#tell me all secrets of your trade

[leona-florianova]

Very fascinated by all sorts of specialised tools n doohickeys, so every time I go to the dentist, I worry that I might seem TOO STOKED to be there, you know? That I might seem kinda like that guy from Little Shop of Horrors ... which I think is very interesting thing to worry about while at the dentist.

[chaotic-aro-incarnate]

What do you mean that a semi obscure Japanese movie from 1951 based on a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky doesn't have any fanfics on AO3????

[gildedoak]

Southern Comfort Food adjacent?? The Sins have been trying to get info on the “chef friend” ever since Lucifer sent them pics of the Crab Boil.

Going off the HC that Lucifer is tethered to Hell and can’t directly go to Earth unless summoned by a human.

Description below the cut!

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Radioapple comic, uncolored, basic lineart.

Panel 1: Lucifer: So if I get you ACTUAL Earthside lemons, you'll share your lemon bar recipe? Alastor: Yes. But I'm curious how you'll get there without a mortal soul summoning you. L: Trade secret, bucko.

Panel 2: They shake hands. (+1 Magical Deal!)

Panel 3: Alastor walks off, and Lucifer pulls out his phone, texting. L: OZZIEEEE (heart emoji) Ozzie: Lu! What's up, gorgeous? L: Small favor? O: Lay it on me. O: Whatchu got?

Panel 4: L: Need to borrow some of your employees for an Earthside grocery run. I'll pay them 4 the trouble. O: No trouble @ all! I know some folks who R looking 4 extra $ L: UR the best!! O: Is this 4 ur chef friend? L: ...maybe...

Panel 5: O: I call 1st dibs on whatever he makes O: Bee is gonna B so jelly L: He's making lemon bars (lemon emoji) O: So it IS a guy! L: Shit O: Is he cute? (3 heart emojis) L: BYEEEEEEE

Panel 6: Alastor stands transfixed before a giant stack of produce crates, looking rather in awe. Charlie (offscreen): DAD! You need to TELL ME when we are expecting a delivery!

END DESCRIPTION]

[hellisharchive]

The Most Divine

Summary

▬ Drabbles of how Lucifer and Adam would fight over gender neutral reader!

・━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━・

・C/TW! ▬ 18+, NSFW

・NOTES! ▬ Literally did not mean to this post now but whatever hope you enjoy it. It's also 3 am yay

・━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━・

♡...... LUCIFER would take notice of you immediately in the Hotel, from your voice to your body to your eyes, you were beautiful in every sense of the word. He treated you like royalty, like you were the best thing he could have found ever in all his billions of years of existence. He never made any moves on you though, the mental scars from Lillith leaving him still fresh in his mind and heart. You two were both really good friends though and he wouldn't trade that for the world.

♡...... ADAM would take notice of you during your first year in Hell as you were out during extermination day. He hates sinners with his very being due to a certain fallen angel, but something about you enamored him. He managed to find you alone and decides to take his chance. He hit on you and he ended up throughly fucking you in exchange for being spared this year.

♡...... LUCIFER makes sure you're ok after extermination day, you tell him that you ran into Adam and that he spared you, but not the true reason why. It made Lucifer incredibly angry as he knew you were lying, but played it off as he didn't want to be too overbearing and controlling. He was just concerned for you as Adam wasn't the best guy, regardless if he spared you or not

♡...... ADAM decides to watch you from heaven, keeping it a secret from Lute as she would surely scold him and never let him live another day without her disproving self. But seeing you talk and laugh with Lucifer made his blood boil. How dare you move onto that bastard after you just got fucked by the original dick? He didn't expect his attraction to you grow this bad, but it every passing moment when he didn't have important shit do, he watched you and Lucifer be all buddy-buddy.

♡...... LUCIFER would finally confront you about Adam, feeling jealous that he would be so much better in bed than that man. He knew he would treat you right. He watched as you stared up at the sky, knowing you were missing that angel for some odd reason. You admitted it right away, the guilt eating away so badly it was hard to contain. You did miss him despite him really being a terrible person, you did miss him. He shushed you and told you it was ok and that he wasn't mad, he was just concerned if he hurt you in anyway.

♡...... ADAM would reach his breaking point when he sees Lucifer tllt your chin up and say that he would always be there for you. Always make you feel better and always make you feel loved. He couldn't take it. Watching the scene play out with a hug, you two parted ways. Watching and waiting until Heaven's mistake was alone, the first man opened up a portal to Lucifer lounging on his couch on his phone when he looked up, not surprised at the sight before him.

