#so you see what I'm trying to say about them being bitter exes

[wingsofhcpe]

so uh

"Old friend" is a gayass thing to call someone

[bunni0nbanhg]

|Ink| 02

Tattoo artist!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader

Genre(s): Strangers to lovers, One night stand, Unexpected relationship

Smut Warnings: Intoxication, unprotected sex, Soft!Dom Chan, Switch!Reader, Degrading, Creampies, Breeding kink

Synopsis: You needed to get a tattoo covered up, one you got for your ex. You’re in a new city and go to the closest tattoo parlor by your apartment. The main tattoo artist and owner just so happens to live across the hall from you. Drunken actions turn into a spiral of emotions and your first healthy relationship.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ Part 3- ࿐ྂ

The tattoo was healed relatively quick, as quick as most tattoos.

Chan kept his promise to see you too, a few days after the tattoo you hear a knock at your door.

It’s not too late, around half an hour his shop closes. You know this because it’s written on the card Felix handed you before you left.

“Who knew I could charm someone enough to make them want to see me so soon.”

The older laughed in response, shaking his head as he held up a plastic bag with snacks inside. “What can I say, drunk girls who look like they’re about to throw up are my type.”

It was your turn to laugh, tongue pressed to the inside of your cheek out of mock annoyance.

You stepped aside to let him walk in, watching as he kicked off his shoes next to yours already there.

He was wearing another one of his black tank tops, maybe he knew to wear it, saw when it caught your eyes during the session.

“K, show me the wrist.” He turned around as soon as his shoes were off, effectively pulling you away from your trance or staring mindlessly at his back.

“Oh? Really going to use that excuse for real?” Chan grinned in response, tilting his head to the side while taking a careful step forward.

“What else am I here for?”

He turned back around before you could answer, taking your flushed face as a good enough response and deciding to change topics.

“I brought beer too, where’s your fridge?” He held up the bag again to enunciate his question and you nodded before showing him the way to your kitchen.

It wasn’t like he needed you to show him, your apartments had the same layout, but it was the polite thing to do. You didn't care for beer so much, it was bitter and sometimes tastes too much like wheat, especially if cheap. It did the job though, and gets less bad through out the night longer you drink it.

After he put the beverage into your fridge and took out the snacks from the bag he turned back to you again. He bought some salty and sweet stuff, what caught your eye was a chocolate bar, your favorite brand of chocolate.

"I know what I'm calling dibs on." You grinned, snatching the sweet treat from the counter as he tried to grab it before you. You raised an eyebrow as his arm drops with a dramatic pout. "That's my favorite."

He mockingly whined and went to grab it again, but you hid it behind your back. "And I called dibs!" Your voice wavered as he continued trying to get the candy. Even going as far as to try and reach behind you, stopping you from stepping away by wrapping his other arm around your lower back.

It made you nervously laugh, trying to shift your shoulders and wiggle free from his surprisingly firm grip. When seeing no way out, you made a fake hissing sound.

His arms pulled back in a flash and concern immediately filled his eyes. It made you feel guilty for a moment as his eyes darted to your wrist. "Did I squeeze it?" He asked while obviously gesturing to your healing tattoo.

You grinned in response, making him immediately groan in annoyance at being fooled, but also sighing in relief. "You're sly." He shook his head while pointing an accusatory finger.

He seemed to forget about the chocolate, or gave up and let you eat it in victory.

You two settled on a movie, not hungry enough for anything past snacks so dinner was out the way but you needed something to do to squash the lingering awkwardness when you're not too familiar with a person.

"Favorite movie genre." He started, watching you as you picked up your remote to scroll through the movie options. You hummed in though as if you didn't already know. "Depends on my mood, you?"

He copied your hum, leaning back until the back of his head lit the back of the couch. "Action Sci-fi. I love Marvel." You smiled in response, you enjoyed a superhero movie too.

"Favorite movie theater snack." You threw back at him, eyes darting to actually pay attention to what movie you wanted to watch.

"The classic, a big bucket of popcorn with extra butter."

Questions flew back and forth between you two, steering off topic of movies to things like dog breeds to hobbies. Conversation seemed to flow easier than you'd expect, and any awkwardness seemed to fade quickly.

The movie long forgotten and your first cans of beer already cracked open. "Why'd you move out here, just because?" He asked, taking a long swing after.

You looked down at the small opening in your can to drink out of, sloshing the liquid side to side. "Same reason I got the cover up."

His eyebrows raised a little with a thoughtful hum. "So it was a recent break up? I thought it was a while ago." You shook your head with a tightlipped smile, tracing the rim around the can with your index finger.

"I needed a fresh start, it was one of those relationships that should have ended months before it did. I have a habit of talking myself through tough things think it'd get better, but running as soon as I see something good happening for myself. Unintentional self-sabotage you could say."

Chan knew what that was like, to some extent. He'd convinced himself he wasn't worthy of certain things, ultimately ruining a lot of things in his life from overthinking.

"Those relationships suck. I've had my fair share of bad ones before, especially a few long ones."

You'd be lying if you said his words didn't pique your interest, curious to know more. "What was your longest one?"

His eyes flickered down to the bear can just as yours had done, biting down on the two lip rings pierced into his skin. "3 years.." His tone seems reluctant, but you're more surprised by the time he gave you.

"That's a... serious amount of time." You nodded with a little bit of shock obvious in your voice. "Can I ask why it ended or is that too personal?"

He laughed almost bitterly, quickly looking back up to you while resting his free arm over the top of the couch. "We were at different stages of our lives, and it wasn't something we properly discussed."

It was vague, but told a lot at the same time. Some relationships were just that, confusing but natural. Easy but stressful. It made your chest tighten with annoyance at how much you could relate.

"In short I wanted to settle down together and she still wanted to keep her options open."

You sucked in a sudden breath, shocked again. "That'll end a relationship." You nodded with a curt nod. He chuckled again, less bitter and more in amusement at your obvious words.

"Was your last one your longest?" He asked while taking another sip. You took one too before sighing deeply. "Yeah, a year, that's why I got the tattoo. Thought I'd be in it for the long run."

"Thought it was bad, so why stick around?" It didn't mean to sound judgmental, but Chan felt like it did and quickly added. "Was it just, easier?"

You hummed with a nod. "Part of it, yeah. It was mostly because I felt like I was losing out, running out of time. Wasn't the shittiest of past partners I've had, you could say I settled for less than I deserved and didn't realize until I was too far in."

Silence hung in the air as you took another large swig, looking up to see his expression, maybe try and guess what he was thinking despite not knowing much about him as a person and body language.

His eyes were directed at your black screen T.V, still nibbling on his bottom lip in thought. His eyes are darker than usual, but not out of annoyance. The soften when they lock with yours, seemingly snapping out of whatever trance he put himself in.

"I'm guessing you're going to take a break from dating?" He cocked an eyebrow before immediately breaking eye contact with you again.

"I always say that but end up talking to someone again, I think I'm more in a... drifting with the current phase. Whatever I bump into and wants to stick around I'll see if it's worth it."

"But, if it's too good you'll peel them off you?" He guessed, making you sigh at how accurately he can read you. "It's not like I think I don't deserve something good, but you could say I psyche myself out. Get so attached it's scary, I don't like being needy to something that can easily be taken away."

Your fingers trailed up and down the side of your almost empty can, sipping the last of it back before setting it down on your coffee table and getting up from your couch. "Another?" You asked and he nodded.

You handed him the chilled can when sitting back down, simultaneously cracking it open. Yours foamed over a bit and you quickly had to slurp it up before dripping down your hand and arm.

"Have you moved on since your ex?" You asked to resume your conversation, and you got a sigh in return. "Yeah, mentally. Haven't really gone on a date or anything. The night we met was me trying to try my luck but nobody really stuck out to me."

That night was still foggy in your mind, you hope he hadn't seen you do any embarrassing faces or said anything uncomfortable. "What made you stop to help me?" You knew it was probably going to be some bullshit answer about how he just wanted to help, because that's how considerate he seems to annoyingly be.

He's a lot of things actually, stuff you've been able to gather through the back and forth questioning and this conversation alone. It's annoying how he's effortlessly able to keep the flow going, it feel natural to keep on talking. He seems thoughtful in a way that is entirely selfless, and mature enough to not need any parenting.

That's more than most of your exes can account for.

"You were the only one that caught my eye at that point into the night, well, in the night in general. Had no idea I'd get the honor of meeting you again so soon. Much less becoming your neighbor."

There's an obvious teasing tone to his voice and it makes you roll your eyes. He's able to make you want to throw a pillow at him and kiss him at the same time, a dangerous feeling for someone who's already becoming something more than just a neighbor.

"Wow, so flattered, so should I count this as both of our first dates since our shitty breakups?"

He laughs in response, jokingly raising his can to yours to softly clank them together. "Technically, but if I were to take you on a first date I would have hoped it'd be nicer than this."

"My apartment is very nice." You teased with a fake annoyed expression, Chan easily able to see past it with another laugh. "It is, but that's probably because you stuffed all you mess in your room probably."

Your foot gave his thigh an annoyed nudge, shaking your head before taking a long swig of your beer. "I'm not some kid that shoves their toys underneath their bed."

"Sureee." He drags out, jokingly acting like he wasn't convinced. Your eyes narrowed before grinning to match his. "I'd invite you to go check but I'm afraid you might get other ideas, and I'd hate to bump into my new tattoo."

He let out a dramatic scoff, face flushed at your implications, though if asked he'd blame it on the alcohol. "I have self control, might not seem like it with how eagerly I was to show up tonight but that's only because I had to check said tattoo."

You rolled your eyes again, him back at using your tattoo as the excuse to see you. "Guess I'll just have to invite you back when it's healed so we can stop using it was a get out of jail free card."

His eyes darted to you, surprised at how casually you practically invited him to "check your room out" with him. "Because, Y'know, gotta test to see if I put my bedframe together right."

He choked on the sip of beer he just took, topic seemingly escalating far more quicker than he anticipated. Sure, his goal was to flirt here and there, test the waters to see if you were open to something. After all, he was the one to cover your tattoo that was for an ex.

You grinned at being able to get a reaction out of him, also taking another sip. That is until he propped his head with his free hand and leaned a bit closer after recovering from initial shock at your smug look.

"A little bump or two to it won't harm it's healing process much, just gotta make sure your arm stay's above your head."

It was your turn to freeze, having thought you had the upper hand of teasing for a second. His head tilted to the side with a hint of mockery to the action, almost challenging you to say something back.

And you did, challenge him I mean, just not with words.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

You'd have to apologize to your neighbors next to you, your headboard positioned on a wall connected to their apartment. The good thing however was that now you knew your bed frame was stable.

The buzzed feeling wasn't just in your head, and it wasn't there just because of the few cans of beer you two both downed. It was the adrenaline of doing something you knew probably shouldn't be done, I mean, come on, fucking your tattoo artist after just two days of knowing each other was crazy work.

What was worse than fucking your tattoo artist, someone you could avoid if shit hits the fan, is fucking your neighbor. Who knows how often you'd inevitably run into each other to take the same elevator or throw your trash in the dumpster on trash day at the same time.

The awkwardness of running into someone who've you've seen naked and know they've seen you naked is something hard to avoid no matter how hard you try to without talking about it.

You hope it wouldn't end up like that between you two; not when his tongue felt so good pressed against your own. It made you moan when feeling something cool hit the roof of your mouth when he lazily flicked the pink muscle up.

"How did I not see your tongue piercing until now?" You panted against his lips already beginning to look redder with how aggressively you two pulled on each other's bottom lips. You could feel the smirk growing on his lips as he pressed them back against yours.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you become well acquainted with it."

And that he did, right after sliding off your soaked underwear down your legs and throwing it somewhere on your floor. Your nightshirt and bra didn't last long after, Chan getting hungry to taste more of your skin.

You shivered as you felt the ball of his tongue piercing drag across your collarbone, it retracting as his lips sucked on your skin right under that part of your skeleton.

He groaned as your legs shifted, brushing against the hard on in his basketball shorts. "So desperate for me already." You practically purred with amusement, earning yourself a glare from the man above you. "Princess has a cocky mouth, doesn't she?"

"Only speaking facts baby. Maybe pretend to be a little less eager if you don't want me to call you out on it."

You knew you were a hypocrite, heat pooling at your core that ached for some sort of relief. Chan knew it to, knew it even before reaching a hand down to lazily drag through your folds, earning a surprised gasp from the sudden but appreciated friction.

He brought his two fingers up to suck on and grin back at you. "I'm the eager one?"

You huffed, going to reach a hand down to flick at his forehead when you were reminded of his free hand pinning them above your head. "Oh, forgot about that, did you Princess? I'm only making sure you don't bump your wrist on accident."

His hand held onto yours by lacing together with your fingers, making sure not to touch the plastic around your healing tattoo. Your tongue clicked in subtle but half-hearted annoyance, distracted as soon as his lips started pressing kisses down your exposed chest.

Your eyes glanced down to watch with bated breath, his hot breathing fanning over your skin as he continued going lower and lower. He paused at your lower stomach, making to presses multiple kisses around there while switching occasionally to both your hips and hip bones.

He trailed back up before giving you exactly what you wanted, saving your heat as an indulgence for afterwards.

"Gonna be a good girl and keep your hands up for a second?" He presses his lips to your ear, enunciating his question by squeezing your hands. An embarrassingly desperate whine fell past your lips, effected by the careful movement of his lips earlier down your torso.

"Such a good girl." You mumbled with a nod of your head, Chan satisfied with your promise as he momentarily let go. Your hands laid limp, making no attempt to move from their spot on the upper part of your mattress.

His hands left your body to quickly strip off his tank top, making drool pool in your mouth like wetness did in your cunt. What really made you moan was seeing the entirety of his tattoo when he twisted to throw his tank top in the same pile of your clothes.

He looked back at you with a grin, biting his lower lip to suppress a laugh. No matter how many people complimented or flirted with him based on his body alone never made it any less flustering when someone who's opinion he truly cared about also complimented it.

Next was his shorts, the bulge already noticeable despite the loose material. What you didn’t expect us to see an Ampallang piercing right as his hard length was freed from his boxers.

“How did your ex not lock you down?” You groaned, hips shifting to adjust as you felt your wetness almost trickle down your inner thigh. Chan this time really laughed, throwing his head back with a hand to his chest.

He bent down soon after getting himself to stop laughing, a pleased smile still stretched across his lips as he leaned closer to your downstairs ones. “You gonna make the same mistake?” He hummed before pressing a light kiss on your upper inner thigh.

The action was more affectionate than anything, a total contrast to how he later becomes aggressive with his tongue pressed to your clit.

The barbell of his piercing provided an extra stimulation you didn’t know you needed until now, especially with his mouth was doing an amazing job by itself.

You had to stifle most of your moans with the back of your hand, still being mindful of your neighbors who could not even be home at the moment for all you know.

“What’d I say about your hands?” Chan asked, lips departing from your puffy clit that pulsed with want and need from the sudden lack of touch. You whined in slight annoyance and desperation but moved your hand to rest next to your other wrist.

“Don’t want to be deprived of those pretty little moans.” He grunted before diving back in to seemingly swallow you up whole.

The sound of your panting, little ah’s and whines every time he pressed practically good against your clit sent heat straight down to his dick that already ached painfully so. He’d hold out though, wanting to taste your release on his tongue before anything else.

The knot in your lower stomach tightened as you felt yourself nearing your end, breath hitching. Chan immediately began speeding up, hands gripping your thighs to stop them as the threatened to close.

“Close princess?” He grinned, pressing sloppy kiss through your folds as you moans in response. “Is that all it takes to make you cum? That desperate for a man you just met?”

Your eyes widened as you felt yourself clench around nothing, his tongue immediately sliding in with a quiet almost nonexistent groan falling from his lips. You tasted better than he could ever imagine.

“Fuck, more of that.” You mumbled with a shaky breath, hands lacing together as your fingers twitched to grab onto something. He chuckled against you, eyes trained on the feast he was devouring.

He knew what you meant, and he’d make sure to give you all of the demeaning words and insults he can when fucking it into you, for now he just needs to coax this first orgasm out of you and onto his tongue.

He made sure to flick his tongue up, pressing the medal if his piercings on the roof of you gummy walls. “Shit!” You gasped, stomach tightening.

Chan groaned again, thumbs rubbing circles into your hips as he pressed himself closer, your legs resting over his shoulders. You would have worried about if he was able to breath or not if it wasn’t for him grunting and groaning with every movement he made with his tongue.

And then it hit you, a flash flood wave as the knot in your stomach snapped and heat spread throughout your cunt. “Chan!” You gasped, hips bucking up before you could control them.

He moaned against your folds with pride, not tearing away until you were shaking and trembling and he was able to drink up all of you.

“Such a good girl, took it so well.” He instantly praised, propping himself up to lean his face into your neck.

He pressed sloppy kisses to your skin before wiping your release from his mouth to kiss you. “Think you can handle being in top?”

You nodded pathetically into the kiss, moaning at the taste of yourself on his tongue.

He’d have to make sure to do that again, maybe even wake you up by burying his tongue deep inside you, only if it was something you gave him permission to.

“Hands don’t leave my chest.” He grunted before flipping you two over, easily maneuvering you to straddle his lap.

You shuddered as you felt yourself pressed against his cock, eyes staring back down at the surprise piercing through his tip.

He hummed while watching you gaze hungrily, hands back to rest in your hips before gathering your hands to pull you forward slightly and rest them on his chest.

“Right here.” He enunciated with a tap to your knuckle, making you nod again. “Can’t even talk? Too needy for me to fill you up? Such a desperate girl.” He clicked his tongue as you moaned in response.

Sure you’ve been domed before, possibly the only good reason you stayed with a few exes in your past, but the mix between praise and undeniable affection with degrading words did something to stir need in your chest and pussy.

“You should be prepped enough from my tongue, or are you about to ask me for your fingers too?”

You but your bottom lip in thought, already knowing your answer as you shook your head.

His fingers tapped against your thighs before squeezing the flesh there. “Words slut.”

You shuddered before letting out a moan. “I’m ready.”

He hummed in seemingly approval before lifting you up by the bottom of the ass, making you look back as he moved his tip to align with you.

Gathering some of your wetness by smearing precum into your folds, he finally lowered you to sink down onto him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to just flip you back over and ram into you, but he was able to stay still to let yourself adjust.

You weren’t doing much better yourself, feeling like you could feel him and his piercing in your guts. It was a feeling of being full nonetheless and it made you even more needy.

“What, can’t handle me” he moved one of his hands to grab onto your chin and make sure your gaze locked with his. “Need to pull out?”

You whined instantly in protest, grinding down harder to prove your point. “Don’t you dare.” You gasped as he let out a chuckle.

“Might get the wrong idea if I don’t see you drooling for me to move.” He teased right before you raised your hips up to slam back down.

His own moan cut off any words he wanted to add, making you grin. “Baby can’t believe that a pussy can feel this good.” You mockingly cooed, Chan grunting in response to your tease.

“I had you falling apart on my tongue.”

“Well let’s hope your dick can achieve the same goal.”

Chan decided he liked it better when you were on your back. You gasped as he flipped you toe over again, able to not have to disconnect himself.

“What’s that? Princess gone quiet?”

You shivered as he slowly dragged himself out maybe only half a centimeter, making a point for you to feel the silver barbell rub against your walls.

You moaned as he pressed back in, pulling out a bit more with every thrust until he was setting a pace. “Not so quiet now.” He groaned, eyes trained as he watched himself disappear into you over and over again.

Your hands still laid over your head, one of his hands laced back together with them again.

It was intoxicating, making your mind foggy with bliss. How long had it been since you got a good fuck? Along with the insanity inducing head he gave you; you weren't sure how this man could possibly still be single.

"Spacing out?" His breath hit's the shell of your ear, earning a whine in response. His chest pressed down into yours with his hands between your bodies to grip harshly at your hips and keep them in place. Your head would be smashed into the headboard if he didn't hold you down against his thrusts.

"Can't believe I already got my princess dumb on my cock. What was it you said? Let's see if your dick can do the same? Tell me, is it?"

Your breath hitched as he arms looped underneath your lower back, making your back arch off the bed and he continued ramming into you. Your hands, now free, carded into his hair.

He groaned at the faint burn of his hair getting pulled, same cocky grin on his lips. It made you want to make them red all over again, bite and swap spit like you had done desperately as soon as he pressed you into your mattress.

"Please, please-! Don't stop, don't slow down!" You moaned, knowing your face was flushed impossibly red and eyes glossed over in a haze of bliss and need. "That's not a yes or no." He hummed, moving one of his hands to hike up your thigh to wrap over his hip.

You yelped in response, overwhelmed with the change of position as he drilled at more of an upwards angle. "Yes! yes- just-" Your chest heaved, a shaky moan leaving your lips at the intense familiar feeling of your abdomen tightening.

Chan moaned back, eyes squeezing shut once he felt you clench around him. He knew what it meant, having felt it when his tongue was buried deep inside.

He felt his own impending release start to build up, sighing out. "Tell me, in or out?"

Your mouth dropped open, not quite registering his words fully when he was fucking into you like a god. "Princess, need to know." He urged, dropping the hand on your thigh to tap your cheek.

Your eyes snapped up to look at him as soon as you felt his finger touch the side of your face, still panting with every moan he was able to coax out of you. "In."

Chan could feel his eyes almost roll back, that was the response he was secretly hoping for. Just the idea of getting to see his seed spill out of you when he pulled out. Maybe he'd be able to push it back in with his fingers and fuck more of it into you, if you'd allow him.

There's a lot of stuff he'd gladly do to you if you gave him the ok, and just the image of your cunt, dripping and creaming from your mix releases made him almost cum on the spot.

That mixed with how tightly you were clenching around him, mind and body both wanting to milk him for every single drop he could give you. You hadn't realized how hot it made you feel to know someone was about to cum in you before Chan, maybe it had more to do with the person than the action.

"Really? Eager to carry my kids?"

Like a switch in your mind, your eyes screw shut and something akin to the loudest moan in existence left you, along with the knot in your stomach undoing for the second time that night.

Chan wasn't far after you, breath hitching as you gushed around his length with no warning.

That wasn't a problem for him, never. He gladly fucked into you needily, knowing he looked like a desperate puppy as his hips snapped against yours quickly.

You could have cum again from just the feeling of his seed shooting into you. Hot ropes of cum stuck to your walls, kissing your cervix along with his tip. You best believe Chan had to capture your lips in a kiss if he didn't want to scream like you did.

