to brew. When it finished, Ben poured half into a mug—leaving the rest for Her to find—before dropping himself at the counter.

He ate in silence, listening to Her heartbeat upstairs, and thought once more about Butcher’s offer. Homelander’s offer. He’d wanted to tell Her, ask for whatever inevitable fucking opinion she would have about how he should answer. She was good at it, this planning and thinking shit, and Ben had yet to see her falter at any useless moral hurdles. He’d figured out Her hard line—no innocents—but when it came to the opposition, she didn’t pull punches. Metaphorical punches. Despite Ben’s best efforts, She was still far more fucking bark than bite.

He hadn’t mentioned it though, because she’d shut down and it suddenly hadn’t felt that fucking important anymore. And now, after the shitshow last night, Ben wasn’t going to. He could make the fucking call himself, because he was a grown ass fucking man. Because Ben was more than damn capable of meeting with Homelander and coming out unscathed.

It wasn’t because Ben fucking knew She’d tell him to do it, and then bitch at him until she’d weaseled her way into the meeting.

It wasn’t because he didn’t want Her anywhere fucking near the meeting and the star-spangled pussy in attendance.

So—when he heard Her start to shuffle in her room, moving around for a few minutes before the door opened and she made her way downstairs—Ben decided he’d figure it out, call Butcher by his own goddamn self, and She wouldn’t have to know anything about it until well fucking after.

“Morning, Pretty Boy.” She mumbled, shuffling into the kitchen and trying to blink herself awake.

“Mornin’ Sunshine,” Ben tried—and failed—not to smile at her less-than-ladylike demeanor and let out a low chuckle as She ran fully into the counter with a yelp. “Sleep well?” He knew She had, but he enjoyed her still-sleepy scowl too much not to ask.

“Fuck off.” She grumbled, and he laughed.

“Welcome back, bitch.”

“Cunt,” she mumbled half-heartedly, rubbing her eyes. “Coffee?”

Ben pointed to the pot, and She let out a satisfied noise that made the Thing in his chest fucking whine like a pussy.

“All for me?” She asked with a slack smile at Ben.

“All for you,” he grumbled. “But it’s getting cold, and I’m not making you fucking more.”

She shrugged, grabbing a mug from the shelves. “Any news from the Boys?”

“Nope,” Ben watched Her pour the coffee, and something squeezed around his ribs as the lie left him. “They fucking benched us until they figure out what to do with the news.”

“About what Firecracker said?” She said softly, staring down at her now full mug.

Ben grunted an affirmation, She let out a sad little sigh, and the damn fucking Thing wanted to grab her again. “Maybe Butcher will finally fucking use the information the red-haired broad gave him, and it’ll get shit moving again.”

She frowned at him, and her heart skipped a single beat. “You mean Ashley?”

“Sure,” Ben said with an eye roll. “There’s a lot of fucking people, Sunshine. I can’t be expected to remember every pussy idiot I meet.”

She let out a low laugh, and the Thing was insufferably fucking pleased. “Fair enough.”

Ben waited for Her to share whatever thoughts he’d been certain she’d have about Ashley and the information, but She only sat at his side, looking up at him with a small smile. The Thing in Ben’s chest was starting to be fucking problem, because it was so goddamn satisfied that She was talking to him again it didn’t want to push her for answers. Ben only barely managed to overpower it and ask, “The fuck you think is taking that pussy so long?”

She raised her brows. “Which pussy are we talking about now?”

“Butcher. And the information.” He didn’t miss the slightest increase in Her heart rate, despite her bored shrug.

“Dunno.” Before Ben could ask more questions, she continued. “Does everyone know I’m awake?”

“No,” Ben scowled. “How would I have fucking told them?”

She let out a hum. “Touché.” She stood once more, taking her mug with her. “I’m gonna go call Annie and get changed, I’ll meet you back here after.”

“Get changed?” Ben grabbed Her arm before she could leave his side. “For fucking what?”

“Training.” She grinned down at him. “I’m going to kick your fucking ass for calling me a ‘goddamn idiot’ while I was crying.”

“I got you to stop fucking wallowing. And fucking stayed with you all goddamn night like you begged me to.” Ben jabbed, and Her smile grew.

She leaned forward, holding his gaze with her own.

“I’ve never begged you for anything, Pretty Boy. It’s going to take a fucking miracle for me to start now.” The Thing roared so loud at her words that Ben’s grip grew slack, and She pulled her arm away. “This will take twenty minutes, and then I’m going to wipe the floor with your fucking face.”

She left the room, leaving Ben in the kitchen, alone, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. He almost stood from the counter, ready to march after Her and demand some sort of fucking elaboration—he wasn’t even sure for what, just that She wasn’t fucking allowed to say shit like that and walk away—but Ben had barely shifted before he realized his dick was fucking hard, and chasing after Her was no longer an option.

Ben had twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to take care of his boner, figure out how to smother the Thing for good, and get his fucking shit in order. She was just another woman, just another pretty face. He’d gotten hard-ons from a lot less and jerked himself off a lot faster. This was no fucking different. She was no fucking different. Just another fucking pretty face.

Beautiful, the Thing reminded him. She’s not just pretty. She’s beautiful.

If his boner wasn’t starting to be fucking painful, Ben would’ve spent the entire twenty minutes trying to figure out how to make the Thing shut the fuck up.

He made his way upstairs, steps faltering outside Her door as he listened to her move around inside like a fucking creep.

“I’m fine,” she was saying to someone, probably fucking Starlight or Cocksucker. It hadn’t escaped Ben how they were the only fuckers who really ever asked Her. “I promise. Don’t worry about me, Annie, I’m really okay.”

Ben scowled at the door, almost forgetting about his angry hard-on as the memory of Her curled up, shaking with despair less than twelve hours ago, flashed in his head.

“Are you sure?” Starlight’s voice was slightly static. “Because if you need a break from Soldier Boy to deal with this we can figure something out.”

Ben was going to kill the bitch, consequences be fucking damned. He was only fucking seconds away from barging into the room, from giving Starlight a descriptive warning of how he was going to fuck her face up so much Cocksucker left her, when he heard Her sharp, quick answer.

“No.” Her voice sounded almost panicked. “I’m staying here. I don’t need a break from Ben. Please, I’m good, he’s good, everything is fine. I don’t want-“ She cut herself off slightly, and Ben heard the flutter of her heart. “It’s good here. Ben’s good. Don’t worry about us.”

Ben’s good, Her voice echoed in his head, and the Thing was pounding against him. Ben’s good.

He needed to fucking move before he barged into Her room and demanded to know what the fuck she meant by Ben’s good. He needed to take care of himself before She saw him, and he had to come up with a lie about why he was standing outside her door with a boner.

Ben barely managed not to slam his door behind him—an action he knew She’d hear and barge in to demand what was making him so pissy—and dropped onto his bed, practically ripping his own pants and underwear off. He closed his eyes, took a strong breath, and began to fucking his fist with rough abandon. It just had to be fucking fast, he just had to find fucking relief before She came looking for him.

The Thing had other plans. The Thing wanted to take its time, to listen to Her heartbeat only doors away, and to imagine her there, how her heartbeat would race as he fucked her. The Thing was offering Ben countless fantasies to choose from. Her under him as he fucked her stupid. Her on his lap, tits bouncing as he slammed up into her. Her on her knees, mouth wide open, drool falling down her chin, his hand in her hair. In every one She moaned and whined, but the one that made him almost feral, made his hand move faster along his length than Ben had thought possible, was the one where She was up against his wall, legs around his waist, begging.

Ben, a phantom of Her voice moaned into his ear. Please.

This feel like a fucking miracle, Sunshine? Ben’s own voice growled through his head. I feel fucking good?

“Ben?” Her voice, her real voice, sounded from outside his door, and Ben bucked up into his fist. “You in there?”

“I’m-“ He bit down a groan. “I’m busy, Sunshine.” Then, just to keep Her there, maybe hear her voice again, he called out again. “What?”

“Can I come in?”

“No!” He shouted, struggling to come up with a fucking reason for Her not to come in, an effort not made any damn easier by the Thing practically straining for Her. “I’m- fuck. ” Ben swore under his breath, feeling real damn thankful she didn’t have supe-hearing. “I’m fucking changing!”

“Oh,” Her voice had an edge Ben didn’t understand, but her heart stammered into a faster pace, and the Thing grabbed onto the sound and dragged him closer to the edge. “The call went faster than I thought. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.” Even as her tone returned to its usual amused droll, her heart didn’t slow. “Get fucking ready, Pretty Boy. I’m going to make you regret being born.”

Ben bit down another groan. He was so fucking close, just a little fucking further- “I’ll make you fucking beg, Sunshine.” The words were low, through gritted teeth as he hovered on that edge- He didn’t even fully mean for Her to hear-

“I’d like to see you try, Ben.” She said, and that fucking did it. Her words, her heartbeat, her tone as she drawled his name, the smug grin Ben could see fucking perfectly in his head—they all grabbed him and yanked him over.

“ Brat,” he grunted as his relief burst from him, finding every fucking surface in the room.

“Cunt,” She pushed back, and Ben wasn’t sure if it was the Thing simply making him a fucking idiot or not, but the edge in her voice sounded fucking breathy. Her heart fucking faltered. For a very long second, Ben waited fucking pathetically for her to say something more, praying like a goddamn pussy for Her to burst into the room and fulfill all those fantasies still lingering in his head, but her heart faded down the hall with her steps, and Ben was left with only himself and his mess.

It took Ben ten minutes to clean up and change, but it felt like a fucking hour. Though his body was satiated, the Thing was hungry. He had given it a taste of something he didn’t want to fucking think about, and now it wanted more. Ben didn’t fucking get it, couldn’t fucking understand why it was—he was—being so fucking pathetic about this. He wasn’t a fucking uptight choir boy, he’d jerked off probably more times than She’d even had sex. He’d had sex more times than any other fucker in history. He’d done things that would make Butcher blush, and those memories had fueled his drive more than enough since he’d been awake. He wouldn’t fucking lie and say She’d never made appearances in theses types of thoughts before—Ben was a red-blooded man with eyes, and he wasn’t going to feel fucking guilty about it—but they’d been brief, and they hadn’t left him reeling like a goddamn fucking pussy. Like he was now.

He had to fucking get it together.

When he arrived down in the kitchen, having done a very careful inspection of himself for any lingering evidence, Ben found Her stuffing her face with the bagel he’d left behind, looking up with wide eyes as he entered the room.

“Sorry-“ She roughly swallowed, and that didn’t fucking help Ben at all. “But you should know better than to leave food just out.”

“There’s a whole fucking fridge full of the stuff behind you, Sunshine,” he grunted, moving around the counter. “Could’ve fucking used it.”

She shrugged, licking her fingers clean, and there was no fucking way she wasn’t doing this to him on purpose. “You’ll get over it.” She gave him a toothy smile. “Ready to have your ass handed to you on a silver fucking platter?”

Ben smirked, leaning down to Her eye level. “I’m going to fucking make you cry, brat.”

There it was again. That fucking falter. And something flashed in Her eyes, barely fast enough for Ben to catch before she blinked and it was gone, Her gaze holding his with a steel glare.

“Fucking bring it, Pretty Boy.”

He laughed, rising to his full height as she stood from the counter. “Aren’t you mighty fucking cocky for someone who’s only hit me twice.”

“Thrice. I’ve hit you thrice.” Her words were muttered with a pretty frown as she walked toward the dining room—they had long repurposed it into a mock training area—and Ben grinned as he followed her.

“Twice, Sunshine. I don’t count the hit where you fucking cheated.”

She snorted. “Oh, shove it up your ass, Pretty Boy. Like you’ve never cheated before.”

“I’ve never gotten caught,” Ben said smugly. “Big fucking difference.”

She turned as they stopped in the center of the room, raising her fists to the defensive stance he’d taught her. “Somehow,” She smirked. “I really doubt that.”

Ben moved to match Her, shrugging as he did so. “Doesn’t matter what you believe, Sunshine. Truths the truth.”

“I’m going to burn your whole beard off this time, cunt.”

“Fucking try it, brat.” Her heart faltered again, and Ben decided—as long as She kept up that fucking reaction—he was going to keep calling her that until she physically made him stop. “I’ll put the TV on that fucking reality channel you hate and break the damn remote.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You hate E! more than I do. I just hate the ads, you hate everything about it.”

“All the tits are fucking fake,” Ben muttered and She snorted. “And so are the fucking-“

“Asses?” She finished his sentence with an eye roll. “Yeah, I’m sure fake tits and BBLs really hurt your refined, feminist sensibilities.”

“What the fuck is a BBL?”

“Brazilian Butt Lift.”

“You can’t just fucking say shit-“

“Jesus, it’s a plastic surgery, and it’s pretty self-descriptive. Actually, you’d probably like them.”

“Fuck no, I like it fucking natural, I have no interest in fucking something that’s not-“

“Totally real and able to enjoy it. I’ve heard the sales pitch, Pretty Boy.” She gave him a slack, taunting smile. “Are you going to keep stalling, or put your money where your mouth is?”

Ben winked at Her. “I’ll put my mouth and my money wherever I fucking want, Sunshine.”

She met his cocky smirk with one of her own. “Prove it.”

By the end of it, both of them agreeing after two grueling hours to shower, fucking eat something, and spend the remainder of the night at the TV—She had made some amazingly graphic threats about what she’d do if he broke the remote while she heated dinner—Ben was more torn by his goddamn fucking feelings then he’d ever been in his life. There was pride coursing through him, She’d hit him five more times and only two of the punches had been cheating, there was the Thing in his chest, pounding in excitement like a fucking pussy at the simple goddamn idea of sitting next to her while they ate, and there was the hunger, low in his gut and straining against his pants, looping the image of Her all sweaty and flushed from exertion around and around his head.

He was very fucking thankful that Her own eagerness to get into the shower made her leave the room fast enough not to notice anything, and decided to take a very long, very cold shower himself to get a goddamn fucking grip before this became a problem.

It worked well—Ben made it through their returned ritual of dinner and TV without even a fucking hiccup, even fucking managed to sling his arm over the back of the couch without thinking about it was coincidentally hanging over Her—until a little after midnight when She’d fucking asked him to stay in her room again.

“I- um,” Her voice had started quieter than usual, not fully looking at Ben as she spoke. “I’m feeling better, really. But, uh, if you’d be okay with it-”

“Sunshine,” he’d nudged Her with his shoulder, and when she’d turned her pretty face, cast in only the glow of the TV light, towards him, the Thing rumbled. “Stop pussyfooting and-”

“Say what I mean?” She’d finished his sentence with a small smile. That was something she really needed to stop fucking doing. “Stay in my room tonight. Just until I fall asleep. If you want.” She’d watched him carefully as she tacked on the end.

Ben had given Her a smirk, and decided to feed the Thing just a little. “Beg.”

“Fuck you,” She’d snorted, but there was no anger in her words, so Ben pushed a little further.

“I’m serious, Sunshine. You really want me there? Beg. ”

“I’ll cut off your dick, cunt.” She’d glowered.

He’d shrugged. “Have it your way, brat.”

“ Fucking asshole,” She’d muttered under her breath, heart stumbling for only a second before she’d fully turning her body towards Ben. She’d fluttered her eyelashes sarcastically, giving him a simpering smile, her voice sickly sweet. “Please, Ben. Please, grace me with your holy presence so that I may have six hours of sleep that are not plagued by nightmares. Please, sir, do me the kindness of not making me wake up screaming from memories of being fucking tortured.”

Ben grunted, forcing a smile onto his face as the Thing howled. “Of course, Sunshine. All you had to do was ask.”

She rolled her eyes, pulling herself off the couch. “I need to shit, I’ll see you in my room in five.”

Ben let himself dwell for a second after She left, trying to push the sound of her voice, however mocking, say please, Ben and sir and the image of her fake pouting at him as light flickered across her face. Through an inhuman—even for Ben���amount of self-restraint, he managed to pull his shit all the way together and push it deep, deep down for the Thing to follow before making his way up the stairs.

When he entered Her room, she was already sitting on the bed, covers pulled over her body, on the same side as the previous night. Ben started to walk carefully over to the empty half of the mattress, but she sat up a little, pointing behind him.

“Lights.” She explained, a slightly apologetic look on her face. “Please.”

“Only because you fucking said please,” Ben grumbled, and flicked the little switch on the wall before making his way to Her side. He’d barely kicked his legs up onto the mattress when She closed her eyes, and her heartbeat began to slow into a peaceful steady rate.

He wasn’t sure how, but Ben slept as well, and when the nightmare—one of his more frequent ones about a man in a lab coat tears out his heart, holding it up for the world to see, and echoes of laughter carving into Ben’s head—caught him, he woke in a cold sweat and felt Her curled fully into his side, his arm holding her there. His breathing steadied quickly, and it dawned on him that there hadn’t been any drums. There still weren’t. He looked down at Her, tucked against his torso, and didn’t move until sunrise.

Another week passed, and Ben was getting a lot fucking worse at controlling the Thing in his chest. She still had no idea—Ben was an amazing fucking actor like that—and he had no fucking intention of clueing her in. Because there wasn’t anything for Her to know. He wasn’t keeping it a secret, because the Thing wasn’t anything, not really, so he’d just be telling her he thought she was pretty. Which was a fucking stupid thing to do, because Ben wasn’t a pussy teenager who’d just discovered what women were. She was pretty, but he’d met hundreds, thousands, of pretty women.

Not pretty, the Thing would grumble. Beautiful.

Ben had met fucking beautiful women too. This wasn’t something important.

Was Ben jerking off more times than he had since maybe even before Russia? Sure. But it was just a fucking coincidence. His sex drive was back, fucking alert the media and call the cops. Was he not using porn, just the Thing and its conjured images? Yes, but nobody would fucking give him internet access and he’d suck Butcher to completion before he asked Her to give him porn. Because he’d never fucking hear the end of it, not because She’d probably know how to see what he’d watch, and have questions about why all the models looked like her. The images were getting Ben’s engine going just fine, and delivering him to where he needed to be goddamn well. Images that were of soft bodies that looked like hers and sharp eyes that were always amused. Images that went hand in hand with imagined sounds of a familiar voice moaning and whimpering his name, his real name, as he muttered filth to his empty room. Nobody had even called him Ben during sex in almost 75 years. Everyone, from Crimson Countess to long-faceless supes at Herogasm, had called him Soldier Boy. But She always called him Ben and his mind had, against his fucking will, decided that She would probably call him Ben if he got to have her how he wanted.

And fuck, had his fucking brain taken that and ran with it. Ben had run through so many fucking fantasies he had favorites. There was the one where he knelt before her on his bed and She gripped his hair as she begged, the one where he pinned Her hands above her head during training with one hand and used the other to make her moan, the one where She walked into his room and dropped to her knees for him with that taunting smile, and the one where they were on the couch and he pulled Her onto his lap and fucked her until she burst into flames.

None of this was helped by their new habit of him sleeping in Her bed, or the fact that he was actually sleeping when he did so. It wasn’t helped by her being more insistent on training than ever before, making their usual physical contact increase by fucking tenfold. It wasn’t helped by how Ben couldn’t stop talking to Her because she was still insufferably fucking open and stupidly fucking funny and he wanted an excuse make Her call him a cunt so he could call her a brat, and he got to listen to the little sound her heart made every fucking time.

The worst part, though, was that he’d been fucking wrong. Really fucking wrong. She wasn’t pretty or beautiful, she was fucking perfect, and it was going to make him go insane. Lately, when he looked at her, it was like staring at the goddamn sun. It made the Thing reel just to fucking see Her now, and he was too much of a fucking pussy to fight it because She was perfect.

You’ve never met a perfect woman before , the Thing whispered smugly. You’ve never met a perfect anything.

Fine. That was fucking true. But it didn’t change that the Thing didn’t fucking mean jack fucking shit. So he didn’t have to tell her.

In the mess of the Thing and Her and trying to kill the Thing before it made him a fucking pussy who could only think about Her, Ben still hadn’t given Butcher an answer about Homelander’s offer. He didn’t even really fucking have one yet. There had been no improvement in the cycle of Homelander can fuck right off to Homelander had hurt Her and Ben wanted to hurt him to She would tell Ben to go all the way back to Homelander can fuck right off. If anything it had worsened, leaving Ben right in the same shit position he’d started.

He was wading around in that very loop now, having woken up two hours before Her and made his way downstairs. Though, once again against his will, Ben had spent the first hour watching Her sleep, dragged into a trance by her heartbeat and her relaxed, beautiful face.

Perfect. The Thing had reminded Ben. Her perfect face.

He’d told it to shut the fuck up, and stomped—quietly, Ben had no interest in waking Her up—out of Her room and down the hall to his own. He’d made himself cum quickly, a fantasy of Her bent over and whining into a pillow fueling him, before moving downstairs to watch TV and wait for Her to wake up like a fucking lost puppy dog.

But Ben did wait—reminding himself that it didn’t mean anything because what else could he even fucking do—as one of the better sitcoms She’d shown him playing in a forgotten buzz as Ben’s thoughts began the useless fucking loop. Ben was so fucking focused on the Homelander had hurt Her and Ben wanted to hurt Him part that he missed the sounds of Her waking up, only barely noticing when her heartbeat grew closer as she walked down the stairs.

“Morning, Sunshine.” Ben called over his shoulder just as She reached the bottom, padding over to drop on the couch next to him.

“Hi.” She mumbled, squinting at the TV. “Oh, this is a good one.”

He glanced back at the screen, where two of the characters were screaming into a walkie talkie in a closet. Ben only grunted, watching Her lean back from the corner of his eye.

 “What’s wrong with you?” She asked so casually, Ben wasn’t sure he heard her right.

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“You’re being weird. You didn’t make coffee, and when I came down the stairs you looked deep in thought. It’s concerning.”

Ben rolled his eyes and swatted at Her arm. “Fuck off, brat.” Her heart did the thing, and he had to fight a smile. “I was just watching the fucking show.”

She hummed, giving him an unconvinced look. “Fine, you cunt. Don’t tell me.”

“If this is about you wanting coffee, Sunshine, you’ve got a pair of working arms and a matching set of fucking legs. Do it your goddamn self.”

“It’s not about coffee,” She mumbled, though Ben didn’t miss her slight pout. “I just wanted to…” She trailed off, and Ben looked at her fully.

What a fucking lapse in his quickly vanishing judgment that was.

The morning light through the room made all of Her perfect features fucking glow, and her stupid lips that had been haunting Ben’s every damn thought were puffy from sleep. He wanted to touch them.

“Ben?” Her voice jarred him out of his stupid fucking brain. “Why are you holding Butcher’s sunglasses?”

Ben glanced down and realized that he’d been turning the cheap, knock-off, Soldier Boy sunglass that were the wrong fucking color around in his hand. He’d forgotten to give them to Her completely when she’d first woken up and been all sad, as fucking sunglasses had been lower on his priority list than the fucking Homelander offer. Then, when She had finally started fucking talking to him again, he had found himself rarely in his room—Ben had been keeping the sunglasses on his dresser—except to quickly pull his dick in any spare time he could find. When he’d cleaned up his mess from that very activity this morning, Ben had noticed them collecting dust and shoved them into his pocket to finally fucking move them from his room. One less thing to do a shitty job of cleaning.

“Butcher told me these were yours.” Ben frowned at her. “Asshole said you dropped them on your way to Firecracker’s stage.”

She gave the sunglasses a dirty look. “Of course he did. Fucking asshole.”

“What, are they fucking modern sunglasses that are going to start telling me all your deepest secrets?” Ben looked between the accessory to where She sat, still glowering at it. “Is it a damn bomb?”

“No, Butcher’s just a dick.”” She muttered, though the bitterness was gone from her tone and her lips twitched as her eyes returned to his. “He was going to use them as a part of his dogshit disguise and I told him not to. Because it would blow our cover. Your cover. Then I blew the whole fucking plan, and he’s fucking rubbing it my face.”

“You didn’t blow it, your stupid plan fucking worked, Sunshine. It’s not a great insult.”

“It didn’t work. Not well enough.” The sadness was creeping back into Her eyes, and the Thing was clawing at him.

“Butcher’s an ass,” Ben tossed the sunglasses into Her lap, and she scrambled to catch them. “That tea-rimming dick couldn’t have done any fucking better than you did.”

“Thanks, Ben.” She gave him a small smile, her voice so painfully fucking genuine it made Ben want to throw himself off a cliff. The Thing was whining, fucking whining like a little fucking bitch, as She held the sunglasses up to the light. “Thoughts on the change of your color scheme.”

Ben snorted. “Fucking blue. The weak pussy man’s fucking green.”

She laughed, a real laugh that made the Thing slam against Ben’s lungs. “That’s a much stronger and more negative opinion about blue than I expected from America’s Number One Patriot.”

“If I had any fucking say in it,” Ben grumbled. “Our flag would be red, white, and green.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Like Italy?”

“Fuck no, not like fucking Italy-“ He shot Her a glare as she started to giggle. “Shut the fuck up, Sunshine. Blue is fucking stupid, green is a lot fucking better, and you fucking know it.”

“Hm,” She smothered her laughter and gave him a smirk. “You do look very good in it.”

The Thing loved that. Fuck, Ben loved that too. He did look fucking good in green, he looked good all the damn time. That didn’t stop the Thing—and him, if someone wanted to be a real fucking asshole about specifics—from wanting to, needing to, know what other colors She thought he looked good in. But she had moved on, rubbing the lenses with her shirt before placing the sunglasses on her nose and giving Ben a wide, unrestrained smile.

“How do I look? Like a douchebag?” She asked, pushing them down her nose to look at him over the rim.

Ben snorted. “I don’t think you could look like a douchebag if you fucking tried, Sunshine.”

She giggled, and relaxed fully into the cushions, turning to lean against the armrests and kicking her feet up so they pressed against Ben’s leg. “Jury’s out on that, Pretty Boy.”

Ben watched her settle, watching the TV through the sunglasses and mouthing along to the lines of the show with a comfortable smile, and his brain flashed back to the place he’d left the cycle. Homelander had hurt Her, and Ben wanted to hurt him.

He had his fucking answer for Butcher.

That night, sitting at Her side and moving more carefully he had ever bothered to in his fucking life, Ben reached across Her body and took the small, weird phone from her bed stand. 

The next half hour involved a lot of cursing under his breath, rage building bigger and bigger into Ben until he almost threw the fucking “phone” across the room. In almost any other circumstance he would’ve shoved the damned thing before Her, and she would’ve showed him all the stupid fucking ways in which it worked. But he couldn’t for this, because She’d have fucking questions about what he wanted her phone for, and he’d try and refuse to answer them, and then She’d figure out a fucking way to trick him into telling her. The whole point of his careful movements and silent anger was that he could fire the gun himself before She could insist on doing it with him.