♡...... "Well if it isn't the first man. Been a while since Eden? How've been? Fucking my people you swore to kill every year?"

♡...... "Shut the hell up! You stole Lillith from me. You stole Eve from me. You will NOT steal them from me!"

♡...... LUCIFER stood up then, despite his shorter stature, he walked right up to Adam with a smirk. He wasn't going to back down. He wasn't scared of this asshole. Even if he was scared to let you in, he still loved you very much and didn't want you wasting your time here in Hell with this man.

♡...... ADAM simply looked down at him, letting his anger be very known to the fallen angel. The key word is fallen. He was a traitor to everything good, and Adam would show you everything good and more if you let him instead of Lucifer.

♡...... "You think they were screaming your name? Last night, we were going so hard they cummed multiple times on my face just from my tounge" It was a lie, you both never had any sex at all, but he wanted Adam to feel intimated.

♡...... "That's a fucking lie. I've been watching them and you laugh and joke but never fuck. At least I actually fucked them unlike your coward ass. How's Lillith by the way? She really seems to love being with you, prick"

♡...... LUCIFER was going to quip back as the snide about his ex-wife especially upset him, but the door opened and you walked in sleepily and asked what was going on while rubbing your eye. Every one of you froze as the situation was becoming apparent to you as you woke up. He watched as you started to panic, knowing that this situation got too out of hand. You rushed up and demanded what was going on in a half sleep state. He was too angry to fully appreciate how adorable you were like that.

♡...... ADAM didn't feel threatened by your prescence at all, in fact, this was going to work in his favor. Smirking, he sauntered up behind your smaller form and wrapped his hands around your shoulders, leaning down and asking in a soft voice if Lucifer ever fucked you. You said no and shook your head. He could tell by the fact that you were shaking that you were very anxious yet thrilled at what was happening. He knew you liked Lucifer, he was just too much of a pussy to take what he wants. It's ok though, more for him.

♡...... LUCIFER hated how Adam defaulted to sex instead of what a real relationship is and its far more than lust. It was always being there for them, helping them, ensuring they were safe and loved. Not someone who fucked them and stalked them. But the ruler of Hell would play his game. Walking closer to your caged in self, he got right up in front of your face with a certain type of smirk you've never seen him wear before. However, his attention was turned above your head to Adam as the taller angel rested his head on top of yours.

♡...... "What's big shot doing now huh?"

♡...... "How about this? We both fuck them at the same time and see which one of us they like better"

♡...... "Deal"

[melzula]

Could you write a Sokka x firebender reader that has the plot of the secret tunnel episode but instead of aang and katara getting stuck together it’s him and reader? :)

Don’t Let the Cave In Get You Down

a/n: got two requests for this sokka storyline and i was very excited to write it! i couldn’t find a way to seamlessly include the fire bending part of the request but i could definitely build on that in another piece. hope you enjoy <3

you met the Gaang when they were passing through a small trading village on the outskirts of the Earth Kingdom

they were low on supplies and in need of a shopping spree, so they stopped at your little food stand in search of fresh fruit and snacks for their travels

you seemed awfully young to have your own business, especially when compared to the other merchants, but you were kind and your prices were affordable

their shopping spree was cut short by the arrival of fire nation soldiers, but you quickly escorted them through the backstreets of the marketplace and helped them evade the soldiers

“That was a close call,” Aang breathed out in relief, “thanks for your help.”

“Those guys are jerks, I couldn’t live with myself if I had just let them capture you.”

“Who are you?” Katara asked in awe.

“My name is y/n, and I’ve been hiding out in this village for about three years now. I escaped from the Fire Nation when I was 12 and never looked back.”

“Wait a minute, Fire Nation?!” Sokka exclaimed before quickly pushing his sister and Aang behind him. Raising his boomerang in a threatening manor, he narrowed his eyes at you. “Is this some kind of trick?! Did you just lure us out here so you could capture Aang and get the reward for yourself?”

“Sokka, you’re being ridiculous!” Katara had scolded angrily, harshly pushing his boomerang away. “She said herself she came here to get away from the Fire Nation, I’m sure she’s just trying to make a better life for herself here and you’re not making that any easier for her by being a jerk!”

“I don’t trust her, Katara!”