The bedframe was able to handle more than you could imagine, maybe Ikea furniture wasn't so bad.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

Taglist: @sarastayy @estella-novella @danceonmyheyday @iweirdthingsblog

[mcflymemes]

NATIONAL TREASURE (2004) PROMPTS *  assorted dialogue from the film, adjust as necessary

i'm gonna steal it.

who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?

if it's any consolation, you had me convinced.

you're not hurt, are you?

i am so getting fired for this.

is there a question in there?

we have no money.

how about a bribe?

it was cool. you should try it sometime.

we can't go back there.

i've never been so happy to be proven wrong.

you handled that well.

are you trying to steal that?

it's thirty-five dollars.

you know the key to running a convincing bluff? every once in a while you've got to be holding all the cards.

stop talking. start the van.

you're treasure hunters, aren't you?

i'm still working on it.

why don't you just come back down here and we can talk through this together.

don't speak again.

is that the hot girl?

are you with me?

what do you think? i'm a hostage.

do you trust me?

once we catch them, what do we do?

is this real?

i made something for you.

tell me what i need to know.

just another clue.

i can explain, but i don't have time.

i wasted 20 years of my life, and now you've destroyed yours.

what was the secret?

i found something!

i broke a shoelace this morning.

it can't be done.

i understand your bitterness. i really do.

i want you to have a chance to do that.

i've got some duct tape in the back.

promise you won't be any trouble.

i finally figured it out.

the treasure is a myth.

we need more juice.

you're all lunatics!

still a little on edge from being shot at, but i'll be okay. thanks for asking.

see? okay? now could you please stop shouting?

give me that!

you would do well, [name], to be a little more civilized in this instance.

who were those men?

we did the only thing we could do to keep it safe.

we probably deserved that.

i was thinking, what if we go public? plaster the story all over the internet.

it's not like we have our reputations to worry about.

people don't talk that way anymore.

beautiful, huh?

i have no idea what you said.

if there's something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.

what do you see?

what time is it now?

we missed it.

i know something about history that you don't.

i'd be very excited to learn about it.

hold on one second. let me just take in this moment.

this is cool. is this how you feel all the time?

[name], you're a genius.

how do a bunch of guys with hand tools build all this?

the aliens helped them.

i volunteered.

it's invisible.

i'm sorry for your suffering.

when are we gonna get there?

i'm hungry. this car smells weird.

i'm so sorry i dropped you.

i would have done exactly the same to you.

why can't they just say "go to this place, here's the treasure, spend it wisely?"

anyone crazy enough to believe us isn't gonna want to help.

we don't need someone crazy.

[name], are you crying?

look. stairs.

i'm guessing that's significant.

i'm just trying to hide from my ex-husband.

stay as long as you like.

you want something?

i see what you left him.

this isn't a day for "um."

we didn't find the information credible.

well, this might be possible.

i leveled with you one hundred percent.

everything i told you was the truth.

it's not a conspiracy theory.

you know what? i take it back.

i'm in a little trouble.

this... is huge.

you are gonna go to prison. you know that, right?

that would bother most people.

you know what you have to do.

i'm just trying to think if there's anything else we could do.

i'm not letting it out of my sight.

how do you look?

a toast to high treason.

here's to the men who did what was considered wrong in order to do what they knew was right.

why do you need them?

look... this is a waste of time.

i'm still not against you.

i really couldn't accept something like this normally.

we don't actually have it.

did bigfoot take it?

is there a door that doesn't lead to prison?

get out of there. get out of there now!

[name], can you hear me?

can i marry your brain?

our evil plan is working.

why does that never happen to me?

meet me at the car. call me if you have any problems.

no broken bones?

a jump like that could kill a man.

[elleluvsjurin]

School Rules

requested

synopsis: you’re the bitter ex who loves starting shit with the class president and vice president, one of them happening to be your ex gf. after a while, they put an end to your shit once and for all

pairings: ryujin x fem reader x yeji

cw: smut, reader is a mean girl, cursing, made ryujin kinda mean but she’s mean for a reason, reader gets slutted out; lmk if i missed anything

wc: 1.6k

tags: @her-utahimee

 It's been 3 months since Yeji has dumped you. Of course you were still pissed about the whole situation. Oh, and when you found that her and her best friend won for class president and vice president, it was going to be game over for those two…so you thought. At first, it was simple things like smoking cigarettes on school grounds. Then, it was crashing their planned events with your friends and now..the rumors. Of course you went and spread a rumor that they were sleeping together, it was the cherry on top of it all and EVERYONE was eating it up.

“yej.. get your fucking ex. I'm sick of her ass. Did you see what she posted online about us?” Ryujin frustratedly asks, slamming the classroom door. 

“Listen, i’m going to try and talk to her but her friends are doing stuff along with her-” Yeji starts

“-yeah, well y/n’s the fucking ring leader. And if you don’t get her shit straight then I WILL!” Ryujin interrupts Yeji in a fit of rage. Yeji massages her temples with her fingers because she knows that you won’t go down without a fight. She pulls her phone out and dials your number, of course you answer after a couple of rings.

“What could you possibly want Hwang Yeji?” you ask over the phone

“We need to talk, could you please come over after school?” she asks, quietly. You smirk over the phone before you reply.

“Talk about what?” you ask innocently and she mutes herself before putting you on speaker. “You caused this, Yeji, not me.” 

“God y/n, just come over.” Yeji spoke as Ryujin rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“‘Mmkay, only because it’s you. And tell that dog ass friend of yours not to come, she’s mean as fuck.” you add onto the convo. “You know where I live, I’ll see you later.” Yeji abruptly says before hanging up on you. 

“Ugh I hate that bitch.” Ryujin mutters whilst writing down a few plans for the student council.

“Don’t worry, she won’t be doing anything else after tonight.” Yeji adds and looks to Ryujin

“What are you thinking, Yej?” Ryujin asks, obviously confused.

“Could you put her in her place? I’m not good at that..as you can see.” Ryujin face contorts in confusion

“Why not? You dated her God awful ass for a year.” she asks 

“Damn Ryu, I was a bottom, alright. Read the room.” Yeji says embarrassingly and Ryujin laughs, knocking over the desk from how much she was laughing.

“Oh, makes sense.” Ryujin replied after her fit of laughter. “I’ll get her ass straight but you have to help out.” 

“Fine.” Yeji says quietly, packing her bags.

“Is y/n even here today, I haven’t seen her all day.” Ryujin asks Yeji, looking to her for an answer

“No, she’s posting things from her room.” Yeji replies 

“Hm. ok.” Ryujin mumbles. Both the girls walk out of the room and head to Yeji’s place, planning for an unforgettable night between the three girls.

You head over to Yeji's place near the school at around 4 pm. You anticipated staying for about 30 minutes but that changed as soon as she let you in. Upon walking in, you see Ryujin sitting on Yeji’s couch.

“What the hell is she doing here?” you question, your face twists in disgust and Ryujin smirks

“I should be asking you the same thing.” Ryujin replies. “I got invited, you fucking spawned here..uninvited.” you spit back at her.

“Enough, y/n!” Yeji shouts. “I’m so sick of your bullshit!” she continues to speak her mind and you sit down, as you’ve never heard her scream before.

“Yej, what the fuck are you talking about? I was just poking fun..chill.” you retaliate

“No. You’re screwing with our fucking campaign by being a bitch. You, your fucking friends, we’re sick of it. I’m sick of it.” Yeji finishes and you sit there, looking stunned.

“Fine, are you done now?” you ask, getting up to leave before Ryujin turns you around, pushing you up against the wall. “What the hell-” you start as she traps your body with both of her arms being on each side of your head, her hands pressing up against the wall beside you. “You think you can leave that easy, huh? We’re not done with your bitch ass just yet.” she whispers, sending chills down your spine.

“Y-yeji, help me.” you say, trying to push her away. Yeji looks at the way you struggle, not saying a word.

“You really think that she’s going to help your spoiled ass? Why do you think she invited you?” Ryujin asks as tears prick at your eyes

“Ryujin let me go!-” you try to shout out but Ryujin covers your mouth with her hand. Ryujin and Yeji both grab you, dragging you to Yeji’s room, locking the door behind them. Yeji pushes you onto the bed. 

“W-what are you going to do to me?” you cry out, your voice trembling. Ryujin comes over to you, wiping the tears off of your cheeks. “We’re not going to hurt you, if that’s what you think.” she whispers, kissing your cheek. “Such a pretty girl..terrible personality.” Ryujin continues, looking to Yeji. 

“Strip bitch.” Yeji says coldly, pulling out her phone to record you. “W-what?” you ask

“You heard me, I said strip. We’re teaching you a little lesson.” she replies. You start by taking off your shirt, then your pants, undergarments, eventually being naked in front of the two girls.

Ryujin leans forward next to you, pressing her lips up to yours. She tastes your salty tears as her hands travel up and down your body, exploring every crevice. Yeji watches the two of you interact, smirking behind the camera. 

“Are you ready Yej?” she asks and Yeji nods her head. Ryujin lays you down on the bed, forcing your legs open.

“P-please..” you mumble, Ryujin gets in between your legs, kissing your lips passionately before she gets off of you. “Shh, we’re not here to hurt you.” She says, taking the camera from Yeji. Before you can answer, Yeji shuts your mouth by kissing you. Her tongue hungrily explores the inside of your mouth, to the point where you can barely breathe. She pulls away, watching the way you try to catch your breath. Her hands rub up and down your slit, you’re embarrassingly wet.

“You’re pathetic..” Yeji starts, “..I love it.” she spits out, sticking one of her fingers into your pussy. She thrusts in and out, the two girls listen to the way your pussy takes your ex-girlfriend's finger, Yeji adds another one and you moan out. 

“A-ah! Please ..yej, more. Don’t stop!” you cry out, your juices leak all over her fingers as she thrusts her fingers in at a quick pace. Ryujin smiles behind the camera. “Fuck her good, Yej. I bet she’s close.” she says

Yeji curls her fingers inside of you, hitting every spot perfectly. “G-gonna cum!!” is all you say as your eyes roll to the back of your head, your whole body shakes as you orgasm all over her fingers. Yeji pulls her fingers out of your pussy, slowly sticking them in your mouth one by one. 

“Good girl.” she mumbles, watching you as you suck your own cum off of her long fingers. “Can I leave now, you got what you wanted.” you say

“Nope.” Ryujin simply says. “You can leave after you make me cum.” Yeji says

“What do you want me to do? I’m ready to go.” You say and Yeji pushes you back. 

“She’s gonna sit on your face.” Ryujin says flatly. Yeji lifts her skirt, pulling down her soaked panties from her ankles and hovers her cunt over your face. “Ready for me, hm y/n?” Yeji coos

“Let’s get this shit over with.” You say in annoyance. You grab her hips, sticking your tongue out so her cunt can fall right on your tongue. Yeji rocks her hips back and forth on your tongue, throwing her head back. “F-fuck I forgot how good her tongue game was Ryu.” she moans out. Ryujin turns the camera off and walks over to Yeji, grabbing her throat and kissing her lips. Ryujin grabs Yeji’s hips, moving her back and forth. “A-ah y/n..feels so good.” she moans as Ryujin continues to move her hips, between that and your tongue..has her going crazy. 

You hurriedly thrust your tongue in and out of her pussy at a fast pace. You feel Yeji touching all over your breasts while you tongue fuck her. You continue to thrust inside of her, you feel her legs tremble over your face before she shouts. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck..’m gonna cum!” she cries out as she cums all over tongue. Yeji gets off of you and dusts herself off. 

“You can leave now, Ryujin will let you out.” Yeji says, you scramble to throw your clothes on. 

“Pull some shit again y/n and I’ll release that pathetic video of you.” Yeji says

“Fine, I'll stop.” you say, throwing the rest of your clothes on and you follow Ryujin to the front door. You turn around to walk out and Ryujin grabs you, making you turn around to face her.

“What do you want, Ryujin?” you ask, she looks you up and down.“Stop patronizing our campaign. Do it again and I’ll beat your ass after I fuck the shit out of you, got it?” Ryujin says, sternly. “O-ok, I get it. I won’t do it again.” you say “Good. Now scram!” She says as you hurriedly leave. Yeji stands in the hallway, watching Ryujin close the door. Ryujin turns around to see her best friend and she smiles, jokingly saying, “Thought you were a bottom?”

[vandal-flower]

Take Me For Granted

Aiku Oliver x Reader.

Bring Your Plus One Event

Invitation Details: You get cheated on by your so-called boyfriend while attending the Valentines party. With nothing to do, you decide to leave, only to be stopped by Aiku Oliver, the infamous bachelor of the soccer world. Does he intend to make you his side-piece, or is there something more to this?

Warnings: Both reader and Aiku get cheated on, Aiku's age gets joked on, kissing (not Reader or Aiku.)

You wanted to feel hurt. You really did.

To see your boyfriend,- now ex-boyfriend, kissing another girl right in front of you. It's clear that he didn't care about you, but to see it right before your eyes...It left a taste in your mouth. Very bitter.

He was clearly enjoying himself seeing how he looked at you, and looked right back at her, continuing the kiss. You could only shiver in disgust. Who the hell does that?

You retreat to your one of your sources of comfort and happiness.

A smile grows on your face. Without them you really wouldn't have known what to do, in the past and now. You tuck your phone back into your pocket and prepare to leave. There's no purpose of you being here anymore.

As you get up from your seat, an arm wraps around your shoulder. Before you let your flight-or-fight instincts kick in, you look to see who it is.

The shaggy purple hair with lime tips, along with the facial hair, and heterochromatic eyes. It looked as if they were glowing. Aiku Oliver.

"What's a fine like you doing all by yourself. You do know it's a Valentine's party?", despite his friendly tone, his eyes looked akin to a predator about to catch its prey. You don't have time for this.

"Yea, my boyfriend cheated on me, and I was about to leave until you stopped me. Can I go now? I have somewhere to be.", taking off the arm around you and taking your bag with you.

"You got cheated on too? Just my luck."

You let out a laugh, trying to fake it as a cough, only to fail. "What? You think it's unnatural for a guy like me to get cheated on?", as serious as the question sounded, the smile on his face proved otherwise.

"Yes, it is.", you placed a hand over your mouth, covering your smile. "You do know the reputation you have? You're infamous of your 'one-night stand relationships', Mr. Unobtainable."

"'One-night stand relationships?' The media exaggerates everything, whether it be if the sky is blue, or if the latest phone is the real deal or not.", he smirks, "my dating life is no different."

You sit back down on your chair. "This is coming from the same guy who was caught with two older women near the karaoke room when he was 19.", you recall how Mana was in your ears about Aiku Oliver and the '2-timing karaoke incident'.

How she ever got such information was none of your business.

His eyebrows twitched, "It happened years ago, I was young and bold. Can't a man have a little fun?", a deep chuckle left his mouth.

"If I didn't know any better, I would have thought you were divorced and had kids."

He turned to you, a look of nothing but, shock and horror. You couldn't help but laugh again, not bothering to hide it. "With the face you're making right now, you look as old as my friend's dad, you're just missing a few grey streaks."

You laugh harder as his frown deepens, "I'm aware of how much older I look, but to say I look like someone's father is really something else.", he collects himself, brushing a hand through his hair.

"Has anyone ever told you how mean you are?", he points at you with his index finger. "I only spoke my opinions, not my fault you took them to heart.", you joked.

It didn't take long for the two of you to descend in a friendly banter regarding his age, how he looks like someone's father and how he someone's mortgage to pay.

"So, wanna go out sometime?", he leaned back in his chair, his manspread just as wide as his smirk. "You're the first person I've met so far who has been so...relaxed when talking to me."

"We've only been talking for about for over 30 minutes, and you're ready to jump into a relationship.", staring at his face and his ever-widening smirk. "You really are unhinged."

He gave a hearty laugh, "What? Can't a man have a little fun?", his voice more serious. "Besides, wouldn't it be fun if both our exes saw that we moved on, mainly your ex-boyfriend.", he pointed towards your ex on the couch, still making with the girl from earlier.

Ah, so she's Aiku's ex. How bold of her to cheat on a guy like him.

On any other day, you would have rejected the other, seeing it as child's play, 'you have to be the bigger person' kinda thing. But you feel tempted by his offer.

"Why don't I show you how that jerk took you for granted. I'll show you a good time.", he stood up and brought his hand out, as if wanting you to take it and run away together. "If you're lucky, I might even stay with you for a long time."

With no reasonable options on your mind other than 'yes', you grab his hand and sprint out the doors. Being the bigger person be screwed, you're going to have fun.

"I didn't take you for someone to be so eager, if I'd knew better I would have asked you out earlier.", he quickly reached out for his keys to open the car.

"You know what might happen if the media finds this out right?", he unlocks the door before pausing, giving you the chance to leave before it's too late.

"Who cares?", you walk yourself the other side of the car, "I'm making the most of the situation. Someone's father is offering to spoil me, who would I be if I did not take that chance?"

He chuckles before entering the car, you follow suit. As he starts the engine, he looks back at you, "There is no guarantee I'll treat you better than him, still interested?". He hand tightens on the wheel, after rotating his car to get out of the parking lot.

"There's no chance, but I know you won't take me for granted.", you make yourself comfortable in the seat. "Now show me the good time you promised me, my friends think I'm at home."

He smiles at your answer and begins to drive.

I thought it would be sweet of me to write something for the Oliver Aiku lovers.

My inbox is open. Check out my Rules.

[busket]

gravity falls rant, cw sexual assault and harassment

seeing the gf fandom do a full 180 on billford is so odd to see and kind of infuriating because I had so many nasty rumors and lies spread about me in 2015-2018 because I liked them as bitter exes. a callout google doc was made and I never read it, but I know it framed me as a creep and an abuser. all because I thought a cartoon nerd and a triangle had a fascinating dynamic that was dark and compelling

in 2017 or 2018 someone sent like 70 messages to my curiouscat just repeating RAPIST RAPIST RAPIST RAPIST over and over again. I'd never even had sex at that point, and I had just cut my dad out of my life for actually being a pedophile and a rapist. so that was traumatizing! that really hurt me!

I also know it was because I had a NSFW account where i drew porn (i was an adult, i was clear i only wanted adults following me. and I still do draw nsfw, I'm not ashamed of that now but these folks made me ashamed of it for years) that included some porn of trans men, like Stanley or Stanford as trans men (NEVER together bc I've always been staunchly against incest or pedophilia ships) and these people framed me as a transphobe and a transmasc fetishist

well obviously I'm a trans man now and I didn't know it at the time but those drawings were a way to explore my own relationship with gender. I even look like Stan and Ford now, obviously i latched on to them as trans men because I wanted to BE them. but I believed it when people called me a piece of shit, I assumed all trans people would despise me too and I'd committed a horrible sin and it forced me back in the closet for another 5 years.

the people doing this were teenagers at the time, a few I thought were my friends/mutuals, and they made that part of my life kinda miserable. I was already miserable with other shit going on in my life. I ignored most of the harassment to make myself uninteresting and to avoid the possibility of becoming a lolcow but it involved anonymous messages both on tumblr and curiouscat, I even got a few emails just mocking me. even in 2019 when some people were like "oh yeah she's moved on to moomin, this is what her art looks like now, I can't look at it without thinking about how much she loves rape :/" which was NEVER true!!! I liked Ford and Bill as bitter exes but it was always consensual in my mind.

Anyway I don't ever expect or even want an apology. I'm sure they don't realize what an effect that harassment had on me during literally the darkest years of my life. to them they were just teasing a weird girl on the internet for fun, or very seriously warning their friends against whom they'd been lied to about being an abuser, but I was a closeted trans man trying to finish college, my home life was abysmal and abusive, I hated myself, i hated my body, my only friends were online, and when I'd log on for some escapism I was met with another message like "hey, you should block this person. they're saying some really cruel things about you on their account. I know it's not true but it looks like some people are believing it."

gravity falls was so important to me as a show since oregon is my home and it felt so authentic to my own childhood being interested in cryptids and going camping and visiting shit like the Oregon vortex as a child. but the fandom was the worst I've ever been in. it ruined my enjoyment of media online for years. so idk. I guess I feel somewhat vindicated but it would also be nice to get those years back and not be harassed and bullied online about something so stupid and unimportant

[ratsonastick]

Can you do more ex!clarisse la rue x ex!reader but instead they are a bit more aggressive. They broke up because they were always fighting and getting jealous. After a really explosive fight they break up. They are so bitter towards each other during training they would spar together since no one else would challenge them and when they attacked it was like they were actually fighting. The words they spoke to each other are mostly about how they are the superior one or the stronger on or the right one. During a bonfire the reader decided to get under clarisse’s skin and flirt with her best friend . She see this and it sets sadness and a fire inside of her. She was going to win you back, after that day she would be nicer to you she would compliment you and you take notice of this. You ask her after sparring with each other while she was saying how amazing you were and how you were improving and the reader gets annoyed and said “Why are you acting like?!?” the reader is mad because she was the one who said to break up. Clarrise tells the reader that she still loves her and wants to get back together but the reader is still so upset and tells clarrise to stay out of her life breaking clarrise’s heart. The reader storms away so frustrated and confused. The reader and another camper and hit it off and goes on a eats dinner with them clarrise sees you with her about and gets so angry but doesn’t do anything because of what you said. Clarrise then notices that she doesn’t see you at training that often she barely see you at all even. One day she’s going to training and sees you with the camper. When she sees this it make her heart feel like it’s shattering, she always thought that you guys would get over this that you guys would get back together and spend the rest of your life together. She then realized that she couldn’t just stand there and watch fall in love with someone else. She went to talk to you while you were going to your cabin but you are also with the camper and she kind of shoos her away. The reader is upset that she just sent her away and tries to walk away but clarrise calls the reader but the reader just ignores her after a while clarrise just picks the reader up and bring them to her cabin with them kicking and screaming on her shoulder. Clarrise then apologizes to the reader and she has a whole speech on why they should get back together one of them being is because she hasn’t felt that way with anyone before and she never wants to she only wants to feel that way for you and telling the reader not to continue dating the camper. You just sit there shocked and confused because the camper that you were talking to you weren’t interested in at all they were your cabin sibling you were just helping her get more comfortable with the camp. You tell her that this was one of the main reasons why they broke up that they were so overprotective. Clarrise a little embarrassed says that she’s sorry for overreacting but she felt like she was losing you and just kind of rambles. And you stop her with a kiss and tell her that they can get back together but they have to start at square one and reintroduce each other.

The end

ITS REALLY LONG IM SORRY IF YOU WANT YOU CAN MAKE IT INTO TWO PARTS BUT I WOULD REALLY LOVE TOO SEE YOU MAKE THIS WITH❤️❤️

LEGEND YOU GAVE SO MUCH DETAIL!!! I had to pause at breakfast and show my friends sorry XD I'm pretty sure you wrote more than I did

But anyways ... Clarisse La Rue x Ex!Reader (Happy ending) Warnings - Blood, fighting, make out ...

AND requests are still open!

˖°𓇼⋆𖦹˖°𓇼⋆𖦹˖°𓇼⋆𖦹˖°𓇼⋆𖦹˖°𓇼⋆𖦹˖°𓇼⋆𖦹˖°𓇼⋆

You and Clarisse broke up a week ago, due to always fighting and getting jealous. And the way the two of you broke it off was, well, messy. 

For the first time, you truly believed you hated her, and she thought the same thing about you. 

You try to ignore her, going separate ways, avoiding the Ares cabin. You thought that once you guys broke up you wouldn't be bothered anymore. That you could finally escape her claws, but no. 