Eventually Ben figured out what open with Face ID meant, leading to him spending another two minutes trying to hold the phone in front of Her face in a way that the stupid fucking thing deemed acceptable. By the grace of a god Ben didn’t believe in, he was saved from another grueling endeavor of trying to figure out how to call someone on a flat piece of fucking glass by the phone buzzing in his hand—something that made him almost crack it in half out of pure vigilance—and the screen showing a weird fucking banner that top that read:

William Butcher: Worst Boss Ever

Need a week.

Ben tapped on the banner, and felt immense satisfaction as it brought him to a screen of little bubbles, a keyboard sitting readily at the bottom. One letter at a time, Ben typed out call me, before pausing and adding Her name at the end.

The phone began to buzz angrily as the words Call From, William Butcher: Worst Boss Ever paired with a photo of an old Wanted photo of Butcher consumed the screen. Ben was incredibly grateful She was asleep, as he dropped the fucking thing onto the his lap in shock—though he’d recovered quickly and any sane motherfucker would’ve done the same if a block of metal started fucking buzzing—and She would certainly not have let him hear the end of it had she seen. He stood carefully but quickly from the bed, looking back as She shuffled slightly. When he saw her settled once more, heartbeat just as steady as when She always slept, he pushed out into the hall and hit the little green button that better fucking do what he thought it would.

“Oi,” Butcher’s voice sounded quietly from the phone, saying Her name with a tone of annoyance. “Soldier Boy rub off on you so hard you forgot how bloody phones work?” The man made a sound like he was laughing to himself. “Actually, don’t fucking answer that. I don’t want to know what freaky shit you two get up to.”

“Guess again,” Ben spoke against the screen, trying at the same time to figure out how to make Butcher louder. He noticed a button labeled speaker, slammed his thumb against it, and almost dropped the phone as Butcher’s voice blasted against his ears.

“Well, if it ain’t the ancient cunt himself. Does the missus know you took her phone?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Ben froze, swearing under his breath, as Her voice sounded from behind him. Ignoring Butcher’s mocking laughter echoing in the hall, he turned slowly to find Her right at his chest, eyes bleary but still managing to glare with all her usual, sharp venom. “Hello, Sunshine. Good fucking morning to you too.”

“You as well.” She snapped, and Ben scoffed, silently enjoying the way Her nose scrunched as she corrected him and hating the way he didn’t want to throw Her against a wall. “And it’s fucking 3am.” She yanked her phone from Ben’s grip, scowling at him as she spoke. “Butcher, I’m going to put you on hold for a second, Ben and I need to talk.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Butcher’s voice sneered, and She rolled her eyes before pressing something on the screen. “I’ll just bloody wait here then, not like I have anything important to do.”

“I can still hear him.” Ben pointed out as Butcher began to hum through the speakers.

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Pretty Boy. He won’t hear it when I beat your fucking ass.”

“I stay with you all night, again, and this is how you show me fucking gratitude?”

“You fucking stole my phone to call Butcher.” She said flatly. “You don’t even know how to use it.”

“I figured it out, Sunshine. I’m not a fucking idiot pussy.”

“Yeah, you’re a regular fucking Einstein, using a smartphone in 21st century.” She jeered. “Now tell me why you needed to call Butcher so bad you decided to steal my phone about it, before I melt your fucking face. ”

“Take your best fucking shot, Sunshine, this is between me and the brit.”

She sighed. “Have it your way. Butcher?” She tapped the phone, holding Ben’s glare. “Any ideas about what Ben was calling you for?”

“Why do you ask, Love? Soldier Boy not willing to share his intentions with me to his Sunshine? ” Butcher mocked, and Her scowled turned down to the phone.

“Butcher.” Her voice was cool, and Ben could see the gnawing of her lip just as well as he could hear it. “You and Ben get one minute to grow bigger balls and tell me right now, or I will cut off the tiny ones you have.”

“Sorry, but Ben -“ Butcher’s voice said his name in a way that made Ben want to cut out the man’s tongue. “Didn’t get round to telling me his bloody self, so I ain’t got a clue.”

“Give me a guess.” She said coldly.

“Can’t, Love. I don’t have the faintest idea.”

A sound of frustration escaped Her throat, and Ben watched her grip on the phone tighten. “Butcher, I don’t know where this sudden loyalty to Ben came from, but you better lose it and find an idea real fucking fast before I leave Ben here so I can come and kill you.”

Any sleep was gone from Her eyes, smoke had begun to curl off of her body, and Ben was starting to worry she was going to break the skin in her mouth. Maybe She’d let us look at it if she does, the Thing whispered. And we could touch her lips.

Ben had to get himself under fucking control. If he wasn’t so focused on Her mouth like a whipped pussy, he would’ve been able to grab the phone back and break it before Butcher caved and told Her.

“Well, it might have something to do with our little chat while you were taking bloody five. That it, Gov? You finally got a fucking answer for me?”

She looked up at Ben, eyes flaring. “What little chat? ” 

“None of your business, Sunshine,” Ben snapped, and Butcher made a huffed laugh through the phone.

“Don’t think she sees it that way, Mate.”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Butcher.” Ben growled, and Her glare somehow grew so sharp Ben could feel it.

“What little chat, Butcher. What answer does Ben need to give you.” She hissed.

“Homelander and Sage gave us a little offer to have a nice and peaceful chat.” Butcher drawled, and Her eyes shot down to the phone, mouth falling open. “I’ve been waitin two bloody weeks for Soldier Boy to let me know if he’ll grace us with his presence.”

Her eyes returned to Ben, jaw clenched, and the carpet at her feet started to blacken. “I’m going to have to call you back, Butcher.”

“If you two have angry sex, tell me, because Hughie will owe me a tenner and-“ Butcher’s voice was cut off as She hung up, not once looking away from Ben.

“Homelander and Sage offered us a meeting? And you didn’t think that was important enough to share with the class?” Her voice was level, words measured, and heart steady. Ben hadn’t seen Her like this since those first weeks, and he hadn’t missed it one fucking bit.

“They offered me a meeting, Sunshine.” Ben snapped. “You’re not invited.”

“I go where you go, Pretty Boy.” Her words pushed through gritted teeth. “So unless they’re coming here, I’m going with you.”

“You seem real confident I wasn’t about to tell Butcher to shove the offer up where the sun don’t fucking shine.” Ben glared down at her, and She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You would’ve woken me up so you could have an audience. You didn’t want me to know.”

“Not everything is about you, Sunshine.” Ben growled, most of his anger now angled at how fucking correct she was.

“Really? Because you stealing my phone and very purposefully not telling me about the meeting feels like it might be about me just a little!”

 “Well, if you would give me a fucking phone of my own-“

“That not the fucking point, Ben! Why didn’t you fucking tell me about this!” She yelled, the room becoming thick with smoke.

“I don’t have to fucking tell you everything! You’re not my goddamn partner!”

Her heart stuttered, face dropping into a scowl, and Ben felt something start to eat at him in his chest.

“Fine.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, and it made the Thing turn his blood to lead and squeeze his chest tightly. “Whatever.” She threw the phone at him, and Ben had hardly caught it when She turned and walked back into the room, door slamming behind her.

Ben almost moved to follow Her, lurching forward to push after her and insist she fucking listen to him, that he hadn’t fucking told her for a damn good fucking reason, but the phone started to buzz again, this time displaying Call From, Marvin Milk: Holder of Incorrect Dr. Dre Opinions along with a photo of MM flipping off the camera. Ben glanced to the door, hearing Her heart moving faster by the second as her breath became short and shaky, and hit the red button.

He’d barely made it a step when the phone started buzzing again, MM calling once more. Growling in frustration, Ben pressed the red button again, only from it to buzz with a series of those fucking banners.

Marvin Milk: Holder of Incorrect Dr. Dre Opinions

Fucking pick up.

Butcher said you and Soldier Boy were fighting.

If you don’t fucking pick up right now I’m driving over and yelling at you.

Or I’m sending Annie.

Ben glowered in disbelief at the phone, stone-like, hot rage filling through him. How fucking dare they even fucking think that Ben might fucking hurt her like fucking Homelander when that’s exactly what he was trying to fucking avoid- 

This time, when the phone rang, Ben slammed the green button.

MM’s voice, sharp with relief, said Her name through the speaker. “Fucking hell, pick up the first time, you were going to give me a goddamn heart attack-“

“What the fuck is your problem.” Ben snapped, and the line fell so silent Ben thought it had dropped.“

After what must have been a fucking eternity, MM spoke, his voice firm and cold. “Soldier Boy, put Her on the phone right fucking now.”

“She’s not talking to me,” Ben said, ignoring the way the Thing became pained at his words.

“I swear to fucking God, if you don’t put her on right fucking now I’ll knock out myself and ship you back to Russia. If you fucking laid one disgusting hand on her-“

“I didn’t fucking touch her.“ Ben growled, the drums falling into rhythm with his fury. “I am not fucking Homelander.”

 “You think I’m just going to fucking trust you about that? Butcher said you had a fight, and now you’re picking up her phone. If it walks like a Soldier Boy, talks like a Soldier Boy, then you fucking hurt her.”

“ I didn’t fucking hurt her! ” Ben roared at the phone, and Butcher’s voice came, muffled, through the speaker.

“Is that him? Give me the fucking phone, I need to talk to the cunt.”

“No,” MM’s voice was distant now, shouting at Butcher. “I need to make sure this motherfucker didn’t-“

“She can’t die Mate, she’s bloody fine. Give me the fucking phone.” There were sounds of shuffling, and when Butcher spoke again his voice was loud and crisp. “Stuck in the rotten bloody dog house, eh Gov?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Ben snapped. “It’s none of your fucking business.”

“I mean, if you start to hurt her might as well fucking be-“

“Fucking watch it, Butcher.” Ben hissed. “The only person in danger right now is your fucking pussy ass.”

“Well, aren’t we touchy.” Butcher sneered.

“You want your fucking answer or not?” Ben glanced back at the door, where She had become suspiciously quiet. The only sign of life Ben had to grasp was her uneven heartbeat, and even that was soft.

Butcher sighed dramatically through the phone. “If you want to suck all the bleedin fun out of it, fine. What’s it gonna be, Soldier Boy? Am I telling Homelander and Sage to find a wood chipper to stick their asses and heads in?”

“I’m in.” Ben said shortly, firmly. “Come and get me when it’s ready.”

“That’ll be in,” there was a slight pause before Butcher continued. “Eight hours.”

 “Eight hours?” Ben repeated with a frown. “You pussies think you can get everything ready in eight fucking hours?”

“We’ve been ready for a week, Gov.” Butcher’s voice sounded fucking smug, and Ben wished he could punch the man through the phone. “Let’s just say I had a good feeling about your answer.”

“Fine. Eight hours. But if you’re not here on time, I’m not fucking going.” Ben didn’t wait for Butcher’s snarking, bitch-mouthed questions or mockery before he hung up, finally marching over to Her door and pushing it open.

She wasn’t on the bed. Or the floor. Or on the tacky armchair. Or at the shitty desk. She wasn’t in the room at all, and Ben’s heart fucking stopped, the drums building and building. He was fucking seconds away from tearing the whole damn room apart when he noticed the bathroom door hanging open, the lights off but the fans humming filling the room in time with taps of Moon River, both covering her already faint heartbeat.

“Sunshine?” He grunted, and heard Her heart stutter. “I have your phone.”

She didn’t answer, and Ben took a few steps closer to the door, abandoning the phone on Her bed.

“I know you’re in there,” he said Her name carefully. “I can fucking hear you.”

Still nothing. The Thing was grabbing Ben so tight he had to think to breathe.

“Are you still fucking pissed at me about the meeting?” He snapped, trying to fight the Thing and get Her just fucking acknowledge him. “Because if that’s what the fucking silent treatment is about, I don’t-“

Something cluttered in the bathroom, and She appeared at the door. Her eyes were red, face drawn in an angry scowl, and even from his place a few feet away, Ben could feel the heat off of her. But what made the Thing start to claw, feral and fucking desperate, at Ben’s ribs, was that She didn’t look angry or violent. She didn’t even look sad and broken. She just looked empty.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” She said flatly, watching Ben with hollow eyes. “I’m not giving you the silent treatment. I just don’t want to talk to you.”

“You’re being fucking dramatic-“

“Am I?” She shrugged. “What a fucking inconvenience.”

“What the fuck is your problem?” Ben’s voice was rising, and he couldn’t fucking stop it, especially as She didn’t even flinch. “It’s not like I fucking laid hands on you!”

She let out a low, humorless laugh. “Yeah, sure. Good work, Ben. Real white horse moment, you didn’t beat me up.”

“That’s not what I fucking meant and you damn know it.”

“Maybe.” She sighed again. “Are you done?” 

“Not until you fucking tell me what you’re fucking problem is-“

“Why should I?” She said flatly, looking away from him. “We don’t have to tell each other everything.”

Ben stared at Her as she still didn’t meet his eyes, her words—his words—echoing through his head, the Thing twisting in his throat. “Is that what you’re being so fucking bitchy about? That I didn’t fucking tell you about one goddamn thing?”

Something flashed in Her eyes, and even though it was a bone-chilling rage, Ben felt something unwind deep in his gut that she wasn’t just fucking vacant.

“You didn’t just not tell me about one thing, you fucking lied to me.” Something in Her voice snapped. “You said you hadn’t heard from Butcher! You said we were fucking benched, when it was just fucking me! When Butcher had told you about Homelander’s stupid fucking offer and not me!” Her voice was climbing to a raw, broken scream. “You said you wouldn’t fucking lie.” Her words were choked. “ You fucking lied, Ben. ”

In his life, Ben had been an asshole a damn lot, and though he’d never managed to be bothered by it—he wasn’t a fucking emotional pussy and it wasn’t his goddamn fault that everyone else was—it hadn’t stopped people from screaming at him, calling him every foul name in the English language, and wishing pain upon him both to his face and behind closed doors. This was, for some fucking reason Ben didn’t want to even spare a thought to, worse then all of that in every fucking way imaginable. Her silent sobs that she seemed to be trying to push down her throat, Her refusal to fully look at him for more than a second, Her voice as she screamed at him so fucking shattered and anguished.

He shouldn’t fucking care. It wasn’t a big fucking deal, it had been one little lie. Fuck, it hadn't even been a damn lie, just an omission. She was being fucking dramatic.

You hurt Her. The Thing hissed at him. You promised you wouldn’t hurt Her, and you did.

No, he fucking didn’t. He hadn’t laid a single finger on her.

People don’t act like that if they’re not hurt.

He hadn’t fucking hurt Her. If anything, She was fucking hurting him with her broken eyes and sobs.

The Thing was trying to burst out of him. She’s broken because you hurt her. Because she trusted you, and you lied.

It was her own damn fault, then. Ben wouldn’t even fucking trust himself, and he certainly hadn’t forced Her to.

But she did. The Thing growled. For some fucking reason, She trusted you. And you fucking hurt her. Like fucking Homelander.

That was it. Ben wasn’t like fucking Homelander. He hadn’t fucking hurt her. But she was still fucking crying, backing away from him into the shadows as he just stood there like a fucking dickless asshole.

So, against all of his better judgment, Ben let the Thing win. Once. Never fucking again, but right now he just needed Her to stop fucking hurting, and if the Thing could make him fix this, then Ben would let it win just fucking once.

He took a step towards Her, and something wrapped around his lungs released as She let Ben wrap her shaking body into his arms, let him pull her head against his chest and keep her there. They stood there, Ben holding Her until her breathing steadied and body cooled. When—after what was either a second or a year—she whispered, her voice carried into and through Ben’s body. 

“I’m sorry-“ She started, but he pulled back to look down at her, and she cut herself off as she met his gaze. 

“Don’t be. You were…” the words struggled out of him, the Thing pushing them up. “Not wrong.”

She gave a shaky laugh, and that carried through Ben too. “I was still being a bitch. You’re right, we don’t have to tell each other everything-“ 

“No.” He cut Her off fully this time, and she blinked up at him, eyes wide and pretty. Ben swallowed, forcing himself to stop starting like a pathetic asshole and just fucking talk. “I told you I had nothing to hide. I fucking meant it.”

She tilted her head at him, watching him with a look he didn’t understand. “Then why did you lie?”

Her voice was soft, and the Thing was making an awfully fucking convincing argument to never let her go.

“I didn’t lie.” Ben grunted, and was met with a flat look and a pinch on his arm.

“Ben.”

He rolled his eyes, grip around Her tightening. “I didn’t fucking lie, Sunshine. I just-“

“Omitted the truth?” She gave him a small smile, and the Thing jumped. “That’s a form of lying, Pretty Boy.”

 “Well, I knew you’d have a fucking opinion about this like you do for every damn thing, and maybe I just didn’t want fucking to hear it.”

“Hm,” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you think I’d say?”

“To go.” He stared ahead as he spoke, silently hoping She’d, for once in her fucking life, be satisfied with his answer.

He should’ve known a lot damn better by now.

“That it?”

Ben’s gaze dropped back down to Her, loathing how the light of the dawn was pushing through the curtains, casting her face in soft light that fit her stupid fucking perfect face so well. Ben loathed even more that she wasn’t scowling at him, wasn’t even glaring, just watching with an amused, gentle look of I don’t believe you, Ben. You’re a fucking shit liar, and it’s funny you think you’re not.

Ben wanted to tell Her that, no, he was actually an amazing fucking liar. He’d managed to jerk himself off multiple times a day for the past week and she had no fucking clue.

Instead, he rolled his eyes at Her, trying to imitate that boring, amused tone of Hers that always made him fucking insane. “You would’ve fucking tried to go as well. And that’s only happening over my dead fucking body.”

She gave a small, fake annoyed huff. “That’s not fair. You can’t die.”

“I’m serious.” Ben frowned. “Homelander’s going to be there. You’re not fucking going, Sunshine.”

She blinked at him with that same look from before, confusing the fucking hell out him. “But-“

“No.” Ben forced himself to pull away from Her, snarling in his head at the Thing’s whining as he did so. “End of fucking discussion. This isn’t like Firecracker, where Homelander might be there. He will be. You’re not fucking going.”

She frowned, arms folding across her chest in a way that pushed her tits forward-

Ben swore at himself. This was getting fucking ridiculous.

“You’re not my boss, Ben. If I want to go, I’m going.”

“Sunshine, I don’t know if you recently went deaf-“ Ben ignored her scoff. “Or are just suddenly very fucking stupid, but you keep somehow missing the part where Homelander is going to be there.”

“I can fucking hear you, cunt, I just-“

“Are being a fucking brat on purpose? I don’t even think you fucking want to go, I think you just don’t like me being fucking right.”

Her lips pursed and the gnawing began, but She remained silent as she glared up at him. Ben felt both a rush of triumph and a breath of weird fucking relief from the Thing.

“How about this, Sunshine. They’ll be here in a little more than seven hours. You convince them to let you go, I won’t fight it. But-“ Ben lowered his tone, making it clear as fucking day that he was being goddamn serious. “If they say no, you stay here without any fucking dramatics.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but nodded, and extended her hand. “Deal.”

Ben snorted. “You want to fucking shake on it?”

“Want to prove you’re the noble fucking asshole gentleman you’re always bragging about being?” She nodded down to her hand. “Fucking shake on it, Pretty Boy.”

Ben winked at Her. “I’m no fucking gentleman, Sunshine. Thought your pretty little head would’ve figured that out by now.”

She only glared. “If you don’t shake my hand right fucking now, I’m fulfilling my promise about melting off your face and then going to the meeting by myself.”

“Brat,” Ben muttered, and the Thing fucking purred in goddamn satisfaction as he heard her heart did that little roll. It still didn’t fucking mean anything worth mentioning, Ben decided. It just meant She wasn’t that mad at him anymore, and that was why the relief was fucking consuming him. Because She was back to her normal self, getting on every last fucking nerve of his without any damn tears.

“Cunt.” She flexed her hand, and, frowning, Ben gave Her a firm shake. A smile split across Her face, and though her eyes were still red and tired, there was no hint of that emptiness remaining. “Lovely. I look forward to attending the meeting.”

Ben found it adorable that She believed he would’ve even fucking offered the deal if he thought a single goddamn member of her team would let her go. They had trained like normal, Ben changing into his suit afterward—because there was no fucking way Butcher was making him go in goddamn sweats—and they had spent the remaining hours leading up to the meeting on the couch, watching TV in what would have been uneasy silence, had it not been for Her leaning into his side with an ease of someone who had done it a million times. Ben somehow managed to stay still, both shutting the Thing up with inner, vulgar threats, and exerting an impressive amount of stealth in concealing his boner, which had returned with a vengeance Ben didn’t fucking appreciate. And—as he had predicted—when Butcher arrived with the French Prick and Kimiko, there was universal agreement that She wasn’t allowed to be in attendance.

“This is fucking bullshit!” She yelled at Butcher, giving his chest a firm shove. Ben was a little impressed the man didn’t topple over or cower in fear, but Butcher would never get to fucking know it.

“Sorry, Love, but Soldier Boy’s right. You’d just be a bloody problem that we ain’t got time to deal with.” Butcher turned to Ben, giving a sweeping gesture to the door. “After you, Gov.”

“How are you going to control Ben, huh?!” Her voice was desperate, and the Thing wanted to hold her again, despite Ben’s annoyance at Her apparent lack of fucking faith in him. “What if he goes rogue? And I’m not there to stop him?!”

“Fuck you too, Sunshine.” Ben muttered, and She shot him a glare.

“Shut up, this isn’t about you.”

He snorted, and She stuck her tongue out at him.

“You cunts can stand here and eye-fuck each other as long as you bloody please, but when Soldier Boy finally gets off and we go, you’re staying here, Love.”

“But what if-“

The French Prick said Her name smoothly. “Do not worry, madame. The CIA gave me enough of their gas to knock out all of Espagne, and I mixed with my own cocktail of fun, so if the connard goes nuclear-“ The French Prick gave Ben a smirk. “I will knock his arse to sleep before he can even say oops.”

Ben glowered at the French Prick, the drums sounding distantly. He could fucking control himself, this was goddamn unnecessary, and he fucking doubted their pussy fucking gas would even damn work on him. But She was starting to look like she might just run out door and chase the van they’d brought all the way to wherever Butcher had planned the meeting, so Ben clenched his fists and ignored the approaching rhythm.

“Let’s just get this fucking over it.” He grunted, pushing around Butcher to the door.

“That’s more bloody like it,” Butcher smirked. “Let get this fucking show on the damn road, Gov.”

Ben glanced back once before he stepped outside, half hoping to see Her watching him—even if it was with an angry glare of when you get back I’m going to cut your dick off—but found Her exchanging those weird fucking gestures with Kimiko, her face cast in a shadow so he couldn’t read it.

Kimiko eventually turned, walking past Ben and through the door, and his eyes met Hers.

Don’t fucking die, Pretty Boy. Her frown told him.

The Thing wanted to stay there. It didn’t want to bring Her, even it wasn’t that fucking stupid. But it was roaring around in him just the fucking anticipation of leaving Her.

“Don’t fucking miss me too much, Sunshine.” Ben said, adding a wink before he turned.

He didn’t miss her sharp exhale, or her mumbled words, before the door closed between them. “I’ll try.”

Because Butcher was out to fucking get him, the something that had been set up to hold Ben was just the van—improved by a deadbolt Ben was pretty fucking sure he could snap in half without a thought—along Kimiko glaring at him and the French Prick holding a can of gas. For the first half hour, Butcher humming something Ben didn’t recognize—but was still certain was off-key and tempo—was the only sound aside from the engine. Ben broke after deciding that, if Kimiko and the French Prick kept doing those fucking gestures at each other, he’d have to take his bets with the gas and kill them both.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ben grunted, and they both turned to look at him.

“ Que? ” The French Prick looked him up and down wearily.

Ben mimed their gestures. “The fuck is that.”

“Monsieur Soldier Boy-“ The French Prick was cut off as Kimiko hit his arm, gesturing aggressively when his attention turned to her. “ Mon Coeur, there is no harm in him knowing.”

“Knowing what?” Ben scowled, and Kimiko glared at him, continuing her movements as the French Prick shook his head.

“She does not want me to tell you,” the French Prick frowned, beginning to gesture himself. “Although, Madame Anomaly-“

 “Don’t call her that.” Ben snapped.

The French Prick blinked, and Kimiko, frowned, doing more gestures that involved a lot of fucking pointing at Ben.

“ Mon Coeur, please, it’ll make it easier.” Kimiko rolled her eyes, but sat back with a huff. The French Pricks attention returned to Ben. “This is how she speaks.”

“Yeah, I fucking figured that out myself.” Ben said with an eye roll. “Why is she a fucking mute?”

Kimiko flipped Ben off, and he glared at her as the French Prick sighed. “Her parents were killed, right before her eyes. She has said no words since.”

“Oh.” Ben frowned, narrowing his eyes as he looked between them. “Fine.”

Kimiko let out another huff, gesturing to the French Prick once more.

“ Non, she could not come instead. Homelander is too big of a threat to her.” The Thing started to push against him as Ben realized they were talking about Her. “Mon Couer, she would not have just stayed in the van -“

Ben cut the French Prick off, saying Her name harshly. “Does she know?” He mimed the gestures again, and decided to pretend for Kimiko’s sake he didn’t see her eye roll. “I’ve seen her fucking waving her hands at you, so don’t fucking lie to me.”

“ Oui,” the French Prick said, sounding more tired by the fucking second. “When she joined us, she insisted we teach her.”

“Of course she did.” Ben grumbled. She was too damn kind for her own fucking good. One day it was going to get Her fucking killed.

The Thing didn’t like that thought, rearing against his throat, and Ben could almost fucking hear her response.

Me being kind is a lot less likely to get me killed than being a dick to everyone all the fucking time is, Pretty Boy. You should follow my example.

Maybe he would, Ben smiled to himself. Not to be kind, that was fucking stupid, but because if he followed Her he would be able to save her dumbass when he was proven right. Plus, he liked watching Her walk. She always moved with such fucking purpose, her hips doing a little sway and her hair bouncing, it was really fucking hot.

The French Prick coughed, opening his mouth to say something and snapping Ben out of his thoughts.

“How much longer until we’re there?” Ben said before the French Prick had gotten a syllable out, having no interest in whatever had been about to be said, especially—if his suspicion was correct—about Her.

“Almost there, Gov.” Butcher called from the front.

“And there fucking is?”