You’re a little disheartened by the disdain in his voice when he speaks about you, and despite Katara vouching for you you can see that you’re out of place

“I’m sorry, I’ve made things awkward,” you apologized sheepishly, “I’ll leave you now.”

“Wait!” Aang called, stopping you from going. “If what you said is true then… then I think you should come with us.”

“Tell me you’re joking,” Sokka scoffed in disbelief

“If she’s from the Fire Nation then she must have knowledge about the ins and outs of that place. Maybe she can even help me find a fire bending master. We need her help, Sokka.”

Though he was reluctant and very distrusting of you, Sokka realized Aang was right, so he begrudgingly allowed the airbender to welcome you to their team

You agreed to help as much as you can, and the rest was history

From there on out you’re officially a member of Team Avatar, but that doesn’t mean Sokka becomes any more trusting of you

He always keeps a suspicious eye on you, never letting you help with tasks he deems too important to avoid having you “sabotage” the group

His lack of trust in you hurts, you can’t lie about that, but you continue to do what you can to aid the Avatar and his friends and earn their trust

Of course, this all changes when you get to the cave of two lovers

Unlike Sokka, you found Chong and his group of Nomads to be great fun. They’d braided your hair beautifully with flowers from the lake and performed wonderful songs, so despite your predicament you were in a cheerful mood

Being stuck in the cave had put a strain on your group’s mission to make it to Omashu, but you tried to remain hopeful and help as best as you can

Surprisingly, Sokka even puts you in charge of holding one of the torches

“I’m only giving this to you because I know you’re at least smart enough not to waste resources while we’re in here.”

It’s a start

And it’s a good thing he gave you that torch, because it comes in handy when you both end up getting separated from the rest of the group

“This is just great,” Sokka utters sarcastically after several failed attempts to dig through the rock and get back to the others.

“Come on, Sokka, lighten up. We have a torch and your map, I’m sure we’ll be able to figure something out,” you try to console. “What did Chong say earlier? ‘Don’t let the cave in get you down, Sokka.’”

He’s not amused by your singing

It’s a bit awkward being stuck with the boy who’s been so adamant that you don’t belong despite your best efforts to prove that you can be trusted

You don’t speak much and try to stay out of his way and follow his lead, but the tunnels keep changing and you keep getting lost and your torch is about to burn out, so things are beginning to seem hopeless

“Maybe we should try changing our strategy,” you offer only for Sokka to immediately dismiss you.

“Right, like I’m going to let you lead us through the cave. You’ll probably make us get lost on purpose.”

“You know, if you stopped being so judgmental for a second you’d probably realize that i want to get out of this cave just as much as you do!” You snap irritably, surprising Sokka. you’ve mostly stayed docile to try and keep the peace whenever Sokka accuses you of being untrustworthy, but at this point you’re finally starting to get fed up

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he says softly, and this time you’re the one who’s surprised. You never thought he’d actually apologize to you, and it’s a nice feeling. “What do you suggest we do?”

“Well,” you start with a sigh, “maybe the story is right. Maybe if we trust in love, we’ll find our way out of here.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

You simply shrug, prompting Sokka to let out a heavy sigh. Your torch is going to run out soon, and his map isn’t doing anyone any favors. It seems you have no choice

“How exactly do we trust in love?”

“I’m not sure… the only love I know is the love I had from my parents, but I haven’t felt it in so long… I’m not sure I ever will again.”

“…What happened to them?”

“My parents were peasants with nothing but love to give each other. They were poor, but they were happy,” you explain with a faint smile. “My father was a fire bender, but he kept his gift hidden in fear he’d be forced to serve in the Fire Nation army. He didn’t want to leave me or my mother, but our home was attacked, and he had no choice but to bend to protect us. Our lives were saved, but he was taken away.”

Sokka hangs on to your every word, eyes glistening with unshed tears and sympathy. Your story is similar to his own, and he knows what it’s like to lose your family to the Fire Nation. He feels less disdain towards you now, more empathetic. He still isn’t 100% sure how to feel about you, but hearing your story makes you easier to understand now

“My mother knew I’d never be safe or happy if I stayed there, so she arranged for me to be smuggled out of the Fire Nation and brought to the trading village you first met me in. I haven’t seen or heard from her since, and I’m not even sure if she or my father are even alive.”

“I’m sorry,” Sokka utters solemnly. “Katara and I lost our mother to the Fire Nation, and we haven’t seen our father since he left to fight in the war. I know how you feel.”