Of course, you had to be partners with her in sparring, and you hated it. She once was so gentle with you, trying her best to not hurt you like she did with the other campers. But now it was almost like sudden death like you were fighting an actual monster. 

When she pushed you down and you rolled away to avoid her sword that came crashing down she let out a laugh “Where are you going stupid ass.” 

You'd quickly got up and threw a punch into her stomach so you could throw her off guard and be able to take a breather. When you looked at her it truly was like seeing someone else. It was like looking at the man in a horror show who was about to kill you, someone you once trusted. 

“You little-” She yelled, taking her sword and clashing it down onto yours, she met your eyes and for a second you thought you saw something change. But she kicked your knee causing you to fall and her sword cut into your skin. 

You fell to the floor, your hand reaching up to feel the blood pooling down your chin. You looked up at her as she took a step back, her arms falling to her side, her movements slow and breathing heavy. 

“I can't believe – I can't believe you.” You stuttered, out of breath and hurt you stood up. Cover the wound with your hand as the blood starts to cover your fingers and slide down your arm. 

You walked off to find Will in the Apollo cabin, tears mixing with the wound which made everything sting more.   

A few days later you walked to the bonfire and sat down with some friends. You saw Clarisse standing by a tree with a drink in her hands and her siblings, you noticed how her gaze flickered to the stitching on your face. 

You ignored her, turning your gaze to look at your friends. 

It is strange to think though, how you once would run up to her during these fires, and ask her to help you roast your marshmallow and she'd roll her eyes but you could she loved it. 

Now you two were just trying to be strangers. 

You saw her friend Selena sitting across from you, on the other side of the fire and you decided to be friendly. 

You walked over and said hello and she smiled at you, you never realized how pretty she was even though you've seen her so many times. 

“How you holding up?” she asked and you shrugged your shoulders “I've been getting through it … But Clarisse she takes her anger out on me.” you pointed to your face and looked back towards the fire. 

“Yikes” Selena mumbled bringing her fingers up to touch the skin around the stitching “Makes you look tough though.” She mumbled which made you turn to look at her “Yeah?” and she hummed in response. 

You smiled, feeling a small burning sensation in your stomach, or maybe it was coming from the back of your head where Clarisse had been burning lasers into. 

Clarisse couldn't help herself but be annoyed by you, especially with you trying to be smitten with her friend. You were trying to get under her skin, maybe to get back at her for cutting you.

But either way, she didn't like it. 

She knew it wasn't right for her to want to win you back, that the reason why you guys broke up was because of her jealousy in the first place, and now it was what fueled her to get you back. 

She started slowly, sneaking in extra portions of food for you, leaving anonymous notes and flowers. 

She hoped you knew it was her, but unfortunately, you only believed it was Selena. She caught you talking to her friend thanking her for the things, leaving Selena a bit confused before noticing Clarisse in the corner with her arms crossed and a scowl. 

“Wait, who is it then?” you asked confused, Selena shrugged her shoulders and walked off leaving you standing there. You looked around and noticed Clarisse, but she just shook her head and walked off. 

A few days later you were back on the field with her. 

Clarisse wouldn't admit this out loud, but seeing you in front of her waiting for the timer to start was just like seeing you for the first time again. She liked how you stood there with your hands on your hips, looking around out into the distance at the forest admiring the colors, and trying to ignore the awkward tension. 

Maybe this is all the two of you needed, was to fall in love again, to realize you needed each other. 

And she wanted you to notice this is all you needed. 

When the timer started she took a stance and allowed you to hit her first. She wanted you to impress her just like the first time you did. She wanted you to see how good she is, and forget Selena. 

She wanted so much. 

When you both finished, out of breath and unfocused Clarisse spoke up “You did good, I liked that thin-” But she was cut off by you, “What is this?” 

“What?” Clarisse asked, getting defensive, “This new positive attitude … remember when you sliced my face open the last time, and now you're trying to be all buddy!” You spoke, waving your hands around in frustration. 

“I'm sorry, would you prefer me to cut your leg this time?” She spoke with furrowed brows. “No! But I want you to stop acting like things between us are normal.” 

You wanted the conversation to end so you walked away, wiping some of the sweat off your forehead. Clarisse turned to look at you but then sighed and chased after you “Argh come on Y/n just … I want you back in my life please!” you never heard Clarisse beg, even when you guys broke up. So for a moment you almost faltered, but then kept walking “Just stay out of my life!” you yelled, and finally she stopped following you. 

Later that night Clarisse sat on her cabin steps, tossing a ball back and forth between her hands. She wanted to wait for you to get back to your cabin so maybe she could try again. 

But then she heard your laughs and noticed you standing with some girl. 

Oh. The reason why she said no was because you moved on. 

She stayed still, trying to blend into the shadows so she wouldn't be seen. She felt like she was about to throw up, watching as you clung onto the girl's hand and swung it back and forth like you once did with hers. 

The next few days it was almost like you were nonexistent, like you never went to camp because no one questioned it. You didn't go to the training field, you didn't go to dinner, you were gone. 

Or maybe just just disappeared from Clarisse. 

After a few more days she saw you on the field with that girl and she scoffed. Before she could think she found her legs moving towards you “Look who finally showed up” Clarisse spoke bitterly as she kept her gaze on you. Then she finally looked at the girl “Get lost … she's my partner.” 

The girl wanted to protest, but Clarisse didn't look away from her until she started to walk away. You watched Clarisse and took notice of how she seemed so angry. “Where have you been” 

“Why does it matter?” you spoke up and Clarisse scoffed “Because I care.” you shook your head turning around to walk away and letting out a sigh.

Clarisse pretty much growled at your behavior and picked you up, throwing you over her shoulder. Her hand found their placement right under your butt which caused you to gasp at the sudden baldness. 

“Clarisse! Put me down!” you yelled trying to kick your way out, But Clarisse was stronger, she kept walking until she reached her cabin, placing you down on her bunk and yelling at the few campers to Scram. 

“Will you stop being stubborn and listen to me!” She shouted which got you to stop talking, as you crossed your arms and looked away like a toddler. 

“I still love you! And I always will! And I'm sorry I am always so jealous and protective I just can't help it! You are so beautiful and when I see you trying to be friendly with other people I just can't help myself but get angry.” 

She huffed out bringing her hand up to brush your cheek softly “I love you.” she almost chuckled as she looked at your cheeks turn slightly warm. 

Clarisse felt hers get warm as well, feeling a bit embarrassed. “I'm so sorry for hurting you … I just couldn't control myself. You know I'll never do it again.” She spoke softly, brushing your scar, but at the same time, she was also talking about your feelings. 

“I don't think I can handle seeing you and that girl together anymore,” she spoke and she took notice of how you smiled slightly, tilting your head down to ignore her gaze but Clarisse tilted your head back up to look at her. 

She was squatting in front of your knees and a feeling of butterflies entered your stomach. “Will you plea-” 

But she was cut off by you kissing her harshly, your legs separating so she would kneel between your legs as you both kissed. 

Your fingers tangled into her hair, and you both let out soft gasps into each other's mouths. Clarisse’s hands found your hips and pulled you forward so her chest was hitting your stomach. 

She pulled away and smiled as she noticed how red your face was “So do you forgive me” 

You nodded your head and kissed her once more.

[fruitmilkshake]

"Learning to 'See'"

Avatar x COD MWII headcanons

Request by; @defodisturbed

Pairing; just random headcanons of how the Task Force 141 f.t Laswell, Rudy, Ale, Val and Graves would act in pandora (with a na'vi! Reader to orient them 😌👍)

Characters; Task force 141 f.t Rudy, Ale, Val, Graves (I feel weird if i don't add him to the equation), A Mention of Farah visiting HQ, a Mention of Nikolai being the pilot of the group.

Warnings: swearing (a lot of it, actually), the reader being called "blue" as a nickname and them acting like a quiet emo sometimes, Price being the father of the group, Ghost being a bitter mf, a small headcanon of Valeria being the reader's crush (platonic wuh luh wuh since Y/N is 19 and Val is like 40 🛐🏳️‍🌈), some Mentions of the reader's past and traumas, Ale and Rudy speaking in spanish, Soap swearing in scottish, Gaz being too curious sometimes, Graves just being a egocentric mf, Farah becoming friends with Y/N, Mentions of dangerous situations Incluring pandoran predators, slighty injures and new flavors of food ^ ^ (I'm saying this because they're probably going to have stomach ache after tasting Pandora's fruits and food).

Inspired in; this thought that I had a long time ago.

My native lenguage isn't English, so i'm sorry if i make a mistake at writing this, and i'm sorry if this has Spelling mistakes or if the pronunciation is wrong

Note;

The Task Force and the other characters are Part of the resistance (HQ), and the whole situation happends in frontiers of pandora (AFOP)

Also, this is how the reader looks like;

The reader is called; Y/n in this fic and it's referred to them as "She/her".

Origins;

(How everything started and Y/N's backstory)

ꕤ So... Pandora... A beautiful but also dangerous place... You know what they say; "The most dangerous thing about pandora, is that you may grow to love her too much"..... Well, that's kind of true, but before loving it, you need to get used to its dangerousness... And that's what these "sky people" need after spending too much time with the enemy...

ꕤ After betreying and Getting away from the RDA facility They used to work on, a small team of four soldiers called "The Task Force 141", a female CEO, A soldier from a team called "The shadows" and two soldiers, one of them being an ex colonel that came from an Elite Unit called "Los vaqueros" and the other one being his mayor sargeant in the same Unit, found comfort on helping the na'vis and saving the environment of this beautiful planet with the rebel resistance of HQ.

ꕤ even if they barely knew the language (exept for the CEO female, better known as "Laswell") and the uncomfortable feeling of the exopack everytime they had to go outside, the feeling of doing something right after all those years of causing suffering was everything they were willing to fight for..

ꕤ And then... There was this native... A "Child from two world", Kidnapped at the age of 9 with some other na'vi children by the RDA (she was the oldest of the children) and trained to be the a good soldier, never stopped protecting and teaching their old traditions (or at least the ones she remembered) to the youngest children in the facility trapped with her, never following orders from the TAP teachers and getting in trouble all the time...

ꕤ After a few years of trying to protect the children who she called her "tsmukan and tsmuke" (Brothers and sisters"), the worst and unstoppable end waited for them...

ꕤ After finding out of Jake Sully's betreyal against the humanity race, the RDA decided that best they could do was to get rid of the na'vi students on their territory. Of course, if that avatar driver was now with the na'vis, then would the RDA would trust these "creatures" now?...

ꕤ After the massacre who only ended with the oldest being the only survivor, the RDA decided to take her hostage, they didn't knew if They could trust her, better to keep an eye on her, specially if she was the most rebel one, who knows what she could too them...

How everything started;

(How Y/N meeted the "trusting humans")

ꕤ two soldiers of the before mentioned team "Task force 141", a tall, pale and blonde soldier who wore a skull mask under a balaclava, better known as Simon "Ghost" Riley, and a slightly tan and more short soldier with Dark brown mohawk, better known as John "Soap" Mactavish, were sended to explore an old and abandoned RDA facility on a quiet and foggy place in the plains of the "Clouded forest".

ꕤ After exploring the base for a few hours and thinking there not much left to use in this facility, they heard a noise coming from one of the hostage room inside, that's where they found the native (She was taken hostage when she was 19 and she was thrown into a cryo capsule, remaining the same appearane until then, even though she older now), who tried to attack them and kill them with everything she got on hand, after both soldiers calming her down, they explained that they didn't wanted to hurt her, they wanted to help her and her kind, that they were there to look for supplies to help some clans in need of them, she didn't trusted them, not at all actually, but she didn't had another option, she didn't wanted to encounter any other humans from the RDA and this people seemed to be telling the truth.... Maybe she can try to trust them, worst they could do is be lying, and even then, she would probably kill them there....

ꕤ After thinking and realizing there wasn't really many much other options left, she was finally taken to the HQ base, where she was received warmly for the other members, not really knowing her deeply but guessing that she has been through a lot for her to think of humans like that, which; was true.

(yey, new character added to the team :D)

Coexistence;

(How Y/N gets to know human things and she teachs the humans what she knows)

ꕤ Getting used to a new ambience and wearing something that wasn't the TAP uniform after all those years wearing it was difficult for now known as "Y/N" (who has now gotten the courage to tell the humans her name), but that's why she had "The Task Force 141", the ex soldier of "The shadows", the female ex RDA CEO and the two "Los vaqueros" soldiers to help her adapt to her new form of life in the HQ resistance, and maybe she could help these people to adapt to the life in pandora..

(This is now where i can start with the short but kinda interesting headcanons ;))

ꕤ Since Y/N doesn't trust humans very much, Laswell dedided to give her a tablet where she could record Audio logs of what she's feeling in the moment.

ꕤ The Task Force 141 and the others have a crafting time where they make small accessories for their weapons, like trinkets, feathers, small pieces of woods and even they had made a songcord for themselfs (A headcanon from @defodisturbed)

ꕤ Y/N has tried to teach the members of the squad (The Cod characters in one word ;_;) to speak the na'vi lenguage, but their pronunciation is really bad (at least they understand a little bit of the lenguage tho)... Exept for Laswell, since she had to interact with other natives, she has learned the lenguage pretty well(am i the only one who wants to see Laswell as an avatar 🛐?).

ꕤ One time, Y/N visited the Zeswa clan and she bringed a dish back to the base, since Gaz is so curious, he asked for a bite of the food just to taste it, after a few hours, he got intoxicated (Poor guy, he didn't knew that Pandora's food was toxic for humans), Thankfully, he got cured 👍.

ꕤ The squad has showed Y/N movies, shows, music, books, basically every human possesion they have traveled with from Earth to pandora and have stolen from the RDA facilities they have shut down (i can't stop imagining Rudy and Ale showing Y/N corridos and she's just sitting there, not knowing what's she listening to ;_;)....... (or Nikolai listening to Ramnstein and Y/N just thinking that it's just screams and yells in another lenguage with an electric guitar as background).

ꕤ After Y/N bonded with her ikran, the base always has ikrans growls and squeals on top of the roof, since Y/N always lefts her ikran there.

ꕤ Sometimes; Y/N helps Soap with some face paint everytime they have to fight with the RDA Troops.

ꕤ Graves likes to call Y/N "Blue" as a nickname, since they're 'friends' (no, They're not, actually, Y/N doesn't really like him since he's an egocentric mf.... She doesn't really understand his texan accent 👍)

ꕤ Since Y/n cannot take the team to places in ikran all by herself, Nikolai helps by being the pilot of the group

ꕤ The others think that Y/N, Soap, Nikolai, Ale and Rudy have their own dialect, since they all speak in a total different lenguage.

ꕤ Since Laswell is like the mom of the group, Y/N gets usually comforted by her everytime she has nightmares of her past.

ꕤ The same happens with Price, since he's like the dad of the group, Y/N usually follows his lead and feels safe/protected by him everytime they're in combat (also, Price always tells his dad-jokes to her and she never understand them)

ꕤ everytime they have to go out to explore RDA facilities or just to explore their surroundings, Y/N is the first one on bringing her bow and her poison arrows since she knows that every predator could be waiting for them in the next corner of every place (specially the RDA experimented ones).

ꕤ Both Y/N And Ghost are the cold and quiet ones of the group.

ꕤ Everytime Ale and Rudy speak in spanish, Nikolai says some words in russian, or Soap speaks/swears in his Scottish accent, she tries to listen to see if she can understand at least a little bit (she can't XD).

ꕤ Since Soap, Gaz, Price and Graves are the only ones who use folded sleeves, they always get bug bites and plants/flowers allergies.

ꕤ Sometimes it's funny to see Y/N towering the rest of the squad, specially since the others are full grown men and Y/N is only a teenage.

ꕤ Y/N likes when Laswell style and brushes her hair with accessories and feathers she has acquired during her visits to the other clans around pandora.

ꕤ Soap, Gaz and Ale likes to make competences with Y/N of who has a better aiming with a shutgun or a knife (she wins, obviously 👍)

ꕤ Y/N carries a lot trinkets in her clothes and weapons that the others have made at crafting time ^^.

ꕤ I think that Farah and Y/N would be good friends :D, like... Imagine them speaking of their cultures and their long lost families, Farah teaching Y/N to have a better aim with the shutgun, Y/N styling Farah's hair with different types of feathers and accesories and-AND ALODOEIRKNDNDMD.

ꕤ After Ale and Rudy ambushed a few RDA soldiers, They captured a female human soldier, called Valeria "El sin nombre" Garza, she was captured by the HQ soldiers and taken to their base to interrogate her about the RDA tracking activities. During her lounge in the HQ base, Y/N couldn't help but be amazed by this human female's beauty, who was this woman? Why was she beautiful?, even if she knew she couldn't be together, specially since this human was older than her, but it was just a small crush after (no, seriously, just a small crush 👍)

ꕤ Valeria teached Y/N a little bit of spanish and teached her to have self confidence, after all, she has lost it all after spending almost all of her life in that RDA base as a hostage..... Eventually; Valeria joined the resistance, ready to fight for pandora after seeing what the RDA has done to this planet.

Extra;

A moodboard for @defodisturbed based on this post ^ ^ I hope you like it!

I'm sorry i couldn't have this ready for yesterday as i promised 😓

Well, that's all! This was so fun to make, but also difficult, my mind has so much ideas that are so difficult to describe them, but whatever!

I hope you guys liked reading this and that this helps you with any story you want! Byee!

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Five

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen*

*I say it's an OC, it's just a name and third person POV. I use minor character descriptions because I don’t get on with writing vague reader inserts/YN for long-form, story heavy fics, but I will generally try to avoid including race and body type or really any physical descriptors. I’m always open to feedback on my writing, or how to be more inclusive.

WC: 17k (holy moly)

Chapter Warnings: I tried to sprinkle some fluffy flashbacks and smutty references later in here just to lighten the mood but this is angsty!! probably cursing I honestly can't remember, and serious warnings rn mentions of hacking/gossip blogs/blackmail/cyber bullying/nudes being leaked, talia is her own warning tbh. I tried not to make a cliched ex comes in between them plot and idk how it comes across but yeah I was trying to toe the line between it being interesting/different and then going too far and not being able to write around it which is why the plot kind of fixes itself quick and is a leeeetle bit bad but there's some unresolved bitterness in that relationship for sure lmao she has a LOT 2 say!! did I mention there's angst in here? insecurity/self-doubt and miscommunication!!! in abundance!!! but!! luke is a cutey patootie in this I wrote his part with a lil smile on my face 💖 also a ridiculous conversation about huffing glue lmao

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Four)

A/N: ok so in the grand scheme of things this is both a filler chapter and also like a pivotal point in the story to set something later up, but when I was planning this entire fic out, the only directive I gave myself for this specific chapter was insert angst. you wouldn't believe the amount of times I've written and rewritten and gone back and forth on what's in here. it's the kind of instruction only a complete melon would give themselves and I clearly just hate myself in ways that are spooky and strange to submit myself to this kind of torture.

and I hear your cries of hasn’t this fic just been angst so far??? yes!! you may be correct!! but you don’t get a rainbow without a bit of rain hun!!! grab an umbrella!!! I promise good will come of this lmao

I'm sorry this one took so long, it's the only chapter I didn't have any kind of plan or direction for obviously and I tried to come up with so many different options for the talia plot before I landed on whatever this is, but the next one I do have some scenes written out in my plan so shouldn't be as long in between. my goal has always been a chapter a week but like I said the other day work has been a lot for me the past couple of weeks so I am genuinely sorry for making you wait!!

you guys were very fun and very kind to me after the last chapter so please please please lets keep the good vibes going come chat to me about your thoughts about the fic about the weather about anything!! 💓

Nico

When Nico and Talia had first started dating, there had been an element of excitement to the dynamic. Nico hadn’t properly dated anyone in a while - had casual flings here and there, and for the most part spent his time swallowing down his burgeoning feelings for his best friend - and there was a novelty to starting something with someone new.

He had all the intentions of building something serious with her. She was fun, got on with his friends, had ties close to home that meant he wouldn’t be putting a wedge between the two of them should he want to travel back in his breaks, and sinking his teeth into the challenges of a relationship was something that actually intrigued him.

He liked planning dates, liked buying gifts to see that buzz of joy and gratitude it would elicit, and he liked the companionship - liked having someone there when he came back from a long roadie or a tough string of games. 

He liked it so much he never really opened his eyes to the fact that Talia didn’t. 

She didn’t like the dates he planned - didn’t like the restaurants he chose, the movies he wanted to share with her, the bars him and the guys frequented. She didn’t like America, didn’t like their coffee shops, thought their pastries were packed with too much sugar, their portion sizes were too large for her ever to enjoy going for lunch, always complaining about feeling bloated and sluggish after every meal. She hated Jersey - wanted to spend all her time across the Hudson, looking down on everyone she met and everywhere they went together. She didn’t make much use of the gifts he bought her - let every bouquet of flowers die a quick, careless death, said the watch he bought her didn’t go with enough of her other jewellery and turned her nose up at every effort he made to make his apartment feel more like her home. 

She wasn’t all that comforting when it came to companionship, either. Rolled her eyes when he came home aching and exhausted, went out without him on the days he was coming back from a roadie and returned home when he had long retired to his bed. She would always want to meet up with her girlfriends instead of hanging around the team, and only ever wanted to come to games if she could bring her own entourage - mostly to show off her connections and hardly ever to actually support him.

And so, despite the initial attraction, despite the excitement that first came with their blossoming relationship, Nico can only look at Talia with disinterest and frigidity now.

He barely greets her as he opens the door to his apartment, moving aside to let her in and waiting for her to trudge her small case in behind her before he closes it, leaning against the surface and watching her discard her bag and keys on the counter with familiarity.

When she turns to face him, running a hand through her hair and huffing out a big sigh, he takes in her dishevelled appearance.

Even when travelling, Talia usually takes great pride in her pristine exterior - hair blow-dried, outfit co-ordinated and steam-pressed to perfection, not a crease or stain in sight, and usually a light layer of makeup to cover the slight imperfections like the darkened under eyes and redness around her nose. This isn’t like her.

She looks like she’s been messing with her hair the whole 8 hour flight out and beyond, her eyes are rimmed-red with smudges of brown at the corners, her lips are chapped and swollen like she’s been crying, and her sweatpants don’t match her hoodie. It’s almost like she’d thrown on whatever she could find and caught the first flight out, fresh out of bed.

“What’s going on?” He cuts straight to the chase, losing all formality and courtesy. He should feel bad for his callous greeting, but she had broken up with him over text not even a month ago - she doesn’t exactly deserve outstretched arms and a warm embrace, he thinks.

“Hi Talia, how have you been, Talia? It’s nice to see you Talia.” She mocks, a frown overtaking her features immediately. “I’m absolutely amazing, thanks for caring, Nico!” Sarcasm spews from her tongue like pure venom, and his eyes practically roll into the back of his head.

Nico pushes himself off of the door, heavy footsteps leading him into his kitchen where he can make himself a coffee to get through this. His watch reads 6:05 - far too early for her antics - and rising to her nagging is only going to make things worse.