“FBSA HQ.”

Ben was going to take Butcher’s asshole and bend him until it was next to his mouth, and Butcher had to swallow his own fucking shit forever. “Fucking words, you dickfaced pussy.”

Butcher snorted. “Federal Bureau of Supe Affairs. You ain’t thick enough to not get HQ by your bloody self.”

“You let them choose it?” Ben scowled at the back of Butcher’s head. “Or man the fuck up and this is your fucking pick?”

“Compromise, Mate.” Butcher grinned, toothy and mocking, in the rearview mirror. “We wanted somewhere public, they wanted somewhere private. Government property is the middle ground.”

“Fucking pussy.” Ben muttered under his breath, and as Butcher laughed coldly, the van came to a halt.

“Let’s get a bloody move on.” Butcher stood from his seat. “Lot of shit to do and not much fuckin time to get it done.” 

At the request of the building’s security—some fucking pussy shit about not inciting a panic by having Soldier Boy walk into the lobby of a government building—Ben was herded through a back entrance, Butcher leading them through the flickering halls and up the elevator as the French Prick and Kimiko walked a pace behind, the French Prick gripping the gas like a pussy with a fucking lifeline.

When they entered the meeting room, a fucking insane amount of floors up and through a goddamn stupid amount of doors, Homelander was pacing back and forth before a floor-to-ceiling window as Sage and another woman—one Ben didn’t recognize in shiny fucking pantsuit with long black hair—sat on the far side of a conference table.

“Oi!” Butcher reached to his back, pulling out a gun and aiming it at the pantsuit lady. “She wasn’t on the fucking guess list.”

“Neither were they,” Sage said cooly, inclining her head towards Kimiko and the French Prick. “So we all broke a promise, and it’s even.”

“And put that away, William.” Homelander said, giving Butcher a large smile and a dismissive wave. “You look ridiculous. Vicky here will pop your brains before you even switch off the safety.”

“Don’t call me Vicky,” the woman’s voice was tense, giving Homelander weary side-eye. “But he is right, Butcher. You know that won’t hurt any of us.”

“Maybe.” Butcher sneered. “But I’m a man of science, I’d like to bloody see for myself.”

“Just sit down so we can get this over with,” Sage ordered, looking over her shoulder to where Homelander still stood, chest puffed and hands on hips. “Homelander, that means you as well.”

Homelander glared down at Sage before turning his gaze to Butcher, and then Ben.

He looked fucking pathetic, just as fucking weak as Ben remembered. Still wearing a fucking cape like a pussy, still strutting around like a goddamn toddler, looking fucking desperate for fucking approval. The only difference—something Ben wasn’t sure was new from their last meeting or something he saw because of Her—was the edge in Homelander’s eyes. The pussyfucker had looked psychotic, eyes too fucking blue and smile too fucking wide, but there was something crazed behind his movements. Something a lot more fucking careless. A lot more fucking dangerous.

“Soldier Boy.” Homelander said, voice level as that same insanity glinted in his eyes.

Ben kept his voice level as he responded, fighting every instinct to slam the weak pussies head into the glass of the window. “Homelander.” 

“Can you both just sit down?” Sage said, exasperated as she looked between them. “The longer you measure your dicks at each other, the longer this goes.”

Homelander didn’t move, so Ben didn’t either.

“Fine,” Sage rolled her eyes. “Stand the whole time for all I fucking care.” She leaned forwards, clasping her hands on the table. “We asked you here to-“

“Who the fuck is she.“ Ben pointed at the pantsuit lady, who nobody had thought to fucking clue him in on the identity of.

“Victoria Neuman, Vice President of the United States.” The woman said, giving Ben a cool smile. “I believe you tried to kill me a month ago.”

Ben frowned. “Head-popper.”

Neuman sighed. “Yeah, sure. Head-popper.”

"How’d you even get away from your security cunts?” Butcher mused, eyeing Neuman. “Vought put them on payroll?”

She turned her frown to Butcher. “As you know, the secret service is a lot more inept than the public is led to believe. They think I ate bad seafood last night, and am pushing it out in a restroom three floors down.”

“Well, don’t I feel just peachy about having them protecting this great nation against threats.” Butcher jeered, and Neuman narrowed her eyes.

“You blew up my rally, Butcher. That was literally political terrorism.”

Butcher shrugged. “That particular firework show wasn’t mine, Popper.”

Homelander gave a toothy grin, walking forward to stand at the edge of the table. “It was her, wasn’t it?” He looked down at Sage. “I fucking told you, didn’t I? I said that it reminded me of her, and you said it wasn’t. Well I was fucking right.” The last words came out hissed through teeth, his smile never breaking.

Ben wanted to tear it off his face. The Thing was in favor of that plan.

“I said it wasn’t because, at the time, I thought she was dead. Like you’d told me she was.” Sage frowned.

Homelander shrugged, dropping into one of the seats and gripping the armrests. “How was I supposed to know she survived the fire? Those fucking scientists didn’t put down that she’d developed fire powers.”

“You said she combusted.”

“And caused the fire!” Homelander rolled his eyes. “It was a perfectly rational train of thought! She takes the fourth V shot, fire starts, she’s gone!” His face fell, body tensing as his eyes narrowed at Butcher across the table. “I didn’t think William had stooped to kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping?” Butcher laughed in disbelief. “You think I kidnapped her?”

Homelander sighed dramatically, gesturing his gloved hands as he spoke. “You kidnapped Soldier Boy! Twice!”

 “Nobody kidnaps me.” Ben growled, taking the seat next to Butcher. “I’m here because I fucking want to be.”

“Yeah,” Sage interjected. “And the can of gas is just… decoration?” Her attention turned to the French Prick. “Enflurane?” 

“ Oui,” the French Prick looked fucking proud of himself as he answered. “Combined with Agent Orange and mustard gas.”

Neuman gave the French prick a stare of shocked disgust. “Frenchie, how did you get your hands on Agent Orange?!“

“I made my own, Madame Neuman. With a little extra kick.”

Ben glared at Butcher. “That shit better staying in the fucking can.”

“You stay in line, and we’ll all pretend it’s not even bloody there.”

“ Stay in line? ” Homelander scoffed. “You let them talk to you like that? When you could squash each one like a fly? ”

“Stay on topic.” Sage warned. “We have an actual reason for being here, and I would like to get to it.”

“I second that,” Neuman raised her hand. “I want to go home.”

“Nobody’s fucking making you be here, Popper.” Butcher sneered at her. “You can leave whenever you bloody feel like it.”

Neuman ignored him with an ease, and Ben liked her a little more.

“We asked you here,” Sage began. “To talk. About the Anomaly. And Soldier Boy.”

“Yeah, I bloody figured.” Butcher said casually, face painfully bored. “What about them?”

“Your plans. Specifically with her. I want to know them.” Sage watched Butcher carefully as she spoke, gaze flicking to Ben only once.

Butcher laughed, loudly. “Oh, that all? Could this not have been a damn email I’d fucking delete?”

“I’m serious, Butcher.” Sage didn’t waver, pressing forward. “I’m curious what your plans are with the Anomaly. She’s not exactly stable. I want to know exactly how you plan on keeping her under control, especially after Firecracker.”

The Thing roared, and Ben didn’t fucking mind it at all. Images of Her curled on her bed, of Her sobbing in arms, of Her looking fucking afraid and hopeless flashed in Ben’s eyes. Her screams, broken and painful, longing for fucking death, echoed in his ears. Ben’s own hands had become fists under the table, and the only thing keeping him from slamming them across Sage’s face was Her voice in his head. Fucking diplomacy, Ben. This is why you needed me here.

Homelander started to speak, and Ben remained fully fucking confident in not bringing Her. Damn ghost of her voice could whine all it wanted, but the real Her was miles away, and fucking safe.

“You know not to touch her, right?” Homelander asked, looking between Butcher, Ben, the French Prick, and Kimiko. “She’ll tell you to, say it’s to heal you, but she’s actually poking around in your fucking brains. Well,” his eyes stopped on Kimiko with a frown. “If you have a functional one.”

Kimiko glared at him, and the French Prick rested a hand atop her leg. “I would not make her mad,” the French Prick said carefully. “She has a remarkably functional brain, and has grown quite fond of the Anomaly.”

Homelander let out laugh, strained and forceful. “Of course she has,” he said Her name with a lilting, bright tone, and the Thing started clawing and bellowing inside Ben. “A lot more than just a pretty face, isn’t she? Crafty little thing, could charm a slug.” His attention returned to Butcher. “She sang for you yet? That’s how she works her little fucking spell. Sinks her claws into you until to giving her fucking everything. ” The last words were spat out, and Homelander wasn’t smiling anymore.

The Thing was howling, but Ben pushed it down, teeth were grinding so tightly he might break them.

“You think you gave her everything? ” Butcher sneered at Homelander, giving a taunting chuckle. “Mate, she goes cuckoo at just the mention of your name.”

“So, you know she can’t control herself?” Sage ignored Homelander’s glare—his mouth had opened to respond to Butcher—as she cut him off. “And yet you enable her anyways? Why?”

“Listen, Sister. If you brought us here just to ask questions about the Anomaly, you’ve only wasted your own bloody time. We ain’t ‘sharing our plans’ with you.” Butcher scoffed. “I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

“I am smart,” Sage’s voice remained level. “I can’t be blamed for you not cooperating.”

“You just asked us for our fucking plans, Lady. If that had been our war strategy against the Nazi’s, we’d have fucking lost.” Ben interjected, and Sage raised her brows at him.

“Maybe.” Was all Sage said, and a chill ran through Ben.

“That it, then? Cause we’ll be on our fucking way.” Butcher started to stand, and Sage raised her hand to stop him.

“What about Soldier Boy, then,” Sage asked as if Ben wasn’t right fucking there. “He has debilitating PTSD, and has proven to be a liability. Even if you get a shot, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to fully control his blast.”

“Who says that’s what we’re planning?” Butcher snapped. “If it was, we’d just fucking do it now, wouldn’t we?”

“No.” Sage smiled. “Because you’re smarter than that, Butcher. Not by much, but you are.”

“Is she healthy?” Homelander said suddenly, leaning forward. “Is she eating? Or still starving herself just to fucking spite me?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ben growled, the Thing was roaring inside him.

Homelander rolled his eyes. “When she’d get all mournful about her old, stupid, boring life that I saved her from, she’d starve herself. Wouldn’t fucking eat anything I brought her, even cake! Just to make me mad!” He sighed. “I used to have to force her to eat, cause she was fucking useless when she would throw those little tantrums. When we started V, she was doing it so much the third shot didn’t take! She made me waste it! ”

Ben wasn’t sure if it was the Thing or just his own rage coursing through him. It was like steel, burning steel through his blood that wanted to kill Homelander, moving into Ben’s head and blinding him to any possible issues with that idea. He didn’t fucking care. All Ben could feel was fucking fury, white and cold fury at Homelander’s words. All that was in his head were thoughts of Her carefree and bloodless, of the life she’d told him about, and of Her shrinking into nothing as it was pulled away from Her. 

She hadn’t fucking told Ben about the food. She’d eaten less after Firecracker, but she’d still eaten. Homelander said he’d had to force food into Her. 

Looking at Butcher, the French Prick, and Kimiko—all wearing similar expressions of horrified, shocked anger—Ben had a feeling She hadn’t told them about it either.

“I thought I’d wasted the fourth shot too,” Homelander continued, and Ben didn’t know if he hadn’t noticed the cold shift in the room, or just didn’t give a shit. “Oh, I was mad about that. Wasn’t I?” He turned to Neuman and Sage, but pressed on before they could speak. “I mean, neither of you were there, but I was. I was so mad. I thought I’d lost her, too. It was awful.”

“I’m sure it was really bloody hard for you,” Butcher grunted, and Homelander rolled his eyes.

“I know you’re being sarcastic William, but it was. You have no clue what it’s like to lose someone like that!”

Butcher’s jaw clenched. “I might have a fucking idea.”

“Oh, because of Becca? She was fun, believe me, I know.” Homelander laughed, and Ben had never seen Butcher’s knuckles so white before, heard his heart beat so fast. “But she was mortal. Human.” Homelander said the word with disgust, face twisting in a sneer.

“The Anomaly was human too,” Neuman said softy, and Homelander scowled at her.

“I fixed that. Now she’s almost as strong as me. Almost as strong as you!” Homelander gestured at Ben, and Ben started fantasizing about ripping his hand off. “I would be open to a custody agreement, you know. You get Ryan for a week, I get her at the same time, we switch back.” 

“Not a fucking chance in hell,” Ben growled, and Homelander sighed.

“She’ll come back to me eventually. She needs me to help her, and when she realizes that I’m the only one who can, she’ll come back.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath, cunt.” Butcher said coldly. “She might have a slightly different memory of your time together. Are we fuckin done here?” Butcher turned to Sage, who hummed.

“Sure.” Sage didn’t look at Butcher, and Ben realized she was watching him. Her eyes were scanning Ben, sending a crawling feeling along his skin. “Good luck controlling him,” Sage nodded towards Ben. “And the Anomaly.”

“We’ll manage.” Butcher stood, the French Prick and Kimiko following his lead.

“I look forward to seeing whatever terrible plans you’ve made.” Sage smiled, still watching Ben.

 “I’m sure you fuckin are.” Butcher sneered, kicking the legs of Ben’s chair. “Up and at ‘em, Gov. Waste of our bloody time.”

Ben stood, moving from the table. Butcher was, for once in his damn life, right. This had been a complete waste of their fucking time, Sage had asked them here just to fuck with their heads, and all these fucking pussies hadn’t even given Ben an opportunity to get any blood on his suit-

“You know,” Homelander said, just before Butcher could open the door. “I never really understood Helen of Troy. I mean, launching a thousand ships with a face?” He laughed. “Fucking ridiculous. Then, I met her, and I got it.”

The Thing was scraping against Ben’s ribs, and his vision was lined with red as Homelander continued.

“She may have betrayed me, like Helen betrayed Menelaus, letting Paris take her, but I forgive her. I want her to come home.” He gave Butcher a wide, toothy, chilling smile. “Tell her I’m going to make sure she comes home soon.”

Ben was going to kill him. Now. The French Prick’s gas wouldn’t fucking stop him, because nothing fucking could. He was going to rip Homelander’s spine from his back and bash his head against the table until his brains leaked from his ears. He didn’t have his shield, or a gun, and there were no drums, but Ben didn’t fucking need any of it. He was going to kill Homelander with his bare fucking hands.

The only thing that saved Homelander were the next words he spoke. “And, like Menelaus, I’ll do anything to bring her back to me.”

Ben had left Her at the safe house. Alone. The Thing had told him not to and he’d ignored it and now she was alone all by her fucking self and there was no one there to keep her safe-

I’m a grown ass woman, Ben, Her voice echoed in his head. I will handle my goddamn self.

Doesn’t fucking matter, the Thing snapped. She’s alone. They called you here so she’d fucking be alone.

Ben turned, almost pulling the door off its hinges as he opened it. “Let’s fucking go.” He grunted to Butcher, and if the man was surprised by Ben’s sudden movement, he didn’t show it.

“Aye aye, Gov.” Butcher shrugged, and as Ben marched down the hall he heard Butcher say one last thing before following. “We’ll see you all in bloody hell.”

Ben’s body was rigid. His hand had dropped into his suits’ pocket, gripping the crumpled piece of paper in it might suddenly make Her fucking appear. Nobody spoke until they returned to the van, and the Thing wouldn’t stop hissing in his ear.

She’s alone. She’s not safe. Homelander might already know where she is, and she’ll freeze. She’ll see him and freeze and he’ll lock her up again.

“Frenchie,” Butcher’s terse words were barely audible over the ringing in Ben’s ears. “Check the cams.”

That got Ben’s attention, the Thing falling silent as he asked, “Cams?”

“Monitors,” Butcher grunted. “All around the house.” He raised his brows at Ben, the smirk on his face slightly strained. “You didn’t think we just left you two alone together with blind fuckin faith?”

“Butcher,” the French Prick held up a flat piece of glass that reminded Ben of Her phone. “She is in the kitchen, all is well.”

Ben didn’t bother to ask before he grabbed the fucking thing out of the French Prick’s hands. He narrowed his eyes as he examined it, the display filled with high angled videos of the safe house. The living room, completely empty and the TV off. The dining room, furniture shoved to the side with a few scorch marks on the floor. The entrance hall, lights off and Her boots near the door.

The kitchen, where She was moving around in the same clothes he’d left her in. Talking to someone they couldn't see. 

Ben’s blood ran cold, and the Thing was spinning in his gut. 

“I can’t fucking hear her.” Ben snapped, looking up at the French Prick. “She’s talking to someone. Who the fuck is she talking to.”

“The audio’s off, Mate.” Butcher rolled his eyes, giving Ben an amused look that, in any other scenario, would’ve resulted in a loss of his sight privileges.

“Turn it on.” Ben ordered, and the French Prick glanced at Butcher uncertainty. Butcher only shrugged.

“Don’t make no bloody difference to me. Whatever keeps the cunt from exploding.”

The French Prick nodded, and tried to grab the device from Ben with no success.

“Fucking watch it,” Ben growled, gripping the glass block—Her—tightly.

“I cannot give you sound if you will not let me touch the screen, Soldier Boy. S’il te plaît.”

“What the fuck does that mean.”

“He’s fucking saying please, Gov.” Butcher gave Ben a bored look. “Give Frenchie the damn tablet, or you don’t get to fucking hear Sunshine.”

Ben hated the way Butcher said Sunshine, drawling with a snipe in his voice. But he hated—the Thing hated—not knowing what She was saying just a fucking fraction more, so Ben shoved the “tablet” into the French Pricks hands.

“Fix it.” He glared at French Prick, who nodded nervously and started tapping the glass in quick movements.

The audio sounded suddenly through the van, a lot louder than Ben had expected. Even Butcher’s heart stuttered as Her voice filled the small space. The Thing fell quiet, desperate to hear what She was saying, who she was saying it to, if she sounded afraid or in pain.

She didn’t. She wasn’t even talking to anyone. Ben watched Butcher’s jaw drop, the French Prick’s eyes widen, and Kimiko’s head shoot up as they all realized what they were hearing at the same time he did.

She was singing. 

Her voice was clear, and controlled, and powerful. It rolled like wind, hitting every high and dipping to every low, holding long notes with a vengeful strength. It moved into Ben’s bones, ran through his blood. The Thing sighed in fucking content at the sound, and Ben didn’t fucking blame it. It sounded like honey and silk and the sun. It felt good.

“She said she couldn’t bloody sing.” Ben looked up at Butcher, whose voice was cold and face was drawn into frown. “That sounds like she can fucking sing.”

Ben grunted. She had said she couldn’t sing. She’d described her singing as hell-like. This wasn’t fucking hell-like by a million goddamn miles.

“Maybe she had a reason,” the French Prick reasoned, but his voice was unsteady, unsure. “It would be a very strange thing to lie about, non? ”

Kimiko slapped the French Prick, gesturing something that made his eyes grow even fucking wider.

“ Mon Coeur, why wouldn’t she tell us though?”

More fucking silent gestures. Ben’s patience snapped.

“What the fuck is she saying?” He demanded, and the French Prick looked back at him wearily.

“She remembers something Homelander said.” The French Prick glanced back at Kimiko. “He, ah, he asked if she had sung for us. Said that was how she ‘worked her spell’. Kimiko believes that she does not sing because of Homelander.”

“Mate, she’s singing right bloody now.” Butcher sneered, and Kimiko glared at him, making more aggressive gestures.

“She says that she does not know people are watching.” The French Prick said carefully. “And that it does not matter, because it is not our business anyway. Because we are spying on her, and she would tell us if it really mattered.”

She would, the Thing rumbled inside of Ben, still satiated by Her voice. She doesn’t lie to us.

She fucking might have, though. As strange a lie as it was, it was still a goddamn lie she had told him, countless times, that she couldn’t sing. Ben glanced down at the tablet, trying to see Her face, figure out what she was fucking thinking.

She wasn’t in the kitchen, and something sharp tore through Ben.

“Where the fuck did she go?” He snapped at the French Prick, who looked down with a frown and began to press the screen once more.

 “Ah,” his eyes narrowed, flitting across the display. “Likely the bathroom? She is not gone, as we can still hear her. She has just moved.”

Something occurred to Ben, tearing through his brain as it settled between torn comfort at Her safety and anger at her lie. “Are there cameras all over the house?” He asked, suddenly aware of his own heartbeat.

“Nah, Gov.” Butcher gave him another amused look. “We got audio everywhere, but no cameras in the bedrooms or bathrooms. We ain’t fucking creeps.”

Ben grunted in acknowledgement, his own heart fading into the background once more. They hadn’t seen his new habits. They didn’t know, and they wouldn’t tell Her.

You should tell Her, the Thing mumbled, somehow being less fucking helpful than ever before.

He wasn’t going to fucking tell Her. He didn’t fucking have to. In fact, as Her voice continued to flow like goddamn wine through the van, he was going to have a fucking chat with her when they got back. It didn't matter that her voice was just one more way in which she was perfect. She’d fucking lied.

But what made Ben even angrier than Her lie was that, no matter how fucking hard he tried, he wasn’t able to stop wanting to get back to her. That the Thing wasn’t angry, but had started to imagine how She’d sound if he had her singing and moaning at the same time. Ben couldn’t force the image of Her, using this same smooth voice against his ear as his fucked her, stopping every time her voice faltered, until she was a perfect mess of beautiful sounds under him

He wasn’t able to stop the feeling creeping through him that, even if She had lied, even if her reasoning was fucking shit, he wouldn’t stop sleeping peacefully in her bed.

———-

You hated Ben. You hated his smug smile and perfect face. You hated his strong body and pretty eyes. You hated his stupid deep voice that rumbled through you and his laugh that echoed in your head. You hated how he wasn’t here right now, so you could yell at him and not have this worry eating you alive. You hated that he’d left you for his own, fucked up, noble reasons, because when you’d hugged him you’d felt that concrete resolve running through him, and realized it was protectiveness. You hated how that revelation made you miss him more. 

You hated that, if he wasn’t back by nightfall, you weren’t certain you’d fucking sleep. Because you’d made a huge mistake, let the desperate feeling in your head win, and asked Ben to sleep in your bed. It had felt so important at the time, because everything had been loud and your mind had been shattering, and he’d been quiet and firm. You had felt like a hurricane was eating you, and Ben had been an island that wrapped around your heart and chased away the storm. One night, you had told yourself. One night to chase away the screams.

Then he’d started calling you brat, and it made you feel warm and soft. He’d laughed when you’d punch his jaw with a fist wrapped in flames, and you’d felt his pride rush through you. He’d draped his arm around your shoulders, and you’d felt safe. And you’d started to get sleepy, and his hand had brushed your arm, and the feeling in your head had started singing. So you had caved to it again, and asked him to sit with you again. You’d even given him an out, just until you fell asleep, because the feeling in your head had been desperate. So desperate that when Ben told you to beg, you had. You had sucked it up—ignored how the request also made you feel warm—and begged. When he’d agreed, the feeling in your head had let out a long sigh of relief, even though you’d reminded yourself he’d probably return to his room once you were soundly under.

But he hadn’t. He’d stayed. He’d slept. You had woken up, feeling something heavy on around you. Your heart had felt so peaceful, so calm, and when you’d opened your eyes you’d realized Ben’s were closed. After you’d decided that he was actually asleep, you’d noticed that the heavy thing was his arm, holding you against him. And that made the feeling in your head start to ache. Then you’d noticed that Ben snored. Loudly. It was a deep, lulling sound that had wrapped around you, and pulled you right back into sleep’s hold.

The next night, you’d been tearing your insides apart, trying to fight the feeling in your head from grabbing your tongue and making you ask him to sleep in your bed again, when he’d look at you in the glow of the TV and solved the problem for you.

“It’s late.” He’d said, and you’d scoffed.

“Really?” Your voice had been sarcastic, and you’d given him a fake, wide-eyed look of disbelief. “I thought the Sun had just decided to take fifteen.” “Shut up, brat.” He’d smirked back at you, and your whole body had done a little flip under your skin, the feeling in your head spreading everywhere. “You’re tired.” 

He hadn’t been asking. He’d been telling. And been entirely correct in a way that made the Feeling very happy and you very annoyed. “No, I’m not. Cunt.” Your protest had sounded weak, especially given that you’d almost immediately yawned after saying it. 

“Sunshine, you look like shit.” You’d frowned at him, and he’d rolled his eyes as he continued. “Pretty shit, but shit.”

The Feeling liked being called pretty. You were caught up on the shit aspect. “You don’t look any better,” you’d grumbled. It wasn’t true, he looked so good it made you violent, but he didn’t have to know that.

Ben had winked. “Sure, Sunshine. Just try not to pass out on the couch. I don’t want sit here all night, but there’s no fucking way I’m carrying you up the stairs.”

It had taken a moment to notice his implication, and when you had the Feeling become heavy. “You’re sleeping in my bed again?”

He hadn’t looked at you when he’d answered with a shrug. “Sure.”

And that was that. He’d started to spend the night in your bed, you’d started to sleep eight hours instead of four, and he’d started to sleep three instead of zero.

Overall it might not have been a mistake, just a very productive arrangement, if it hadn’t made the feeling big. If it hadn’t started to feel so instinctual and easy that, now that there was even the prospect of him not being here by nightfall, you felt wired. The Feeling was electric, and was making you miss him, and you were going to go insane.

Don’t fucking miss me too much, Sunshine. Ben’s last words before he’d left mocked you, and you wanted him to come back so you could punch him for jinxing you like that. He’d been gone for barely an hour, and the Feeling was all across you, missing him.

You were alone, without him for the first time in almost two months, and all you could do was miss his stupid face and safe touch. This was not a long-term, sustainable way of life. You’re still productive—You do laundry, yours and Ben’s, and you wash dishes, and you swap out Ben’s empty, pine-scented body wash for a full one that was under the cupboard—but the whole time you’re just missing him.

You reasoned that it wasn’t actually Ben himself that was clawing at you. You just hadn’t really been alone—or at least alone without fearing for your life every waking second—since before Homelander took you. And at that point, if you had felt this antsy, jumping feeling of uselessness, you’d been able to go for a walk. Call a friend. Go to a coffee shop.

Now it was just you, the safe house, and plague-like thoughts of Ben.

Just you. Nobody else. Nobody even near you.

You could sing. Nobody was here, so you could sing.

It started slow. You hummed Moon River, feeling out what happened.