“I don’t want to be Fire Nation, you know. None of this was a choice, and I understand why you don’t trust me but I’m not like them Sokka. Please believe me.”

“I’m sorry for always giving you such a hard time. It’s just… it’s hard to believe people from the Fire Nation can actually be good. But you’ve proven that you can be trusted over and over again, I was just too blind to see it.”

“Can we start over?” He asks with a sheepish smile, carefully sticking his hand out for you to shake. Instead, you push his hand away and throw your arms around him in a tight embrace.

The force of your hug knocks him back a bit, and though he’s unsure at first, he eventually returns your embrace by carefully wrapping his arms around your figure

The fire of your torch slowly begins to die, but neither of you seem to notice or care as you enjoy your moment together

You expect to be engulfed in darkness when the flame goes out, but instead you’re met with the beautiful shimmers of the crystals that line the roofs of the cave

“It’s so beautiful,” you murmur in awe, your eyes sparkling under the light

“Yeah,” your counterpart utters quietly, but he isn’t looking at the crystals

“Was she always this pretty?” Sokka wondered to himself

Together, you’re eventually able to follow the crystals and make your way out of the cave

And when you leave the cave, hands woven tightly together, you leave as two completely new people

You understand each other now, you trust each other

And your relationship will only continue to grow stronger from then on out

| atla tags: @sirkekselord @chronic-daydreamer @niktwazny303

[lowkeyremi]

𝐃𝐀𝐃 ?!

pairing: aizawa x fem!reader note: thanks to @violetraccoon04 and @hiqhkey for giving me the inspiration to write this!! Part 3 of dating the teacher series ! (Pt 1 and pt 2) summary: class 2a has always wondered if their stoic teacher has a partner… huh.. the more you know! (This is set post war so class 1a are now second years.) content: fluff, crack, teasing, just class a being sillies. wc: 1.5k

Your favorite people in the whole world are soon to leave for school, one a teacher one a student. You check over both of them. From what you can see Denki has his backpack, his training bag, his lunch (which he complains about packing because he wants to eat at the cafeteria every single day) and his hero gear.

Shota on the other has all of his lesson planning things, his eyepatch on his face, a protein shake, coffee, lots of coffee and his scarf around his neck.

You look at them expectantly, but before you could say anything Shota beats you to it, “you sure you’re okay taking Eri in today?”

“Babe, I promise you it’s no big deal. Her school isn’t far from my workplace.” His eyes soften and he gives you the kiss that he gives you every time he has to leave. Of course the romantic moment is ruined by your son, “could you guys swap saliva some other time? yuck.”

Both you and Shota turn to glare at the high schooler and he just smirks accordingly.

“I’ll see you Friday, sweet boy. Stay out of trouble. Sho, you’ll be back before midnight right? Or do you have to patrol?” He smiles at you which puts your mind at ease. Even though the war has been over for a couple of months now, you still feel paranoid watching your son and husband leave out into danger.

“I’m patrolling until 10:30 so I’m pretty sure I’ll be back before midnight.” You let out a sigh of relief.

U.A. has let up on their strict policy of students being in the dorms at all times, and has allowed them to visit their families on the weekend, which is why you get to see Denki every weekend before he has to return to the dorms for the week.

“Is your laundry clean?”

“Yes, mom.”

“You’ve turned in all your assignments, right?”

“Yesssss, mom.”

“And you still have allowance to buy food if you nee-”

“He’s got everything, darling. Try not to worry too much.” You kiss Shota again, tension leaving your body.

“Okay. I’ll see you guys later. I love you both, stay safe.”

“Love you too mom!”

“We’ll be safe, bye baby.”

Denki had stopped by his dorm before heading to his home room… which also happened to be his first period class… and the man teaching the class is his stepdad.

The young boy was told by both you and Aizawa that their marriage was no secret and he could tell his friends if he pleased.

And yes, he had planned to.. awhile ago, but he’s just embarrassed sometimes. Not by you! Or Aizawa. He already considers the man his father, it’s just, what would his friends think? He knows most will probably be kind about it considering Aizawa is their teacher.

But he’s still scared of being ridiculed for such a thing. He lets those thoughts disappear as soon as he walks through the classroom door.

The first thing he does is go and bother Shinso. He had been trying to make the boy his friend but he is very closed off and hard for even Denki to talk to.

They’ve made progress though, mainly because Aizawa talked about how he’s trained the boy a few times.