“Do you want a drink?” He asks, as he busies himself with his coffee press, unable to look at her too long without the pricks of guilt irritating him.  He doesn’t even know what he has to feel guilty about.

“I’ll get it myself,” she scoffs, venturing over to the fridge and pouring out some orange juice - her movements around his space eerily natural. She slams back most of the drink as he works out how to brew his coffee - but she sees right through him. He’s hardly ever used the press before, and he’s just doing so now to avoid her in whatever capacity he can. “I need money.”

Nico’s almost positive he hasn’t heard her right - that there’s some kind of mix up between her standard German and his Swiss - and he slowly turns to properly face her, brows slanting into a deep frown as he assesses her expression.

She has a hand on her hip, her jaw set and her eyes darkened and serious. 

“You have money.”

Talia comes from money - her father is some kind of film producer and her mother an artist, if Nico remembers correctly - and she makes good money, herself. She’s been a print model since she was scouted in some market in Munich since she was 15, has had her face plastered in ads in magazines and catalogues around the world. She’s hardly strapped for cash. She gets things gifted to her by whatever company she can get a hold of. What could she possibly need him to give her money for?

“Not enough.” Her tone is cold, her demeanour the same, and if Nico can still gauge her emotions correctly, there’s an element of blame that she is starting to shift towards him, and his whole body starts to feel tense.

“Not enough for what?”

He can’t quite tell what feeling washes over him - worry, at the thought she’s gotten herself into some kind of trouble, stress, at the thought this could be a recurring thing, and potentially pity, at the way she’s so clearly carrying the weight of something heavy - something she’s lugged all the way across the Atlantic on a long haul flight with her.

“Not enough to pay the guy who’s blackmailing me not to leak the videos that I sent to you.”

“What vide-“ he bites back, and the immediate arch of her brow tells him all he needs to know. “Oh.”

Shit.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?” She sneers, fury in her gaze and dismay in her tone. “You’ve ruined my life, and all I get is an oh?”

“Whoa, slow down, I’ve ruined your life?”

Nico has never been one to shame any girl for sending explicit pictures - he’d been more than willing to receive them at the time - but he hadn’t ever forced her hand. He hadn’t even asked her for them, in the first place. 

She’d taken it upon herself to spice things up, as she had put it at the time, when the team had gone on the road in early December. It was just after he’d returned from his injury - a time in which he’d spent mentally distanced from her as he’d focused so much on getting back to the game, their relationship consisting mainly of not-so-passionate sex to avoid aggravating his injury and hardly of any kind of meaningful conversation - and she had thought that keeping him on his toes on a roadie would mean he’d come back more interested than ever.

If he’d been looking out for red flags at the time, he might have caught that blaring one; needing to try new things only a few months into a relationship to keep it fun and light.

He’d been in his hotel room in Seattle, freshly showered and ready to throw himself straight into bed when his phone had started to ping. It was suggestive texts at first, are you alone? And I’m thinking about you. Then it had been pictures, hands over lingerie and fingers between glossy, pouted lips.

And then videos, one after the other before he had any chance to respond - her phone set up far enough away that her whole body was in frame, touching herself while laying on his bed and calling out for him.

He had called her instead of sending anything back, and as he realises the severity of the situation, a selfish part of him is glad he did so.

“Talia, I didn’t even save those videos, and I definitely didn’t show them to anyone else.”

Nico could never. Not only for the fact that he was raised to be a decent human being, but he has a sister - if anyone ever did that to Nina, he’d tear them apart, limb from limb. 

“You’re the only person I’ve ever sent anything to.” She seems to have made her mind up, and Nico feels as if his heart plummets through his torso at the realisation. She’s travelled all this way because she genuinely believes he’s the cause of this - that he’s shared intimate videos of her without her consent, to someone who would extort her for them. “And he sent me some pictures as proof, had information about me like the address of this apartment.”

“Talia, I swear on my mother’s life, I wouldn’t do that to you - to anyone, not ever.”

Tears well in her crystalline eyes, and Nico waits with bated breath as she assesses the situation in her head. 

He isn’t a liar - he has never given her a reason to think he is one. In their time together, he had always been honest, always been loyal, and he hopes at the very least - despite her obvious distain for him now, and how little she ended up caring about their relationship in the end to cut it off in the way she did - she thought of him as kind. 

He can do nothing but be patient, let her come to whatever conclusion on her own, and it’s only when he spots the quiver in her bottom lip that he takes an apprehensive step forward, ready to console her if needed.

She practically throws herself into his arms, wrapping her own around his waist and bawling into his chest, and all he can do is hold her and wait. He tries to rub a soothing hand up and down her back, holding the other against her head as her body wracks with sobs. All he can feel is the pounding of his own heartbeat, pulsing throughout his entire body until it’s all he can hear, too.

Nico does his best to comfort her, shushing and cooing and whispering how it’s going to be alright, but it does little to help. She’s beyond relief.

“There’s a guy who said he can track whoever is doing this to me,” she sniffles as she pulls herself away. “He’s in Jersey City Heights, he’s some sort of ethical hacker, whatever that means, I’m going to meet him and he’s gonna go through my phone.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Nico doesn’t even hesitate to ask - if not to protect her, and make sure she isn’t unknowingly getting herself into an even more dangerous situation, then to protect himself too. If someone has Talia’s pictures, and she only sent them to him, there’s a possibility his phone had been hacked, and if this guy is as ethical as he says, maybe he can check Nico’s stuff, too, just to be safe.

She gives him an appreciative smile, eyes still glassy and cheeks flushed. “I’d really appreciate that.”

“I’m gonna shower, then we can go. You can grab whatever to eat while you’re waiting.” He backs away from her completely, only just able to acknowledge the ache in his muscles once the intensity of the situation has settled a little, and he just needs to stand under the steaming spray and clear his mind before he properly immerses himself in her company. 

He has a lot more than this whole mess that he needs to think about, and maybe a shower can bring him a little clarity on how exactly he’s going to explain himself to the beautiful girl whose bed he had abruptly left not even an hour ago. 

“Why are you dressed?”

Nico stops in his tracks.

When he had got back to his apartment, he’d made a little effort for it to seem like he’d been there all night. He’d gone through to his bedroom, mussed up his sheets to make it seem like he had been sleeping in them - and not with the anticipation that Talia was going to be entering his bedroom, but with her, he never knows - trying to retrace the steps of his usual routine before he goes to bed, he had closed all the blinds, had moved his gym bag by the door.

But he hadn’t changed.

Still adorned in his sweatshirt and jeans from the night before, the clothing feels all that much heavier on his body as she brings attention to it, and he quickly racks his brain to come up with a valid excuse that doesn’t rouse further suspicion.

“I fell asleep in these clothes.” As easy as the lie comes out, he doesn’t feel great saying it. Doesn’t feel like erasing the night he had shared with Poppy is for the greater good, even if it is just to Talia, but avoiding another difficult conversation is a must right now - especially when he’d already lied to her on the phone. “Was out late with the guys last night, Timo threw a party for my birthday.”

“Right,” she drags out, and when he turns back around, she casts a scrutinising glance over him, top to bottom. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“No worries,” he shrugs, genuinely not offended. She has no reason to remember his birthday. Not anymore. “Like I said, help yourself to whatever, I’ll try not to be long.” 

When he undresses for his shower, he’s thankful he hadn’t had the foresight to change in anticipation of Talia’s arrival. He probably would have donned a t-shirt and some shorts, oblivious to the visible indents on his thighs where Poppy had dug her nails in as she took him in her mouth.

His chest and torso are littered with scratches, some faint, some a little deeper, and he can’t get the right angle to see his back but he imagines they’re the same - the memory of her clutching at him as both of their climaxes approached is vivid enough for him to picture the marks she left behind.

He groans as the thought of her brings back that swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he notices the blooming arousal pool there, and feels himself harden as he steps under the spray of his shower.

If his phone had been on do not disturb through the night, he could be in the shower with Poppy, instead.

He could have woken up to her in his arms, could have pecked at her sleep-swollen lips until it brought her out of her slumber, and spent his morning making up for lost time just like he had promised her last night. He could have made light work of the pleasure he had given her the night before - could have had her underneath him in her bed, tangled up in the mess of sheets and falling apart before they shared a morning shower, where he’d have held her up against the tiles and would’ve moved into her until they couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. He’d have made her breakfast, something sweet, so that as she sat and watched him atop the kitchen counter he had tasted her on for the first time not even 12 hours before, he’d press his tongue into her mouth after she had eaten and savour the flavour of strawberries that had settled between her lips.

Instead, he’s here, turning the temperature of his water down until any and all excitement in his body is dampened, and all he can focus on is the effect the cold has on all his other aching muscles.

Once he has showered and gotten dressed - and has come to the conclusion that any further thoughts about Poppy need to wait until the Talia problem is resolved and out of his hands, he finds his ex girlfriend sprawled across his couch, music playing from the speaker in the corner, and taking helping herself to a whole new level. 

Her case is opened where she had left it by the door, and she’s set herself a little vanity up on his coffee table, fixing her appearance before they leave.

She’s changed out of her mismatched sweats, has dressed herself in jeans and a sweater, and has found an extension cable long enough for her to plug in whatever hot tool she’s currently running through her hair.

“You take the longest showers in the history of man,” she rolls her eyes, not even casting a glance his way as she focuses on her own reflection in the little mirror she must have brought with her. “I do not want to know what it is you get up to in there.”

“I was barely 30 minutes, are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, almost,” she runs the tool through her bangs until they flick out at the edges on either side of her face, and it reminds him of all the times he had watched her while waiting for her to finish getting ready. It makes him feel uneasy how familiar it all is, how she’s so quickly made herself at home again in his space.

He wants to tell her she needs to pack her stuff back up, that she won’t be staying here and needs to give his keys back, but the weight of the situation at hand dawns on him before he can open his mouth.

He’ll wait until they get back later, his decision depending on the outcome of their visit to her hacker friend.

As much as he doesn’t want her around, he isn’t going to kick her out with no place to go if her life is still shrouded in unsafe circumstances. 

Talia unplugs her stuff, wraps the cord around the handle of the brush she was using, and places it on a mat she must have brought with her so it doesn’t burn through the surface of the table. “Kay, let’s go.”

She marches ahead of him, picking up her bag and keys on the way out and leaving him to lock up while she calls for the elevator. They wait together in silence, his heart thudding an anxious rhythm in his chest as he anticipates the arrival of the elevator - and thankfully, it arrives empty.

He tries to distance himself from her as they enter, him standing in one corner, and hoping she takes the other, but she doesn’t quite get the memo, standing obliviously in the centre as she types away to someone on her phone and he presses the button to go to the basement.

Nico watches the numbers go down with bated breath. His floor, the next, the next one after that, and he uses any good will he has left with the universe to hope and pray it skips the floor coming up - but, as is just his luck, the elevator comes to a stop with a soft thud, and the doors open to reveal the very situation he’s been hoping to avoid. 

Jack walks straight in, eyes cast down to the phone in his hands, distractedly typing away and not even noticing the button for the parking level has been pressed before he pushes it, himself.

Luke notices straight away, halting in his movements to enter the space as his gaze flickers between the two people already occupying it. 

He diverts his eyes when they meet Nico’s head dropping as he steps in and stands beside his brother, uttering a quick greeting of, “Hey, Cap.”

Jack’s attention is captured immediately, spinning at an almost dizzying speed to face his captain, phone disregarded into his back pocket. “Schao! I thought you’d be at-,”

He’s thankfully able to tune into his perception before he carries on with his train of thought, a subtle movement in his peripheral diverting his gaze to the figure stood to the side of Nico. 

“Talia. Hi.”

“Hi, Jack.” Nico cringes inwardly at how disinterested she sounds. “Luke.” Talia had never really cared for Nico’s teammates - especially not the younger guys like Jack and Luke. She was quick to pass judgement, making comments on their maturity, or apparent lack-thereof, and wasn’t the biggest fan of how close Nico was with the pair. Didn’t like the time or attention he gave them considering the close quarters they lived in, and had always been resentful. She always claimed her English wasn’t good enough to hold a proper conversation with them, but he’d seen her enough around her American friends to know it wasn’t true.

“We’re just meeting up with some of the guys for breakfast.” Jack says, cautiously, in an attempt to fill the silence. The invitation remains unspoken, but Nico can tell in the way the younger boy cocks his head and meets his eye that he’s gauging his current situation for the morning.

“We have plans.” Talia must be able to tell what he was getting at, too and Nico can see Luke’s eyes narrow as soon as the word resonates in his head. Plans. Pre-meditated. Made before she had sprung all of this on him within the last hour or two. Panic stirs within him, and his throat itches to speak the truth, but it’s just not the right time to do so with Talia stood beside him. If he starts getting defensive, she’ll start asking questions, and the boys will have to bear witness to him skirting around the matter of Poppy. 

It’s not a good look no matter which way he swings it. He’s stuck in a thick, dark, tarry mess of not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings but making all the wrong decisions. A minefield of not knowing how to explain himself without raising a million questions on either side, and hoping one of the brothers might toe the line of the boundaries of their relationship and just straight up ask why Talia is here.

He knows he has fucked up without the way neither of them are looking him in the eye.

He knew it the second Poppy’s door had locked behind him this morning - he doesn’t need Luke refusing to meet his gaze, doesn’t need Jack’s shifting side eye to tell him he’s made a mistake. 

“I’ll text you later.” Nico says, mainly to Jack but still trying to meet his brother’s eyes with no luck. It’s an attempt to say something, without saying anything. A silent beg not to jump to conclusions about what they’ve seen - and, although he knows they wouldn’t, not to tell anyone else. Not whichever of the guys they are meeting up with, not anyone else on the team, and definitely not Poppy.

“Yeah, sure,” Jack mutters in a poor attempt to hide his discomfort, and an even worse attempt at masking his relief when the doors ping open on the parking level.

“Have fun with your plans,” Luke huffs out, his tone like a tight fist clutching at Nico’s chest despite his courteous choice of words.

“We will,” Talia forces a smile. Nico gets the feeling she isn’t as oblivious to the tension as he hopes she is.

The four of them separate into their pairs with mumbled goodbyes, Jack and Luke heading off to Luke’s car on one side of the garage, and Nico and Talia heading to his on the other, and Nico can’t even let out a sigh of pseudo-relief before Talia jumps on him.

“That was weird.”

“We broke up, they weren’t expecting to see us together.” He quickly excuses as he starts the car up, turning on the heat and hoping the soft buzz of the air will fill the silence enough that she doesn’t feel the need to talk. 

“It’s been like 3 weeks, most couples get back together after their first breakup.”

Has it only been 3 weeks? He thinks, shuddering at how little time had actually passed between her sending that text and him restoring balance to his life.

“We’re not most couples,” he shrugs, shutting that train of thought immediately as he starts to make his way out of the parking garage, ascending the ramp where the doors open up to reveal the dull beam of the winter morning sun. “You dumped me over text a week before Christmas, we’re not getting back together.”

“Oh yeah, I bet you were real cut up about it,” she jibes, sarcastically. “Probably landed straight in the bed of some desperate puck bunny more than happy to take your mind off of how awful I was to you.”

His mind immediately goes to Poppy, to last night, to her bed - and despite the complete bullshit Talia has fabricated in her head, despite how much he wants to tell her she has it all wrong, he can’t bear to twist himself even further into knots to skirt around mentioning the girl who did make him better.

“We’re not having this conversation right now.” He decides, tapping at the screen in the console of his car until he brings up the navigation. “Put in the address you need, we’re not too far from The Heights.”

The location she enters into the system is for an unassuming condo in a quiet, suburban area. The neighbourhood itself is picturesque, the buildings colourful, the paths lined with trees that seemed to flourish even in the midst of winter, and when Nico pulls up across the street, he notices the amount of families around - parents walking their kids to school and couples with dogs getting their morning steps in. It’s the last place he imagines some hacker to be shacked up, but maybe that’s the point.

He still doesn’t entirely understand the ethical part.

“It’s the one with the red brick and the balcony,” Talia points to the other side of the road as she unbuckles her seatbelt, and Nico looks over at the building as if he’s going to be able to see all the secrets stored within it.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, number 414.” She shows him the messages she has exchanged with the guy, and sure enough, the address matches up. “C’mon, the sooner we get in there, the sooner we can figure this out.”

He follows her across the street, adjusting the cap he wears atop his head and making sure it conceals his identity from anyone with eyesight good enough to catch it, trying to shrug off the discomfort of the whole situation as he waits for someone to pick up the buzzer Talia relentlessly presses.

He hears a different kind of buzz, lighter, like the manual zoom of a camera, and cranes his neck to assess their surroundings as they wait, before he catches sight of the device in the top corner of the porch, facing directly onto them.

He hears the click of a lock as soon as his eyes make contact with the thing, and cautiously tries the handle on the door until it pushes all the way down, letting them into the building. 

The door to the ground floor condo is open, and stood in the entrance is a guy no older than 20, dressed in all black with dark, beady eyes framed by wire-rimmed glasses. If Nico could find it in him to see the humour in the situation, he’d laugh at how he looks like Luke - a mop of curly brown hair, tall with a slim build and ever so slightly poor posture.

He straightens up as the two of them approach, Nico keeping Talia behind him as he assesses the safety of the situation. If they’re being lured into some kind of trap, he could definitely take this guy - he can’t even maintain direct eye contact, never mind manage to subdue a man of Nico’s stature.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone, Talia.”

He’s soft-spoken, his voice ever so nasally, and despite the fact that he’s talking to the girl behind him, his gaze has settled on Nico’s chest.

“My name’s Nico.” He introduces himself, holding out a hand to shake. He thinks he can write him off as a threat, for now, and if making him feel comfortable encourages him to help them, he wants to put him at ease. “

“I know who you are.” He doesn’t shake Nico’s hand. “I’m Myles. Come in.”

Myles doesn’t wait for the two of them, marching back into his place and leaving the door open for Talia and Nico to enter and close behind them. 

Nico isn’t surprised by the space - from his brief encounter with the resident so far, it fits him to a tee; neat, impersonal, furniture that looks fresh out of a catalogue. He follows him over to the corner of his living room, a PC set up with several monitors that he can’t tell are on until they’re standing straight in front of them.

Myles throws himself down into the large swivel chair, spinning until he’s facing the two of them and crossing his arms over his torso with disinterest. “So, nudes?”

Straight to the point. Nico can’t exactly be mad at it.

Talia steps out from behind him, handing her unlocked phone to Myles. “The messages started last week, just after New Years. Straight to my number, not in DMs or anything, but the number doesn’t even come up for me to call it from another phone or anything, just says unknown.”

Myles takes her phone and plugs it into his setup without even looking at whatever she has opened on it, and Nico watches as the screens come alive with mirrors of the device and some other apps that launch as soon as it connects. 

“That’s more helpful than you think, they have to use an app to be able to anonymously text you, makes it easier to identify them.”

The way Myles talks is monotonous and detached, but the way he works is anything but. His fingers move quicker than Nico’s eyes can track on his keyboard, typing away at whatever as different things flash up and leave his screen. It like something straight out of a spy movie.

“So we can find out who it is just from that?” He asks, arms folding over his chest as he watches in almost-awe.

“Not exactly. If it is a hacker, I could identify their signature. Doesn’t mean I could identify them, but we can work around it potentially.”

Talia throws herself down on the couch behind them exasperatedly, sighing loudly and making her displeasure known. “You told me you could track them down, that’s what I’m paying you to do.”

“I told you I could help you, I didn’t say I could specifically track anyone, that’s not how this works.”

“How does it work then?” Nico asks.

Myles wheels his chair to the side to make room for Nico to get closer, and starts walking him through the process, pointing through the different apps he uses and explaining how he uses them. One deciphers which app the person used to message Talia. Once that’s been deduced, he uses another to enter a backdoor into that app’s servers, perusing through them until he finds the account that sent the text, making sure the date, time and then content line up. Once he’s found the account, he can see the other texts sent from it, and a gallery spreads across two screens, with maybe hundreds of pictures, videos, messages and transactions all to or from that same account.

“You’re telling me you have the power to do all this and you don’t use it to like rob banks or something?”

“Ethical hacker, clue’s in the name.” Myles shrugs. Nico looks back to Talia, her jaw set as she picks at her nails out of boredom. It’s probably taken about fifteen minutes for this guy to work an absolute miracle, and she looks like she couldn’t care less. “We use all this information, and the access I have on the server, to shut this dude down and cut his con before he can do it to anyone else.”

“Whoa whoa,” Talia shoots up, “Won’t that make him mad? Make him just post all the photos?”

“I doubt it,” the hacker comments, bringing up a couple of the photos on the screens, some of Talia, some of another girl, making Nico divert his eyes. “They’re not even real.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Excuse me?”

Talia and Nico both question at the same time, leaning in to get a proper look to confirm what is being told to them. The other pictures Myles had brought up, the ones of other girls, are actually kind of the same. The same poses, the same backgrounds, the same outfits, or lack thereof, just different faces and different hair.

“They’re called deep fakes. Photoshop, essentially.” He has that aloof tone to his words again, and Nico can’t quite believe how simple it seems for him to say. “They put a bunch of your pictures into an AI generator and give it instruction, like put this face on a body posed like this or wearing that. I’d assume the video they have is the same.”

“How is that even possible?” Talia gasps, pushing herself forward and snatching the mouse from Myles’ grasp. She clicks into what she assumes is the video, and it starts playing before she can think better of it, thankfully without any sound. 

It’s Talia - that much is obvious from the initial close up of her face - but Nico doesn’t recognise anything else about it. He doesn’t recognise the room she’s in, the bed she’s on, the things she’s doing. He’s never seen this before. It’s definitely not one of the videos she had sent him, and when he looks closer, he realises the little moles on her ribs aren’t even there.

None of it is real.

“You said he sent you the photos? You didn’t realise they weren’t the ones you took?” He can’t conceal the bite in his tone, his brows furrowing as he looks at her in disbelief. She’s flown out here, disrupted his peace, blamed him for blackmailing her, and she can’t even recognise what is or isn’t her own body. 

“They looked real, I-,” Her shock disappears as quickly as it had come about, her mood shifting and a glare all of a sudden being directed at her ex boyfriend. “I wouldn’t have accused you if they didn’t look real, Nico.” She snaps, frowning at him like this is his fault. “You have no idea what it’s like to be threatened like that, I won’t have you blame me for panicking.”

Slivers of guilt seep into his subconscious, and he takes a deep breath, diverting his gaze uneasily and letting out a big sigh.

He knows he should be a little more compassionate, but there’s panicking, and then there’s this.

She had accused him of ruining her life.

“What about the rest of it?” Nico asks, “Like how did he get her number or have my address? You said he had other information?”

“He did,” Talia nods, looking over to Myles.