Fractured memories began to surround you. The kitchen of the safe house faded into the background, and you were standing in a hazy version of your childhood bedroom. You felt something soft in your hands, and looked down to see your baby blanket your hands. When you looked back up, your mother was before you. Smiling, her face so much softer than it ever was outside of hazy, warped fantasies of childhood. You could feel a breeze coming from somewhere, and when you turned your gaze to the ceiling, it was gone. Instead a vast night sky hung over your head, complete with stars and a moon that was far too large, glowing brightly. By the time you reached the end of the song, soft instrumentals had begun to fill the space.

You’d never done that before. Though you’d also never really tried. You hadn’t test yourself since you’d realized what singing did, right after the third shot of V.

You chose a different song. Another one your mother had loved, another one she used to make you sing at chandelier light and champagne filled parties. Then, suddenly, you were there. In a gaudy, marble ballroom, your skin itching from lace that was too revealing, your mother smiling, the senator on her arm, visible through the faceless crowd. When you turned your head, Violet was at your side, and you could feel your baby sister’s grip on your hand. She wasn’t looking at you though. Violet was watching one of the senator's largest donors through the crowd, frowning as he moved toward your mother. As he pointed at you.

Suddenly Violet was gone, and you were on a stage. Velvet carpet below you, light’s blinding your view of the crowd’s vulture-like gaze. Your skin itched—just like it had at thirteen—but you realized you could hear the instrumentals.

What else could you do? A little voice asked. This might be your only chance to find out. 

So you sang. For the whole day.

You sang an older rock song your Dad loved, one that took you to a mold-filled apartment in Boston where the paint on the walls peeled and the bricks around the code-breaking fireplace cracked. You learned you could do drums.

You hummed a classical piece that your nerdy brother, Henry, used to make you listen to. That took you to your grandparent’s house, an old film with a now-familiar playing in the background as thin, old faces that always scowled watched you from far, far above. You learned you just do full orchestral, from woodwinds to strings to the cannon at the end.

You sang a pop song that Alexa, your other sister, had made you learn the choreography to, and that made you feel light and bubbly, the world around you turning into a glittery fever dream and the ground vanishing from your feet. You learned it didn’t have to be memories.

You still couldn’t control it, not in the slightest. You tried to see how small you could make the effects, but the most you could figure out was that the shorter the song, the less appeared. A fast run through of some nursery rhymes resulted in only brief aberrations of sheep and rain, gone in seconds. A full run through of an album threw you into a dreamscape, and by the end of it you realized it was less the song, and more you. If the song made you think of grand things, grand things surrounded you. If the song reminded you of the past, memories flooded the world.

If the song reminded you of Ben, he was there.

That one was an accidental discovery. You’d gotten tired, realized you’d become sweaty from dancing with the music, and gotten in the shower. You’d started to hum a slower song, a romantic song with long notes and soft piano, and expected the water to fill with phantom rose petals and hearts to draw on steamed glass.

You’d frozen in surprise when you’d felt hands on your body, resting on your hips, and turned to find Ben standing above you, watching you with a smirk. Looking—feeling—very, very real.

Your voice had died in your throat, heat creeping through your body, and Ben had vanished before you. That would have been bad enough, and mortification covering you might stay there for the rest of your life. Unfortunately for you, the Feeling wasn’t embarrassed. The Feeling was needy, and just an absolute bitch that grabbed your jaw, and made you start singing again. 

Ben reappeared, and this time his hands didn’t just rest on your hips. They moved. Everywhere. Along your breasts, taunting, down to your ass, squeezing, and against your waist, hold you firmly as his head dropped to yours. Fake-Ben kissed you, and you were reduced to desperate humming to keep him intact. Had it not been for the Feeling, forcefully keeping your voice alive, you’d have moaned and the whole thing would’ve disappeared. By some miracle, you keep your voice semi-steady, and Fake-Ben stayed. He kissed you deeper, beard soft against your skin, grip growing tighter as your hands wrapped around his neck. His mouth dropped from your own to rest at your neck, still kissing as one hand started to knead against your skin, the other dropping between your legs. Resting his palm right against you, drawing back to his full height with a smug, crooked smile as he started to rub. Smile growing as one finger teased your folds, the pushed into you, the base of his hand still grinding against that sensitive spot. Going and going and going-

You learned that, in both a gift and very cruel twist of fate, Fake-Ben could give you very real orgasms. 

This was a very unproductive discovery for the Feeling, who wanted you to sing forever. The Feeling didn’t care about who heard, the Feeling just wanted that to happen over and over again until you died. You, still aching, desperate, and dazed, were a very susceptible subject to the Feeling, who was making a lot of very good points.

Right up until you heard the door slam downstairs, and Ben—real Ben—was roaring your name.

You heard his heavy steps move up the stairs, and there was a pounding at your bedroom door. Ben yelled your name again, his voice sharp and angry. “I know you’re in there, Sunshine! I can hear your fucking heart!”

Swearing under your breath, you scrambled out of the shower, wrapping a towel around your body as you stumbled to open the door. Not once had Ben’s banging ceased, meaning that when you finally twisted the knob, he almost fell onto you from momentum. Though you managed to dodge his body, your shoulder brushed and a bolt of molten anger twisted through your gut and into your chest.

You stared at each for a second after Ben regained his balance.

“You’re back.” You said stupidly.

“You were showering.” He responded. Stupidity seemed to be going around.

“Uh, I didn’t think you’d be back for another few hours.” You mumbled, unsure if the guilt in your voice was from your misestimation of time or the Feeling pushing you to lean forward and touch him.

Ben’s eyes narrowed, and his voice turned harsh. “Clearly.”

“Clearly?” You repeated with a frown. “It’s just a shower-“

“Did you know, Sunshine, that Butcher filled the house with cameras?” Ben asked with a scowl.

You could feel yourself pale. “What?”

“Cameras. Everywhere but the bedrooms and bathrooms. To keep an eye on us. With audio.”

“Audio…” Your eyes widened, and something heavy dropped on your chest. “ Audio?”

Ben was watching you with that dissecting gaze, one you hadn’t been on the receiving end of since the beginning. “Audio.” His face twisted into a sneer. “I was under the impression, Sunshine, that you couldn’t fucking sing.”

There were two options here. One, double down. Lie through your teeth and stand your ground until it was pulled from under you. Two, come clean. Apologize a lot, try and feel out what Ben knew and what he didn’t, and apologize some more.

You were in favor of the first. The Feeling was in favor of the second.

“I- um, I didn’t mean- whatever you saw-”

“Why did you lie?” Ben cut you off before you could even figure out what you had been trying to say. “About singing? Was it because of Homelander?”

The heavy thing was sitting in your lungs. The Feeling was spinning through you, and fire was crawling under your skin. “Homelander?”

“Did he make you sing for him? Is that why you don’t?”

You stared at him with a slack jaw, the fire filling up in your ears. “What- How-“ Your eyes narrowed as the fire drowned out the Feeling. “I’ve never told anyone that, Ben. Not Butcher, not Annie or MM. Definitely not you.”

“Well,” he spat. “That's two fucking lies then.”

Stand your ground it was. “That’s not a fucking lie, dick-for-brains. It’s a goddamn-“

“ Omission?” He gave you a mocking, taut smile. “An omission is a lie, Sunshine.”

The Feeling was loud again, spinning at the fact that he actually listened to your words. Fortunately your fury at him using those words against you was bigger. “Shut the fuck up, Pretty Boy. This isn’t the same as you purposefully hiding something important.”

“How the fuck not?” Ben snapped. “If this is because of Homelander, I need to fucking know-“

“ Why?!” You shout, pushing his chest. “How the fuck is this something you need to know?”

“So I can fix-“

“Fix it?” You laugh. “We agreed not to fucking fix each other, remember? You don’t get to come in a heal my music hangup when you won’t let me anywhere fucking near your PTSD!”

“I don’t fucking have shell shock, like some fucking-” He growled, and you rolled your eyes.

“For fucks sake, you do! Any fucking idiot would take one look at you and go ‘yeah, that cunt has PTSD’! You’re just too much of a fucking pussy to do anything about it!”

“Well, any fucking idiot you look at you and know that Homelander fucking twisted your brains, Sunshine.” He roared. “You know what he fucking told us?!”

“What, that I’m an ungrateful slut who doesn’t deserve him, but he’ll love me anyways?” You hiss, echoing words long locked away in the back of your head. “That he’ll keep me close, because nobody else gets to have me? That he’d rather I die than leave him?”

Something very deep inside you was pulling apart. Something became frayed when Ben started at you with that one fucking look you can’t read as he spoke.

“That you fucking starved yourself. That he had to force you to eat.” Ben’s fists curled. “You didn’t fucking share that, Sunshine.”

You stumbled back like he’d punched you. It was hard to breathe, and all you could see was white light. The thing deep inside you snapped, and your legs gave out, falling back onto the mattress. Bright lights. Cold eyes. Fire and pain. Pain and exhaustion and hunger. So much hunger, but you couldn’t break. You’d let the hunger kill you before you broke. This was all you had, one last, desperate protest to keep yourself somewhat intact.

But you were so tired. And a cold hand was gripping your jaw, tugging it open until mush began to fall into your throat. No, no, no, you can’t lose, you can’t. This hunger is the last thing standing in his path-

Something wrapped around you, firm and warm, and that tugging on your heart returned.

He can’t win, if he wins then you’ll never leave. You’ll never leave anyway, but at least you’ll fall by your own hand and not his-

Something deep and soothing was in your ear, a voice edged with bloody concern. Almost desperate. Saying your name, again and again.

You can’t break, you can’t break -

The voice was humming. Moon River. Reaching into your head and slowing it, grounding the fire running through you, pulling the flames back into you. You blinked, breathing still quick and short but no longer impossible, and saw Ben staring at you. Felt his hands rubbing against your skin in small circles.

“Back with me, Sunshine?” Ben asked quietly, and you nodded.

“I burned your face.” You mumbled.

He just shrugged. “You burn, I burn.”

The Feeling was back, and with the soothing of his touch, you managed to speak. “Mini-Homelanders.” The words caught in your throat, only a little, but Ben frowned at you all the same.

“Mini-Homelanders?” 

You nodded. “I told you he wanted to make mini-homelanders. That was the reason he took me in the first place.” 

Ben said your name firmly. “You don’t have to do this right fucking now-“

“No, I do.” You take a deep breath. “Or I won’t do it at all.”

“Sunshine-“

You pushed on, the words falling out of you once you’d gained a pace. “He found out about Ryan, and wanted more children. I was just in the worst place at the worst time, singing at a Vought fundraiser, and that was it. I woke up in a cell the next day. When I realized what was happening, I fought, but this was a year before he started the V experiments so I didn’t stand a fucking chance. I tried to find smaller ways to fuck with him. I tried to kill myself so many times they started chaining my hands to the wall. I remembered for a psych class in college that eating disorders can lead to infertility, so I did that. Eventually Homelander noticed, and didn’t take kindly to it.” You take a full, stuttering inhale. “I haven’t done it since I escaped.”

You felt something deep and wailful against your heart as Ben spoke careful words. “What about-“ he coughed slightly, and the thing against your heart grew strained. “Suicide. Has that-“

“Once,” you whisper. “Right after.”

“Oh.” He took a deep sigh of his own. “Sunshine I-“

“Don’t apologize,” you say as something desperate runs through you. “Please.”

He frowns, but nods. “Ok.”

You’re silent, sitting on your bed and watching each other from long minutes before you speak.

“You’re getting better at this.” You attempt a smile.

His brows furrow. “Better at what?”

“Dealing with me.”

“I’m not ‘dealing with you’, Sunshine.” Ben grumbled. “I’m-“

“Fixing me?” Your smile feels a bit more real. “Does that mean I get to fix you?”

He’s silent, and you’re prepared to back track. It had been a shitty joke, and you didn’t want to keep fighting. You didn’t think you could. The Feeling was keeping you on the ground by a thread, and your heart was flipping and stretching in ways that hurt-

“What would you do?” Ben grunted, and you blinked at him.

“Wha-”

“ If I had Shell Shock. PTSD. What would you do.”

“I’d heal it,” you say softly. “It would probably just be us sitting together, and I’d hold your arm, and heal it.” You frown to yourself. “It might take time, I’ve never used this power like this before, not for something this intense. I’d essentially be re-writing the neuron pathways of your brain, so depending on how deep they go it could take just one day or… a lot longer.”

“Would it hurt you.” Ben frowns at you, saying his question in that way where he’s not really asking. 

You answer anyway. “I don’t think so. It’s not like I can take your memories, I’d just be fixing how they are in your head. How they affect you now.”

Ben stares at you, and you can feel that resolve running over something louder and strained you don’t really understand. He opens and closes his mouth a few times before he finally speaks.

“Fine.”

“Fine? Fine like you’ll let me-“

“Yeah, Sunshine. Fine.” Ben looks you up and down, and you feel a weird flash of heat and hunger. “You’re tired.”

He’s doing the question that’s not a question thing again, but you are tired, you’re exhausted, so you can’t even be that mad at him.

You nod, humming in affirmation, and Ben stands suddenly, not looking at you as he moves out of your view.

“Go to the bathroom.” He says, and when turn his back is to yours.

“What? Why?”

“You burned off your towel.” Heat rushes through as you realize he’s right. “You always keep your clothes in the bathroom when you shower. Go change.”

Another wave of heat settles into you, the Feeling rolling around in it as it does. You stand and shuffle to the bathroom, Ben remaining in his spot, and you change into the shirt and shorts you had indeed left by the sink.

When you exit, now fully decent, Ben’s suit is laying on your dresser—traded for a pair of sweats and shirt he must have found in the laundry basket—and he’s still staring at your wall like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. You lay a hand on his arm, and are almost knocked over by the sudden thirst that runs through you. The Feeling is whining and insatiable. Then Ben looks down at you, and you think you might fall over. The Feeling wanted to grab him, your heart was howling, and his eyes were like a drug -

 “We ready for bed?” Ben says, and you have to swallow to be able to answer.

“Uh, yeah.” You blink at Ben, his words echoing in your head, and realize that the hot fury in your stomach—his stomach—is gone. “You’re not mad at me? Even after I-“

“Omitted a truth?” Ben gave you a loose smile, and the Feeling squirmed. “I’m calling it even, Sunshine. Now let’s get you bed, you look like you’re about to fucking collapse.”

You were, but not because of fatigue. And Ben didn’t have to know that, especially because he would probably just laugh and you’d be left alone with the Feeling.

 “I might have those kinds of nightmares,” you whisper, touching his chest. Offering another out. “If I do, I’ll burn you, Pretty Boy. Badly.”

“I’ll get over it.” He says, and that’s it. You both move to the bed, taking your unspoken places on each side of the mattress, and you’re ready to go through the motions. You fall asleep and he moves you against him, he falls asleep second and you wake up to watch him for a while before returning to sleep once more.

But Ben doesn’t remain tensely upright at your side. When you lie down, he does as well. Then, before you’ve even really processed the first new thing, Ben pulls you fully against him, arms around your body as your head rests on his chest. You don’t say anything—the Feeling is pleased and you’re a little afraid he’ll vanish if you even speak—so you take the folds of his shirt in your hands, and press your face deep into his shirt. He smells like coffee and gunpowder and pine trees, his heart is steady, and he’s warm.

You decided it—the Feeling, the shower, the grip on your heart when he touches you—was because he was safe. From you. You could not hurt him, he was the only person in the world you really couldn’t hurt, so that’s why you caved, and let him hold you. Nothing more, nothing less.

You felt alive with Ben because, by completely coincidental fate, you could be.

 You had no nightmares when you slept in his arms because Ben wasn’t having any, and his own peace ran into yours.

The Feeling was quiet because your heart was beating in time with the world, and it felt good.

This felt… good.

End Note: Everyone say a very big thank you to @acciditties for single handedly removing our “no beta” tag as we earn our “smut” tag. Also, if If you thought their pining was bad this chapter, think again! These two are about to ignore their emotions at an Olympic level!

[mehwmidklpe]

i am begging for a connor stoll x daughter of hecate reader pls pls pls i love connor sm and there is not enough if him !!!

sure you can I totally get how you feel!

I'm not sure this is even what you were looking for, so if you don't like it, I'm very sorry!

First thing you heard when you entered the dinning pavillion?

"It was so amazing, I'm telling you, Connor Stoll has much more in him than you think. Last night was so good."

Drew Tanaka.

To her siblings.

But she was looking straight at you.

And when you went to ask Connor Stoll, your friend, about it, he just shrugged and said:

"Yeah, we might've hooked up."

That was it.

"You hooked up with Drew? Drew Tanaka. You know I hate her." You spat at him.

"Yeah but, I mean, it was just one night, it's not like it meant anything." The son of Hermes defended.

"You're supposed to be my friend, Connor! How could you hook up with the one person I hate?? How would you feel if I hooked up with like, Travis?"

That sure got him.

He want pale, his eyes screamed.

"You're not gonna."

"Try me."

And just like that, you stormed off, back to Cabin 20, the Hecate cabin, your cabin.

You barged into the room, making your sister flinch. "Y/n?"

"Where's my book?"

"Your spell book?"

"No, my cookbook." You said, clearly sarcastic.

She jumped up and handed it to you. "What's got you all mad?" The girl asked.

You groaned, laying the book down on your desk, flipping trough the pages. "Stoll."

"Connor Stoll? Did he pull another prank on you?"

"Worse."

"Worse? What could be worse? He's funny, right? We both love some chaos, don't we? And you said you liked hi–"

"Lou. Ellen. Blackstone. Don't you dare finish that sentence."

Lou gulped. "Sorry."

Lou Ellen wasn't used to seeing you this mad. Whatever Connor did, it must've really pissed you off.

"You gonna put a curse on him?" She wonders.

No answer. All you did was gulp. That was enough of a confirmation for her.

"Y/n you don't have to.."

But you already made up your mind.

The next morning, when Connor woke up, he didn't think much of anything. Didn't feel different at all, too.

He just got dressed in cargo pants and another Camp Half-Blood shirt and made his way to the diving pavillion.

Halfway trough breakfast, Clarisse La Rue entered, angry at that. "Which one of you idiots replaced my weapons with Barbie dolls??" She demanded.

The only thing Connor was about to do was either try to contain his laughter and stuff more pancakes into his mouth, or blame another child just to see them being chased by Clarisse while he laughed his ass of.

Instead,

"I did."

Wait.

Why the heck did he say that??

Then, without meaning to, he turned his head to his brother Chris. "Sorry bro, I know you said not to prank your girlfriend, but I really didn't care. I also once broke her spear and blamed it on you."

No! He wasn't supposed to say that!

Chris' eyes widened. "You did WHAT??" Clarisse only seemed to grow angrier. "Oh you are so dead."

"Shit." The boy cursed before standing up and running away.

It wasn't supposed to be him!

It was supposed to be another pathetic camper!

Good thing he's the son of Hermes then.

Makes him faster.

Meanwhile, at the table of Cabin 20, Lou turned to you. "So. Truth Spell, huh?"

You didn't say anything, just focused your gaze on your plate and ate.

Connor was spiraling.

He didn't know what was happening to him.

He just told Travis he looks nice.

NICE!

And the worst part, he meant it!

Normally he'd lie and say he looks ridiculous, just to mess with him. But for some reason he couldn't lie anymore.

Lying was his daily thing to do! Now he keeps blurting out the truth.

Grover passed by him. "Hey, I was the one who dumped pegasus poop on your bed."

Leo passed by. "I secretly admire your humor but never said anything cause I want to be the funny one."

Percy passed by. "You never thanked me for poisoning Phoebe back in the day, but whatever."

Annabeth passed by. "Did you know there's a spider under your bed right now? Travis placed it there, but don't tell him I told you."

Katie Gardner, too. "I don't like you and I hope you eat dirt. But my brother does like you. Wait, no! Oh shit."

He was screwed. Absolutely screwed.

"Connor!"

The boy turned around to see Lou Ellen from the Hecate cabin approaching him. "Oh hey Lou! Did you know I've been dreaming of becoming your brother-in-law?"

She froze. "What?"

Connor's eyes widened. "Uhm.. I don't know what's happening to me!"

"Connor!" Lou tried.

"What?!"

"You're under a truth spell!"

Connor froze. "...What?"

The girl sighed. "Y/n was angry with you. I don't know why but she was so upset she put a curse on you. She knew you spilling the truth would get you in trouble, so this was her revenge."

And for the first time in Lou's time at camp, Connor looked.. sad?

"Y/n..?"

He sounded heartbroken when he said your name.

"Yeah.. She really liked you.. I don't know what happened either." Lou told him.

Connor just blinked. "You need to break it." "I can't, I didn't cast the spell." "No, Lou, you need to!" "Dude, what do you want for me?"

"Your sister."

Connor's eyes widened and he slapped his hand over his mouth.

Lou's lips parted. "What?"

"How can the spell be broken?" He quickly asked, changing the subject.

She sighed. "Only Y/n can do that. She's the one who put it on you, she's the one to get it off you." The girl declared.

"So you need to go to Y/n."

"What? No! That's the last thing I'll do! I can't face Y/n now. I'm a walking truth spiller, once I see her it'll take less then a minute for me to admit that I'm in lo–"

He slapped his hand over his mouth again, the rest of his sentence being heard in mumbles Lou couldn't make out to be.

Oh gods he's got problems.

Later that day, Connor saw you walking around camp, as if you were looking for something.

He sprinted away.

"Connor! Why did Annabeth throw her shoe at me?? Did you tell her about the fake spider??" Travis, who approached him, demanded.

Connor's eyes widened. "I can't talk right now, Y/n is coming over here, you've got to hide me!"

The older Stoll looked over the younger Stoll's shoulder, and indeed, you were approaching.

"Why would you need to hide from her?"

"She put a spell on me! I can't say anything but the truth!"

Travis' eyes widened. "If you can't lie.. that meanse you'll tell her the truth about Drew." He realized.

"Exactly!"

"And you'll also tell her you're in l–" "Yes! So, help your favorite brother out?"

Oh what a good brother Travis was.

"Travis, hey, have you seen Connor?"

The boy shrugged. "What? No? Where? Why? Who's Connor?" You frowned. "Your brother...? Your best friend.. The boy you're with 24/7??"

"Ohhhh. That Connor. Nope, haven't seen him, rumor has it he moved to Asia. Bye!"

You grabbed his arm before he could leave. "Wait!" You stopped him. "If you do see him.. tell him I'm sorry?"

Travis' expression softened. "I will.. Thanks.."

The next day, it only got worse.

Connor ened up shoving Pegasus poop because he blurted out the fact he stole from Dionysus' drink collection.

"Talk to her Connor." Travis said, watching his brother grimace by the smell of Pegasus shit.

He faked a smile. "Oh sure! I'll just go over there and spill all my biggest secrets before she decides to slap me in the face and never break the spell."

His brother sighed. "Maybe.. it's about time you tell her the truth. Maybe that's what she wanted from you, that you stoppped being a coward and actually started being honest with her. Maybe that's why she chose this spell."

"No. She chose this spell because she knew it'd get me in trouble. She's smart like that. We cause trouble and we lie about it. That's you and me, Travis! The truth will kill us."

"Your truth got me a girlfriend, Connor. It's about time you let yourself have one, too."

Later that day, at night, Connor slumped down onto a bench by the fire.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that you joined him.

Of course, a bit shy considering you put a spell on him and then just came sitting down next to him.

"Hey..."

Connor gulped, his heart racing. "Is it okay if I sit here?" You proceeded to ask.

"Uhm.. No! I'd rather not talk to you rigth now."

Ugh! Well said, Stoll.

You bit the inside of your cheek. "Oh."

Connor panicked. "No! No! It's just that you made me into the most honest person on the planet.."

You looked down. "Right."

"I'm really mad at you." He blurted out.

You looked up. "You are? Connor you hooked up with Drew, the one girl I hate more than anything. And I get that you're mad for what I put you trough, but do you know how I feel?"

"That's the thing, Y/n. I never hooked up with Drew."

Shit.

"What?"

"Uh..I stole Pollux's grape juice collection!" He admitted, covering the one truth with another.

"And uhm, I replaced Cecil's toothbrush with Chris'! And I fed Clovis dirt while he slept!"

"Connor–"

"And I dance to a song called 'Chicken Tenders' when I'm alone cause I heard you and Leo playing it! And I beat Dionysus in poker and he scolded me for it! And also, I once faked an injury to stay with Will just to sit out on capture the flag because I was scared of Clarisse and I also am a part-time drug dealer but instead of dealing drugs I deal things I stole from campers, look!"

He suddenly pulled out something that odly looked like Annabeth's keychain.

"Connor–"

"And I'm so, so in love with you."

There it was.

The truth.

"I'm so sorry. I am. I payed the Aphrodite cabin to pretend I slept with Drew. Drew asked double the price. Piper wasn't happy with it at all. But I thought maybe if you'd hear that, you'd maybe.. show any sign that you didn't.. like it.."

You sat there, lips parted.

"You lied to me?"

"I know it sounds bad! But I just, I'm very much whipped for you. Cause back when Hecate didn't have a cabin, you were still in a cabin with me and you actually liked my humor and my pranks and then one day we were talking in my bunk bed and you fel asleep with your head on my shoulder and I let you sleep there and I watched you and I was like 'wow.. this is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and she's wasting her time on me'."

You blinked, again, and stared at him. "That was the night before Chris and Travis teased us. You scolded them for it. Said we were nothing more then friends."

"I lied."

"I believed you."

"I didn't know what else to do. You're too good for me!"

"I'm not Connor. The only thing I wanted was for you to be honest. If you had been.. I would've been yours."

Connor's hearted skipped a beat. "Really?" "Yes, really. I've had a thing for you, too. For a long time, actually. Why'd you think I got so mad when you said you banged Drew."

Connor bit back a smile. 'Banged'.

"If I were to bang someone, it'd be you."

You chocked on your own saliva.

"Sorry!" Connor shrieked out. "I'm just really in love with you. And now you said you feel the same i'm going crazy."

Despite his weird behavior, you couldn't help but smile.

"So you're in love with me... And I'm in love with you..."

"Can we please be boyfriend and girlfriend now??" Connor asked you, pathetic but he couldn't help it.

You bit back a smile. "Yes we can, Connor."

The boy's smile widened insanely.

It stayed like that.

Two smiling idiot who sat in silent at the bonfire.

"I really wanna kiss you right now."

Connor suddenly breathed out, not able to help himself.

"I mean, we're dating now, isn't that part of it?"

You rolled your eyes, but did scoot closer to him.

His heart was racing as he leaned in.

And when your lips met, it was magical.

The son of Hermes didn't hesitate to cup your cheek, moving your hair to the side and deepening the kiss.