“Hey Shinsoooo, wanna get lunch together later? Today’s lunch is always the best!”

“Don’t you always bring your own lunch on mondays?” Denki smiles, “yeah but you could always give me a little bit of yours and I’ll trade you some of mine! My mom’ll never find out.”

“Yeah no, I’m good.”

“Come on man!!! Please!!!” Before Shinso can deny him again Mina makes her way over to Denki and places her hand on his shoulder.

“Denki! How was your weekend? Do anything fun?” The boy stops himself from saying that he and Aizawa went shopping together to find you a birthday gift.

“Nahhh you know me, video games for life!” Mina rolls her eyes playfully.

“Alright, you know the deal, in your seats.” Aizawa mumbles out to the class.

Nobody wastes time finding their seats.

“I know you guys would rather work together or something but I’m gonna be lecturing today.” A couple of groans and sighs leave the lips of various 2-A students. Aizawa’s posture straightens and his look is deadly. Everyone else straightens up, but Denki has to keep himself from laughing.

He can’t take Aizawa seriously when he makes such sickeningly sweet faces to you at home.

“Would you like to share what’s so funny, Kaminari?” Your last name had been Kaminari before you got married. You gave your son the option to keep your maiden name or go with Aizawa and he chose your maiden name. He said that he didn’t want to get married one day and not have his own last name, whatever that meant.

“Uh, no sir.” He responds straightening his face.

“Now, if any of you have a problem with me lecturing you can go out in the hall and read the whole textbook.” Nobody makes a sound and for good reason, that textbook is thicker than a dictionary.

“As I thought. Now onto the lecture.”

Denki had been falling asleep during the lecture so half way through, in his sleepy state he raises his hand, “Hey, dad?”

The blond feels the class’s eyes on him and gets scared that he’d accidentally exposed himself which he did but that’s not why his friends are staring. They just find the slip up funny, they don’t know Aizawa is really his stepdad.

“DID YOU JUST CALL HIM DAD? WHAT AN IDIOT.” Bakugo snorts loudly.

Denki’s face reddens and he covers it up in embarrassment.

“Looks like someone was takin’ a snooze.” Sero says with a chuckle.

“Oh come on guys, be nice. I’m sure we’ve all slipped up and called our teacher dad/mom before!” Uraraka says trying to calm down the laughter.

“Is it strange that I have never called a teacher mother or father before?” Todoroki asks suddenly feeling like an outcast. Midoriya tries to explain to him that he is in fact normal and not an outcast.

“Settle down. It was an honest mistake and I don’t blame him. I’m technically his father.” That gains the class’s attention.

Denki squeaks out a noise of embarrassment.

Aizawa immediately understands the situation his eyes widening a little in both shock and amusement, “you haven’t told them yet?”

Denki uncovers his face, “I was going to eventually…!”

“Tell us what?!” Kirishima asks excitedly.

“I am Denki’s stepfather. His mother and I are married.” It’s silent for a second but of course Mineta breaks the silence.

“Wait does that like mean you get good grades, cuz they bang each other?”

“THEY’RE MARRIED. M A R R I E D. NOT CASUAL!!!” Denki explains his face as red as a tomato.

“That still stands, your mom is married to your teacher, you can benefit from that!! Aizawa sensei, since we’re Denki’s friends can we get good grades too?!” Mina asks excitedly.

“That’s enough, nobody’s getting any special treatment. If anything Denki has to work 10x harder, because I’m around to watch him do his homework.” Half the class responds with “aw” or “aw man.”

“And mineta,” he stiffens at his name being called.

“I will not hesitate to send you out for inappropriate comments, do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Pay up I was right!” Jiro of all people says.

“HUH?” Denki asks in shock.

“Well, we were betting on sensei’s relationship status. “Is he in a relationship or not?” was the question we’ve all been asking. Everyone was saying no, but I noticed that necklace he wears. It has a ring on it.” Jiro explains.

Sero and Bakugo both groan taking money out of their pockets. Uraraka holds out her hand too, they also owe her for being right.

Aizawa had always kept his necklace with his wedding ring tucked into his shirt so he had no idea how Jiro caught that.

“Oh crap that means I owe money too!! I made a bet saying he was married to present mic!” Mina sighs digging in her bag for her clutch purse.

“I prefer my wife over Mic any day.” Aizawa confirms. (In another life he would so marry him.)

“You guys don’t think it’s weird? That like- he’s my stepdad?”