“The address he probably got when he got your number, and he could have got that from anywhere. Could be something as small as you ordering something online and the store having a data breach, or clicking a link that shared your IP address, and getting your phone information from that.” Myles starts his typing again, keeping a tight grip on his mouse so that it can’t be snatched again. “I could probably find out actually, they’re pretty easy to spot, do you clear your history often?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to do that,”

“Perfect,” Again, his fingertips work at lightening speed, and Nico watches as instagram opens on one of the screens. “Yeah, a DM sent to you from… Devils_tea. You opened a link to a shared drive to upload some pictures, the drive probably had malware and the pictures have location metadata.”

Nico rolls his eyes, that small ebb of pity washing almost completely away, and before Talia can stop him, Myles carries on. “Some of the pictures you sent them are the ones they used for the AI photos, look your face in this one is the exact same as this photo they threatened to leak.”

Nico recognises these photos. The ones that had been plastered all over social media when their relationship had leaked. Pictures of them back in Switzerland, on a weekend trip to Ibiza, selfies of them in his apartment, and even a picture of the two of them with his parents back at his family home in Valais.

He has been far too oblivious to Talia’s games for far too long, he realises. 

Of course she had been the one to leak everything - who else would have had those photos - but he hadn’t even considered it would be her; she had faced the harshest aftermath for it, why would she subject herself to all the subsequent grief that came with people knowing about their relationship?

Thank God for this guy’s lack of social cues, Nico thinks, or he would never have known that for as long as they had been together, she had been violating his revered privacy and trust.

“Nico, that wasn’t-,” Talia’s panic is evident, wide eyes, trembling hands raised in defence, “I must have been hacked,”

“Actually, there’s no-,” Myles begins to interject, fingers working again to fact check, but Nico doesn’t need him to validate what he already knows.

“Shut up,” Talia snarls, with a finger pointed at him, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re done here.” She reaches forward to snatch her phone back, yanking out the wire that connects it to his monitors and throwing it onto the desk. “We’re leaving, and if you think I’m paying you anything, you’re deluded.” 

Talia marches past them and straight out of the condo, slamming every door she possibly can behind her. Nico can only cringe as the sounds of her stomping footsteps echo until they fade out - until she’s probably outside and waiting for him back at his car.

“Doesn’t she want me to shut this thing down?”

“I’ll pay you.” Nico sighs, reaching into his pocket for his phone and trying to push down the feeling that arises when he’s met with a blank lock screen.

Poppy hasn’t messaged him. 

Not that he deserves for her to make it easy, to let him off the hook and pretend he hasn’t royally fucked things up with her.

“If you stop him, does he still have all the photos? He could still release them?”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty easy to validate as fakes, especially when you have the source material. I don’t think this guy is sophisticated enough for a full blown hack into her phone for the real thing. I couldn’t find evidence of any breach of her cloud or her device.”

Nico nods, but the information does little to quell the anxiety that squeezes his chest in a vice-like grip. 

This whole morning has been nothing but a giant waste of his time. From the second his eyes opened, to this moment right now, he’s made nothing but mistakes.

Not putting his phone on sleep mode before he and Poppy went to bed had been a mistake. Taking Talia’s call had been a mistake. Not waking Poppy up had been a mistake. Leaving without a note, without a text, leaving at all - it had all been one error after another, and all he has left to do is face up to the fact.

He can’t do anything to dwindle the panic rousing in every fibre of his being, the scarring marks left by torturous lashings of regret that whip at his skin.

He’s never felt so ashamed of himself, in such disbelief at his own decisions.

Why didn’t he just wake her?

She’s the most level-headed, acceptable person he knows. She would have understood. He hadn’t had a reasonable explanation at the time, and he doesn’t really have one now - but she would have accepted it, whatever he could have told her, she would have listened, waited until he could give her more.

He needs to see her, to explain, before it’s too late.

If he thinks about the feeling settling in his stomach, if he can compare it to anything, it’s like running from a blazing inferno of doubt and insecurity, licks of fire racing to catch up to him, the soles of his feet pressing into the sizzling ground - and Poppy is the cool embrace of safety.

She is light cracking through a window he just needs to break through to make it out.

If he can get to her quick enough, if he runs, and runs, maybe he’ll make it before he’s jiggling at a red hot handle that won’t move, won’t give, won’t budge.

If he can just talk to her, maybe the morning from hell will be outweighed by the days of resilience, weeks of efforts, years of loving her in whatever capacity, and the promise of something better.

He just needs to get rid of Talia.

The car journey back to his apartment is carried out in a deafening silence. She had tried to talk to him when he’d made his way out of Myles’ condo, when he had found her waiting by his Mercedes with crossed arms and a sour look on her face, but he’d told her he didn’t want to hear it, that they’d deal with it in private.

He hardly wanted a showdown with her in the middle of the street.

And so, she sat in his passenger seat, jaw set, glaring out the window and letting out the occasional huff or puff for attention that he wasn’t entertaining.

The elevator ride up to his place had been the same. Silent, filled with the type of tension you could cut with a knife, and all he could do was ignore her continued petulance and take deep breaths to calm himself down. In through his nose, out through his mouth, overlooking the way she tapped her foot in his peripheral vision, and almost audibly rolled her eyes every few seconds. 

“Would it have killed you to defend me in there?” She scoffs as soon as the door closes behind them in his apartment, “You just let him accuse me of all that stuff and completely invade my privacy!”

Nico screws his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He can’t blow up, can’t stoop to her level. He won’t feel good after the fact. He knows how Talia operates, should have known she’d immediately play the victim card, and he isn’t falling into the trap of arguing to the point of being in the wrong.

He’ll say something he regrets and she’ll use it to her advantage, somehow.

“You asked him to go through your phone, Talia.” He sighs, making his way over to the kitchen and getting himself some water. Chugging at it does little to soothe the burning feeling prickling at the back of his mouth, or the itch of his tongue to spit out a scathing retort. “He’s shut down the guy behind it, he can’t message you or anyone else with any more threats, you should be happy.”

“I should be happy?” She follows him wherever he tries to get away, crowding his space and jabbing a pointed finger into his arm. “You have no idea what I’ve been going through this past week. I thought my career was over! How was I supposed to know it was fake?”

“You didn’t even look at the pictures-,”

“Because I was panicking! I was upset, you can’t expect me to be able to recognise what’s been photoshopped when I’m scared like that!”

“But you can fly straight over here and pin the blame on me for ruining your life? You weren’t too upset to point the finger, Talia,”

“Don’t be an asshole, Nico, it doesn’t suit you.” 

“I’m being the asshole? You don’t even care about the trail of destruction you leave behind you, do you? You send private pictures of us, of me, of my family to random people online who you don’t even know, for what, Talia? For money?”

“I don’t need their money-,”

“So it was just for the attention? You get to parade our relationship around like it means nothing more to you than a title, and once you get your fifteen minutes and a few more instagram followers, you just jet back home and dump me over a text?”

“Oh my God,” she cries, flailing her arms dramatically, following him yet again as he makes his way into his living room, picking her stuff up after her that she had discarded here before they left and throwing it into her travel bag. “Stop playing the victim, for Christ’s sake, you’re hardly heartbroken over it. I know for a fact you’ve been hooking up with someone, one of the girls messaged me that they saw you leave a party with her on New Years!”

“So that’s what this is?” Nico snaps, pointing to her, to her stuff, “You think I’m moving on so you fly back out here and spring this bullshit on me, try to make me feel bad?”

“You have some nerve, Nico,” Talia scoffs, folding her arms across her chest and levelling him with a darkened glare.

“I have nerve? You’re the one who broke up with me out of nowhere and think that you can just march back here and make demands, Talia, blaming me for something that was entirely your own doing.” He’s getting sick of walking on egg shells around the topic. If she hadn’t have been messaging people she wasn’t supposed to, this would never have happened - it’s no one’s fault but her own, and as harsh as it may be, he wants to wash his hands of the whole thing. “Calling me in the middle of the night, telling me I ruined your life, saying I need to give you money?”

“Out of nowhere?” Of course she would only pick up on that, he thinks. “My God, you are so self-absorbed.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you think that dating you is easy?” She questions with a measured step toward him. “Do you think I want to spend my life waiting around for my boyfriend, only for him to only ever come home grumpy,” another step, “Or whiny,” and another, “Or too tired and achey to do anything? And that’s when you do come home at all and aren’t half way across the country with the communication skills of a candle. It’s a constant uphill battle trying to get even a second of your attention, Nico, so God forbid I tried to gain some kind of advantage from being with you.”

Her words are starting to cut, but he tries not to react, tries not to bite back. He can count several ways in which she gained an advantage being with him, just off the top of the head - a girl like Talia is never shy of attention. Her courting gossip blogs and sending them private information is probably just scraping the barrel of the ploys she made for exposure while she was with him.

“I didn’t break up with you out of nowhere, I put up with you and the whole circus that comes with you for months, but God, is it exhausting being with you.”

“You knew what you were getting into, Talia. You knew my job, knew my life.” They had met initially through mutual friends - hockey friends of his back home, even - and she has other friends who happen to be wives or girlfriends of athletes. She can’t say she came into the relationship completely oblivious to the downsides of dating a professional player.

“Not really,” she shrugs, “All the other guys can find some sort of balance, but not you. All the other girls get a proper boyfriend, someone who spends time doing what they want to do, who sticks up for them when their psycho fans start to turn on them, who doesn’t keep them hidden away like some dirty secret.”

“That isn’t fair, I can’t control that stuff, Talia, it’s not my fault.” He wants to point out that she was the one engaging in their gossip and riling them up, but he can’t keep harping on about something she refuses to acknowledge. He doesn’t have the time, patience or energy for it anymore.

The initial ‘leaking’ of their relationship had caused their first major fight. Fans online had somehow - although Nico can now hazard a guess as to how - found out about the two of them, had dug into Talia, her background, her family, her job, and had found some pretty toxic posts on her social media. They had been old posts, and she had told Nico that wasn’t the kind of person she was anymore - and he had no reason not to believe her, had never seen or heard her act in the ways she had online in what she called her misguided youth - but someone in the PR department at the Devils had cottoned onto the topic, and had warned Nico of speaking out in her defence when the pitchforks started to raise.

He’d told her he supported her, but he couldn’t do so publicly - not without upsetting people within the organisation he had worked so hard to gain the respect of - and she had told him she understood. They hadn’t been together that long, it would have been a little unreasonable for him to put her above his work in the ways she was expecting, but she clearly doesn’t see it that way, now.

“Maybe not, but if I’d have known that being with you meant having my life invaded, my career ruined, I never would have followed you back here, Nico.” She sounds more solemn now - regretful, even - and as deep as her words cut, she says it like a piece of advice, “I just hope whatever poor girl you’ve got tangled up in your mess this time knows what she’s getting herself into.”

“And what’s that?” His throat feels tight as he speaks all of a sudden, his resolve in defending himself fading, and he tries to gulp down whatever lump is forming there but the feeling doesn’t budge.

This is what she’s good at.

Turning the tables. Reducing him to uncertainty of himself, of his actions, of his memory of their time together.

“A one-sided relationship with a guy who will never be able to put her first.”

There’s a point in every game he has ever had the misfortune of losing, as the seconds count down in the final third, where he has to come to terms with the fact that there’s no possible way for him to win. It’s sort of comparable to the way his insides churn when he’s on a plane and it drops into descent, like his body is falling at a different speed to his surroundings, or the feeling he gets in his gut when he’s hiking, and he dares to take a peek over the edge of whatever mountainside he’s trekking up, where his body can predict the fall, and his mind has set on there being nothing he can do about it.

This feels like all those feelings.

“Whoever she is, and I know she exists, she doesn’t deserve that. It’s not fair.”

Nico’s heart pounds in his chest, echoing and thrumming in his ears until all he can hear is the beat reverberating, ricocheting around his skull.

He can put Poppy first.

So many parts of their lives are intertwined, it would be so easy to make it work. They work together, they live close, he speaks to her more than he speaks to anyone else in his circle. They’ve spent more time together as friends than he has with any other girlfriend he’s had.

He’s wanted her for years, of course he can do it.

Except, deep down, he knows he can’t. Being in a committed relationship with someone is an entirely different ball game to a friendship, no matter how close he and Poppy have been over the years.

He knows there’ll come a point soon into the season where he has to knuckle down and focus, can’t let anything or anyone distract him, and he’ll close himself off. It’s what he has always done. He gets in his head, starts to carry too much weight that he can’t shift until that final buzzer blows - and he can only hope that it happens with his team in the playoffs. Winning, thriving, succeeding. And for that to happen, he can’t prioritise anything other than the game he’s already dedicated his life to, his training, and most importantly, his team.

It isn’t about what he wants.

What have you done? He thinks, his chest aching.

Talia is right.

Poppy doesn’t deserve that.

She doesn’t deserve him only being there in the physical sense, if she even gets that at all. Doesn’t deserve him getting snappy and stressed, doesn’t deserve him not being able to give her time, or give her attention or affection like he wants to, or like she’s worthy of.

“I need to go.” He manages to choke out with a shake of his head, shouldering past her to pick up his jacket - needing to be out of this conversation and away from Talia. “Leave the keys, I don’t want you here when I get back.”

He needs to see Poppy.

He never should have left her - he wishes with everything in him that he had soaked up the time he had with her before everything came tumbling down around him. And somewhere deep within him, there is a fragile, wilting piece of hope that clings to the belief he can make things right. He just needs her to hone in on it. If anyone can reach into the deepest cracks of his insecurities, can show him he’s overthinking things and everything is not as hopeless as he has made it out to be, it will be Poppy.

Poppy

The first time Poppy had ever fallen asleep beside Nico was at a movie night in Jack’s old apartment he shared with Ty Smith. Jack had invited more people round than could reasonably fit in their living room, and so everyone was smushed in - each chair and every inch of floor space used to its full capacity. 

Nico had attempted to save Poppy a space, to give him credit. He had scowled at each of his teammates who tried to throw themselves down in the tiny slot beside him - prime space, corner of the comfiest couch, facing the tv directly, a small table to the side where one could keep their drinks and snacks - only, by the time Poppy got there, he had barely gotten away with man-spreading to make room, so the small section of the couch between Nico and the arm rest had become her designated spot.

It was cosy, to put it nicely. He had to swing his arm over the back so that she wasn’t being assaulted by the hard dig of his shoulder with every laugh, and her closest leg was pretty much on top of his for most of the film.

She’d known the guys for almost a year - had been working in media, attending every game, home and away, and had integrated herself into the group pretty closely - and she felt pretty comfortable around everyone.

It wasn’t the kind of dynamic she had anticipated falling into when she first got the job with the Devils. She was supposed to start getting serious about her life - cracking down on mingling with co-workers and throwing herself into new social circles, and focusing on building a career for herself, climbing through the ranks and attaining the kind of success and happiness she could shove in her family’s disapproving faces - but the guys had charmed her.

Jack had been somewhat relentless in his pursuit of Poppy’s friendship. He rarely took no for an answer when it came to inviting her out. He was new to New Jersey - a much younger player in a slightly older team - and his rookie season had been rough, so it came naturally to Poppy to want to provide comfort. She introduced him to some of her friends, showed him her favourite spots close to his apartment, found him a decent barber, picked up extra fruit whenever she went to the farmers market near her parent’s house and took it over to his and Ty’s place when she came back home so she could mother him into having his 5-a-day as if he didn’t have access to the best nutrition coaches in the country. Despite her best efforts, Jack had weaselled his way under her skin in the way only a brother could.

Nico’s charm was entirely different.

Nico’s charm came in the form of convenience at first - in the oh I live that way, I can drive you and I have some time, I can do some media stuff for you type of way. Convenience blended into companionship - I haven’t eaten either, we should go for lunch together and I’ve been wanting to watch that movie, do you want to watch it with me?

It turned into grabbing food together, even on days neither of them were working - breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, even coffee or sometimes drinks if they could meet up with the rest of the team. It turned into him spending time at her place, whether it was helping her paint her apartment, putting up her new wardrobes, or just binging whatever crazy long series Poppy had decided to start over from the beginning - she provided him with a sense of familiarity and calm he couldn’t really find in anyone else he had met in his time in the states. She became his person, his home away from home, away from home.

And he became hers. 

There wasn’t as much she had to escape; her job not as strenuous, the expectations of her not as high, but when things built up for her - when her mother became overbearing, or her latest endeavour into a relationship crashed and burned - Nico was there. He’d make sure she had a distraction, made sure she was looking after herself, and, in turn, would look after her as well. He made sure she got home safe on nights out, or when they returned from a roadie and landed late - he would always make sure to see her off into the comfort of her own home before he went back to his own. 

And that first time she’d fallen asleep beside him, he’d done the same.

He’d wrapped an arm around her to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as he could, and when the movie had finished - when her face was burrowed into the side of his chest, soft snores falling from between her lips - he gently drew her back to consciousness with his hand stroking at her cheek.

She’d been a little startled, hand shooting up to wipe at her chin and thankful she hadn’t been drooling on him - although with the easy smile he was giving her, she had thought he of all people wouldn’t have minded. 

“Movie’s done, do you need a ride home?” His voice had been low and soft as not to worsen her apparent disorientation, and his hand was still lingering by the side of her face.

She had nodded, blinking away her sleepiness, and working her way up from the couch and onto her feet, stretching out her muscles as Nico did the same.

The two of them bid their goodbyes to the rest of the guys, made their way together to Nico’s car, and he had driven her back to her apartment, chatting on the drive about work and training. 

Poppy had been cramming to prepare for her interview for the Foundation at the time - had been getting herself seriously worked up, staying up late, getting up early, barely allowing herself any time for anything fun - and Nico had seen right through her. 

He’d stopped her before she got out of the car, had held her hand, rubbing at her knuckles with his thumb, and had told her that she should get some proper rest, and that she was going to absolutely rock their world in her interview in a few days time. And, knowing she was going to ignore any instruction he gave to make herself some decent dinner and go to bed early, had ordered her favourite Japanese takeout to be delivered a good half an hour after she got inside, with a text that followed telling her to sleep straight after she had finished.

She’d never expected to drift asleep with him on Jack’s couch - had never expected to open her eyes to the sight of his looking so warmly back at her.

And she hadn’t expected the same thing this morning, because, as her eyes drifted open to the intrusive light peaking through the cracks in her curtains, it wasn’t the first time she had woken up.

The first time had been to subdued movements, a slight groan of her bed frame, and the soft pattering of footsteps leading away. It had been to a hushed voice, the creak of her bathroom door, the flush of a toilet and the uttering of a name she had hoped she would never have to worry about again.

Talia.

The rest of his words had been uttered in his own language, but that she could understand.

She had acted purely on fight or flight instinct, laying back and pretending she was asleep - although as soon as she did, she regretted it, her mind racing at the million and one other possibilities she could have gone with. Sitting up, waiting for him to come out and asking him what was going on being the most rational.

But when had she ever gone with the most rational thought?

She tried not to react as she felt his presence, felt the soft press of his lips to her skin, or the placement of her bunny in her arms. Tried not to follow him as soon as he departed her bedroom, beg him to come back and whatever was going on could wait until the proper turn of the morning. Tried not to get up and go after him when the click of the lock to her main door echoed throughout the empty apartment.

And she tried not to cry as she laid in bed, overthinking herself back to sleep, thoughts racing to the point of exhaustion, and hoping when she woke up again it had just been a god-awful dream.

But it hadn’t.

The spot beside her in bed is empty, not even a crease in the pillow to prove he was ever there - only the t-shirt of his she still adorned, the one that when she takes a deep inhale, still smells like him, and the distinct aching between her thighs.

She finds more evidence of their night together in the bathroom, where she undresses herself with sore muscles and glances in the mirror to see the spattering of purple marks forming on her chest and neck. Her fingers trace over them lightly, her fleeting touch bringing vivid images forth of his lips pressing to her skin, practically able to feel the pressure of her flesh being nipped and bitten again.

He had been so attentive to her - so in tune with what she needed and wanted, and so ready to give her whatever that may be. He’d been gentle at some points, and purposeful at others, and every little thing he did, he did it with sweet disposition.

The kind of man who treats a girl like that doesn’t just leave her in the dead of night with no good reason, right?

Her mind races despite her body going into auto-pilot throughout her morning routine. Her shower is over in the flash of an eye, she strips her bed, starts her laundry, makes herself some tea and gets herself dressed - all the while weighing out all the possibilities of what could have taken him away from her, and what she would be able to understand. 

That quickly turns to her imagining the worst, and a tight, constricting feeling starts to consume her chest. 

There isn’t a single part of her apartment she can get away from the thoughts buzzing around her brain - her kitchen marred with the memory of what had happened on the counter, her couch, her bedroom, her bathroom - all carrying distinct memories of Nico that she needs to bench until she knows the truth.

She mistakenly thinks her escape might lie in her phone. There might be a text there waiting, explaining everything and relieving all the anxiety that has welled up in her very core.

Nia’s warnings from the night before don’t ring quick enough in her mind as the screen comes to life, the immediate barrage of notifications flooding in.

2 missed calls from Mom

Mom: Just calling to remind you of proper table etiquette in case it has slipped your mind, I won’t have you embarrass me in front of a Lyon.

Mom: Cutlery going from the outside in, hold your wine glass by the stem and dab with your napkin, don’t swipe!

Mom: Also let the man tuck your chair in and pay the bill, this 21st century woman nonsense is very unbecoming!

Mom: And I don’t want to have to bring this up but for the love of God, Poppy, have some class. I don’t want to hear mutterings of your promiscuity at the next luncheon.

Whoever taught her mom to text deserves a prison sentence, she thinks.

Tucker Lyon standing a girl up and ghosting her attempts to contact him is what’s unbecoming, not her trying to pay her half of the meal.

She can picture her mother as she reads the texts, sipping on her Manhattan on the couch in the great room, her dad already having retreated to bed at that time, and her having nothing better to do than sit and stew on her daughter’s sex life.

If she knew what was really going down last night, her mom would probably have a conniption.

Knowing she’ll no doubt be getting a call later that evening, Poppy swipes away at her text thread with her mom, immediately checking the notifications she hasn’t long received from her best friend.

Nia: hey if you happen to release yourself from Nico’s wandering hands at all today me and Kelsey are grabbing breakfast by my work!!

Nia: if you need refuelling we’ll be at Marco’s at 9 😘 

Perfect. Therein lies her escape. Breakfast with her best friends, where they can hopefully talk her down from the ledge she’s precariously placed herself on.

A catch up with her girls, and then she can distract herself with work.

Poppy: I’ll be there!!

“Hasn’t he text you or anything?” Nia asks, covering her mouth as she chews on her breakfast bagel, the three girls sat around a table inside their favourite cafe close to Nia’s office.

When Poppy and Nia had first moved in together, they rented an apartment in Hoboken, not too far, and their tradition of grabbing breakfast at Marco’s carried on despite Poppy living further down the river and working even further away in Newark. 

Kelsey had lived in Manhattan at that time, but she stayed over so often with the other girls that she practically spent majority of her week there, and so Poppy and Nia’s routine became hers.

Poppy had given the two of them a brief rundown of her night with Nico, a safe-for-work version of events, all leading up to the mysterious early morning phone call and swift departure.

“Nope,” she sighs, swiping to refresh her messages as if she hasn’t put her phone on loud just to be alerted when he does reach out.