You let yourself melt into it, throwing all your recent and pent up emotions into it. And gods did he like it.

You pulled away, just for a second, to speak. Your lips parted, breathing out the words. "You don't want me to break the spell?"

Connor's eyes flickered all over your face, loving the way the light of the fire had a beautiful effect on your gorgeous face.

"How about you do that tomorrow? One more night won't hurt."

Without letting you speak, his lips were back on yours.

But honestly, you didn't mind.

[lilac-5ky]

Holed Up (Husband!Toji x Fem!Reader)

mini kinktober tribute: stuck in a wall/hole

plot: you should've known that asking Toji to help you out of a hole would lead him inside another—or that time you got stuck in the dog house and he bailed on you for KFC.

tags: MDNI, stuck in a wall/hole, pet play (kinda), breeding, doggy style, fingering, oral sex (f. receiving), spanking, pet names (bitch, baby), established relationship, crack plot, unsolicited kfc orders, i promise toji loves reader, he's just joking guys.

wc: 2.2k

Masterlist | Kinktober Masterlist | AO3

“Whatcha doing?”

Sarcasm rolls from your husband’s tongue as he stares down at you. Back arched, knees bent, and head encased by wooden planks. Not the most flattering position to be found in, especially with how the light autumn breeze blows at your dress and parts its layers, opening a window to the pink panties of your choice.

His question feels excessive. He knows exactly what you are doing. It was only this morning that you asked him to dig poor ol’ Mister Stinky’s remains from the dog house and he claimed he’d rather buy his son a replacement. No arguing there, but should Megumi see what became of his favored stuffed animal—fuzzy entrails gutted out of the frog’s shredded belly in a path initiating from his bedroom—he’ll be having nightmares for weeks to come.

Besides, you doubt synthetic is the kind of fiber your vet prescribed for your puppy's diet.

“What you should’ve done instead.” You finally spit out, contempt over what Toji’s long fingers could’ve accomplished without him needing to stick half his body into a hole like your, admittedly, dumbass self did.

“For thirty minutes straight? Damn, seems I overestimated ya.”

Even though your view of him is limited to a pair of overworn black slippers, you can vividly picture his scarred lips pulling over his teeth in another of his complacent smirks that scream I told you so.

“Don’t have anything better to do than time me?”

“Nah,” Toji drawls. “Grew tired of waiting on ya, so I thought I’d come see how it’s going.”

“It’s going great!” You lie through your teeth. Anyone with a functioning pair of eyes could see how non-great this is going. “Anything else you need?”

“Well it is noon.” He points out.

“And?”

“And my darling wife’s out ‘ere, rolling in the mud when she should be having lunch with me.”

A snort flares in your nostrils. He is unbelievable.

“What a cute way of letting me know you’re hungry, Toji. You know, if you’d actually helped, I would’ve had the time to set the table and give Mister Stinky a proper burial, but I can’t do both at the same time, can I?”

“Mhm, so how ‘bout we help each other?” He suggests, undeterred. “I get your ass out, and you cook us somethin’ tasty real quick.”

“Wh-who said I was stuck? I can get out whenever I want.”

“Really, huh? What keeps ya from getting out this instant, then?”

“I don’t want to.” You answer wryly. “I like it here. It’s quiet, and I could use some time for myself.”

“In the dog house.” His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth. He’s not buying an ounce of what you’re selling. “C’mon, don’t be stubborn. You’ll end up reeking of dung if ya stay here a minute longer. Lemme give ya a hand.”

You know that accepting his help comes at the exorbitant price of utter humiliation, but he’s got a point. Last night’s downpour emanates strongly from the saturated wood, a dizzying smell that turns overwhelming when combined with the strong odor of what you sincerely hope is not piss. Your knees are on the verge of collapsing, and there’s more dirt in your nails than if you dug a grave barehanded. Right now, a day in the bathtub seems like a panacea for your every issue.

Almost.

Kissing your teeth, you resign with a long-drawn sigh that’s barely audible over the rumble in your stomach. You shouldn’t have skipped breakfast.

A moment passes before you hear the crunch of leaves as they rustle beneath his feet; see a second pair of knees take place between your own. Then it’s two hands gripping at your hips, and eventually, a face—your husband’s handsome face that beams with a smug smile and eyes of mischief.

“Lookin’ good, sweetheart.” He greets, though you doubt he sees your face with all the hair that’s curtaining over your eyes while you hang upside down.

“What are you doing, Toji?” You recycle his question in an aggravated tone that fizzles out the second you feel his thumb press against your panties and tug the fabric to the side.

“Nothin’. Just curbing my hunger.” His finger teasingly glides across your nether lips and lands at your clit, while a palm large enough to envelope both your ass and cunt kneads at the tender flesh he’s offered. “Fridge’s empty, so.”

“This isn’t funny!”

“‘m not laughing, but c’mon. You hafta admit it’s pretty damn funny.” Warm air wafts from Toji’s mouth as he inches closer to your thighs. “Y’always whine when I fuck you from behind, but now? Look at you. Bent on all four like a real bitch.”

“T-Toji!”

Your breath hitches in your throat as he slides two fingers in your hole, languidly scissoring them in and out until there’s enough slick to lather your clit with. He circles around the nub while his fingers prod deeper inside, the icy touch of his wedding band clashing with the heat that sparks through your body when he bottoms out. A smothered moan gains echo as it bounces off the walls and into his ears.

“Such a well-trained pup,” Toji praises, retrieving his palm to lick his fingers. “Might win yourself a collar at this rate.”

You bite back your tongue before it can react to his backhanded comment, reminding yourself that you’re still outside, right where your neighbors can peek over the white picket fence for a quick hello and catch you slutting yourself out on your husband’s fingers.

“Can’t we continue this inside? Mrs. Honda is right next door, and M-Megumi—” You stutter when his palm returns to your body, its twin joining in spreading your cheeks further apart.

“Kid’s at school for another hour,” Toji mumbles, his hot tongue parting your folds with a long stroke that has your knees buckling. “So fuckin’ good,” he groans, his nose buried between your two holes while he lazily laps at your juices. “That sweet cunt is the reason why I married ya.”

You keen to his touch, hips bucking into his mouth, and walls clenching for more. “Only reason?”

“Nah. Consider that tight little ass as the second.”

His fingers burrow into the supple skin to squeeze at it, only lifting to deliver playful smacks that cause your ass to jiggle against his face. He growls into your pussy, mouthing all sorts of filth that gets drowned by your moans. It feels so good when he eats you out—it always does—but the probability of being caught in such a compromising position adds to the excitement.

The hand that’s trapped with you inside your pet’s house scratches at the wood, while the other rakes at the soil for grounding. Your orgasm creeps up on you, turning your vision blurry and tinting the darkness of space with colored specks. You are so close; all he needs to do is keep swirling at your clit, swallowing the entire bundle of nerves in his mouth, and sucking hard until—

“Ah, right.” He stops, words slurring from the threads of saliva that link his mouth with your cunt. “You said ya wanted time with yourself.”

Anger washes over you in place of the orgasm you were robbed of, the pleasurable fireworks traded for the obnoxious red alarm that goes off in your brain. “Toji, I swear to God, if you don’t fuck me right fucking now, the only lunch you’ll be seeing is KFC buckets for the rest of your life!”

A low chuckle falls flat from his lips. “Three. I love that snappy mouth ‘f yours.”

In an attempt to meet his eyes, you duck between your legs. Your hair mops the floor as you watch him pull down his pants and boxers, the last thing you see before blood shoots up in your head being the hard cock that dangles out of reach. The heat in your stomach stirs at the sight, anticipation building rapidly when you feel him run the reddened tip between your puffy folds.

“Sure you don’t want it here?” Toji taps his cock against your ass hole and your entire body jolts in response, a loud Toji amusing rather than deterring him. “A’right, a’right! Gotcha the first time.”

His profound dream of burying himself nine inches deep into your ass crumbles as he aligns his cock with the entrance of your pussy. You brace yourself, patiently awaiting that initial sting that never goes away; no matter how many times he fucks you or how diligently he preps you, the thickness of his girth always threatens to split you in half.

But now he’s stalling, a complacent smile sitting on his lips while he contemplates your silence. “Bet you’re red as a beet in there, aren’t ya?”

He plunges himself inside before you are given the chance to either prove or disprove him, a silent scream punched from your throat as his cock rams straight into your g-spot. He huffs a deep breath, barely keeping a groan bottled, when he feels your walls tighten around him. It’s suffocating. Wet, and tight—a little similar to what being stuck in that small space feels like for you, but infinitely more pleasurable for him.

"Mm, such a sloppy little cunt. Got yourself stuck in there for this, didn't ya?"

His fingers latch onto your hips, bruising you as his nails dig meanly into your skin. He drags his cock halfway out of your cunt only to snap his hips back in, picking up a pace that ramps up over time. His quick thrusts fuck you further into that hole, your tits bouncing and slapping against the hard wooden planks while your dress rides higher to expose your back.

Toji bends your body into an arch, a heavy palm situated on your stomach until you’re able to hold the position on your own.

“Like it when your husband fucks ya like a bitch?” He grunts, catching the hand that’s squirming on the grass beside him and twisting it behind your back. “Pounded in broad daylight f'everyone to see how dumb you get over my dick, huh?"

Your whimpers don’t go unnoticed by him. He laughs at the high pitch your voice has assumed, babbling his name an incomprehensible amount of times that exceeds the frequency with which his swollen cock head kisses your pulsing core. You can't think enough to reply, and you can't bring yourself to ask him to stop.

He smacks your ass loud enough for you to whine, alerting every last neighbor in the block to what is happening in their quaint suburban neighborhood. “Answer me.”

“Yes, Toji—fuck, love how big it feels.” Your thoughts stem from your pussy without being filtered by your brain. All your body knows is how badly it needs to be pushed over the edge, disregarding the scornful looks you’ll definitely be receiving at the next neighborhood watch assembly.

“That’s not what I asked.” Toji smacks your ass again, softer this time—or so it feels because of your numbing skin. “I asked, Who owns this pussy, mm?”

“That’s not what you asked at all!” Your talking back earns you a third spank. You realize you’ve got no agency of your own.

“Won’t ask again. Who. Owns. This. Pussy?” He punctuates each word with a thrust sharper than the one before, his cock twitching when he hears you screaming your answer at the top of your lungs.

“You do, T-Toji. My pussy is yours—ngh!”

“And who’s bitch are you, baby?”

“Your bitch!” You answer willingly, your mind clouded, and your logic dulled. “Fuck, Toji, you know I’m all yours.”

“Damn right, y’are.” He hums in response, hunching over your body to rub tight circles around your clit, jerking the nub up and down, round and round.

You’re almost there, and when he asks you whether you wanna be bred like one, the tension in your gut finally snaps, eyes involuntary crossing as white waves of pleasure overtake you.

He fucks you through your high at an animalistic pace, the thought of filling your belly with a baby that’s half his and half yours flooding his brain before your answer registers, his cum spilling deep within your pussy with a few sloppy pumps that squelch to the sound of your mixed fluids.

His moans mingle with yours, the rough sound of his voice raising goosebumps from where he kisses your back to the resounding ringing in your ears. He wraps his arms around you almost tenderly, peppering your back with kisses that almost convince you he’ll finally pull you out of that miserable hell hole but that’s not his intention. It never was.

A final smack meets with your ass right before he rolls his pants back up and walks toward the house, undisturbed by the screams that follow close on his trail.

“You said you’d get me out of here!” Your fist hits the ground, finges clenching around a tuft of grass blades that you violently root out.

“And you said you can get out whenever ya want. That you needed time for yourself, ‘member?”

“I didn’t mean that!” You object, your tone too squeaky to be taken seriously. “Toji, you’d better help me or else—”

“Or else what? KFC until I die?” He snorts. “Relax, I’ll come back before Megumi gets ‘ere.” You hear his phone buzzing as he—presumably—punches something in his search bar. Hot wings don’t sound too bad; he whispers for himself to hear, speaking up only when he asks you if you want him to order you a twister wrap or something before he closes his order.

a/n: the episode excited me too much, apologies. i was gonna post this later asdfghjkl but toji is back and we cum.

[charliegyrth]

One Pound a Week

My Body Won't Stop Growing

This is another slightly magical story based on a suggestion from @thespiderpig1999. I hope you like it!

***

160

“Happy birthday!” Grayson kissed my cheek as he handed me a huge slice of chocolate cake. I just left a party with my family, so I was already stuffed with cake, but Grayson made this himself. I couldn't say no.

It tasted okay. A little too sweet for me. “Gray, this is incredible!” I lied.

“How does it feel to officially be an adult now?”

“Honestly? I feel exactly the same.”

What did he expect? I was still in high school. Still lived at home. Still looked the same. A date on the calendar wasn't going to change anything. Once we graduate in two months, then I’d feel different.

He watched me as I finished the cake. He looked so proud of himself, so I finished every bite. I owed it to him.

Afterwards, he asked me what I wanted to do. It was a school night, so we couldn’t do anything too wild.

“Well, it’s a beautiful day. Wanna go for a run?”

“Seriously? After eating all that sugar?”

“Why not?” I was always up for a run. Now that track season was over, I didn’t need to push myself as hard. I could run for fun instead of for practice.

Grayson shrugged. “If that’s what you want, birthday boy. Race ya to the lake!”

***

161

I stepped off the scale. “I’m telling you, Gray. It’s wrong.”

Grayson raised an eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”

I was. 100%. Since my growth spurt at 15 years old, I was exactly 160 pounds. No matter what I did or what I ate, the number never changed. I know that’s hard to believe, but as a member of the track team, I weighed myself nearly every weekday after practice for the last three years. Always 160. My teammates even joked about it.

And now, Grayson’s home scale said 161. Sure, it’s possible that last week’s birthday cake had added a pound, but the much more likely explanation was that his scale was off.

My boyfriend was stretched out on his bed, scrolling through his phone and only half-listening to me. “If you’re so certain, why did you even weigh yourself?”

I didn’t answer. Honestly, I didn’t know. I’d hung out in his bedroom plenty of times, and I’d never felt the urge to use his scale before. For some reason, it just called to me.

Grayson grabbed a tube of Pringles and raised it toward me. “Want some?”

“No thanks.”

“Aha! So you do think you’ve gained weight.”

“One pound isn’t ‘gaining weight.’”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Frustrated, he threw the tube at me.

To prove a point, I ate a couple chips.

***

168

I sucked in my stomach and buttoned my dress pants.

This was bad. Really bad. The scale this morning said I’d gained eight pounds in the last two months, literally a pound a week since my birthday.

No one noticed, but I definitely did. My stomach was mostly flat, but it had smoothed over with a soft layer of fat.

I tucked in my purple dress shirt and checked out my reflection from the front and the side. Not too bad. I still looked slim and hot (and honestly, my ass looked perkier than it ever had).

“You ready?” my mom asked as she entered my room. No matter how many times I complained, she never knocked. (One of the many reasons I was excited to move into the dorms.)

“Yeah. I’m ready.” I hated wearing dress clothes. They were so freaking uncomfortable. And pointless, too. No one would even see what I was wearing once I put on my graduation robe.

“Quite handsome,” Mom said. She stepped closer to adjust my collar. “Relax, honey. You look a little… uncomfortable.”

Of course I was uncomfortable! This collar was choking me.

But I don’t think she made that comment because of my clothes. She thought I was uncomfortable because she could tell I was sucking in.

I breathed out, allowing my stomach to round out a little.

“That’s better,” she said. “Come on. Your boyfriend’s waiting downstairs.”

***

173

“Let’s go for a run,” I said.

Grayson sat on the dorm floor, organizing his textbooks into piles. Classes hadn’t even started yet and he was already obsessing.

“Again? Didn’t you run this morning?”

“Well, yeah. But I love it. And there are some areas of the campus I still haven’t seen.”

He stood up and walked toward me, wrapping me in his arms. I could tell he was concerned about something. After a short kiss, he said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Sure. Let’s go for a run. And afterwards, we can head to Chipotle. Doesn’t that sound good?”

I pulled away. “I’m not hungry.”

“Dude. You’re being really unhealthy.”

I felt like he’d punched me in the face. This was his first time mentioning my weight gain. I was so stupid to think that he wouldn’t notice my beginning love handles and softer chest. We hadn’t even finalized our class schedules and I was already two pounds away from the Freshman 15.

“You think I’m unhealthy?”

“Yeah! I’ve noticed for a while now.”

I gulped. No amount of baggie clothes could hide how big I’d gotten. I looked awful. Soft and awful.

“Look, I don’t want to do an intervention or anything…”

“You don’t have to,” I cut him off. “I’ll lose the weight. I promise.”

“That’s the exact opposite of what I’m trying to say.” He guided me toward his bed so we could sit together. “You run for hours every day. You’re starving yourself. When was the last time you ate a full meal?”

“We had chicken fingers at the cafeteria yesterday.”

“Chicken finger. Singular. You gave the rest of yours to me. Look, I know that you’ve softened up a little. That’s okay. It happens to everyone. But you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“You don’t understand. I keep gaining a pound a week no matter what I do!”

He rubbed my lower back. When his hand got too close to my love handles, I twisted away.

“If it doesn’t matter what you do,” he argued, “then why try so hard? Why starve yourself?”

I really wanted to agree with him. I really did. But he just didn’t get it. I’d lost control of my body and I felt myself changing into someone that I was never meant to be.

“Sorry,” I muttered. Then I slipped on my running shoes and raced out of the dorm.

***

182

Sweat oozed down my forehead. I struggled for breath. And worst of all, no matter how fast or slow I went, my chest and stomach wouldn’t stop bobbing up and down. As someone who had never been fat before, I had no idea that everything would feel so out of sync, like my moobs and belly were following a different jiggling rhythm.

I steadied myself against the science building and gasped in air. The old me could’ve run for hours at a much faster pace. Now, I could barely do a lap around the quad.

A student walked by with a look of concern. “Do you need water or something?”

“I’m… (huff) fine!”

She hurried off. I think I scared her.

Giving up on the rest of my run, I stumbled inside the air-conditioned building. I didn’t realize I was heading toward Professor Stradamore’s office until I was right outside his half-opened door.

“Come in!” he called. I couldn’t see him, but I guess he could see me. (Or maybe he could just hear me panting.)

I stepped inside, figuring that my biology professor would be the best person to talk to. He gestured toward the empty seat in front of his desk and I plopped down.

“Hot outside?” he asked.

“No,” I muttered. It really wasn’t. My cheeks were red and my sweaty shirt clung to my skin, but that had nothing to do with the temperature.

He waited for me to say something. When I didn’t, he asked, “Are you having trouble with our latest chapter? Three students have already—”

“I need to ask you something,” I interrupted.

He straightened in his chair. Professor Stradamore was a very large man. His spherical belly and wide shoulders made him look trapped whenever he sat in chairs that were too small for him. Younger than 30 (I think), he had a handsome face and the buried musculature of a former athlete. He’d probably been hot before he let himself go.

“Something’s been happening to me since I turned 18, and I wanted to know if there was a biological reason for it. I, um… Do we have professor/student confidentiality?”

“Not by law,” he said. “But I give you my word. I won’t tell anyone about our conversation.”

I believed him. “Okay. So… I’ve been gaining weight and I don’t know why.”

“You’re in a new environment. There are lots of factors that—”

“You don’t understand!” My voice made him flinch. I forced myself to calm down and slowly explained everything. How my weight increased by exactly one pound per week. How I tried everything to stop it. How I’d always been 160 until a week after my birthday.

He listened carefully. Didn’t interrupt. And when I finally got everything off my chest, he said, “I have no idea.”

My heart sank.

“The human body is complicated, and if you had some ailment that caused weight gain, it wouldn’t happen so regularly. Moreover, the steadiness to your previous weight is equally improbable. No one has the exact same weight throughout puberty without any fluctuation.”

“But it’s the truth!”

“I believe you. All I’m saying is that I’ve studied biology for my entire adult life, and what you just described has no scientific explanation. However…” He leaned forward in his chair. “There are always anomalies. And it looks like your condition, if you can even call it that, is one of them.”

“So there’s nothing I can do to stop it?” My eyes teared up. I felt both hopeless and embarrassed.

“How is this affecting your life?”

I wiped my eyes. “It’s ruining my life. My boyfriend barely talks to me. The only reason we haven’t broken up is because we share a dorm room. And I can’t even run anymore!”

“Is that all?” he asked, as if those problems weren’t serious enough.

“Yeah.”

“Why do you need to run?”

“Because I love it. I used to, anyway.”

“People fall out of hobbies all the time. You’re a freshman. It’s the perfect opportunity to try new things.”

I guess he was right. The main reason I enjoyed running was because it came so naturally to me. Now that it didn’t, I wasn’t enjoying it.

“But what about my boyfriend? We used to be so happy.”

“Are your relationship problems because you got fatter? Or is it because of something else?”

I was about to say, “Of course it’s because I’m fat!” But I stopped myself. The truth was, I lashed out at Grayson. I was jealous that he still had his perfect body while I’d lost control of mine. He never commented on how I looked, only on how I kept overexercising and restricting calories.

“Do you want my advice?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“Try new hobbies. See what works. Accept yourself and see if your boyfriend accepts you, too.”

Easier said than done.

“And if what you say is true, if you’re truly destined to gain exactly one pound a week, then look on the bright side. You can eat whatever you want without any effects.”

I looked back up at him, surprised that a professor had actually said that to a student.

He patted his belly. “Trust me. There are some advantages to being a bigger guy.”

“Like what?”

“It’s up to you to find out.”

***

196

I bit the head off a gingerbread man. Delicious. “Come on, Grayson. Have another one.”

He’d only eaten one cookie all afternoon. Maybe two. Meanwhile, I’d had nine and a half. These things were addictive.

“Stop offering! Unlike you, the food I eat actually has consequences for me.”

“Yeah?” I said, flirtatiously grabbing my soft belly and kneading it into shapes. “You’re worried that you’ll grow a gut like me?”

“Stop it.”

I took his hand and brought it to my budding moob, forcing him to squeeze. “You’re worried about growing a pair of these?”

He pulled his hand away. He looked annoyed, but I could tell I was wearing down his defenses. The quickest way to get him in the mood was to talk about all his favorite parts on my growing body.

I moved my knees back and forth so that my thighs would jiggle. “What about—?”

“Fine!” he shouted. “I’ll have a cookie.”

He leaned forward on the couch and grabbed a gingerbread man from the platter. Then he brought it to his lips and gave me a sly expression. Instead of eating it himself, he surprised me by shoving it into my mouth. “There. That’ll shut you up.”

I ate out of his hand, of course.

It had been 14 weeks since my conversation with Professor Stradamore, and as expected, I’d gained exactly 14 pounds. I was a completely different person, inside and out. The outside changes were pretty easy to spot:

Bigger breasts

A rounder face

A belly that was officially hanging over my waistband

Bulging ass cheeks that were starting to leave a permanent dent in my favorite part of the couch

I still wasn’t officially obese (that wouldn’t happen for another six weeks), but I don’t know if I really believed in the BMI calculator. I looked obese. I looked like a guy who had never been thin.

All these changes might seem drastic, but they were nothing compared to how I changed inside. I was happy now. I liked myself, and just as importantly, Grayson liked me, too. Once I stopped trying to fight off the inevitable, once I allowed myself to be happy again, our relationship strengthened dramatically. We spent so much time together, hanging out in the dorms and going out to eat at least twice a day.

I really took Stradamore’s advice to heart. I stopped exercising altogether. (It was pointless and difficult.) I ate whatever I wanted, discovering how much I enjoyed cookies and donuts and especially our cafeteria milkshakes. Those were my favorite.

Grayson loved when I was happy, and I was the happiest when I was eating for him. Over time, I started eating more than I wanted, enough to make my stomach throb, just to see the look on his face. Why not? All these extra calories wouldn’t affect my weekly one-pound gains.

Now that it was Christmas break (we both decided to stay on campus over the holidays), I’d turned into an eating machine. You should see Grayson’s excited smirk whenever he returned each morning with bags of snacks from the campus supermarket.

For the next few minutes, he fed me the remaining gingerbread men as he lovingly played with my belly. I don’t think he had a natural attraction to fat, though. It was more like he was turned on by keeping me spoiled and blissful, and my new rolls were simply a physical sign that I was being taken care of.

I still had moments of panic, wondering if and when these gains would ever stop. I was at a manageable size now, but what would happen to me in the future? I’d done the math. If this didn’t stop, I’d be nearly 500 pounds by my 25th birthday. That scared me.

Still, it was fun so far.

Grayson pressed the final gingerbread man against my lips. I wouldn’t take it. I literally couldn’t fit in anything more.

“Come on,” he encouraged, playfully flopping my moob around.

“You take it,” I said. “It’s Christmas.”

He sighed and ate it himself. Then he kissed my cheek and curled up next to me. It was time for a nap.

***

210

“Hurry up!” I called. “We’re already late.”

Grayson didn’t answer. He was still getting dressed in the other room.

I took the extra time to check out my reflection. We were going to a concert at Harley Auditorium, so I was in slacks and a black button-up shirt. Despite my general aversion to dressing up (and the fact that I’d been wearing sweatpants to classes for most of this semester), I felt surprisingly comfortable. My pants were big enough to only cling a little to my wide hips, and my tucked-in shirt held my belly in place.

Perhaps I should start tucking in my shirts more often. It definitely cut back on the wobbling, and it accentuated my overhang beautifully.

Finally, Grayson walked in the room. The first thing I noticed was the look of discomfort on his face.

The second thing I noticed was his stomach, which bulged against his dress shirt a lot more than I’d expected. It was more than obvious that he was trying to suck in, instantly reminding me of how I looked at my high school graduation.

“Relax,” I told him. “Breathe out.”

He wouldn’t.

I walked over and wrapped him in my arms. As we kissed, I felt his slight belly press against me as he gave in to the kiss.

He pulled away. “I don’t think I want to go anymore.”

That comment annoyed me. This concert was his idea. He was the classical music fan, not me. More importantly, though, he was being a total hypocrite. He’d spent all semester complimenting my body and showing me the beauty in my obesity, and now that he’d softened up a little, he hated himself.

How much had he gained? Ten pounds? Fifteen tops? It was barely anything, especially if he was standing next to me. My constant snacking had rubbed off on him. We both knew that, but this was the first time his gain had been visible through his clothes.

I had to be compassionate, though. When I was that weight, I was at my lowest point, too. “What’s wrong?”

“I should’ve bought a new dress shirt,” he muttered.

“Why?” I pressed.