“Uh, not really. I mean the only thing that matters is that you and your mom are happy.”

Denki realizes then and there he had no reason to be scared, his friends didn’t seem to mind all that much that Aizawa was his stepdad.

But from time to time when he hung out with them one would ask, “you think you can get on Aizawa sensei’s good side so _________”

This was so silly and fun to write. I had a sudden burst of inspiration 🫶🏾

©𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐊𝐄𝐘𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐈 All works are written by me! Please do not copy, translate, or upload onto other sites thanks!

[vvampirelust]

thinking about hooking up with shane mccutcheon…

warnings: smut, top!shane, fingering (r!receiving), thigh riding (kinda), dirty bathrooms, not proof read

It’s typical. 

“Can I bum one?” that gravel-like voice asks the question which started it all. Your eyes flick from your freshly-lit cigarette to her. Holy shit. Instinctive alarm bells blare at the mere sight of her. She was hot. hot . hot. The straight-up definition of heartbreaker right before your eyes. And she had sauntered over to you, with a lilt of allure in her tone and a darkness in her half covered eyes, framed by the shaggy locks both jutting out and poking against her face. 

You take a drag yourself whilst digging out the pack from your pocket and handing it over to the strangely attractive stranger. “Thank you,” she nods, “Really. What’s your name?” the stranger asks, taking out a cigarette and pressing the end between her lips. You tell her without a second thought and her expression softens instantly. It’s a well performed move. Almost unnoticeable. That smile is so convincing, it's as if this girl has fallen in love simply by hearing your name. And who knows, maybe she has. At least for the moment.  Any other instance and you would have obeyed the waving red flag above her head. But tonight, it seems to be working for you. “That’s very pretty.  Suits you” she flirts, trading the pack with your lighter. Skin meets skin for a wavering moment. “I’m Shane.” 

Oh, yeah. Even if you wind up as just another name in an endless cycle, you couldn’t find it in you to care. 

It's fitting. 

The dimly lit, sleazy, bathroom of the bar you were outside. The countless cell phone numbers and names stained on the previously dull walls give a hint into the amount of sins committed inside this bathroom. If only walls could talk. 

You hope this sin is cherished. 

Shane presses you against the nearest surface found since stumbling through the door. Her hands shamelessly wander your body, running up your back, squeezing your waist, hoisting your thigh up to rest at her hip. “You want this?” she breathes against the corner of your mouth. You nod as you let out a sigh of her name. Sweet on your lips. A hushed secret. Your hands run up Shane’s clothed chest, circling her shoulders on your fingers path into her hair. Shane hums,  eyes seeking yours at the call of her name, so attentive in their search of your expression. 

“Please kiss me.” 

You watch Shane’s mouth curl like the flick of a cat's tail. She’s looking at your own mouth, leaning closer in search of the feeling of your lips. Shane kisses you hungrily, expertly. Her lips are surprisingly soft, and warm suckling on your bottom lip, tongue peeking out, already desperate for more. She wastes no time in sliding her tongue into your mouth, moaning lustfully when you meet her with a fierce passion. 

Tongues dance and swap spit as Shane pushes your dress up around your hips, fingers teasingly skimming the skin above your lacy waistband. Your fingers tug on her hair, eliciting more huffs to mould with your breathy whines. “Mm fuck” Shane mutters,  saliva connecting your mouths as she tilts her head down; Shane’s eyes dart continuously between your face and her hand sliding into your panties, “You’re so fuckin’ hot, and wet.” She cups your cunt, gasping in unison with you, “S’that for me?” 

Your chin dips, burying your face into Shane’s neck. You pepper kisses across her skin, becoming hooked onto her scent while playfully mumbling, “No shit.” In truth, you’re shielding your composure, breath not-so-secretly hitching as Shane’s long, slender finger teases your hole in slow circles, tempting you with the fantasy of her just stuffing you. 

Shane doesn’t seem too pleased with your response, chuckling softly, “Oh, is that how it is?” she asks with a layer of sass within her tone. You spot a foxy smirk on her lips, looking up at her with hazy eyes as Shane sinks two fingers into your cunt, cooing “yeah?” her voice rasps in a way that makes your tummy flutter, clenching tightly. And she can feel it. 

Hot breath fans over Shane’s neck - casting a shiver down her spine - as you moan loudly, latching your teeth into her as if you were a vampire. She sets off at a relentless pace, finger-fucking you in the bar bathroom the way she’s expected to. 