“Have you text him?”

“Nope,” she repeats, putting the phone down and leaning back in her chair, running a hand through her already messed up hair. She’s going to have to throw it up if she wants to look any sort of presentable when she gets to work later.

“Is he usually this pathetic at communicating?” Kelsey asks, manicured nails swiping at a bunch of Sweet’n Lows like she’s trying to play Tetris with the packets. 

Kelsey hasn’t met Nico before, not that Poppy can remember.

Despite considering her one of her closest friends, their personal lives have never quite intertwined like that - not like hers and Nia’s.

In college, things were different. They were coming into their own together, figuring out just what they wanted their personal lives to be, and so Kelsey, Poppy and Nia would all share pretty much everything, just to have someone there to validate their feelings.

But that changed once they graduated.

Kelsey moved in with her boyfriend, Liam - who just so happens to be Poppy’s idea of hell-spawn.

The kind of guy her mother would probably love.

Liam worked on Wall Street, couldn’t go five minutes of conversation without talking about stocks or investment funds. His native language was risky money moves and belittling remarks, and he treated Kelsey like an accessory to parade around in public and discard in private.

Poppy had tried a few times to open Kelsey’s eyes to the way that it was, but it soon became apparent that she had to let her friend make her own mistakes, and some parts of their lives didn’t have to cross over.

They broke up around Thanksgiving, and Poppy had tried with all her might not to show her relief, but it has made her somewhat resentful when it comes to other relationships - like no one can be happy if she isn’t.

She knows it isn’t malicious, but she restrains from letting Kelsey all the way in, all the same.

“Not really,” Poppy lies, not wanting to clue her in on the Big Freezewhere he didn’t speak to her for months on end. It doesn’t entirely help her case. “I just don’t get why he’d sneak out to see her of all people, he told me they weren’t ever that solid, that he wasn’t happy with her.”

“Ooh, what if she’s pregnant?” Kelsey is entirely oblivious to the horrific realm of possibility she has just opened Poppy up to, evidenced by the casual chuckle and subsequent sip of her coffee. “Maybe she’s back to baby-trap him.”

Poppy thinks she would have to flee the state.

Nico is a family guy - if Talia is pregnant, he’d force himself to love her again, if he ever even stopped, for the sake of their gorgeous brown eyed, floppy haired baby, and push Poppy to the side just like he had before. And she’ll have to watch him from the sidelines, yearning for what she had just managed to touch the tips of her fingers to before it was violently yanked from her grasp. 

Maybe she’d have to flee the country even - move somewhere remote where she doesn’t even have the chance of being reminded of hockey, let alone of him.

Somewhere with no coffee shops that she’d enter, and the smell of fresh pastries would remind her of all the breakfasts they had together. No railways, where she’d be reminded of his love for model trains every time she came across the tracks. No weird club music that he loves so much, or dorky wizard franchises he chastises her for never having seen.

Maybe Antarctica. They only have penguins there. No real civilisation that she knows of. No brown haired, dark eyed Swiss Gods with deep, honeyed voices that make her knees weak and dimpled smiles that do even worse.

She wouldn’t be able to cope with losing him like that, living her life in an endless mental cycle of what ifs and maybes.

“Kelsey, I beg of you to read the room,” Nia chastises, swatting the girl on her arm before taking Poppy’s hand in her own. “Don’t listen to her, she just wants us all to be single at the same time.”

“Sue me for wanting to have fun! It would be just like college, you and me full-body plunging into the dating pool. Imagine the chaos, Pop, you don’t wanna be tied down to a guy hung up on his ex right now.”

“Dating pool?” Nia scoffs, turning to glare at her, “You’re hardly dry from your last relationship.”

“I’d rather be a grape than a raisin, Ni.” Kelsey chides back, and Poppy can’t help the twitch of her lips at the horrific comparison. 

“You’re really gonna listen to a girl who says that?” Nia asks, unable to mask the glint of humour in her eyes, and Kelsey bites back a smile, too.

Despite the ache in her chest at the thought of any of it - of Nico leaving her this morning, filling her up with empty words and false promises, potentially knocking up an ex girlfriend he is still secretly hung up on even though he told her otherwise - she manages to crack a full smile.

“You are terrible at analogies, Kels,” Poppy tries to hide the grin behind her cup, sipping at her tea and letting the warmth of it soothe the pain in her throat. 

“I’m trying to encourage you to be a strong, independent woman here!”

“She is a strong, independent woman,” Nia defends, “She also happens to be a chronic over-thinker with a deep seated fear of confrontation.”

“I don’t fear confrontation.”

“Then why are we here chit-chatting about hypothetical scenarios when you could just text him and ask what’s up?”

“Maybe ‘cause that’s scary?” Poppy scoffs, only half joking. “What am I supposed to say, hey I just so happened to eavesdrop on your private conversation before you fled my apartment this morning, and despite me not understanding most of it, I definitely heard you mention someone, so could you just let me know if your gorgeous model ex girlfriend is pregnant with your perfect specimen baby?”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, you don’t even need us.”

Poppy rolls her eyes.  

She could text him. Could be casual about it, a good morning or even an are you okay? Those don’t warrant the alarm bells she’s afraid of raising - the ones that blare out with the siren sound of run, this girl is unhealthily attached to you already!

But she doesn’t want to be the pathetic girl chasing after the guy sending her clear messages that he doesn’t want her.

It’s easier said than done not to overthink the whole thing - not to second guess everything he had said, or everything she had done last night.

She feels like she had rushed things. It was so impulsive, so charged, and after spending the majority of her week away from him, she just hadn’t been able to help herself. And that makes her feel like a hypocrite. She had told him that night he had first kissed her that things between them had gotten intense. It had been the whole reason for spending a few days outside of each other’s company, and in the first possible instance, she had thrown herself at him.

It was desperate.

And maybe that scared him.

It sure as hell scares her.

“I don’t know what to do,” She groans, throwing her head into her hands and scrunching her eyes shut to try and drown out the endless doubt. 

She feels two hands rub at either sides of her back, “Listen, Pop,” Nia is the first to attempt to console her, as always, and Poppy holds her breath for the harsh reality check she’s about to throw her way. “You know I am the one person who would usually be trying to convince you to cut your losses and run when it comes to guys who are no good, but this is Nico. I’ve watched the two of you ignore your feelings for far too long to let you get in your own way, now.

“And you’re forgetting I saw him last night, before you got there, there isn’t a chance in Hell he would have left you like that without a good reason. I don’t for a second think he’s still hung up on her.” Nia casts a side eye to Kelsey.

The only problem is that Poppy isn’t sure there’s a reason good enough. Not when it comes to Talia. Not when the memory of those months of radio silence is still so fresh for her.

“I have to go to work in a building where his face is plastered everywhere, Ni, I can hardly forget his entire existence until he deems me worthy of an explanation. Who leaves after a night like that without even a note or a text?”

“An idiot,” Kelsey mutters around her drink, rolling her eyes when Nia sends her another death-glare.

“I’m not asking you to forget, I’m telling you to wait.” Nia frowns, but her tone remains consoling and warm. “You need to stop letting what this thinks,” she flicks at Poppy’s forehead, “Get in the way of what this knows.” She points to her chest on the left side. “You know him. You know how much he likes you.”

She does.

She knows Nico, she trusts him.

She can only judge him based on his actions so far - the ones that tell her that he cares. He leads with his heart, it’s his most attractive attribute. He’s gentle and loving and she needs to focus on those things over anything else.

“Ugh, corny,” Kelsey drags, and despite her repeated efforts to discourage her, Poppy knows she isn’t being entirely serious. “If he has any non-stupid hot athlete friends though, I’m first in line when the two of you kiss and make up for double dates.”

Guilt pricks slightly at Poppy’s chest - for making her recently single friend sit here and listen to her complain about something so monumentally small compared to the breakdown of the long-term relationship Kelsey had just endured. Even if it was perceivably toxic.

“You’d make such a good WAG, Kels.”

It’s a poor attempt to make up for it, but it seems to console her friend all the same, a giant grin breaking out and flashing her perfect pearly whites.

“I know.”

Poppy tries to distract herself with work. Tries to make her way through her inbox of seemingly never ending emails and her list of ever-growing tasks. She types up lengthy responses, puts together a presentation, makes a bunch of phone calls she’s been putting off for God knows how long, sorts all her invoices out - she even sends a fax. In the year 2024. It’s her most productive work day she thinks she’s ever had.

She zeroes in on the ground every time she moves through the building. Ignores the pictures that line the walls of the Rock, pushes down the memories of all the times she’s walked these very halls by Nico’s side, and she thinks she’s done just about enough to clear her mind for the time being.

She hasn’t thought up some heart wrenching scenario in at least an hour by the time she’s wrapping up for the day.

She’s making her way back to her office after dropping some files off for Elaine when she catches sight of a mop of curls over the top of the chair by her desk.

Luke is sat in her chair when she enters, swivelling around and staring at the ceiling.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick doing that, you know.”

“You’re such a mom,” he scoffs, standing up and clearly trying not to sway, “You ever tried having fun? I think I saw a glue stick on a table out there,” he points through the door into the wider office space, where there are a few, less private cubicles and a common area. “We should go sniff them, let loose a little.”

“Is that why you’re here on your day off? To huff glue?”

“Yeah, I don’t get to let loose enough. Being a rookie in the NHL is hard, Poppy,”

“Bummer for you.” She pouts, mockingly, swerving past him as he rounds her desk and sits on the other side, flicking at the bobblehead version of his older brother that stands by her computer. “If you’re chasing a high can you do it with one of the other departments, it’s not a good look for the Youth Foundation.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

When Luke had first joined the Devils, she hadn’t expected that she would warm to him the way she has - but, surprisingly enough, considering the fact they’re brothers, their relationship recently has started to mirror her and Jack’s.

Luke is funny. He’s sarcastic and a little silly, and it can be nice to have him around when work gets a little stressful. He doesn’t let the pressures of his own career outweigh those of hers, and, despite the gap in age, she actually enjoys his company.

But he never seeks her out like this.

Their interactions have always started through other people. Group conversations that dwindle to just the two of them, or he usually accompanies Jack to bug her and carries on when Jack’s ever-so-busy schedule takes him elsewhere.

She can’t think of another time he’s just shown up in her office alone.

Especially on his incredibly rare day off.

“Why are you actually here?” She asks, casting a suspicious but half-playful glare his way as she starts to pack up her things. 

“Came to see if you wanted to join us for dinner.”

“Aw Lukey,” she reaches over her desk to pinch his cheek, “I’m flattered and all but I’m a little too old for you.”

“Ha ha,” he swats her hand away, “Us. Me and Jack. Maybe a couple of the others if they’re free but you can pick where we go if you make a decision quickly, we were thinking a steakhouse.”

She narrows her eyes at him, expecting him to crack a joke about her being old, but he just looks back at her awaiting a response. “Why?” She drags out the question, her movements stopping completely.

“Maybe ‘cause humans need sustenance to live? What do you mean, why?”

“Why would you want me to tag along on your bro date?”

“Don’t call it a bro date,” Luke cringes, “Just remembered you were working today and we were in the area, don’t know why you’re being weird about it.”

“You’re being weird. You guys never let me choose where we eat. Don’t you remember that time we grabbed dinner when you guys drove me home and Jack told me to stop being a pussy about my seafood allergy ‘cause he wanted sushi.”

“Don’t blame me for the crimes of my brother, Poppy, he was obviously joking.”

“I had to eat tofu, Luke, I don’t find that very funny.”

“Are you coming or not?”

“That depends, how do you have your steak?”

“Well done.”

“Oh! Then absolutely not.”

“Remind me never to try to be nice to you again.” He scowls as they make their way out of her office, and she locks up behind the two of them.

“Gladly, it’s creeping me out.” She grabs at his elbow before he can carry on, stopping him in the otherwise empty common area where she knows no one is around to listen in. “Is something going on, seriously?”

Luke rolls his eyes, but she knows him well enough that it’s only done in an attempt to avert from her gaze. 

Bingo. He’s hiding something.

“I just thought you might want some company.” He shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets and twisting his lips to keep from saying much more.

“Why?”

If Poppy wanted to spend her life getting a straight answer out of people for a living, she’d have become an interrogator. What is it with these guys and their inability to answer a simple question?

“Jack said you left the party last night with Nico.”

Poppy’s eyebrows scrunch so close together that she can feel a deep crease form between them. What on earth does that have to do with asking her to dinner? Or being overly nice to her?

Unless-

“You’ve seen him?”

“This morning.”

“Oh.”

All of her efforts from throughout the day seem to have been for nothing - an immediate rush of insecurities flooding her mind.

Where did he see him? What did he say? Was he okay? Was Talia there?

She feels like she can gauge an answer from the way Luke looks. Sheepish, almost, like he doesn’t want to say something he knows will hurt her feelings.

She had to have been with him. He wouldn’t just show up to her office like this if it wasn’t something that would seriously hurt.

She wishes she wasn’t the kind of person who did this - who filled in the gaps of conversations and always came out with the worst possible outcomes - but she can’t help it. She’s been doing it all her life, and there’s rarely ever an instance where her instincts have led her astray.

She knows it’s some weird part of her mind protecting her, but she needs to do something here. Nia’s words from earlier ring like a warning. Don’t let what her brain thinks get in the way of what her heart knows.

Her heart knows Nico wanted her. Knows Nico liked her. Knows Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

She needs to figure things out for herself and stop running, stop letting her mind fill in the gaps of a situation it can’t even comprehend to begin with.

She reaches her arms around Luke’s shoulders, stretching up on her tip toes to pull him into a hug before rubbing her knuckles into his curls, affectionately.

Luke Hughes is sarcastic and silly, and he cares enough about her to not want her to be alone if she’s going through something.

“Thank you for the offer, Luke, but I’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods, a tender smile tugging at the corners of her stubborn lips. It takes over her face, eyes glinting fondly and cheeks warming. 

“Yeah, you can walk me to my car if you’re that worried about me though.” She loops her arm through his elbow as they make their way to the parking lot, and when they get there, he makes sure she’s in her car and has set off before him and Jack leave.

As if her day can’t get any worse, the elevator in her building is cordoned off with tape and a sign when she gets home, and she has never regretted moving up a floor as much as she does when she’s trudging up 6 flights of stairs.

She’s exhausted. Emotionally and physically, and she just wants to throw herself into bed and pretend the last 24 hours were a terrible dream.

Only, as she rounds the final corner to get to her door, any hopes of that go straight down the pan when her eyes land on Nico, standing in front of her door with his hands buried in his jacket pocket.

He looks tired too - hair messed where he’s no doubt been taking his cap on and off for however long he’s been stood here, running a hand through the tresses until they’re all askew. 

His shoulders are slumped, and he doesn’t even greet her with that pretty smile he usually gives her.

His lips do curve up a touch - limp and half-hearted, not even enough for a dimple to form - but it doesn’t provide the comfort she had thought it would.

She feels anxious. A culmination of the day’s emotions washing over in one go. Sad, regretful, nervous, disappointed - all things she shouldn’t be used to feeling when it comes to Nico, but are all too familiar when she takes the last few months into account.

“Hi.” She gives a weak smile of her own.

“Can we talk?”

She wishes he’d have just said hi, back. That might have relieved the tightness in her chest just a little.

Nothing good ever comes of can we talk?

He steps aside as she approaches, maintaining a safe distance as she opens the door and enters her apartment.

The Nico from yesterday might have brushed past her, the graze of an arm or a lingering hand, but this Nico doesn’t. He barely even meets her eye.

He closes the door behind himself, watching as she discards her bag and keys to the console table on the side, and while she’s turned away from him, she tries to let whatever emotions need to come out cross her features where he can’t see them.

She needs to be cool about this, she thinks.

If she doesn’t get her back up, doesn’t get agitated, she won’t scare him off.

“Are you okay?” She asks once she’s turned to face him, not liking how he stands unmoving by the door. He hasn’t made any effort to settle in - his jacket still on and his hands still hidden in the pockets.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”

She realises now that she can get a good look at him that the expression he wears is one of shame. Guilt. Apprehension. She needs to be careful and toe the line before he gets consumed by it, she realises.

She steps toward him a little, and he doesn’t back up - not immediately, not obviously - but he hardly welcomes her approach, either.

She doesn’t like feeling this way when it comes to talking to him - feeling uneasy and unsure, but there’s a part of her that’s tired of having to prompt him for answers.

He had been the one to leave this morning. Why can’t he just come out and tell her why?

“I’m alright,” she shrugs, not wanting to scare him off with the truth. “Super tired, though, can we sit?”

She wonders if he thinks about the same things she does as they make their way to the couch. Wonders if he can feel the scratch of her nails on his torso, or the brush of her lips against his, as they sit in the spot where not even 24 hours ago, their bodies had been intertwined.

He doesn’t sit right beside her as he normally would, and she finds herself missing the way his thigh usually brushes against her own.

She doesn’t know where to start or what to ask, and so she basks in the silence for a little - finding comfort in the fact that, despite the mess they’re currently in, they aren’t quite at the end yet.

But a part of her feels it coming.

She’d known it this morning if she lets herself listen to the rational voice in her head. As soon as she’d heard him say her name, as soon as he’d left, a part of her knew that was it, and maybe if she’d let herself believe it at the time - hadn’t talked herself down and convinced herself she was being irrational - she could have protected herself from all the ways this is going to hurt.

“I’m sorry.” He says, and when she looks up, he’s looking down where his large hands are now clasped together in his lap.

“For what?” She manages to choke out.

“Last night, I,” she digs her nails into the palms of her own hands to stop herself filling in the gaps as he figures out what he wants to say, but it’s no use.

He’s sorry for last night.

Last night, he made a mistake.

Last night, he was drunk, he was confused, he was just looking for something or someone to keep him occupied.

“I care about you so much, Poppy.”

That sentence shouldn’t be the one that fills her with dread, but it is.

“You’re my best friend, and I love you,��� he does look up as he says this, eye meeting hers in an attempt to convey his honesty, but she sees more of the truth in his glassy gaze than she hears in his words. “This morning, I panicked, and I just needed some time to figure out what I want.”

No, no, no.

She’d rather he tell her what actually happened than do this. Than pretend he left because he doesn’t want her.

“I love you-,”

“You said that, already.” She can’t help the bite in her tone as she prepares herself for the hit. The I love you, but.

“You’re so important to me. Being your friend, it’s like it’s what keeps me sane lately.”

She chews at the inside of her cheek as she feels the tears start to well at her lash line.

“Poppy, I don’t want to mess up what we have,” he shakes his head as his gaze drops, dark eyes darting to focus anywhere but on her own, pleading and watery as she watches him slip away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t think this is hurting me?” She feels weak as her voice breaks, “You don’t think this is already messy?”

She reaches out to take his hands in hers, digging in to unclasp them, to try thread her fingers through, but he doesn’t make it easy.

“Nico, I love you, too, you know I do, we can figure it out, you don’t have to run away from me.”

It’s a desperate attempt and she knows it is, but she needs to know she tried. When she’s sobbing into her pillow and crying herself to sleep tonight, she needs to know she didn’t just let him go without a fight.

“I can’t give you what you want, I can’t be in a relationship, I’m no good at it.” 

Regardless of what she had told herself earlier, about taking what he says at face value, and trying not to fill in the gaps like she does so often with everyone else, she can’t help herself. When he says, I can’t be in a relationship, he means with her. He can’t be with Poppy. He would be no good with Poppy.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you-,”

“No, you said before that you’ve wanted this for as long as you’ve known me, you don’t just wake up and change your mind, not after-,” Poppy starts to feel panic building within her like a flipped over sand timer. Rising and rising until she starts to feel nauseous, getting harder with each second not to jump to conclusions. 

The voice inside her that tells her he got what he wanted and decided it wasn’t for him sounds caustic and bitter, and if she hadn’t wound herself up so much about this whole situation over the course of the day - the past week, even, or the months before - she might have been able to fight off the way it so easily convinces her.

“I have to put the team first, it doesn’t matter what I want, I have to focus on them, on hockey.”

She’s too caught up in her own emotions to notice how weak he sounds - glassy eyes unable to catch the glint in his. All she can hear, all she can see, is the minute hints of a cover-up - that she isn’t getting the whole story, that he’s lying to her, and that the excuse he’s giving is cowardly.

He still hasn’t mentioned the call, hasn’t mentioned Talia, hasn’t explained why he left her, why he didn’t say anything, why he didn’t come back.

“And you didn’t know that before?” She scoffs, pushing herself up off the couch and stepping away from him, “I can’t believe you would do this to me.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks as soon as they fall, but she can’t rid her skin of the feeling that they were there, her flesh damp and sore.

“I know we took things a little too far last night, but that doesn’t mean-,” She almost thinks he notices how bad that hurts her, referencing the night they shared as a mistake - an instance where they got carried away, and not where they followed through on years worth of built up tension and adoration for one another. She doesn’t even have to fill in the gaps, this time. Took things a little too far is clear enough. “We can still be friends. I want to be friends.”

“Friends?” Poppy jeers in disbelief, turning completely away from him now and missing the tears that drop from his own cheeks - missing the way his chest cracks and stretches open in a last ditch demonstration of his vulnerability, his desperation not to lose her completely. “You should go.”

“Poppy,”

“I can’t,” she tries so hard not to cry, knowing she won’t be able to stop, but the words come out in a choked sob, and her voice carries on in the whiney way she always hates. “You told me you wanted more, you said I was yours, and I’m supposed to just act like it never happened? Just accept you didn’t actually mean the things you said?”

“I meant them,” he says, defiantly, so sure of himself that it makes her head spin. “I wouldn’t-,”

“No, you didn’t. You’re a liar. You were either lying then, or you’re lying now. I don’t know which is worse. I can’t be your friend. I can’t pretend like you can that I don’t feel the way I feel.”

“Please, Mohn,” His fingertips just manage to reach out to land on her forearm before she shucks him off, wincing as if his touch has pained her.

“Don’t.” She takes an immediate step back, arms crossing over herself as a defence mechanism, body language screaming at him to go away, and she watches his pleading eyes drop to her arms just as she feels the cold of the metal there - so in tune with her every thought despite his denial of their true connection. Her arms move before her mind can make the decision, before it can remember what even sits on her skin, and her shaking fingers fumble to unclasp the jewellery adorned on her wrist. “You should take this back.”

Nico shakes his head, stepping back and away from the outstretched hand that holds her gemstone bracelet like it’s an actual danger to him. “No, that’s yours, Poppy.”

“I don’t want it.” She knows she’s the one that’s lying now. She wants the bracelet. She wants him. She doesn’t want him to leave. She wants to be his friend over being nothing. 

But she doesn’t want to hurt.

Looking at him hurts.

Remembering last night, remembering their kiss, the things he has said, the things he has done, it all hurts, and she can’t keep hold of a constant reminder of the pain, can’t wear it on her person at all hours of the day just to know deep down that the man who gave it to her will never want her the same way.

“I want you to leave.”