“Because I look…”

I waited, forcing him to finish his sentence.

He flinched. “I look fat.”

I grabbed his hand and pressed it against my love handle, one of his favorite parts to play with. “And what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. Then what’s the problem?”

“I just… I don’t want to go.”

Personally, I didn’t want to go either. We had a tray of lasagna in the fridge that he could feed me. That seemed like a much more exciting way to spend the evening than listening to an orchestra for three hours, but that wasn’t the point.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He assumed that his comments had offended me. They hadn’t. They annoyed me, but I wasn’t offended. I knew how he felt.

“I have a nice blue shirt that I outgrew a couple weeks ago. I’m sure that’ll fit.”

His eyes lit up. I didn’t solve his underlying problem (that would take a few more pep talks), but I fixed his temporary problem. He ran toward my dresser and fished out the exact shirt I was talking about.

It was a little baggy on him, but he looked snazzy.

***

213

“Happy birthday!” Grayson shouted as he brought in a massive sheet cake that he made himself. He was wearing another one of my old shirts, which was probably why he didn’t seem upset that it was stained with icing.

We’d already had a huge birthday dinner with our friends a couple hours ago. Now, it was just me and Grayson.

He set the cake in front of me and lit the 19 candles. Final exams started tomorrow, but tonight was just for us. No last-minute studying. No worries. Just food and belly rubs.

I was about to blow out the candles, but Grayson wanted to give me a little speech first. He sat next to me. “This last year has been the best year of my life.” (He was skipping over the long months when I was miserable and petulant.) “You’re the best boyfriend I could ever ask for, and the most beautiful man I’ve ever met. You're like a ball of sunshine. I love you.”

He smiled at me as I blew out the candles. Then he cut a huge slice of cake. He kept that for himself and left the rest for me. “Did you wish for anything?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but you know I can’t tell you.”

The truth was, I wished for my gaining to stop. I was 53 pounds fatter than a year ago, and while I loved it, while I knew that I’d be happy getting much, much bigger, I had to think about the future. I wanted to live a long and happy life with Grayson.

He studied my face. I think he knew what I wished for. “Do you feel any different?”

“Actually, yeah. I do.” I couldn’t explain it, but I felt different. More in control.

I scooped up a forkful of cake and shoved it into my mouth.

Absolutely delicious.

***

216

I stepped off the scale, read the number, and screamed. I literally screamed.

Grayson ran over. “What’s wrong?”

I pointed at the number, but he didn’t understand the significance.

“Gray! Look! I gained three pounds during finals week!”

His face went from blank to confused to excited. “So… more than one pound!”

I pulled him into a hug, holding him so tight that he squished into my gut. “The spell, the curse, whatever it was… It’s over.”

For exactly one year, my gains had been like clockwork. Now, they were entirely under my control. I could grow as fast or as slow as I wanted.

Three pounds was a lot for one week, obviously, but they were all because of my huge meals and constant stress-eating. I’d lost track of all the late-night pizzas and bags of donuts that I’d shoveled in between my tests, but now, they’d finally left their mark.

I still didn’t know what had happened to my body for the 53 weeks that I was 18. I’d probably never know. Like Professor Stradamore said, I was an anomaly. But there were two things I did know with absolute certainty.

One: The effects were over. My weight was entirely under my control now.

And two: I was so glad this happened to me. It made me realize who I truly was. Not an anxious, skinny kid who ran for hours to process his feelings, but a big, confident, fat man.

“What do you want to do to celebrate?”

I thought for a while. “Well, our cafeteria cards won’t expire for a few more days. Let’s order all the chicken wings we can and see how many I can finish!

***

247

I stretched out by the pool, tanning my flab.

Grayson had just gotten out of the water. He walked toward me, droplets clinging to his chest hair and sliding down his belly. He looked amazing, a lot more handsome than I’d been at 200. I loved how all of his summer gains had gone straight to his midsection, leaving him with a thin face and still-narrow hips. If his belly ever caught up to mine (which was becoming more and more of a possibility), it felt comforting to know that I’d always have a bigger chest and ass.

He sat on the beach chair next to mine and grabbed my bag of chips. “So,” he said through a mouthful, “are you excited for sophomore year?”

I took some chips, too. “A thousand percent.” Sure, classes would be stressful and I’d miss sleeping in, but I had enough of my family’s “friendly suggestions” to join a gym or try the latest fad diet. No matter how much I told them point-blank that I liked how I looked, they just didn’t get it.

Eventually they would. It took me a while to come around, too.

I noticed a couple of my former teammates enter the pool area. They looked over at us and then quickly looked away. I’m pretty sure they recognized Grayson, but I wasn’t sure if they recognized me. Oh well.

Grayson leaned back in his chair, sliding his hand toward my stomach so he could play with my rolls and explore my belly button again.

I closed my eyes and moaned a little.

“Any changes?” he asked casually.

“Not this week,” I said. “Still 247.”

I weighed myself this morning. Sure, it was disappointing that the number hadn’t changed, but that was just part of the process. Every week was different now. Sometimes, I’d be up two or three pounds. Sometimes, I’d be exactly the same.

Everything was up to me now. And I had no plans of stopping.

The End

If you liked this one, you might also like my ebook Fat for a Day. It's more sci-fi than fantasy, and the tone is more erotic, but it's a bit of a sister-story to One Pound a Week.

[mildlyromanticperv]

What did you expect of me?

Karina x MReader. Fluff. Enemies to lovers.

-For christ sake, what a bitch! -Your anger boiling in your heart and your brain tells you, no, yells you to go to your managers office and demand a fair treatment, it's just ourageous that among all the workers in the office you have to stay late every single day of the week to cover the "last project of the quarter".

No matter what you do, how hard you work, how many late nights and how many cups of coffee you drink at a day, it just feels like a prison in here, the office that hired you as the main developer for the website on their new brand "Supernova."

Plus, who names a project "Supernova"? Sounds like with just a simple code here and there you'd make the market implode and then explode in money... If your manager Karina expects for that to happen she's either naively hopeful or a total delusional.

-You, come to my office. -Her cold words stabs your brain, after a whole week hearing her low pitch condescending dictatorial voice you can't bear to listen to it one more time, but you need this job like, DESPERATELY need this job, so there's no talk back to the boss.

-Yes boss?

-We're behind on the project, have you been slacking off again? -Her cold judgemental gaze falls upon your black sacked eyes showing off the immense exhaustion you have tu put up with during the project.

-Look boss, I'm doing my best, I haven't slept well these past few days but I assure you I will have everything ready by next month even if the useless of my coworkers don't do shit. -Your tongye got the best of you and runs wild. -I just need to have a good night sleep, can you let me out early today?

-No, we are all hands on deck and you know that. -She sighs and rubs her forehead in a clear show of stress and disappointment. -Just go back to work and don't screw anything up.

Any person with enough patience would put up with that shit, but not you, not now at least. The condescending tone and the past sleep deprived week has been just too much for you, clearly you're not thinking straight anymore, or perhaps you're thinking clearer...?

-Fuck this.

-Excuse me? -She responds with equal or perhaps even higher anger.

-Fuck this Karina, I'm not doing any more shit today and I'm tired to put up with your fucking demands. Fire me if you want I'm going home to sleep. -You really shuld've thought that better, but what is done is done, you start to pick up your stuff and bracing yourself for the shouting match.

-You cross that door and you're suspended, one week half pay. -Surprisingly enough instead of picking up a fight and shouting her vocal cords off as she usually does, she just stares straight into your eyes with a gaze so cold it could freeze hell itself. -You're not the only developer in our payroll, if I wanted I could fire your sorry ass right now and make it so you never work as a developer never again in your life, so consider this a favour.

Breathe.

Don't let that tone of hers get into your core.

Just, breathe.

-Fuck you. -It's the only thing you get to say before actually leaving.

-One week suspension no pay, and don't you dare call me or text me asking to forgive you. Jackass.

With the anger oozing through your pores you just slam the door and head out. You start your car and praying you don't crash you go from 0 to 100 in just a couple of seconds screeching the tires of your car.

-Please god, take care of him... -She sighs under her breath.

But wait... What?

Take care of him?

During that next week there was absolutely no news from you on the office, things started to be more... tense. You've received a ton of messages from your coworkers basically begging him to come back, but the answer is defenitive: No.

However things don't ever go your way.

*Bzz* *Bzz* *Bzz*

-Hey, we need to talk, come to the office. -Again, that swee... No. Annyoing voice again.

-I'm suspended. -Your answer comes as soon as the thought hits your brain.

A sigh from the other line and a faint whisper.

-This man is going to be the death of me some day. -But then the usual tone returns. -Look, I made a rash decision and we need your intel, you're the one that knows the way around our software.

-I thought you had several developers in your payroll, I bet they can help. -You say sipping through the wine you bought for that dinner for one you've been pushing away so much due to the job.

-I'm asking nicely, and around here you know that's as rare as an unicorn. Just come here tomorrow and finish the project, we're ahead.

-Ahead? What do you mean ahead? You said we we're behind last week! -Your voice comes harsher and harsher, even though your chest is telling you not to.

Not to her.

-I lied to try and make things faster, okay? Just come and we can talk like professionals. -She couldn't come to acknowledge the fact that she just wanted to see you. She couldn't admit that she misses your cologne, your three day beard and your stoic gaze when you're so deep in thought. -I'll send you the advances that have been made.

Right away she hangs up the phone, relieved she didn't break down into yelling or insults. Right away an email arrives on your computer with such incredibly... small advances looks like you carried the entire project all by yourself.

-Why am I not surprised? -You sigh under your breath as you pause the movie you were watching and read what has been done, immediately you start chaning... well, almost everything.

Next day...

You should at least turn off the car, for real, have you seen how expensive the gas is around these days?

"Just go, I avoid her any longer... I- I don't want to..." -It's the only thought that crosses your mind, the thought of seeing her piercing eyes again, the feeling of her gaze piercing and burning through your very soul, the loud beating of your heart as you look at her lips...

Her lips...

If only she wasn't your boss, right?

-So, I checked the non existent advances the useless guys did, and...

-How you've been? Have you slept well? -For some reason her tone wasn't condescending anymore, the worry present on her voice...

Could it be?

-Yes, finally in months I've been sleeping great... -Her eyes, oh. my. god... Her eyes... -Anyways, I have everything finished now, you can present it to corporate. -You say trying to avoid her eyes as you speak sarcastically and look at your watch.

-Big date coming or something? -She asks, doing an awesome job yo hide the jealousy.

-Just wondering how long this will take. -She sighs again, feeling the anger and stress of your cold demeanor.

-Your week of suspension ends today and the weekind is off by legal, so you can go now and I'll see you on monday.

-Sure.

After that you just go back to your usual routine, the weekend goes great and the next week of work comes, with so much less stress that even the busiest day feels like a walk through the park. The time off work led you to watch so much shows, and so much free time, time spent in imagining your life outside of work with that person that would make your days so much happier.

Thinking of love.

What a great future you could have, perhaps you could get married and have kids, after all that's your dream.

In a year you'd ascendo in your job, start earning more, you'd start dating to finally get the chance to let you feel that love you so desperately look for, In a year your boss wouldn't be your boss and perhaps you could date her, in a year you'd buy your first...

Your boss? Date... your boss?

Why would you think that? She's a bitch.

"But she's a gorgeous bitch." You thought, perhaps... only perhaps... You wanted that, you liked your boss...

*Bzz* *Bzz* *Bzz*

Your phone rings with a text from your boss.

-Corporate loved the project, we were given monday to celebrate, so I'll be expecting you monday 7:00 A.M. sharp for the party.

-Got it boss. And hey, sorry for snapping out last week. -Perhaps this could be a beginning, you know you should keep things professional, you keep telling yourself to stop but flesh is weak.

-Yeah, just don't be late. -Her response cold as always after 5 minutes of writing and deleting, she's also in the midst of an inner debate, whether let herself feel what she wants to feel for you or just don't say anything.

But why? Why shouldn't you try? Because she's your boss? There's plenty of people that date with their boss and make it work, you shouldn't keep ahold of the prospect of your happiness just because people might judge, that's the whole point, living for yourself and be happy yourself. Isn't it?

That very Monday at 7:00 A.M. you show yourself at work wearing a new white T-shirt and some loose jeans, your usual wrist watch and a new cologne you bought just for your boss, nothing else is going to stop you.

-Hey, boss. -You came to talk to her made a nrevous wreck not really knowing what to do to get her attention.

-Oh, here he is, the brain behind it all. -She wrapped her arm around your shoulders and pulled you closer to present you to some corporate officers like if you were a prize, like you never shouted before... Like you two were friends... Being so close to her made your every sense enter overdrive and your nostrils welcomed her particular scent, that magnificent smell of lavender and strawberries sent your head over the moon.

The rest of the party went completely normal, talking here, showing off there... Taking glances at your boss every once in a while as well.

Wait, did she looked at you as well?

Was she blushing?

-Hey boss can I talk to you for a sec? -You got closer and whispered into her ear, not long after she pointed you to the balcony where you usually go to have your lunch.

-Make it quick.

-Look boss, there's no easy way for me to say this, but I think I should quit... I... I have feelings for you.

-Is that so? -Her cold demeanor makes you back off for a second, unable to tell the truth in her eyes you stutter.

-I know, I know that I was rude last week and I'm being just way too out of line. -Her eyes shine with a glint never seen before, in her mind the thoughts are divided whether she should speak from her heart, as Karina. Or speak from her brain as Ms. Jimin, regional Manager of your branch.

-You know you're my worker, and this is incredibly inappropriate.

-Don't you feel the same for me? I saw you looking for my eyes before.

-Don't be ridiculous, I'm your boss. -Despite the way she feels work ethics comes first, how can a manager could let a worker speak to her that way?

-I don't care. -It's the last thing you said before leaning forward and placing your hand against her cheek, caressing her soft skin and pressing your lips over hers.

For a second all that exists is you and her, together in a tight embrace holding her waist desperately thinking that if you'd ever let go of her she'd just vanish in the thin air. She responds to your advances letting your body invade her personal space, for mere seconds that feel like an eternity all that she can feel is your hands gripping her blouse until she lets go of any ties and wrap her arms around your neck, tipping into her toe-tips to match as much as she can your height.

-We... We can't... I'm your boss... -Her voice comes out cracking, breathing unsteady due to the raw passion she just felt a while ago. -It's inappropriate.

-I don't care, I'll quit if needed, I just care that I want you.

-I want you too. -She rests her head on your shoulder nuzzling her face in the crook of your neck.

You then caress her soft hair, taking a deep breath of her unique scent that send jolts of electricity along your brain.

-So what now, boss? -This time the words come out strong, lovingly, softly.

-Now we talk to HR, couples need to fill paperwork. -She pulls back and looks into your eyes again. -You always make me do more and more paperwork... -She then whispers in your ear. -Sweetie.

[hopefulidiocy]

My Toy

Professor!LupinxStudent!Reader

WARNINGS: this is simply smut with no plot. Rough sex, praise kink, degradation, slapping, overstimulation, daddy kink, oral (M receiving) and probs more but please note that this smut is simply unforgiving.

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT‼️ 18+ ONLY‼️

~

Today was your six month anniversary and you had nothing planned, Remus just wanted a quiet night in his office with dinner but you simply couldn’t agree. So you came up with your own plan; to suck him off in the classroom. You thought yourself a genius when you came up with it last night and with one tequila shot, you could do this with every ounce of confidence you had. You stared at yourself in the mirror, his favourite black lingerie where your ass is fully showing with the skimpy g string and your boobs rose to your neck almost; he loved this set on you and especially loved you to dance in it. You hand your hand down your toned abdomen, allowing yourself to think of the pleasure you’ll be getting; but the first half was all about him.

Every time you got freaky, he would take his sweet time with you. He would caress your body like it was a work of art and the way his tongue licks stripes up and down your heat simply makes you flutter with horniness. You wanted it. But you also wanted to take the time with him because he fucking deserved it. You very rarely give him head, mainly because he just wants to bury himself inside you at any given moment and make you come several times before you had to tap out.

Your Gryffindor robe hung perfectly around you, you tightened it around you so not an ounce of you could be seen. Making your way out, you lose yourself in a crowd who were making their way to their respective classes; you knew that Remus didn’t have a class until ten minutes and it was your own class, you had said to your friends that you were too sick to go but would study in the library. Softly, you open the door to see Remus reading with his feet perched on his desk, he was so engrossed in it that you felt bad for distracting him. You closed the door so he would look up.

“You’re early, sweetie.” He closed his book, setting it in the drawer of his desk. Removing his feet, he stalked towards you with affection filled eyes. He pulled you to him, kissing your cheek and embracing you. Softly, you planted your hands on his chest and pushed him away.

“I’m not here for class, Professor.” You said, seductively, your hand wandering from his chest to his pelvis; his eyes filled with darkness.

“Then what are you here for?” He growled, watching your hand go lower. You didn’t answer him, instead your hand placed pressure on his crotch, making it grow as his cock hardened under your soft touch; it made you hot, how horny you could get him by simply touching him. You couldn’t ignore the heat that was igniting you. So you slowly removed your hand to your robe, grabbing it and opening it, letting him see his favourite lingerie. He let go a low, deep whistle; taking your hand and making you twirl so he could see your ass; he gave it a pinch. “I wish I could postpone this fucking class.” He groaned, palming himself.

“Happy Anniversary, baby.” You approached him slowly like he’s prey, you stood on your tiptoes and kissed him, using your tongue to lick his bottom lip, your hands on his chest. You pushed him towards his desk, making him sit there and before the class would fill, you sat in his lap to give him a light pink love bite on his neck; he hissed in delight.

“Your class is coming in soon and I’ll be under your desk.” You said, as you moved under there and he wanted to say something but the class barged in.

“Morning, sir!” Chirping coming from the door as you watched him under your eyelashes, you weren’t going to touch him yet, let him have that anticipation; waiting until the class went silent.

Lupin stayed sitting so his hard on wouldn’t be seen by the class, his breath hitched harshly as your palm began running gently, like a whisper, up his calf onto his thigh. You painted pictures with your light fingertips over the mass of his thigh, watching him as he struggled over his words. Slowly, painfully, you travelled to his zipper; silently pulling it down and his cock strained to be released. You never will get over just how big it was, it was the size of your forearm; every time he buried it inside of you, you would have to lie there, waiting for your walls to accommodate. His cock jumped out, greeting you with pre cum squirting out, you smiled and your hand wrapped around it. Your hand worked it, up and down as softly as you could to make him struggle. He bucked his hips, making your hand go faster, you could smell the beauty of it and your mouth watered so you took your lips to the tip of his cock. He groaned but covered it with a cough. Slowly, agonisingly, you took him all in; slightly hitting the edge of your teeth as he hits the back of your throat, you gagged and relished in the sound of your lips around his cock. His hand found your hair, gripping it hard, almost making you bang against the wood; but you stuck to your word and bobbed your head up and down as quickly as you could, making it harder and harder for his to resist moaning, it made you so wet.

You sunk your mouth so it would hit the back, making you gag but you stayed there with his cock pulsing at the back of your throat, you tasted his precum slipping down your throat and you muffled a moan and sucked harder.

“C-Class dismissed!” He couldn’t take it any longer and called off the class, claiming they weren’t needed in the classroom for the rest of their studying. Once the last student left, he stared down at you with black eyes, grabbing a fistful of hair and pulling it, to make you look at him with his cock so beautifully fitting in your mouth. He angled himself so the head poked out through your cheek and he brought his hand back, slapping your cheek as hard as he could.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He growled, slapping again; tears welled up but you took it like a good girl. He slapped you harder and laughed. “Look at you, a mess and I haven’t even touched you.” He mocked, you scowled at him and flicked your tongue to his most sensitive area, making him moan and buck his hips upwards. His fist tightened, pulling his cock from you and you almost groaned from the ache of your jaw; he screeched his chair back, his hand still buried in your hair. He pulled you from your knees, slapping your ass as you jumped up, wrapping your legs around his waist. He walked up the stairs, kissing you and planting a midnight sky across the front of your neck over your collarbone. He slammed the door behind you, throwing you roughly on his couch and landing on you, his lips and teeth still making a portrait on your skin. You arched your back, moaning loudly, he pushed you down, keeping his hand on your stomach as he pulled away.

“You look fucking beautiful.” He whispered. “I’m not taking this off, I want to ruin you.” He harshly pulled your panties to the side, revealing your glistening pussy that created a slight wet patch on the couch. He growled, shoving two fingers inside of you; you arched your body upwards, your tits in his face. His fingers curled on your g spot, you moaned loudly, closing your eyes but he grabbed your neck harshly - it hurt more because of the sensitivities of your bruises. “Keep your eyes on me, baby. Be a good girl.” He said, moving his hand in and out of you, making you squirm under his pressured hand squeezing around your neck.

“Fuck me.” You managed to whisper, he laughed mockingly in your face.

“Your wish is my command, beautiful girl.” He removed his fingers, your core instantly cold and aching for more. He pumped his cock, staring at you before shoving it inside. Normally, you would take a moment to accommodate but he didn’t let you, he pushed your legs to your shoulders, giving him more room and strength to fuck you. His hips came down like a hammer, he wasn’t picking up his pace and instead simply pulled half way out slowly and slammed his hips down, hitting your aching g spot as it threatened let go all over him.

“Please, faster.” You begged, crying almost to let go. His hand removed from your neck, he softly caressed your face contradicting his quickening pace. Instead of hammering down onto your quivering body, he began to level up faster, making you cry out in absolute bliss and serenity. His hips slapped quickly onto yours, as he grunted and groaned, hiding them in your neck; he bit down as hard as he could as you let everything go all over him. He knew you had reached your high, but he didn’t stop, instead in one swift movement he picked you up and hung you against the bookcase. Your back pressed up to the classic romances, you bounced in his arms, his cock hitting every beautiful note; you didn’t even care that some of the books were clattering to the ground. He drilled, faster and harder, as you wrapped yourself around him, scared that he might stop. Your lewd body from a just a doll in his arms, so tiny and soft, being destroyed for his own pleasure; you loved every second of it. The slapping of skin filled the room and you danced with the sound, his hands firmly on your ass as he hit upwards, making your g spot sore and tired; but you didn’t care.

“So good to me.” He grunted. “Your pussy belongs to me, you belong to me.” He bit into your neck again, making you cry out in pain that was overwhelmed with pleasure. You contracted around him, your toes curling as you unleashed everything onto him; he moaned in delight as he pushed you into another position on his desk. Your cheek pressed hard into the wood, the smell of chocolate, tea and sex got you even hornier as he pounded into you like there was no tomorrow. His large hand pressed on your face, so you were squeezed on the desk. “Look at you, in that pretty lingerie, getting fucked, you’re so sweet the way you look at me with those eyes whilst I destroy you.” He mocked, pounding even harder. You started seeing stars, your eyes rolling back and your throat sore; you let him have his way as you dived into a world of satisfaction, no moans or words could describe this moment between the two of you. “Can you not speak, pretty girl?” He pouted, pulling your hair and rising you roughly so your back was against his chest; your eyes still rolled at the back of your head. His fingers splayed over your exposed throat, your hair sweating as he whispered. “Do you like it when I fuck that tight cunt of yours?” You wanted to scream yes, you wanted the whole world to know that you belonged with him and you loved being used like a useless toy in his office. But your throat couldn’t make any useful sound so your mouth just lolled open, basking in the glory. His hand removed from your throat, he slapped your cheek harshly. “Answer me, princess.” He got faster as you tried to breathe and get to grips of yourself, his other hand travelling to your bruised clit; rubbing it in perfect circles, making it so much harder to talk.

“Y-Yes.” You managed to squeak, but he wasn’t happy and landed another slap to your face, his hips still bucking at a gods speed. “Yes, daddy. I love it when…. When… you fuck me, I love it!” You ended up screaming towards the end, eager to get it out and he chuckled darkly as his movements began falling. Close to his edge, his imprinted himself onto you with his mouth and shook with agonising pleasure as he painted your walls. He groaned loudly, pulling out and you simply collapsed onto your knees; a stupid, shaking mess. You managed to look up at him, his eyes were black with pleasure and he smiled sweetly as he saw you curled up by his feet. He sat in his chair, patting the space between his legs for you to sit. You squirmed into the space, he kissed your jawline softly.

“How many times did you come, baby?” He breathed.

“Twice.” You were still shaking but oozing with heat.

“Well that just won’t do.” He tutted, his hands opening your legs so your feet were on both of his knees. “Do I have your consent to play with that pretty pussy?” You could’ve come right then and there with his beautiful voice and beautiful question.

“Please play with me.” You moaned, rocking your head on his shoulder as his hand travelled to your pulsing clit. With his middle finger he massaged you in circles, keeping his focus right on your clit, making you moan and moan until you became hoarse. His hand moved slowly, he kissed each and every one of your love bites so lovingly that you could’ve cried but the pleasure from his hand suddenly unleashed onto him. Creating a pretty picture all over his chair and hand. He laughed affectionately and kissed your cheeks.

“I’ve got you baby.” He moved your legs so you were simply draped over him, you breathed as slowly and as measurably as you could as he soothed you with his hand stroking your hair. “You did so well for me baby.” He kissed your lips softly, the way he always did and kept you in his arms until you fell asleep, safe and secured.

[chxmpagneprxblem]

Chapter Three - Sunshine

Tough Love Masterlist

“Paul LaHote asked me on a date and I kind of want to go on it.” Leah looked up from her DVD collection and stared at you from where you sat on her sofa.

Thursdays were a long honed tradition. You and Leah spent every Thursday having a movie night and a sleepover and neither of you ever broke that.

So you had gotten all of three days holding in the secret of Paul asking you out. You still hadn’t given him a definite answer. He had given you his number instead. You hadn’t called him yet.

“What?” Leah asked, dropping back from her crouched position to sit on the ground. You stared at her for a second before dropping her gaze to pick at the edge of your nail.

“Paul. He asked me out.” You explained without looking up. “I haven’t told him I’d go.”

“But you want to?” Leah asked, confused. You knew why she was confused. She’d never even heard you mention Paul in any capacity only to hate on Sam and his followers.

“I mean. Kind of?” You knew you sounded unsure. “He fixed up my car the last time. And he did loads of extra things too. And he didn’t charge me, just asked me out. And he’s sort of funny. And really hot.”

“And friends with Sam.” Leah finished and you deflated. You nodded and looked up at Leah who didn’t look mad, just confused still.

“And friends with Sam.” You sighed. She nodded again and you chewed on your bottom lip. “I would never dream of forgiving him for what he’s done. And I wouldn’t hang out with them, like ever.”