“Please,” he begs again, head tilting as devastation floods his features, brows pushing together, tears welling at the corners of his eyes, “We need to talk about this-,”

“No, you were right, we went too far, it was a mistake.” Her voice breaks as she says things she knows she doesn’t mean, but he’s already put it out there, so she doesn’t see the harm in echoing his own opinions. “There’s nothing more to talk about.”

She can’t look at him anymore, and so she drops her gaze to his hands, stepping and reaching forward and forcing him to take the bracelet from her before she rounds the couch and heads to the door.

If he isn’t going to give her the whole truth, she isn’t going to entertain part of the story, and she needs him gone so she can give in to the way her body wants to fold in on itself.

It takes him a minute to gather himself, but she refuses to look his way, waiting by the open door to her apartment and staring at the floor in front of her until his shoes appear.

“I do love you, Poppy. I’m leaving because I don’t want to upset you any more than I already have, and I’ll give you space if that’s what you need, but I’ll be here when you want to talk about this. I mean it when I say I can’t lose you.”

 She doesn’t say anything. She can’t say anything.

There’s a stabbing pain that’s building and building in the centre of her chest, and she doesn’t even think she can breathe in his presence.

He clasps a hand around her upper arm, and leans into her, his lips pressing a firm kiss into the crown of her head, and he lingers there for a moment before he retreats. 

She manages to push the door closed behind him, the click of the lock louder than ever, and waits a good few minutes in silence before her body is wracked with a silent sob.

The one time she had tried to be brave and fight her own intuition, and this is where it gets her.

So much for Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

Next Chapter

Taglist: @alwaysclassyeagle @bunbunbl0gs @idgaf-if-youre-here @youflowerr-youfeast @thearchersstuff @bellsdi0r @wonderheartz @jjgsunflower @butterflies35 @kenziepickle @josierosie @laheyxlover @mrsmattytkachuk (sorry if your tag hasn't worked btw)

[jujutsubaby]

🩷 sex drive 🩷

☆ pairing: toji fushiguro x afab!reader ☆ summary: you go to a valentine's day blood drive at work. maybe it's just that you've been single for too long, but isn't the volunteer drawing your blood kinda...? well, let's just say you wouldn't mind exchanging a few other bodily fluids with him, too. ☆ tags: modern au, workplace au ☆ warnings: 18+!! MINORS DNI!! dirty talk, oral sex (f!recieving), slight exhibitionism, daddy kink ☆ a/n: happy valentine's day (again)!! another quick little treat for u all hehe...inspired by my real life experience of going to a valentine's day blood drive (except for the fun parts ofc lmao).

you knew you should have made up an excuse and stayed home today. you hate to be a cliche bitter ass single woman who's not getting any younger on valentine's day, but it's hard not to play to type when the whole office is decorated in cutesy pinks and reds. it definitely doesn't help that your boss, suguru, keeps getting visits every 15 minutes from his boyfriend satoru.

"ugh, what's with the pda?" you grumble at what feels like satoru's 30th visit to suguru's open cubicle. "haven't you two been together for, like, a thousand years already?" your coworker utahime helpfully makes gagging noises to emphasize your point.

"hey now, y/n, you KNOW that i'm the head of marketing and suguru's the head of sales! i can't help it if he and i have lots of important things to discuss," satoru protests with puppy dog eyes.

"i didn't realize important marketing meetings involve sitting on coworkers' laps now," utahime mumbles, and the pair of you giggle conspiratorially.

however, as the day goes on and utahime keeps receiving increasingly elaborate flower arrangements delivered to her from her doctor girlfriend shoko, you find yourself feeling more glum than ever. you decide to go out for a stroll, hoping the cold february air will slap some sense into you.

unfortunately, not even five minutes after you set out, droplets of threatening rain turn into a torrential downpour. you curse; in your mopey mood this morning, you totally forgot to check the forecast!

you really don't want to go back into the lovefest of your office right now, so you start looking desperately around for a rescue — an underhang to stand under, anything.

that's when you see a bright red sign advertising a blood drive for valentine's day being held at your neighboring building. that could be an interesting idea. at least this way, you can tell yourself you did a good deed on valentine's day instead of just complaining the whole time. even more appealingly, you see that it'll take about an hour, which is one less hour you'll have to spend around satoru's soppy nicknames for suguru. after shooting a quick text to your team's group chat informing them of your last minute appointment, you decide to brave the rain and head over, hoping there's an opening for a walk-in.

you enter the room where the blood drive is taking place, praying you don't look too much like a drowned rat. your self-consciousness melts away and you smile brightly when you see a familiar face.

"shoko! you're volunteering here today?"

"oh, hey y/n," your quiet friend replies, giving you a small smile back. "yeah, utahime and i have a date nearby this evening, so i thought i might as well sign up. what time was your appointment for?"

"well, uh, i didn't exactly make an appointment..." you say awkwardly. "are walk-ins ok?"

"no problem, we got a lot of no-shows today anyway," shoko replies with a subtle roll of her eyes. she then hands you a clipboard and a pen. "just fill this out, and i'll get you screened and set up and everything."

you gratefully take the clipboard and head into the tiny compartment curtained off at the side of the room, presumably to give donors some privacy as they get screened. you fill out the form (trying not to think of your stupid ex boyfriend when you encounter the questions about your sex life), and once you're done, you poke your head back outside of the compartment.

"i'm ready now, shoko," you call. when your friend doesn't answer, you crane your neck around to the desk where she had been sitting. "shoko?"

"she just went on break," a husky, masculine voice replies from behind you. "i'll be taking over." you look back and are immediately floored by what just has to be the finest specimen of the male form you've ever seen, clad in obscenely tight scrubs that emphasize every bulging muscle. focus!!

"oh thanks doctor...um...fushiguro," you read from his nametag. he's so tall that it happens to be at your eye level, giving you quite a nice eyeful of his firm, muscular chest. what business did men have being this tall, anyway?!

"just call me toji," he says casually, grinning down at you. he takes the clipboard from your outstretched hands and jerks his head back towards the compartment you had been waiting in. "let's head back there so we have more...privacy." maybe it's just your imagination, but you could have sworn he smirked when he said that. you take deep breaths to suppress the unholy thoughts you're having, and you follow him back into the side room.

when you push the curtain aside and go in after him, you see he's already settled into one of the two chairs crammed into the tight space that he's clearly a little too large for. as you daintily resume your position in your own chair, he shifts and splays his long legs out, brushing your thigh with his knee. you inhale sharply.

he clears his throat and pulls out a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket before reading your questionnaire. he nods at your answers (although you can't help but turn beet red as his eyes scan over the section about when you last had a new sex partner).

"looks fine to me. let's take your blood pressure now...y/n" he says, positively purring when he sounds out your name. "beautiful name for a beautiful girl," he says with a roguish wink, making you turn even redder than you ever knew was possible. was he making you uncomfortable on purpose?!

"mind taking your top off?" he asks, rummaging around in the drawer in front of him.

"i'm sorry?!" you choke out. that was a freebie! happy fucking valentine's day to you!

"oh, sorry, i meant so i can put the bp monitor around your arm. i don't know if you can roll your sleeves up in that blouse," he says, looking up from the drawer. you notice his eyes on your breasts, and you realize that you of course had worn your white button down over your lacy black camisole on the day mother nature decided to get you soaking wet. you must look like such a hussy!

you quickly unbutton your blouse and show him your arm to wrap the thick velcro band around, trying hard to avoid eye contact. it doesn't matter, though; you can feel his eyes boring into you like lasers. why does he have to be so hot?! you hope being in his presence won't throw off your blood pressure reading...you can feel your pulse going a little haywire.

As he tightens the band and starts the measurement, toji starts making small talk.

"so, you doing anything for valentine's day?"

ugh. anything but this topic.

"no," you reply simply, hoping not to broker further discussion.

he presses on, not taking your cue (or if he did, he ignored it.)

"no? what, your partner doesn't celebrate?"

toji reads out your bp measurement to you, but you don't even pay attention to it as you notice his hand brushing the side of your breast as he unwraps the bp monitor's band from your exposed arm. you gulp as you realize only the thin satiny layer of your cami is keeping his hands from touching your tits.

"uh..ah.." you say, hoping he doesn't notice the effect his one brief physical touch had on you, "n-no...my ex-boyfriend and i broke up a few months ago already." you don't mention how you saw him in your bed on your birthday in the arms of another person.

toji looks up at you from darkly hooded eyes.

"his loss...i know i'd treasure valentine's day with a pretty little thing like you."

just like that, toji snaps back into professional mode again, leaving you reeling once more from his flirtatious behavior. he was way too handsome to be acting like this on a dime! a girl like you could get ideas...

"i'm going to do a thumbprick now to get a quick reading on your blood. is that ok with you?"

you nod, and he grins at you.

"that's my girl," he hums in a low voice.

then, before you're even able to process what's happening, he takes your hand and engulfs it in his own. he then begins rubbing your hand back and forth, and you feel a small frisson of pleasure at the sensation of his callouses against your small, soft fingers.

"noticed your skin was a little cold, so i thought i'd warm your hand up before taking the sample," he explained, but you're hardly able to even listen to him as you enjoy the blissful sensation of his hands rubbing yours. his fingers were so long and thick, and so dextrous... how would those fingers feel somewhere else...no! stop! what are you thinking?! you've definitely been single for too long.

"all right, y/n," toji murmurs gently. "you're just going to feel a small prick...sorry about that..." he takes the sample and puts it into a machine for processing. he then reaches back into the drawer and withdraws a digital thermometer.

"while we're waiting for that to finish, let's take your temperature." you nod and extend your hands to take the thermometer from him, but he ignores you and instead roughly takes your chin in one of his huge, warm hands, tilting your head up towards his chest.

"open up for me now, y/n" he purrs, your name sounding like the sweetest and most beautiful sound you've ever heard when it's coming from his mouth; you can't help but comply. he gently inserts the thermometer under your tongue, and you note his eyes lingering on your lips for much longer than they have to. embarrassingly, you notice heat pooling between your legs, and tension twisting by your belly button. you could get used to this...all too soon, though, the thermometer beeps, and he takes it out. toji clicks his tongue as he reads the small display.

"99 degrees even," he reads out. "now that's a surprise."

"what? why's that?" you ask, confused. how could a body temperature be surprising?

"well, our cutoff is 99.5, and i was sure you'd be way too hot," he says with a laugh and another wink. you giggle back demurely; you can't help but act all girlish and coquettish with someone like him. you've never seen a man in real life wink so much, but you find you don't mind. it suits him.

"all right, y/n, let's go get some blood drawn!" he says enthusiastically, rising from his chair. you follow suit. he reaches around you (did his arm just brush your breasts again?) and opens the curtain for you. "after you, princess."

you used to hate when your ex called you "princess"...but when toji called you that, it sounded like the doors to the heavens opened and angels were singing. you'll definitely be thinking about that for awhile. probably before bedtime, and probably while touching yourself. you sigh and exit the small room before hopping up onto one of the cots that were brought to the building for the blood drive.

toji pops a small stress ball into your hand. "now, make a fist for me," he says, using his fingers to close yours, "and start squeezing that." he squeezes his fist around yours. it wasn't so confusing of an instruction that you needed a demonstration, and you're beginning to suspect that toji's making excuses to keep touching you. not that you mind, exactly.

you keep squeezing, and he examines the tender inside of your elbow. "that's a gorgeous vein you've got there, princess. this'll be easy for me," he murmurs seductively, and you blush. you've never been complimented on a vein, of all things, before.

soon, toji pierces your arm (pursing his lips sympathetically as you emit a sharp gasp, which of course makes you stare at his lips), and your blood is pumping merrily into a bag. you decide to make conversation with him, this time.

"how about you, toji? i'm sure someone like you has big plans for valentine's day, right?" you ask, raising your eyebrows suggestively.

"oh, yeah," he chuckles. "if you count getting high and watching magnolia for the millionth time big plans. i don't really go for that stuff," he says.

"i love paul thomas anderson," you say huskily, trying to flutter your eyelashes at him. it's been a long time since you've flirted, and you're probably embarrassing yourself. "you know what the perfect film of his for today would be, though?"

"what's that, princess?"

you smirk. "there will be blood."

toji lets out a huge laugh in spite of himself, and you smile proudly. flirtation successful!

soon, your blood has filled the small bag, and toji removes the needle, pressing gauze to the wound. the feel of his hands pressing into your arm is one of the most blissful things you've felt all week. he asks you to continue maintaining the pressure, and you feel like whining that it won't feel as nice as when he does it before remembering where you are and complying. you watch as he picks up your sample and sorts it in with the others; you feel a bit shy, seeing him manhandle your little blood bag like that. it feels so intimate.... you gulp as you imagine him manhandling you like that.

"all right, y/n, now you just need to rest for twenty minutes, and you'll be good to go." you start climbing out from the cot, feeling a little disappointed that your short, exciting interaction with toji is coming to an end. oh well. some excitement is better than none.

"we have some cookies for the donors in the seating area," he continues. "lucky you...i'd love a little taste of something sweet right about now..."

ok, it definitely wasn't your imagination — he positively growled that last sentence, and he was eyeing you. as you get up, you notice you're a little shaky on your feet; you realize that you actually hadn't eaten lunch before coming, since you'd been in such a rush to get away. you list and sway dangerously to one side, but a pair of strong arms braces you. you let your head fall back onto a perfectly firm, taut chest.

"careful, there, sweetheart" toji whispers in your ear, his breath tickling your sensitive skin as he lifts you up. you try not to think too much about how your back is pressed into him right now. "i think i'd better keep an eye on you." he walks you over to the front of the room, bracing your back against himself the whole way over. he leads you to the front of the room, where there are folding chairs and a card table with a small platter of supermarket cookies as promised. as shoko had alluded earlier, the blood drive was not busy at all. in fact, it was completely empty currently; just you and toji, alone in this room... you feel yourself getting faint again, but not for the same reason.

"y'know, princess..." toji says, sitting again with his legs splayed out over the chair across from you as you nibble a chocolate chip cookie. "my shift's ending right about...when your observation period ends."

you tilt your head inquisitively at him, hoping you knew why he was saying this. he leans forward, the flimsy plastic chair creaking under the weight of his solid muscle. what you'd let that muscle do to you...

"i don't think that i, as a medical professional, can let you go back to work today..." he continues. "i think you'd better go home after this." then, he smiles deviously. "and i think i'd better take you back, just to give you a...full examination."

it takes all of your restraint not to fling the rest of the cookie down and jump his bones right then and there. instead, you reply,

"i think i'd appreciate the house call." you do your best to make your voice ooze with suggestion so he knows you're picking up what he's putting down.

after what feels like the slowest fifteen minutes of your life, it's finally time to leave. just as toji's shift is about to end, shoko returns from her break, and you take the opportunity to ask her to have utahime bring your things back home from the office for you. since they're your neighbors, you can pick them up later tonight. or perhaps, tomorrow morning...just in case tonight gets a little too busy.

"something came up," you explain to her breathlessly, but you know shoko notices toji's hand creeping up the small of your back.

"have fun," shoko says to the both of you, only slightly judgmental but mostly encouraging.

since you took the bus to work that morning and toji refuses to wait a moment longer than he has to to commence your "examination," he insists on driving you back in his car. you both practically sprint through the parking lot, and he breaks at least three traffic laws zooming back to your apartment in the rain as you yell directions. for a doctor, he sure is awfully reckless.

finally, finally, after an agonizingly long wait, you're at your building. you're about to climb out of the car, but toji is way ahead of you, opening the door for you. you are about to climb out and jokingly thank him for his chivalry when he unceremoniously scoops you out of your seat and swings you over his shoulder. you shriek with laughter.

"toji! put me down!"

you're also all too aware that you're wearing a pretty short skirt that day.

"sorry, princess," he says smoothly. "it's protocol. i can't have you walking back in just in case you pass out, or something."

you're about to ask if he's even been to medical school when he shoves your key into your apartment door, slams it open, and, equally roughly, slams your back against the wall. the breath is shoved out of your lungs as he immediately captures your mouth with his, swallowing any potential protest you might have had (which you didn't, you absolutely didn't. not even close.). he carries your entire weight easily as he shuts the door behind him with his foot; you're hardly paying attention, though, as you're too busy widening your mouth and entangling your tongue with his. you greedily bite down on his lip, and he growls in response.

"let's get you to the examination table," he groans. you wrap your legs around his narrow waist, and he carries you haphazardly to your dining table, crashing into and knocking over furniture along the way. carrying you with one arm, he carelessly clears the table with his other before plopping you onto the tabletop. he kneels before your legs and tears off your tights in one swift motion.

"i hope you're planning to help clean up—" you start, but your breath hitches in your throat as he begins kissing up your ankle, then your calf...then your thigh...he gets slower and slower as he gets closer to where you most want him to go. you try to shift forward on the table to bring your throbbing center closer to him, but he holds you firmly in place with two powerful hands clamped on your hips.

"patience, princess..."

you close your eyes and start taking deep breaths, but the moment is disrupted by an annoying loud vibration against the wooden tabletop.

"who the fuck is 'ryomen sukuna?'" toji scoffs, "and why do you have a heart next to his name? you been lyin' to me, princess? have you been naughty?"

"no," you breathe, and it comes out as a whine. "no, daddy, i've been a good girl, promise. please..."

"'please' what, princess? help daddy out here," he purrs with a wicked grin. just then, your stupid phone vibrates again, and you're about to pick it up and throw it out the window when toji wrests it from your grip.

"your idiot ex, i'm guessing?" he asks. all you can do is nod, the words robbed from you.

"well, my professional recommendation is...for you to tell him to fuck off."

"i will, toji, i promise," you pant. "please, just ignore him, i promise, he's nothing to me."

"you're not listening to me, princess..." toji says in a low, dangerous voice. "i want you to tell him to fuck off. right. now." he slides the answer button on your phone and hands it to you before you can protest.

"h-hello?" you say, trying to keep your voice steady. "sukuna?"

"heyyyy, y/n....missed hearing your voice, boo," sukuna coos, clearly inebriated. you scoff in disgust; it's only four in the afternoon. sukuna was such a mess.

"what do you want, sukuna? i thought i w-was..." you start out assertively, but your resolve is breaking as a practiced tongue once again starts swirling its way up your legs, alternating between your left and right thighs. you clench your toes and grit your teeth before continuing.

"i was ... clear...that ... that we're o-over," you say, the last word coming out as a moan as you feel a set of teeth pulling off your panties ever so gently.

"baby, i told you!" sukuna whines. "uraume's nothin' to me, babe! they're just a friend! you're my one and only, baby!"

even in the midst of the sensory overload occurring in your bottom half, you still roll your eyes. yeah, "just friends" made out in bed naked all the time, right?

"i want you to...to...s-stop.." you pant, as sukuna finally picks up on your strange manner of speech.

"hold on, y/n, is someone there with you?" he snarls, his famous temper rising to the forefront. "you whoring it up with another guy already?"

at that, toji grabs the phone from you and growls into it, "seems like she finally decided she needs a real man, not some cheatin' asshole who can't appreciate her properly!"

the moment he finishes talking, toji leans back into your thighs and finally plunders you with his tongue, raising the phone to your mouth in time for you to moan sinfully into it as sukuna is arguing back. toji doesn't even bother hanging up as he throws the phone across the room.

toji grips your thighs tightly enough to leave bruises as he feasts on you, and you wrap your legs around him, tangle your hands in his short hair, and squirm in delight. it doesn't take you very long to come undone under his practiced mouth.

he rises back to his feet, licking his lips.

"finally got to satisfy my sweet tooth today," he says mischievously. you grab the v-neck of his shirt and tug him closer to you aggressively.

"take me to bed. it's your turn next," you declare authoritatively. then, you kiss him fiercely, tasting yourself on his lips and tongue.

"your wish is my command, princess," he replies with a dark chuckle, before lifting you, bridal style, to your bedroom.

this was shaping up to be a great valentine's day after all.

[yuseirra]

It's kind of.. really cruel of the author to never include Kamiki in any of the colored drawings. They never developed him well enough while having him destroyed, he DID swallow up so many of the remaining chapters due to Aqua basically devoting his life and giving up on everything he built up in the entire story to killing him, but it's not like we actually know so much of this guy either. I've studied him A LOT but from your average reader's perspective he's like someone just little more than some rando, Ai's ex who's a psychopath showing up and the protag just dying with him. The thing is!! That "psychopath" laid out all the reasons why Aqua's life is precious and worth living and suggested he go back to live. This is what gets me so much. So was this the only way?? I'm coming up with my own analogies to make it have a sense- but it's the work that has to make things convincing. The readers should not do this work. The work should provide proper answers.

Ofc he could be horrible(I'm not convinced btw)but wow, even the Himekawas have Taiki visiting their grave in the final chapter with flowers when what they did is horrifying. THE WOMAN MOLESTED A LITTLE KID. STARTING FROM AGE 10-11. I really can't forgive how they just..; How can they be so irresponsible on handling such a subject? They just make a couple statements.. oh by the way I'm GLAD Taiki never had a confrontation with Kamiki. I saw how his characters of his name was written and do you know?? His name comes from how Kamiki's characters are written in kanji and I found that super cruel and creepy of Airi. That woman is a character but she's insane. I never felt Kamiki would have to confront the boy one bit. No, they never have to interact at all. What happened regarding them's still horrifying. I just saw a new drawing of the hoshino family but like, he's always nonexistent. Maybe he doesn't deserve it, but he's completely excluded in that whole family dynamic when it is stated that Ai wanted to raise her kids with him. I feel really bitter because what's the point?? of all this??

I had a chat with my friend who isn't really into the series much, and she had an interesting idea.

she says since the story is SO incomplete, and the author announced they're going to write a new series- she thinks that they may be trying to create a narrative where multiple narratives can somehow converge into a part of a huge universe or something. They'll explain all the weird things through it. Wasn't Kaguya-sama and Onk set in the same world? She says. There may be some beings that are chosen by the gods or hold some specialties in them but it's never really been explained how they've come to be or what conditions they get chosen, maybe they're going to continue writing several stories and explain it through another. "They never showed the dad being really dead, didn't they? We basically know so little about him? He might come back in another story." (I went, "BUT JUST WHAT WOULD HE DO?? AI'S STILL DEAD.." oh but in that case, he might actually look ENTIRELY different because he's an actor huh. and since there's "Misogi", he might be really purified by the saltwater. He might return to being a benevolent god now. Again, what was Aqua's life then but actually;; maybe Kamiki IS still alive. We really didn't see his body or know what the heck actually happened to him.)

I have no idea... but so much is just left unexplained.., so maybe she has a point. This work is simply incomplete. We really don't know what's been happening behind the scenes or why the twins were reincarnated, what were their missions and all, everything's left on a vague note. I do feel like they're going to have Ruby appear as a cameo in the author's next work as a famous idol on TV or something like that. Perhaps this piece may be a "stepping stone" for another story to develop on the same thing. While I was sitting there, listening to her theories of it, I couldn't help but feel really annoyed at the author. Even if they have some bigger picture or whatnot(if they somehow deem this piece a complete piece of work, that's even more concerning because anyone can tell it's extremely hollow and sloppy) this isn't respectful toward their readers who came in looking for a resolution.