“You really want to go on this date, huh?” Leah asked and you nodded again. “You won’t leave?”

“Never. Not ever Leah! You know that. I’d rather cut my arm off.” You promised her, clambering off the sofa to sit next to her. “He’s probably gonna be terrible and it won’t be a good date and I’ll have to come back her and complain about it all.”

“Probably.” Leah agreed, her voice suspiciously thick. “And I’d listen, you know, even if it’s a really good date and you have the best time.”

“I love you, you know that?” You asked her softly. “More than I’ll ever love a dumb guy.”

“You better. We made a pact, a blood vow.” She reminded you and you both held up scarred little fingers. “That scar means you can’t ever pick anyone over me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

…

“So about that movie?” You asked into the receiver, watching your father in the living room who was transfixed by the game.

“Kind of late notice, isn’t it?” Paul asked with a chuckle and you rolled your eyes.

“Well if you’re not interested anymore then-“

“Hey! No! I didn’t say that. I can pick you up in like an hour, maybe an hour and a half?” He rushed out and you laughed, drawing a look from your father.

“Make it an hour and we’ll see if there’s time for that pizza after.” You warned and he called an affirmative before you hung up.

“That wasn’t your Leah laugh.” You narrowed your eyes at your father who only raised his hands. “Just wondering who’s taking my Sunshine out.”

“You don’t know him.” You assured your father. He raised his eyebrows and you sighed. “Paul LaHote.”

“Lives down on the Rez, don’t he?” Charlie asked and you sighed heavily again. “Good kid. Billy talks highly of him.”

“He’s not a kid and either am I. So don’t wait up tonight.” You warned and Charlie guffawed.

“You’re twenty one kid. You still live under my roof. Have your ass back in bed by two in the morning or I’ll coming looking for you. Siren and all.” He warned, you knew he was only partially kidding.

“You suck, Chief.”

“Yeah, get used to it, Sunshine.”

…

“Fifty six minutes. I hope you timed me.” Paul grinned and presented a bouquet of yellow gardenias with soil still on the roots.

“I’ll close the door if I look across the road and see Mrs Herschel is missing any flowers.” You warned. You felt more than heard your father step into the hallway. “Go away, Chief.”

“I took those flowers from my mom’s garden who offered them up. Also, hey there Chief Swan.” Paul waved to your stoic father.

“Don’t be a bootlicker, Paul. His name is Charlie and if he wants dinner tomorrow he should get back in the living room.” You didn’t turn to look at your father but you did take the flowers from Paul and hold them out for your father to take. “Could you put these in a vase please, we’ll be late.”

“Two at the latest, Sunshine. Or the sirens are coming out.” Charlie warned as you shrugged on your jacket.

“That would break the domestic noise level law. Don’t break your own rules, Chief. I’ll be home when I’m home. No earlier and no later.” You shut the door behind you and Paul chuckled warmly. “My sister has given him so much to worry about that he forgets I’m not her.”

“She was dating that Cullen guy, right?” Paul asked and you nodded, following him to his truck. He paused by the passenger door and opened it for you.

“Yeah. That’s the guy. He really did a number on her. So now all guys are the worst in the world.” You explained before he closed your door. He jogged around the front of the truck and pulled his own door open.

“He’s just protective of you. That’s what a dad is supposed to do.” Paul shrugged and you rolled your eyes.

“Bootlicker.” You whispered and he laughed again before backing the truck out of your drive.

“I ain’t a bootlicker. I’m respecting the man who brought my date into the world. Or isn’t that allowed, Sunshine?” Paul asked teasingly.

“Don’t you dare. It’s a stupid nickname he gave me when I was a kid and I’ve been trying a long time to shake it.” You knew from his laugh it wasn’t going anywhere soon.

…

“By movie I assumed you would be taking me to Port Angeles.” You told him when he went the opposite way out of Forks. He only shrugged his shoulders and you swatted at him. “Where are we going?”

“You don’t rent an R-Rated movie and then watch it in theater.” He reminded you and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“Sounds like an intentional bid to get me back to your place. Did you kick your mom out for the night?” You asked and he laughed.

“I don’t live with my mom.” He corrected and you rolled your eyes. “I went by her place earlier and grabbed the flowers. I got my own place.”

“Bought your own place with a couple of garage shifts?” You asked and he shook his head, turning off the highway towards LaPush.

“My grandpa left it to me. I don’t know why you think I’m trying to pull a fast one on you. I’m an honest guy.” Paul shrugged and you chewed on your bottom lip.

“I’ve been mean. To you. And you just put all that aside to ask me out.” You admitted quietly and Paul shrugged again. “No, don’t brush it off. I have a reason to be mad at Sam but I dragged you and Jared into it too.”

“You don’t understand the situation. I won’t hold it against you for being a good friend.” Paul promised and you sighed again.

“I, you have to understand, I can’t be their friend. I can’t hurt Leah like that. And they’re your friends. I know that. If you can’t excuse that then this won’t work.” You told him. He pulled into a long dirt drive and you watched him quietly think about your words.

“I think that maybe if I had been around for the Sam and Leah thing I would feel as you do. I see it differently than you do so I can be his friend. It’s perspective and I won’t ask you to be friends with someone you don’t want to be.” He huffed a breath as if the whole sentence had taken years off his laugh.

“You worded that very intentionally.” You pointed out when he parked outside a small cottage.

“Sam is my friend. That won’t change. Leah is your friend. That won’t change. Sam broke Leah’s heart. There’s no changing that either. We’ll just have to find a way to figure it all out.” You nodded slowly.

“Only if this date is any good.” You teased and he laughed.

…

“Terrible. Worst date of my life. I’ll never see him again.” You brushed past Leah at the door and made straight for her room.

“Oh, so you’re gonna marry this boy?” She asked as you flopped down, face first, into her bed.

“Leah. I can not explain how much I want to spend my life with him. We’re going to have three children and Billy will officiate and you’ll be my bridesmaid.” You turned your face to speak before burying your head in her mattress to scream at the top of your lungs.

“Jeez, take it down a notch.” Leah sighed and flipped down next to you.

“Dude, you’re fucking on fire.” You pushed up on your elbows to free one hand to check her temperature. “Are you sick?”

“I feel weird. Achey. It’s nothing. Probably my period coming on.” She sighed and rolled over to face you. “Tell me everything.”

“He brought me flowers. We watched a movie at his place and he ordered pizza. We cuddled a little.” Leah raised her eyebrow at your blushing. “Okay so we made out. Like a lot. It was good. He’s so strong and he just lifted me into his lap. He even made sure I was home in time for Charlie’s bullshit made up curfew.”

“Paul LaHote, a gentleman?” Leah asked with a laugh. “He must really like you.”

“I told him. You know. That I couldn’t be friends with his friends. That I wouldn’t do it to you.” You promised, linking your little finger with hers. She smiled and then sighed, rolling so her face was pressed into the blanket. You wrapped your arms around her and lay with her in silence.

“Love you, Lee.”

“Love you too, Sunshine.”

[adventuringblind]

Joint Coping

Lestappen x Reader

Genre: Angst

Dialouge: "Help me understand."

Summary: Max helps his partners learn to cope in healthy ways

Warnings: Selh-harm, unhealthy Coping, blood, Ferrari, Max being the sane one of the group

Notes: I would like to emphasize that this is a thing that does happen. I know because I've done it. This specifically is not something to be glorified at all. Self-harm done in groups can become competitive. This is a pretty toned down version of things I've experienced and it's less toxic. THIS IS NOT REACHING OUT. Just wanted to clarify :)

This is part of my 1000 follower celebration! Requests are still open if you'd like to participate (the link will take you to the request form).

Masterlist

Max knows something is wrong with his partners. It's like an itch in his brain he can't scratch. A sixth sense, if you will.

The two Ferrari drivers are struggling with their team. Every problem is their fault. They have become the Ferrari scapegoats. When they do poor, it's the driver. When they do good, it's the team and the car.

He's coming to the end of his patience. If he has to hear them self deprecate one more time he might actually consider making them stand in the mirror and say nice things about themselves. Can he fuck it out of them? Is that a possibility? He really doesn't know but is desperate and willing to try anything.

They both DNF at the next race. Max is a man on a mission through media and debrief. He needs to see that they are okay. At the very least not sitting through some kind of lecture a parent gives to a child.

He sprints to the Ferrari garage and runs into Carlos. Despite his injury that took him out of the season, he still comes to support his team and teammates.

"Carlos!" The Spainard spins around to face him. "Have you seen-?"

"They already left over an hour ago. Did they not text you?"

There are warning bells going off inside of his head. Something is clearly wrong and they aren't telling him about it. He's about to sprint away when Carlos stops him.

"Before you go, you should that there were some awful things said by their engineers and they looked really upset about it."

"Thanks Carlos."

Max is back at the hotel as fast as he can manage. He tried both their cells with no answer. It's killing him from the inside out with anxiety. He's probably just overthinking, but it'll feel better when he sees they are okay.

He keys the door open and doesn't bother taking off his shoes. The lights are off aside from the one in the bathroom. Maybe they decided a nice relaxing bath would do the trick. Max could also go for one. He pushes that thought aside for now.

He knocks gently on the door. "You two in there?" No response. Or at least - not one to him directly. There are a few hushed whispers, but nothing loud enough for him to hear.

He waits Aproximatley ten seconds before he can't handle it anymore and swings the door open. He expects to see fogged mirror and water on the floor. Instead he's met with the sight red wrists and thighs.

He's lost. Max Verstappen has no idea what to do.

They are stripped down to undergarments. Legs dangling over the side of tub. A switchblade in the hands of Charles. They both look teary eyed and doped out. Are they enjoying this?

God, he feels so stupid. Weeks of having Sex with no lights on, sweatshirts in hot weather, no swimming and doing private ice bathes away from trainers. He should've noticed. Max could've stopped this sooner. He wants to rewind and tell them to come to him instead of relying on this to get the through.

"Guess you caught us." Charles let's out a half assed laugh. "You gonna stare at us all night? Or can we get the yelling part over with? Last three partners left us when they caught it. I understand if it's to much. Not your burden."

Max had been a later addition. The two in the bathtub had been together since their teenage years. Had they been Coping like this for so long?

"Sorry about the mess. Relapses are hard. We made it all season until a month ago." She leans her head onto Charles' shoulder. How can they make this type of environment endearing? This is unreal and they need serious help. Which Max will eventually get them when he can get his act together.

He kneels on the floor in between them. Max is just now registering the tears on his cheeks. They'd been in pain for so long. It hurts him just thinking about it.

"I'm not going to yell-" he looks at one. "-I'm not going to leave-" he looks at the other. "But help me understand. I want to help."

"It's easier to do with someone else around. It's more therapeutic." The lopsided smile on the female's face is not helping Max. He has to many questions.

First, he gets them cleaned up. Neither of them flinch when he disenfects the wounds. They don't look at him as he wraps them in whatever gauz is in the first aid kit. They look ashamed as he puts the knife in his bag and rinses the tub.

The one that gets him, however, is the look of pure confusion when Max hugs them both so tightly. It's like they don't know how to respond.

They sit in a circle on the bed. It's comfortable and Max can see both their expressions clearly.

"I know the struggle." He starts. "Punishing yourself is better then someone else doing it, right? But I had Daniel there reminding me to reach out."

"It's just easier this way."

"Easier isn't better. Look at the state you're in. I'm not leaving, but I am getting the both of you help."

He followed through with this the next morning. Then looked supposed to see him when they woke up. He, and his childish mind, kissed all the cuts and scars. Every single one of them received proper treatment.

The female cried and thre her arms around Max. Charles had looked away in shame. The reasons they started this are still foreign to him, but that's not his priority.

He gets them help. All of them, mind you. They do group sessions as the three of them to find healthier ways to cope with each other.

Reasons seem to fade into the background because they don't matter as much. The important thing is that Max caught it in time. That he didn't lose them to their own minds. They are partners, and Max would be devistated to lost someone he loves to those dark places.

He rests easier now that the itch has been scratched. His partners are doing better. They smile and laugh at his stupid jokes again. A bit of confidence regained.

And Max reminds them daily that nothing is worth it if you have to destroy yourself for it. Drivers or not, he loves them regardless.

[withahappyrefrain]

I wish you would write a fic where Jake is flirting with a plus size girl who doesn’t think he’s really attracted to her but still goes home with him (a bit self destructive she knows) but when she has to physically pull him from between her thighs because he’s about to pass out from the lack of breathing/cumming in his pants she realizes that “oh shit he does like me”

Oh I feel this so hard and this got away from me enjoy!

She thinks when Jake comes up to her that he wants to know about her friends, because why else would he come up and talk to her?

And when Jake asks her about herself, she still thinks that's his goal. So she's guarded, her answers are short and to the point. Just waiting for him to bring up one of the girls she came with, waiting for those four words that always come when someone like him talks to someone like her.

"Is your friend single?"

But strangely, those words never come. Because Jake (God bless him) just thinks the bar is too noisy and that's why you're being quiet.

"Do you want to go outside? Where it's not as loud?"

"Why?" It's an automatic response due to years of being ignored, rejected, passed over. It's genuine confusion because he could be talking to anyone here, so why would he want to talk to you?

Jake's brows knit together in confusion. He thought he was being very obvious in his flirting.

"So I can hear you better?" He says it like a question because he's confused too, just for a different reason. He had pulled out all the stops; buying you a drink, complimenting your smile, leaning in to close the distance between his body and her's.

But that hasn't stopped her from looking around the bar, keeping an eye out for snickering friends who are filming the interaction with their phones or passing a wad of cash to each other for winning a bet this Adonis was acting out.

Long fingers hooked themselves around her chin, gently tilting her head back to Jake's.

His smile is now soft, hesitant almost. Nothing like the eye-crinkling grin he had early when he found something she said hilarious.

"If you don't want to, it's fine. You can tell me."

A way out. A way to avoid rejection. A way to avoid being let down, avoid feeling unwanted.

Saying no is the sensible thing to do.

And yet, she finds herself out on the beach with Jake Seresin, who's looking at her as if she put the stars in the night sky.

She knows she can leave anytime, and so could he. She expects it, waits for a half assed excuse, an 'emergency' phone call to occur, an early meeting tomorrow morning. Anything for him to leave.

But Jake doesn't leave. In fact, he does the unthinkable and asks if she wants to come back to his place.

Another chance to leave that she didn't take. She knows whatever this is, it won't last longer than tonight. It's going to hurt like hell tomorrow morning, but it's fun to pretend that a guy actually wants to be with you, right?

But Jake keeps surprising her. First when he kisses her.

Second when he asks if she wants to go upstairs.

He hasn't had a drink since they left the bar, so alcohol isn't clouding his vision and the whole being in the Navy thing rules out drugs.

Maybe it's been a while since he's gotten laid and he's desperate. But even she knows that one is impossible given his looks and charms.

The biggest surprise is when he doesn't reach for the lamp after she lies down on his bed.

"Aren't you...going to turn it off?" She motions to the lamp, a rather incredulous look taking over her face.

Jake tilts his head to the side, resembling a confused puppy more than a Greek God.

"Why would I do that? Then I can't see you."

He wants to see me.

The words repeat over and over in her head. When he pulls off her shirt, she fights the urge to wrap her arms around her stomach, instead pulling him into a bruising kiss.

"You're so soft," his hands are traveling everywhere along her body, as if he's trying to commit the feeling to memory, "Fucking love it."

The seed of doubt becomes smaller and smaller as the night goes on, though it still looms in the back of her head. This is just for a night, it'll only last a night, but what's wrong with that?

There's a lot wrong with that, but that's something to talk in therapy. She tries to push it to the back of her mind, focusing on how good his tongue feels on her clit, how his fingers are able to find the spot that makes her whole body shake in pleasure.

Wait, how long has he been down there?

She was expecting him to come up when she first came but then he kept going.

The noises Jake was making kept getting louder too. Moans vibrating against her wet cunt. Then the bed began to squeak.

That was what caused her to lift her head up and look at the sight between her legs.

His eyes were completely closed as his mouth moved against her. What took the breath out of her lungs was the way his hips were moving frantically against the mattress, becoming more erratic as his moans increased.

Fuck, he was enjoying this.

He was enjoying her.

This was....new.

[simplyraeblue]

King and Captive

(Hunter and Hunted Spin-Off) read here

a chance meeting with Sukuna quickly turns into a nightly routine you can't escape. as the lines between game and something more blur, you start to wonder—how long can you keep playing, or will Sukuna make you his next conquest? !Sukuna x !femreader

chapter warnings/tags: swearing, drinking, use of "princess", still decently tame, sukuna rides a motorcycle, eventual smut warning tho of course ( • ᴗ - ) A/N: as I said, I had three parts already written for this before I even posted part one (ᵕ—ᴗ—) so, enjoy ya filthy animals

index part one | part three

part three word count : 3,437

you couldn’t quite figure out how or why Sukuna kept ending up at the bar as you, at the same time, every day since your first encounter. yet, like clockwork, you found yourself leaving work and heading to that bar – the one where you’d first crossed paths. maybe it was a subconscious decision, a quiet hope that he’d be there again, just like he had been the last time, and the time before that.

each encountered felt like a dance. you couldn’t even recall the last time you’d ordered a drink for yourself. Sukuna always had two waiting – one for him, one for you. he seemed to know you’d show up, his confidence practically radiating. it had to be his cockiness that convinced him of your arrival each day. 

but Sukuna wasn’t oblivious. he’d pieced together that the bar was just around the corner from your workplace, and with a little persistence and some well-placed tips to the bartender, he gained the little slice of knowledge that you were a regular. your resistance intrigued him, even if it grated on his nerves. how had you managed to keep him at arm’s length this long? this game was new territory for him; women usually threw themselves at him, eagerly falling into bed. but you? you were different – a challenge he hadn’t enjoyed in ages.

“are you an alcoholic, or what?” you teased, smirking as you approached him from behind. right on time. Sukuna didn’t bother answering. instead, he slid a pint across the bar to the stool next to him and patted the seat, silently inviting you to take your place. beside him.

you scoffed, half in disbelief. you weren’t sure if his behavior was bordering on stalker territory or if he was just that determined to win whatever strange game he’d started two weeks ago. and yet, despite your better judgment, you took the open seat.

over time, those two post-work hours with him each night had become a strange sort of routine. little by little, you’d pried bits of personal information from him. he had two brother and was the oldest. he worked as a tattoo artist – a quick internet search confirmed he was quite popular locally – and he wanted to eventually open his own shop someday.

and then there was the breakup. he’d mentioned it briefly, almost casually, as if it wasn’t any true trouble to him. but the details? those he left vague.

“while I don’t mind doing this every day, when are you going to let me take you out on a real date?” Sukuna asked, his devilish smirk firmly in place as he watched you take a sip of your drink.

“I don’t know.” you replied, raising an eyebrow. “it’s been pretty entertaining coming here after work and find your raggedy ass sitting in the same spot every time.” you grinned over the rim of your glass, already bracing yourself for his comeback. something wicked flickered in his eyes, and you knew you’d poked the bear.

“raggedy ass?” Sukuna repeated, arching a brow with an amused grin. “you and my little brother would get along way too well.”

“probably.” you shot back. “I’ve only had to tolerate you for two weeks, but he’s already my hero for dealing with you his whole life.”

Sukuna laughed – a deep, booming sound that felt like it reverberated through your chest. it wasn’t something you’d intended, but you found yourself liking the sound: loud, unapologetic, and enough to draw attention from others in the bar. you were pretty sure if anyone dared to complain, they’d shut up instantly with a remark from his sharp tongue.

when his laughter subsided, Sukuna rested his chin in his hand, gaze fixed on you. “how about we play a little game?” he asked, his tone low and teasing.

“aren’t we already playing one?” you replied, shooting him a pointed look.

“this one’s simple.” his smirk widened. “I’ll be here, same time as usual tomorrow. if you show up again, I’ll take that as a yes to a date with me. a proper date, not just sitting in a bar down the street from your work.

you averted your gaze, aware of the heat rising in your cheeks. a real date? you’d gotten so comfortable here, trading playful insults and talking with him so casually every evening. would a date change things?

Sukuna studied your face while you thought in silence, the corner of his mouth twitching in satisfaction. he knew he’d caught you off guard. he thought you look so cute, brows furrowed and cheeks flushed, unable to meet his gaze. flustered – that’s what it was. and he liked you that way far more than he cared to admit.

“not sure you’d survive a real date with me,” you said, finally meeting his eyes, your voice steady despite the slight flutter in your chest.

Sukuna’s grin deepened, revealing the faintest hint of sharp canines. “oh, sweetheart, I’d survive just fine. the real question is, could you handle it?”

there it was—that cocky, self-assured attitude that was both infuriating and magnetic. you rolled your eyes but couldn’t stop the small smile tugging at your lips. “bold of you to assume I even want to.”

“I don’t assume,” he replied smoothly, leaning closer. “I know. you wouldn’t keep showing up here if you didn’t enjoy my company.” his voice dipped lower, like a secret meant only for you. “I can see it in the way you’re smiling right now, no matter how much you try to hide it.”

your smile faltered for a second, but the smug look on his face spurred you to regain your footing. “or maybe I just like the free drinks,” you teased, taking a long sip from your glass.

Sukuna barked out another laugh, drawing more curious glances from around the bar. he didn’t care. “fair enough. but tomorrow? no drinks, no games—just you and me. that is, if you show up.” he gave you a look that was both a challenge and an invitation. “think you’re brave enough?”

brave enough? the audacity.

“you’re really not going to drop this, are you?” you asked, setting your glass down and crossing your arms.

“not a chance,” Sukuna replied, leaning back with an air of triumph. “but hey, if you’re too scared, just say so.”

you glared at him, lips twitching as you tried not to laugh. “I’m not scared.”

“good,” he said, standing up suddenly and throwing a few bills on the counter. “then I’ll see you tomorrow, same time.” he grabbed his leather jacket, slinging it over his shoulder as he looked down at you one last time. “and don’t be late, princess.”

with that, Sukuna turned and walked out, leaving you sitting there, torn between frustration and attraction. you hated how much his confidence got under your skin, and yet you couldn’t deny the thrill that came with every interaction.

you sighed, finishing the rest of your drink. tomorrow, huh? you weren’t sure if you’d go—but the thought of skipping out and letting him win so easily? that didn’t sit right with you either.

as you left the bar that night, one thing was clear: Sukuna had officially gotten under your skin, and you weren’t entirely sure how to shake him. or if you even wanted to.

-

the next evening, you found yourself lingering outside the bar longer than usual. it wasn’t hesitation keeping you there—not entirely. maybe it was nerves, though you hated to admit that Sukuna had gotten into your head like this.

the thought of his smug grin waiting for you inside was both infuriating and... exciting. you sighed, steeling yourself, and pushed the door open.

as always, Sukuna was there, seated in his usual spot, leaning back against the bar like he owned the damn place. he didn’t even look up when the door creaked open. instead, he glanced at his watch, his grin forming before he turned to you. “right on time, princess,” he drawled, eyes raking over you with a lazy confidence that set your nerves alight. “knew you couldn’t resist.��

you rolled your eyes, brushing past a couple of patrons on your way to his side. “don’t get too full of yourself, ass. you know I was already in the area.”

“oh, yeah?” he said, sliding a fresh drink in your direction without missing a beat. “and I suppose it’s just a coincidence that you didn’t choose another bar?”

you took the drink—not because he offered, of course, but because it was easier than engaging with his nonsense right away. “you’re awfully cocky for someone who still hasn’t gotten a yes,” you retorted, sipping slowly and watching his reaction.

Sukuna laughed, the deep, familiar sound somehow settling your nerves even as it annoyed you. “you showing up is all the ‘yes’ I need,” he said, turning to face you fully now, his arm resting casually on the back of your chair. “so, what’s it gonna be? you gonna let me sweep you off your feet tonight?”

you raised an eyebrow. “sweep me off my feet? that’s ambitious. I’m not that easily impressed.”

“challenge accepted,” he replied without hesitation. he leaned in just slightly, close enough for his voice to drop into that low, taunting tone he seemed to know got under your skin. “I’ve been playing nice, but maybe it’s time I stepped up my game.”

you tilted your head, meeting his gaze head-on. “oh, this was you playing nice?”

“careful,” he warned, smirking. “keep testing me, and you might find out what happens when I stop.”

the tension between you crackled like static, a silent standoff as neither of you broke eye contact. it was exhilarating, maddening, and far too entertaining for you to even think about leaving now. you couldn’t deny the heat you felt wash over your body, from your head to your toes you were… bothered to say the least.

finally, Sukuna leaned back, breaking the moment with a smug chuckle. “finish your drink, sweetheart. we’ve got a reservation.”

you blinked. “a reservation? you made plans?”

“don’t sound so surprised,” he said, standing and tossing a few bills on the bar. “I told you, tonight’s a proper date. you coming, or are you chickening out?”

you didn’t move right away, deliberately taking another sip of your drink just to make him wait. but as much as you hated giving him the satisfaction, the curiosity was too strong to ignore.

setting your glass down, you stood and grabbed your coat. “alright, Sukuna,” you said, brushing past him toward the door. “show me what you’ve got.”

his grin widened as he followed, the thrill of the chase sparking in his eyes. 

the cool evening air brushed against your skin as you stepped out of the bar, Sukuna following close behind. “so,” you started, glancing back at him. “where’s this ‘proper date’ happening? let me guess—a hole in the wall with sticky floors and loud music?”

“cute,” Sukuna replied, his smirk firmly in place. “but no. I’m classier than that.”

“sure you are,” you muttered, half teasing. “alright, then. impress me.”

“don’t worry, princess,” he said, leading you down the sidewalk. “I will.”

your steps slowed as you spotted a sleek, black motorcycle parked just ahead, a matching black helmet tied to the handlebar. Sukuna stopped next to it and turned to you with a grin that could only be described as wicked.

“seriously?” you asked, gesturing toward the bike. “this is how you’re taking me on a proper date?”

“what? you don’t trust me?” he teased, pulling a spare helmet from the back and tossing it to you.

you caught it, arching a brow. “not sure trust is the word I’d use. what is this, your bad-boy routine?”

he laughed. “sweetheart, this is the routine. now, are you getting on, or are you too scared?”

your jaw clenched at the challenge in his tone. no way were you letting him think you’d back down. you placed the helmet on your head, snapping it into place as he watched with obvious amusement.

“let’s get this over with,” you said, climbing onto the bike behind him.