I did manage to come up with an explanation for this piece that I'm pretty sure of, but they didn't do the work they were supposed to do. If they want to make some other piece of work and develop that first, then it's better to leave one on hiatus and create pieces that are "complete". Stories are a product, we don't come here to look at single puzzle pieces, we want the whole picture. The time, energy, and passion spent on reading a piece shouldn't feel like a waste. If the piece can't explain what's going on on its own, it's cannot be defined as a standalone. On that regard, onk isn't a standalone because nobody can figure out what's been going on about the ending of the piece by just seeing what the series has to offer, we have to make guesses that aren't properly laid out. It's like you order a pizza and you only got the dough. No matter how great the dough is, you'd STILL want a pizza because that's what you're there for. That's what the authors did for this piece, regarding the plot, and for all the characters of the series, the only character I think somewhat survived is Ai because her story had some sort of a wrap-up. She's the only one that feels complete in a sense, so this series..in the end, heavily relied on this one character who died in the first volume. She was really iconic.

Hopefully I don't have much more to be disappointed about-

oh, about Ruby in the last chapter. They had to let her speak for herself, she doesn't feel alive. Ruby can express the feelings she has. She has a mouth for herself. Why are they letting Akane speak on her behalf when she's not even the one that has a strong bond with her? Even if she is, wasn't Ruby supposed to be some sort of double protagonist? Or an important character at least? Or it could have been the author's intent(I'm strongly sensing that this is what they were going for, they want us to be a bystander the way we watch idols on tv and look up to them without knowing how they are as a human being), in that case, this whole piece leaves such a bad taste. So NOTHING's improved from Ai's case, it even got worse, the only thing that separates Ai's situation and keeps Ruby's career being endangered is that Ruby doesn't have a boyfriend and she doesn't have twins to care for. So what's the message huh?? Don't make any of those or even if you end up doing it, lie!! Is that it?

This piece is so disrespectful then. That's unsettling.

Those pages used in the final chapter should have been entirely devoted to Ruby speaking for herself if they even care for her as someone who has a heart of a person...but I don't think it's the message they want to show, the authors must want to make a point about the nature of idols having to keep up sturdy personas and keep shining at all times, but THAT'S already been discussed FAR better with Ai's case. It's even a step turned backward, so Onk wasn't really about growth.. Ruby's lost HER character. Not every work has to be about growth but having this happen after 17 volumes of story that seemed to suggest otherwise is not just baffling, it's not consistent writing and I wouldn't be this harsh(I'm not even being harsh right here. I'm being so generous with everything I'm typing)if it were to be written out in depth.

Borrowing my friend's commentary on it: This work don't discuss any of the issues they are presenting as insightful as it should, they just toss things out there and acknowledge they exist... but the characters make a few comments about that particular topic, make awkward laughs and then brush it off after having made you thought it's going to be handled. I think... acknowledging things have some meaning to it, at least it lets you realize it exist (for example, I started paying more attention to child abuse after having seen Ai and Kamiki's stories) but if you're going to bring it up, don't you have to handle it well? It's not the worst but I'd say it's SO FAR from what it can be as well. That is, also what I've found pretty annoying about this work. So nothing has been covered as well as it could have been. The plot, the characters, the subject it handles, they're all left hanging there. This piece is incomplete. And if you hand in an incomplete product, it isn't even graded. It gets sent back and is required to be completed and polished again till it is, or your contract is terminated. That's the situation with this piece. I wonder what the anime team would do with the third season but the authors had to hand in a piece they could work with. They shouldn't do this to them. I'm not saying the piece is entirely bad, it's just not a finished product. And that's not fair to all the people who wished for one.

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

hi! love love love all of your haikaveh analyses! they're so wonderfully done and itch my brain so right. i was wondering if you had any thoughts on the recent quest featuring them ('an odd textual mystery')? hope you have a wonderful day!

hiya! firstly, thank you so much for your ask! i'm so glad you enjoy my haikaveh analyses!?? they truly live in our heads <333 secondly i am so sorry this reply is coming late!! i wasn't able to play during the first half of the event, and then i've had technical difficulties, so i've only recently finished the quest! that being said, here is part one of two of my thoughts!

firstly, i love how this event feels like a reference to kaveh’s hangout, in which alhaitham says that kaveh’s annotations, according to the ex grand conservator, are too long and hard to read, and that as a student, kaveh had the habit of scribbling in all sorts of books, which won him the nickname “the urchin of Kshahrewar” ???

we're starting off strong with kaveh canonically hiding behind a ladder out of sheer embarrassment after trying to find the book on which he inadvertently founded a conspiracy. things will just never go his way huh :(

i thought it was interesting (and very deliberate) that when we go to where we would find kaveh, it's The House, and when the traveller and paimon believe they've heard kaveh-

it's this guy... homosexual jumpscare next time.... and then he says this phrase (before leaving in his typical manner, which parallels his 'see ya' in his character quest, plsss he's so !?!?!?)

after waiting again, the traveller and paimon believe theyve heard kaveh, and this time it IS kaveh... you mean they couldnt be told apart...?? really leaning into alhaitham and kaveh being innately bound by the mirror motif i think.!!

paimon then impersonates alhaitham, to which kaveh recognises, saying that paimon doesn't sound herself - which could parallel how the kaveh comments that the traveller sounds like alhaitham in one dialogue option within his hangout, a cute detail <3

also, kaveh clinging onto the narrative that no one knows he lives with alhaitham, and then listing a scroll of names, being all of his and alhaitham's close friends... ironically very intimate

also it being confirmed that kaveh has low stamina, i didn't know i needed this until i was given it

kaveh drunkenly circling a spelling error in permanent ink, thinking nothing about it but that the book is terrible, returning it, and then creating a city-wide mystery, believing it to have happened AFTER he returned the book, and frantically trying to piece together what happened is so kaveh coded, ofc it WOULD happen to him

tighnari checking the book out when kaveh complained about it him because he thought it sounded FUNNY!! i love hibm..,m,,,

also kaveh using red ink and alhaitham using green ink... oh so the contrasting outfits aren't enough, you're also canonically using complementary colours... oh so.. huh...

tighnari immediately clocking that alhaitham joined in by adding a circle, calling it a 'game', so he knows that alhaitham is having fun doing this...? dare i say... f-flirting,,,

tighnari saying flirting.!! HE DESERVEDLY CALLEDHAIKAVEH OUT!!! they are too much in their intricate (homoerotic) rituals.

tighnari using a leaf in the forest metaphor... very interesting

cutting to cyno and sethos, cyno being bitter that sethos makes excuses to not play TCG, referencing their voice lines about the other, this is such a nice detail

absolutely no thoughts here just pure homoerotic brainrot of knowing what style of ink and the penmanship of your life partner, along with an unnecessary specific memory of the two taking breaks from their schedules to spend time together in their secret spot in the tree in cyno's second story quest... ive not had one coherent thought since this, the writing for cynonari is so so great and lovely and everything, they deserve the best

"back to the book" BRO GOT DISTRACTED!!! FR THERE WAS NO NEED TO TELL THAT STORY ABOUT HIM WATCHING TIGHNARI DO HIS HOMEWORK IN THEIR SECRET PLACE HELPPPPPP

also, cyno wanting to solve the mystery of the book for tighnari's sake and protection. oh. (if this weren't haikaveh's fault/event then cynonari would own it... tighnari, i, too, am so tired of them.)

and cyno canonically calling sethos bro!! another reason as to why its a crime this mini quest wasn't VOICED????

this is part one! part two is here and focusses on the final scene with alhaitham and kaveh, my bane...

[hwnglx]

Hiii can I request who in seventeen is currently dating ?

Thank you!!

are seventeen dating? - aug '24

based on tarot. i do not know these idols personally. energies are always changing. what i say is NOT straight fact. pls take it with a grain of salt!

s coups acow, knoc yes, i can sense a lot of passion and flirty energy for them. romantic lovey dovey honeymoon vibes.

jeonghan ma+acop, 8op yes, it seems like this is someone he was actively manifesting, possibly someone he met at work. he is putting in a lot of effort and is very invested in making sure the relationship remains stable. joshua quoc, paop&sta yes, and he is obsessed. they're the person of his dreams, apple of his eye, love of his life. he wants to give them the world and is working on improving himself to be the best bf he could be to them. such beautiful energy. his partner could have water placements, i'm getting cancer. jun sun, quop yes, very happy and warm energy for him. the person seems to have incredibly gentle and grounded energy. i can tell they're his safe and comfort space, someone he can rely on. their existence brightens up his life in many ways. could be someone with significant earth placements.

hoshi 9osw, 3osw, know no, damn he's definitely gone through some hardships concerning a breakup. i see a lot of self-blaming and overanalyzing. a lot of pent up frustration and anger in him, i do think he's using it to fuel him tho. like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, he seems like the type to feel kinda silly when getting emotional. so he's trying his best to use all this firey energy for more worthwile things. wonwoo 8oc, 9oc no, he seems to have recently walked away from a relationship that was dear to him. still emotions attached here, although he's transitioning into a more self fulfilling and confident single era. he seems to have a lot of pride in himself, so he's actively trying to be okay alone. woozi 5oc, 7osw no, he seems to be upset over a loss he recently experienced. i feel like he's a more naive and gullible guy who easily falls into traps in love, and some mean ass person (like ew their energy is awful) might've cheated on him here. dokyeom 5op, 3oc, knop no, he's kinda lonely and trying to fill a void by being with friends more, but there seems to be a pattern of his relationships not always working out. there's this feeling of "i guess love just isn't for me". i can still see him trying to develop relationships and seeing where they go. mingyu 6oc, 10ow no, he's reflecting a lot on the past and might deal with some regret and burden that comes with it. i'm getting a lot of what if's, he's feeling weighed down and tired at the thought of love. he just doesn't have the energy for another relationship. i usually get stronger energy from him, he seems to be be feeling apathetic and gloomy these days. minghao knop, acoc yes, but it seems very new. i can feel he's still testing out the waters, and still a little unsure about it, as it's so fresh. the person might be more invested than he is, he's more of a practical and slow burn person.

seungkwan 2ow, 6op+de no, he's actively avoiding love. i can see him making it clear to people that he doesn't want a relationship right now, isn't ready for it. he thinks he has a lot of unhealthy habits he needs to work on first, i can see him seeking out help.

vernon ju, 6ow yes, it's a very balanced relationship with very beautiful and encouraging energy. i can see him and his partner really pushing each other and giving each other a lot of confidence. vernon feels accomplished to be with them.

dino paosw, kiop, 6osw, quosw no, he might've broken up some time ago and is deliberately trying to shift his focus on work. i can see both him and his ex are bitter and giving each other the cold shoulder, they're actively avoiding each other. however there might still be some secret glances and stalking when no one's looking lol, especially on social media.

[leagueofprotagonists]

Your opinion on Izuku Midoriya on the post you made on Stillness-in-greens post is really eye opening

I liked Izuku during Act 1 & 2, but when the Villain Hunt Arc happened I couldn't see him the same anymore

Especially when the conclusion of the final Arc happened

It's then when re reading the story, it becomes a lot clearer the Izuku is someone who expects people who suffer to bear the pain and conform

Him telling Shoto that forgiving Enji makes him a good person was just...

I really don't know what to say

I do agree with you saying he'd make for a good Villain aganist the League

Since he's someone who conforms to the system and protects it (Saying this kinda reminds me of the Matrix movie, Agent Midoriya lol)

Good luck on your AU 😊

Yeah, and the sad part is, is how he proved so many of the early criticisms right, I went into the show/manga liking him. He wasn't my favourite character but I liked him well enough, and I thought most criticisms were unfair.

Yes, he got One For All by chance, but so did everyone else at birth, and he did work to earn it once the opportunity was there.

Yeah, he wasn't working out before that, but most ways would require cash and/ or parental permission, and Japan has an insane bullying problem and is known for taking school very seriously.

Yeah when you're constantly being bullied and no one has your back, it's hard to have a spine because having one typically gets you hurt worse

And then he proved them right. He proved that he is a spineless coward that won't do anything to achieve his goals on his own

I can't even call it character assassination as it's not that this shit is new, it's that he became the worse possible version of himself and canon won't acknowledge it. And yes I am bitter, I am bitter that I was invested in seeing this character improve, only to find out he gets worse and worse as time goes on

---

One early warning sign of Midoriya's character is how right after the battle trials he rushes to partially tell Bakugou about OFA. So it's not in the heat of the moment, and with how it's done it's not to call out Bakugou's main character syndrome. It's that he's placating Bakugou. Bakugou is just the perfect metaphor for Deku and the hero's society issues, that they will not acknowledge that they/ it are just shit. That it is all about the glory, and they aren't going to solve any of it because they are allergic to the idea of accountability. And that once someone has the hero label on them, they can be the shittiest human being imaginable because they won't be held accountable. And this was before the series started constantly kissing Bakugou's ass

---

Also I hate Deku becoming a teacher, but the biggest point for me is that he's only a teacher, and no one else in 1A didn't become a hero, even with them saying oh the need for heroes went down, none of them opted out. As I've put on my main blog, Deku knows Hatsume Mei, and Melissa Shield, both characters who are eager to create support gear, why didn't he contact them in 8 years. Both All Might in his last fight, and Mirio with Overhaul have proven heroes can fight quirkless. So what the fuck was he doing? It certainly wasn't working out. Why the fuck was he waiting for someone to gift-wrap him the opportunity again? He never considered any other career while he was being bullied and told no for being quirkless, so what the fuck. You can't just choose to be a teacher, it does require a degree unless UA is just 100% disregarding that entirely.

And with it being a teaching job specifically, I'm going to say it. DEKU SUCKS AT EXPLAINING ANYTHING. In the whole series the closest we ever see him show any interest in 'teaching' anything is the sports festival when he offers to give Uraraka a plan to beat Bakugou, which she declines so no idea if it was any good. But start of the Endeavor agency arc, he overcomplicates and mumbles what he's trying to do with his quirk. It's not what he's saying that's complicated, it's that he's a shit explainer. When he realizes that concentrating all of OFA in a tiny area is a bad idea he announces a metaphor with zero context, during a meal. If it was just his thought process, I wouldn't care, but it's that he's doing it constantly when he's talking to people.

I actually plan on writing a comparison between the teacher ending of My Hero Academia and Assassination Classroom because holy fuck they did it infinitely better

[three--rings]

So in my illness yesterday, I finished watching Arcane. I've been trying to get through it for weeks but IDK something about it doesn't hold my attention fully?

Anyway I will fully admit I was partially watching it because I wanted to join in on the Jayvik enthusiasm I see from everyone. And maybe it was because I was mostly fully spoiled for their story the whole time, or something, but I kept waiting to get really into them and then, like, mostly didn't? I really like Viktor but Jayce....eh. And I enjoyed their storyline, but it didn't really inspire, like, THOSE FEELINGS in me, yanno. And this is why I say you CANNOT FORCE THE SHIPPING. It happens or it doesn't.

I mean I also enjoy Vi/Cait about the same amount. I like them, but I have some complicated feelings about at least one of them and IDK I'm kinda good with what canon gave me.

ON THE OTHER HAND. The ship that has already gotten it's hooks into me, made me read fanfic and start actually composing my own in my head....is Silco/Vander. (Whatever their ship name actually is. I know Zaundads is a thing, but that feels like a particular era/flavor of them.)

Vanco? IDK anyway they have SO MUCH POTENTIAL. Like so many FLAVORS. You can have young, idealistic them falling in love. You can have bitter exes that try to kill each other and maybe also play mindgames and fuck about it. You can then finally have episode 2x07 alternate universe them reunited and happy. It's the ship with everything! And I will fully admit to being a bit of a Silco simp.

ANYWAY, so that is a thing that may be happening a little. Prepare yourselves accordingly.

[charliedawn]

The slashers react to your first heartbreak :

Jason was not going to say anything. He had always found your boyfriend 'odd', but hadn't dared say anything.

And then, you came in with a tearful face and a trembling lip and he was certain of two things.

First off, you were hurt.

Two, he didn't like it.

He immediately took you in his arms and rocked you back and forth while you sobbed in his chest.

He wanted to hold you and tell you everything he felt, but he just kept hugging you tight.

Whoever had hurt you would come to regret it quickly.

He'd take down his favorite machete and make sure the man/woman who hurt you can't walk anymore.

Bo saw it in your eyes when you came home. You were heartbroken and he didn't say anything before grabbing one of his tools and storming out to follow your 'ex'.

It didn't take him long to catch him and beat him to a pulp.

"Squeal, little piggy. Squeal !"

Bo cackled before thumping his foot down on your ex's throat.

"You made MY girl/boy cry...I'll fucking kill you."

You tried to stop him, but to no avail.

Bo was dead set on making him pay for the pain he caused you.

"YOU'LL NEVER HURT THEM AGAIN, FUCKER !"

He then got out his shotgun and didn't hesitate before shooting your ex in the head. He then turned back towards you, blood splattered all over his shirt and a satisfied grin on his face.

"Oh ! Look at that ! He did have a brain afterall ?!"

The moment Brahms knew, he didn't waste any time stepping up. He knew you were hurt badly and the only way to make it all better was to be there for you.

"Brahms will...make you happy...Never go.", he said while holding you in his arms.

"I know, Brahms. Thank you for being my friend.", you said and his grip tightened slightly as he shook his head.

"No friend."

You laughed and thought he was joking, so you only eyed his arms around you.

"Rrright...I'm sure no friends would try to cheer me up."

But, he didn't laugh.

"No...friend."

He insisted before gently bending your body so your face may be above his.

"Brahms...Wants. Loves. Y/N."

Your eyes widened and you smiled through your tears at him.

"Y/N loves Brahms too."

He didn't hesitate before leaning forward to press his mask against your face, holding you tighter than ever. If you were to be alone, he'd be the one to fill the void. Forever.

"Human mad...Penny mad."

He bared his sharp teeth and growled in anger.

It was clear enough he had read your mind and found out what had happened.

"DON'T !", you cried out as he was about to jump out the house to tear your ex to pieces.

"HE MUST SUFFER !"

You hugged him and immobilized him momentarily. He didn't want to hurt you and you hid your face in his puffy collar.

"WHY ?!", he growled out—clearly confused.

"...Because I want you here with me.", you confessed and Penny's anger turned into bitter understanding as he wrapped his arms around you.

"...Alright, human. You can have me.",he begrudgingly agreed while plotting all the ways he was going to punish your ex once freed from your hold.

Your ex wouldn't see the light of day again.

Jack was so angry hearing about the way your ex had messed up his chance with you, he snapped.

"That fucker did...WHAT ?!"

You took a step back as various things went flying around you and Jack gritted his teeth.

He knew what was going on. He knew exactly what was going on through the little shit's head.

Because, he knew what they thought. He knew because they were him.

So, he would go there and knock some sense into the guy/girl.

Later that day :

"THEY ARE THE BEST FUCKING THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO US ! AND YOU DARE BREAK THEIR HEART ?!"

Jack then knocked your ex out with a book. He then savoured the fear from him and smirked as he raised his axe in the air.

"They gave you all the chances in the world. Now, ain't never going to get another one..."

Myers wordlessly stood up and walked out to return that night covered in blood and didn't even glance back at you before entering his bedroom.

It was just another victim. No need to dwell on it.

And when you saw on the news that your ex had 'mysteriously disappeared' ?

You didn't mention it to Michael.

You were just numb at this point and Michael understood.

He left you alone and occasionally cooked for you when he knew you were feeling really bad.

He even tried to feed you when you wouldn't.

He knew it would take time for you to heal, but he could wait.

He had all the time in the world.

Pennywise was on his way to complain to you about one thing or the other—but before he could utter a word...He noticed the tears.

He stopped dead in his tracks and could smell the faint scent of pain and grief in the air.

He then saw you were holding one of those things humans called "phones". From what he understood, whatever information you had received from the communication device had shattered your spirit.

He sighed and considered leaving, but his steps brought him closer to you instead. He crouched in front of you and hesitated before holding your hand and squeezing it.

"Don't cry, doll face. They ain't worth it."

He wiped your tears with his gloved hands and smiled.

"There are some folks worrying about you. Very worried. Very here. And very attached to you...And I may be one of them."

"...Pennywise", you uttered in a whisper and Pennywise's smile turned incredibly painful. He sighed again before rising to his feet and walking away. You didn't know what he was going to do until he turned back towards you and his pupils were a bright orange.

"Don't worry, doll face. They ain't gonna bother you ever again..."

Norman knew you'd come for a rebound. He wasn't an idiot. But, it was just too tempting to pass on.

He wanted to be a true gentleman and comfort you, but he realized that it was impossible.

He was just too happy about the whole ordeal.

He knew the two of you wouldn't work, because you belonged to him—no one else's.

He had kept his mouth shut when he had seen the way you had fallen so fast for the idiot, but he wouldn't anymore.

He trapped you in a tight embrace and kept you there as your tears coated his shirt.

And then, he did the one thing he had always wanted to do, but had never had the chance to.

He kissed you.

He wanted to suck all of the pain out of you. And, he even smiled when you started kissing him back.

The cops wouldn't find your ex's body for weeks, it would give him all the time in the world to convince you and heal you.

If that was the last thing he did...

"...He made you cry, huh ?", Freddy said knowingly and didn't seem his usual sarcastic self as he took a step forward and wiped your tears with his thumbs.

"Told ya. Assholes exist. Gotta learn to recognize them, lovely.", he told you and you sniffled before raising your hand above your heart—to check if it was still beating.

"...I think my heart is broken.", you said and Freddy smiled—but it was a sad compassionate one.

It didn't suit him.

"Yeah...You'll learn to live with it."

You closed your eyes and nodded before the corners of your eyes slightly tilted upwards as a thought crossed your mind.

"Funny...I'd thought you'd be happy. Or, that you'd try to get in my pants."

Freddy snorted before replying.

"Who says I'm not ?"

You looked at each other for a few seconds before bursting out laughing together.

Two broken souls laughing together on the first step of the gallows...

Freddy was broken, but he'd be fine to be broken with you. And whoever or whatever broke you ?

Well...There wouldn't be a night when Freddy wouldn't be hunting their dreams, eating them away until nothing remained but madness. And even in death, Freddy would bring them to hell himself.

"~Honey I'm back !", Eddie said with a big grin on his face, grin that immediately fell when he found you crying on his coach.

"What happened ?", he asked worriedly before sitting down next to you. He threw the concert tickets he had bought on the floor and you confessed.

"They broke up with me..."

"Idiot.", he didn't hesitate before telling you and then smiled sympathetically at you. "You're great. The greatest of them all. You are nice. You were always nice...even to me."

He held your hand and kissed the back of it.

"He didn't see his chance ? Too bad."

Eddie wouldn't make the same mistake.

That night, Ghostface made another victim. And Eddie won himself a chance to right his past wrongs.

He had let you go once, never again...

Eddie *gently tugs a strand/curl of your hair behind your ear* : "You'll be alright, sweetheart. I promise."