Sukuna smiled as he mounted the motorcycle, his hands gripping the handlebars with ease. “hold on tight, princess,” he said, his voice low and teasing.

you hesitated for half a second before wrapping your arms around his waist, feeling the warmth of his body beneath his jacket – god above even the muscles in his abdomen that your arms pressed themselves into. he revved the engine, and before you could overthink it, the bike took off.

the rush of the wind was exhilarating, the world blurring as Sukuna navigated through the city streets. you clung to him, your earlier nerves replaced by something close to excitement. it wasn’t long before he slowed, pulling into a quiet side street lined with warm lights and the soft hum of activity.

when he finally stopped outside a small, cutesy restaurant, you climbed off the bike and removed your helmet, smoothing down your hair. “this is it?” you asked, eyeing the sign above the door and noticing the patio with fairy lights out back. “didn’t peg you as this type.”

“guess I’m full of surprises,” Sukuna said, smirking as he stowed the helmets. 

you rolled your eyes, but the faint smile tugging at your lips betrayed your curiosity. Sukuna held the door open for you, and as you stepped inside, the cozy atmosphere of the restaurant wrapped around you.

“you’re really going all out, huh?” you said, glancing back at him.

he leaned down slightly, just enough for his words to feel like a private joke. “when I do something, I do it right.”

you cast a glance over your shoulder as Sukuna followed you in, his imposing figure drawing a few curious looks from the other customers. it wasn’t hard to see why. even here, dressed in his leather jacket and with his strong presence, Sukuna looked like he belonged in the chaos of a fight, not the quiet comfort of a place like this. yet somehow, he seemed perfectly at ease.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or suspicious,” you said, crossing your arms. “how’d you even get us a table here on short notice?”

he smirked, casually slipping his hands into his jacket pockets. “let’s just say I know how to get what I want.”

“of course you do,” you muttered, rolling your eyes.

the host appeared, guiding you to a corner table that offered a little privacy from the rest of the customer. Sukuna pulled out your chair, a surprising gesture that earned a skeptical look from you.

“since when are you the gentleman type?” you asked, sitting down cautiously.

“since now,” he replied smoothly, taking his seat across from you. “don’t get used to it.”

the two of you read over the menu in silence for a moment, the air thick with unspoken tension. it wasn’t awkward, though – more like another game you were both quietly playing, testing each other’s patience and resolve.

when the waiter came, Sukuna ordered with casual confidence, even surprising you with his knowledge of the wine list. as the waiter walked away, you leaned forward, narrowing your eyes.

“okay, what’s the deal?” you asked. “this doesn’t seem like your usual scene.”

he leaned back in his chair, his smirk never wavering. “what, you think I spend all my time in bars and back alleys?”

“well, yeah,” you said bluntly, earning a low chuckle from him.

“trust me,” he said, resting his forearms on the table, “I know how to handle myself in places like this. just because I like to keep things casual doesn’t mean I can’t step it up when I need to.”

you tilted your head, studying him. he was a contradiction—a mix of rough edges and sharp wit, seeming to be someone who thrived on chaos yet could navigate moments like this with unsettling ease.

as you racked your brain to try and put the pieces of the puzzle that is Sukuna together, he gazed at you. your cocked head, pursed lips and eyebrows, all of it gave him feelings he didn’t know he could feel. he wanted to pinch your cheeks and take a bite out of you all in the same move. 

sure, originally, he had considered his efforts to be a fun little game – something he’d become an expert at. but this time it wasn’t a game he wanted to get a metaphorical trophy for at the end. he wanted to win, and keep winning over and over again. Sukuna’s end goal wasn’t to get you into bed, although he’d already spent much time thinking about what it would be like, but he wanted you to like him. want him. need him.

“so what’s your game, Sukuna?” you asked, deciding to drop the pretense. “you don’t strike me as the ‘dinner date’ type.”

he grinned, leaning in slightly. “maybe I’m just curious.”

“about what?”

“about you.” his tone was teasing, but his crimson eyes betrayed a flicker of something more serious, more genuine. “you don’t make it easy, and I like that.”

you felt your cheeks warm under his gaze, but you refused to look away. “curious, huh? that’s a dangerous game to play.”

“good,” Sukuna said, his grin widening. “danger’s where I’m most comfortable.”

though you’d never admit it to him, you were starting to like the way he made you feel: a little off-balance, a little reckless, and very, very alive.

As Sukuna watched you across the table, he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of satisfaction. You were trying hard to keep your composure, but he’d already noticed the small tells—how your fingers fidgeted slightly with the edge of your napkin, how you avoided meeting his eyes for too long. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to feed his ego.

Sukuna had always been good at reading people—what made them tick, what made them crumble. With most, it was laughably easy. Flash a smirk, lean in close, say the right thing, and they’d melt like butter. But you? You weren’t impressed by his confidence or his looks. You pushed back, called him out, and never let him feel like he had the upper hand for long.

It was infuriating.

And, strangely enough, addictive.

He watched as your brow furrowed slightly as you studied him. That curious little look you always got when you thought he wasn’t paying attention – it was becoming one of his favorite expressions on you.

“What?” you asked, catching him staring.

“Nothing,” Sukuna said, smirking as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Just wondering what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “If you think flattery’s going to get you anywhere, you’re wasting your time.”

“Who says I’m wasting it?” he shot back, enjoying the way you stiffened slightly. “I’ve got nowhere else I’d rather be.”

And that, to his surprise, was true.

He’d spent years chasing thrills—fights, chaos, women who came and went without leaving so much as a mark. But this? Sitting across from you, trading sharp words and stolen glances, felt different. It wasn’t just the chase that drew him to you. It was the fact that you didn’t back down.

You weren’t scared of him.

You intrigued him in ways he hadn’t expected, and for the first time in a long time, Sukuna felt the thrill of not knowing how something would end.

As the meal went on, he found himself talking more than he usually did, letting slip bits and pieces of himself he hadn’t planned on sharing. He didn’t know why he bothered – maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the way you actually listened, meeting his words with equal parts curiosity and suspicion.

When the plates were cleared and the bill paid, Sukuna stood, offering you his hand. You stared at it for a moment, and he couldn’t help but smirk. “Relax, princess. I don’t bite.” although he wanted to.

an inappropriate response almost slipped past your lips, almost asking him to do just that. “Could’ve fooled me,” you muttered, but you took his hand anyway, letting him pull you to your feet. 

As you stepped outside, Sukuna handed you the helmet once more, watching as you adjusted it with that same fiery determination that had hooked him from the start.

Maybe this was dangerous. Maybe you’d be his undoing.

But Sukuna had never been one to back down from a challenge—and you, he realized, were one he didn’t want to win too quickly.

⊹. ݁˖ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . taglist: @mangiswig@aldebrana@ravester@marie-is-in-the-dark@makingtimemine @sorahatake @osohchoso @csolya @clp-84 @chosokamoluvr . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .

[littlemissfiore]

Plan Failed!

prompt: your crush starts dating someone else. in a vain attempt to catch their attention, you device a plan with your friend to make them jealous. although, it seems your plan has failed, now it's up to your friends to pick up the pieces.

pairing: monster trio + usopp x gn!reader [modern au] [college au]

note: i was bored lmao (this is unedited)

Monkey D. Luffy:

"Let's just get something to eat! I'm getting hungry!" whined Luffy. You sent a glare his way, hoping he wasn't blowing your cover.

Luffy stared at you unamused, watching you look over at your crush flirt with someone else. He was getting tired of your antics, you were letting him starve just so you can ogle at your crush.

Luffy knew about your plan and was more than willing to help. The plan was simple, right? Make your crush jealous by having them think you're making moves on Luffy. Then, once they realize what they are missing out on, you and your crush date and Luffy gets to go his own way.

If only it was as simple as Luffy made it out to be. This little scheme of yours was lasting a little too long. Your crush never paid attention to you, and when he did, it was half-assed. Only asking for the answers to the homework or if you could help them work out a question on an assignment in class.

You always seemed to take these interactions as a victory, but not even Luffy is this dense. He was well aware your crush did not reciprocate your feelings but you would refuse to listen to him.

"Shut up! You don't know anything about romance!" you yelled at him, your face growing hot with embarrassment.

Luffy? Not knowing about romance? Of course he knew what it was. Two people like each other, go on dates and kiss, it was simple, right?

Luffy sometimes wanted to kiss you, was that romance? You two were already going on-unofficial-dates and hanging around each other more than usual.

The both of you were always together one way or another. You would invite Luffy out for lunch after class. He would stay in campus at night, waiting for you to finish your night classes. You were both in the same friend group. Luffy already knew what you liked and disliked; hell, he's met your family before that bonehead had the chance to.

What did that meathead have that was so special about them? Unlike them, Luffy would do his homework, even if the answers were wrong. He would never ask you for the answers, instead choosing to spend quality time with you teaching him the material outside of class.

Plus, Luffy liked you. You didn't need a convoluted plan to catch his attention, you already had it.

You let out a defeated sigh, "This plan isn't gonna work is it?" you asked, looking for confirmation.

"Nope!" Luffy said bluntly.

Even though his response hurt you, you knew Luffy was just being honest with you. It was a trait you admired in him, it was much better than having him feed into your delusions.

Luffy noticed a shift in your behavior now becoming a sad one. Coming to the realization that your crush did not reciprocate the same feelings you had. You were planning on going home and crying your heart out, it felt like the only thing to do. Although, Luffy had other plans. He grabbed you by the hand, leading you away from campus.

"W-where are you taking me?" you stuttered, tryin to keep up with Luffy's pace.

He only turn to look at you, giving you that wide grin you absolutely adored. "I'm taking you out to eat, my treat!" was the only thing Luffy responded with.

You felt warm inside knowing that Luffy was doing his best to try and make you feel better. Maybe it was for the best your crush didn't reciprocate your feelings. Why?

Because you felt yourself becoming flustered at the realization that Luffy has been holding your hand the entire walk to the restaurant.

Roronoa Zoro:

Zoro watched you mop around in your seat, watching your crush flirt with another person. Even with all the efforts you and Zoro went through to get your crush jealous all ended up in failures. Zoro was not one to shy you away from the truth, he told you in the beginning this plan was not going to work.

Now, here you were, trying to drink your pain away. Zoro was the last person you'd imagine to tell someone to stop drinking. Although, this was different, you looked pathetic being all mopey over some dumbass.

Zoro didn't understand you at all. How can you be sad over that piece of shit? If you asked him, he wasn't even worth your time. Actually, don't ask him that, Zoro would never admit it. He was too stubborn to tell you anything other than "I told you so".

It was a bad idea to come to this party, it was supposed to be fun but you were having an awful time. Zoro could be out enjoying his time drinking with his friends, but he choose to stay by your side instead.

"You know you're not obligated to stay with me, right?" you sniffled, rubbing your nose with the sleeve of your sweater. "You can be with your friends..."

Zoro would've ignored your comment but he was surprised you were crying. Are you seriously crying over your crush? Somebody who could care less about your feelings? That guy didn't even know you were in the same class as him.

"S-stop crying!" exclaimed Zoro. He didn't know how to deal with emotional people, especially when they were crying.

"But it hurts!" you cried, rubbing your tears away.

Zoro felt anger running through his veins, aggravated by the thought of you crying over that jackass. Stop crying, thought Zoro. Why were you crying over your crush when you had Zoro right there.

"You need to get over it!" spat Zoro, his words coming out rather harshly. He didn't mean to make you feel worse, but he was not going to hide you from the truth. "That jackass is over there making out with someone else and you're here moping like if he even knew you!"

You felt crushed but Zoro continued, "Know your worth! Realize just how cool you are, you were willing to let a loser like him be your boyfriend? Toughen up and find someone who will actually give a shit about you like I do!"

Zoro realized the words that had just come out of his mouth. Did he just give you a borderline confession? No, there was no way Zoro had any feelings for his friend.

Zoro saw how you became flustered, "Don't take that in a weird way!" he was quick to add before downing his beer.

Zoro tried his best to ignore the situation that unfolded. Where did that all come from? There was no way those fake dates and hand holding could've made him fall for you. It wasn't real, it was all an attempt to make your crush jealous; but, Zoro couldn't deny that he felt a little warm on the inside when he thought about being official with you.

Vinsmoke Sanji:

You were mindlessly going through Sanji's TV, looking for something to watch and ease your brain. At first, Sanji was surprised when you showed up to his house unannounced with a somber expression. You told him you would be with your crush on a so called "study date". It wasn't a real date but you thought it was a step closer to victory to name it one.

"The study session was cancelled," you muttered, dropping yourself on Sanji's couch. "Said he couldn't make it and then I saw him making out with someone else in another part of campus. Amazing, right?"

You looked miserable, your eyes were red and puffy. You had been crying as you made your way to Sanji's house.

Sanji wasted no time comforting, "Let me make you something to eat, hopefully you'll feel a lot better," he said, heading to the kitchen.

Sanji couldn't understand how someone could do that to you. You were cute, passionate and smart, traits Sanji admired since the first time you two met in class. He wished he got to have half the attention that you gave to your crush.

Sanji was already aware of his growing feelings for you but he choose to keep quiet. Before he had known he grew so fond of you, Sanji had already agreed to your plan. Others would call it a bad decision on his end, you would hold his hand and take him on 'dates'. It didn't make his situation any better, seeing how he fell even harder

Yet, Sanji would refuse to tell you about his feelings. You had your eyes on somebody else and he respected your decision, even if it would hurt him.

"Here you go," Sanji laid the plate in front of you. "Don't cry too much while eating, it'll make it taste saltier."

You have him a tired giggle but it was immediately replaced with a sad expression. Sanji knew what had happened earlier hurt you a lot.

"Sanji..." you started, snapping Sanji out of his daze. "Do you think I'm beautiful?"

"W-what?" Sanji was baffled by your question.

You looked ashamed of yourself but you repeated your question. "Do you think I'm beautiful...?"

What kind of question is that? Does Sanji think you're beautiful? Beautiful is just one of the many words he would use to describe how you look to him. He could spend hours writing letters on your beauty alone, of course you were pretty. How could Sanji explain to you how fast his heart beats every time he sees you? How he wished you looked at him with the same adoration you look at your crush.

Sanji knew he would be crossing his boundaries, but he felt you needed to know. He cupped both of your cheeks, giving you a compassionate look. You felt yourself becoming flustered with how intimate his touch felt.

"You are the most beautiful person I have ever laid my eyes upon, darling," said Sanji.

He truly meant it. All those fake dates would pale in comparison to what he could truly offer you. You felt yourself lean in closer to Sanji, closing the gap between your lips and his.

If you let him, Sanji would make you the happiest person on earth.

Usopp:

"What if we egg his house?" suggested Usopp.

Curse him and his mouth, now you were adamant in putting his idea to work. Usopp didn't have this feeling when he was hyping you up and while both of you walked to your crush's house. Now that he was physically there, Usopp could feel his legs shaking, he wanted nothing more than to run to the hills.

"Are you ready!?" you exclaimed with eggs already in your hands. "Here!"

You handed Usopp the eggs so he could join you. Even though it was dark and nobody could see you, Usopp was scared. He felt like the police was watching the both of you, ready to arrest you. He didn't know why he would ever come up with this idea. If he was being honest, Usopp thought you would reject it, opting instead in taking the high road.

"Yes, that's a perfect idea!" you exclaimed, getting your sweater.

Usopp saw how awful you felt after being ditched by your crush who asked you out on a 'date". He felt happy for you that the plan worked but also crushed. It meant you would no longer be able to hang out with him like you used to. You wouldn't be able to hold his hand or invite him out to places. Instead of being 'dating' Usopp, you'd be dating your crush.

When he saw you down in the dumps, Usopp felt rage. You tried so hard to get your crush's attention just so he could blow you off? Usopp would trade places with your crush if he could, he was insane.

What was even more insane was the fact that you were ready to throw the first egg.

"Wait!" whispered Usopp, looking around nervously. "Are you sure about this?"

You frowned, "Usopp, this man ditched me, giving me false hope!" you didn't hesitate to throw the egg which landed on the window. "If you ask me, he deserves it!"

You're right. He does deserve it. He deserves it for making you cry, for giving you false hope, but most importantly, for ruining his chances with you. Usopp could feel his legs shaking but he decided to ignore the nervous feeling pooling inside his stomach. He took a deep breathe and threw the egg and it landed on his roof.

"Woo-!"

You covered Usopp's mouth to try and not draw attention, but both of you started giggling. The both of you continued to throw eggs, almost finishing the carton of eggs. Before you could throw the last two eggs, the lights inside your crush's house turned on.

"Who is that!" you can hear their yelling from the inside even though it's muffled.

Usopp did not hesitate to grab your hand, sprinting away from the premises. You were stumbling a little, trying to catch up to his speed but you were trying to hold in your laughter. You two were this close to getting caught, but to Usopp it was worth it. You were smiling and having fun, it always made his day when you were happy. If only he would be able to confess to you. He was a coward, constantly needing hype from his friends to even try and think of confessing to you.

But maybe one day, Usopp would gain enough courage to confess to you and ask you out on a proper date instead of a fake one.

[prncessdiaries]

i changed my mind 🎀

the day you met suguru was the day you wished you should’ve ignored him, but who could ignore the way you both instantly clicked despite the main difference between you two, him being the best friend of the golden boy aka satoru gojo, having everyone wrapped around his finger, and you being the girl who’s well… not very well known and coined the term, “never out pass 8.”

but suguru didn’t care, infact he seemed like he loved how polar opposites you both were, and you could tell by the way he’d compliment you, the rushed feeling he gives you when he kisses you, the ongoing lavish dates he takes you on, it was all perfect. 

too perfect, infact. he treated you so well you could only see the good in him and that’s when the problems began. kissing his lips, you felt his arms circle your waist pulling you even closer. your hips grinded against his half-hardened dick, when you both were interrupted with yet another text from his phone. you felt him pull away, “noo sugu-” “give me a sec…damn,” he mumbled reading the content on his phone, “i..got to go,” “again?” your groaned, hopping off his lap feeling unsatisfied yet again and sighed when he mentioned there was another party he was invited to, “look ‘sugu, i trust you but it’s kinda hard to keep that trust when you’re partying every night with all those girls-”

“it’s always about the “partying”, good gosh, you jealous of them or something?” your face scrunched up in confusion, “uh no why would i be jealous of a party? i’m talking about you always leaving and going out to party?” he huffed and got up from his seat, “baby it’s college! who wouldn’t wanna go out and party?” “so you’d rather go out than be with your girlfriend?” he pushed your finger away when you pointed at him, “don’t start, besides you must wanna come with me or something?” you looked at the time, 7:37 p.m, then all the books and papers you had to finish studying, “why would would love to, but it’s getting late, and you know i have to-” “study. why can’t you brush it off for once and hang out with me, huh? you always blow me off for some dumn ass studying,” he murmured the last part but you heard him pretty clear. “okay, fine we can go-”

“nah, i’ll go with kara and shoko instead, you focus on your 'studying'…” your head jerked back, wondering who the hell “kara” was, “ suguru i said we can go, studying can wait-” “nope. see you tomorrow.” he grabbed his jacket and keys and left your apartment in a swift, not even kissing your cheek like usually does. not feeling the want to do anything school related anymore, you closed your books and watched youtube until your eyes couldn’t stay open anymore.

the second time it happened, you both were at a prestigious dinner with all your friends when suguru abruptly left your side and left the restaurant, and shoko took notice, asking “where did geto go?” “umm that’s a great question, i’ll call him.” you grabbed your phone and dialed his number, frowning when it went voicemail. you called and called but to no avail he didn’t answer, “must be an emergency, so i’ll just send him a text, anyways how was vegas?” “oh it was amazing, we visited sooo many hotels and shows…” you casually listened to her story while checking your phone, only to be met with setting notifications and it honestly started to worry you. so, you ended up leaving the dinner early, catching a cab home only to be met with suguru himself standing at your doorstep, looking disheveled and marked up, “hey! where did you run off? are you okay? did something bad happen??-” you were cut off with your name falling from his lips sternly, “i’m fine. can i just come in and change my clothes?” feeling a weird vibe coming from him, you let your hands drop from his blazer, “sure.” you let him in, smelling a weird smell coming from his suit, “new cologne? it smells… fruity?” “nah, it’s probably your cheap perfume you like to wear,” you walked to him and watched him act unfazed, and you went to sniff his shoulder confirming that the smell came from him, “but... you smell like mangoes, suguru , and you know i hate mangoes- are you cheating on me?”

“oh my god! look, i went to-” “where! where’d you go hm, “kara’s house”,” you watched his hold his head in his hands and sigh, “no, i went to my aunt’s for a family emergency, and she hugged me…” he gave you a perplexed look, rolled his eyes and walked away to the bathroom. feeling guilty, you texted your friend, shoko, to see if you were just overeacting on the possibility of him cheating on you, but she ended up sending you a long voice note about how “suguru’s not shit” and “you deserve better,” and ended it with a detailed plan on how to leave him…

…but instead you brushed it off once more and let him cuddle you that night, forgiving him yet , again. 

the third time was the final straw. 

since it was the week off for break, everyone decided to go to the beach for a much-needed vacation away from school and ever since suguru helped bring your bags down to where you were sitting, you haven’t seen him since. satoru walked up to you and sighed, “hey! how’s you and suguru?” “oh!- we’re uh, doing fine…why?” he grabbed your drink from your hand, “just asking, you both seem a little distant compared to before,” hearing those words had you in deep thought, depicting every single interaction you and suguru had to prove satoru’s statement, “um, well he has been a little off with me?” “how so?” “just brushing me off, leaving abruptly, things like that.” satoru looked back to where suguru was, eyes widening when he saw him with a familiar tall blonde chatting it up at the beach bar, so he moved to be directly in front of you hoping you couldn’t see him, "what’re you doing?” “nothing, the sun was in my eyes so i moved to see you better,” squinting your eyes, you hummed and asked, “anyways, where’s sugu? you seen him yet?” he furrowed his brows, “oh i don’t know, i figured he was over here, that’s actually why i came over here but when i didn’t see him, i just talked to you instead-” when satoru’s nervous, he likes to ramble and spew out useless information.

a trait everyone knew satoru had. 

“satoru…where is he?” you saw him rub his neck bashfully and sigh, “look i only found out just minutes ago when i looked back at him and-”

“found out what?” you asked but you went unheard by satoru, “- and i’d hate for you to find out this way, that would suck cause-” “find out what, what way?” “-cause you’re a really sweet girl but i just think you aren’t the…right one for him. i mean he’s so caught up-” “what?” “he barely shows you love-” “satoru! if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on and stop talking over me?” satoru sighed and mumbled, “i’m sorry,” and moved to the side, revealing suguru and some tall blonde girl close together, watching him feed her…grapes? giggling with her- kissed her much more passionately than he’s ever kissed you “the fuck?” 

like any normal person, you’d go over and probably curse him out, hit him a couple of times and leave him with breaking off the relationship, but instead you sighed and nodded, “you know what? i’m gonna go home and i’ll…see you later.” you packed up your towel and left in your car, suguru hearing your car speed down the highway, then turned to see your spot now being crowded by the others on the trip wondering where you’d drive off to.

“shit…” he muttered, the girl watched him sigh in his hands, “everything okay?”

“everything’s perfect, hey why don’t we uh, get out of here yeah?” hearing a small “yeah” the two got up and walked back to her car, and when satoru walked to the bar to confront suguru, he was now where to be seen…

…now, months have passed and you and suguru have barely spoken to each other by this point. even though you both officially never ended the relationship, he barely acknowledged you nowadays and stopped coming over, but you decided to not let it phase you and instead you focused on yourself, entering your “healed girl era” or whatever the coined term was. 

since the…"split", you and satoru have gotten closer especially after he stopped being friends with suguru days after his amidst cheating, (he ended up staying by your side and even helped you out of your funk), and today he invited you to a party. 

ironic, considering parties were the main problem in your past relationship, but you needed a change of scenery. being a nursing major was tough and sitting in your apartment all cooped up with billions of textbooks, you were tired! so, you went to your closet and picked out a cute top with a skirt to match, grabbing your fur boots and jewlery to complete the look. once you finished your makeup, you heard the doorbell ring and a set of keys jiggle, jumping when satoru’s loud voice echoed in your room, “y/nnnn!” “toruuuu!” “hey bestie-oh you look real cute, give me a spin hm?” he grabbed your hamd and spun your around, “okay so good news, i’m here bad news, the party’s in suguru’s house and it’s more of a get-together rather a party.” “hm…” you hummed, "i mean we don't have to go if you don't want to?" you grabbed your purse anyway and walked to the door, “but what if i still wanna go though?” “well let’s go!” he drove fairly quick considering suguru only lived 3 minutes away from you, and when you arrived you noticed the other couple of cars. you and satoru got out, him holding the drinks and your purse and knocked on the door, shrieks coming from shoko when she saw you, “it’s my babyyyyy!”

suguru turned his head hearing shoko’s claim and immediately knew it was you. his nerves skyrocketed and he sighed nervously, “hey everything alright?” the blonde he now dates, yuki, asked as she massaged his scalp, “yeah…she’s here,” “oh! uh, okay. don’t be nervous i’m sure she’d come around…” soon yuki would eat her words the minute you walked in the room, greeting everyone except the two. “ugh i’m so happy you’re here, i’ve missed you-gojo’s taking you away from us all the time now,” shoko complained as she hugged your figure, hasn’t let go of you since she saw you at the door. 

suguru noticed how you looked more comfortable, relaxed even with satoru which was odd considering any other time you wouldn’t pay him no mind, and with shoko’s claim of satoru “taking you away” he wondered just how close you two were becoming. 

after many, many drinks and games later, you excused yourself to the bathroom and after five minutes, suguru followed you up, satoru and shoko taking notice of it. drying your hands, you opened the door only to be met with suguru himself, “what’re you doing-” “you fucking him now? you’re such a slut you’d fuck my best friend next? and we haven’t even broken up-” “we were broken up the minute you put your lips on yuki! and you know that, so don’t come up here fucking accusing and yelling at me like i’m stupid! the fuck,” you watched him step closer to you, causing you to step back into a wall, “i still love you, you know that right?” “but i don’t love you,” suguru chuckled and rubbed his hand over his mouth, “you sure about that? just months ago you were telling me how much you wanted to get married and have my babies, remember?” he leaned down as his lips hovered over yours, “not anymore geto, i’ve changed my mind-” “ohhh so it's geto now? besides, it felt like you were determined before,”

“you just wasted my time geto, so move.” you shoved him out the way, feeling his hand grab your wrist, “baby, come back i missed you, we can do all the things you want if you just come back, i’ll be better for you i swear…” you heard him plead and please, over and over again but in the end it doesn't matter how many apologies he can spew out, like before and always,

you'll go right back to him…