There’s no denying, she knows what she’s doing. 

It’s evident in the amount of pleasure pulsing….everywhere. Shane’s hips rut in time with the pace of her thrusts, making the experience that much more overwhelming. Small whines escape as you pant against her neck, tongue lapping in the motions of a french kiss. 

The sounds are driving her insane. Shane’s clit throbs in her too tight jeans, out of time with the pulsing of your silky walls around her fingers. Non-stop feeling. Shane huffs, shuffling her feet around yours so that she can rut her crotch against your thigh, allowing her jeans to squeeze her nub perfectly. “Ah- shit!” 

As your head falls back, your hand drops down to grope at Shane, cupping where the crease of her ass and her thigh meet. Shane chases you, lips finding yours once again to feel your pathetic moans passing into her mouth. Her thumb is bent at just the right angle in her palm to rub your clit as she curls and pushes her fingers deeper into you. If it causes any discomfort, she shows no sign of it. Too focused on making you reach your peak. 

She sucks on your tongue, savouring your taste in her mouth. It's messy.  Frantic. Slutty.  but it's winding you both up faster than you thought possible. You subconsciously rise onto your tiptoes, tingling from the intense stimulation. “Don’t run, baby,” Shane’s free arm wraps around your waist, holding you close to her, her fingers refusing to give up on that spot inside you. 

Shane groans in annoyance when a sharp knock manages to overpower the music and your moans. “Fuck off!” she shouts over her shoulder, head whipping right back to you. 

“Y’close, babe?” her tone changes like a switch, throaty coo back in her voice, “Your gettin’ tighter…” 

You hate how smug she is. But there’s no shame to admit she’s not wrong. The risk of being caught seemed to set your nerves on override, dialling your body heat to the fullest. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop” you chant, “please. gonna cum, fuck fuck.” 

A moan slips from Shane’s mouth into yours, hearing the mix of how wet you sound along with how badly you want release. She’s right there too. Humping herself on your thigh is about to have her making a mess of her cotton panties. Most likely soaked through and through. 

“It’s good, yeah? Cum, babe, cum with me,” she mutters out through pleasured grunts, forehead pushing against yours as euphoria threatens to crash into this random room. Shane can feel your slick pooling in her palm and she lets go, cursing huskily and trembling. 

Your orgasm causes your body to still, wave after wave of pleasure coursing frantically inside of you. Arms hugging Shane close, you ride out your highs together, panting into one another’s mouths. Speaking in a tongue of lust. Moans passing back and forth, heads growing fuzzier as the music thumps through the walls of the bar. 

Shane’s body leans into yours, chin falling to your shoulder as her fingers come to a halt within you. The sudden emptiness is gut wrenching but the constant banging on the bathroom doors offers little time for small talk. “Oh my god,” you breathe out, bursting into laughter with the girl who just made you see stars. 

She’s still grinning when she sticks her drenched fingers into her mouth, sucking off your cum. Your own laugh falters, panties feeling impossibly damp impossibly fast. Shane almost snorts, “Don’t look at me like that,” despite her voice sounds serious. 

Head cocked to look down at you, Shane’s free hand reaches up to brush your hair back into place. “This was fun,” you say, tugging the hem of your dress down to where it should be. 

“Yeah,” Shane nods. She licks her lips as she takes what you guess as her last look at you

“Maybe I’ll see you around.” 

ignore me posting this earlier…

[moonstruckme]

hi author !!! if it is okay with you i wanna request a fic in the same universe as the Big Brother!Sirius one where in reader gets a (secret) boyfriend and then they break up or whatever u want i just want hurt/comfort 🥹

Thanks for requesting <3

big brother!Sirius + little sister!reader ♡ 996 words

When you hear the door to your dorm open, you assume it’s one of your roommates or Regulus coming to shame you for missing dinner, but then your mattress shifts with the weight of someone else sitting down and a familiar teasing voice says, “If you’re dead under there, everyone’s going to think it was me.” 

You peep your eyes out from under the covers. “How did you get in here?” 

Sirius isn’t even looking at you. He’s making himself comfortable at the end of your bed, both legs crossed under him and hair falling in his face as he unwraps dishes and utensils. 

“Reggie let me in. He seemed to think you might need some company.” 

“He’s such a narc,” you grumble. 

Your brother only snickers. “Sit up, I brought you dinner.” 

You’d much rather stay under the covers, but know Sirius would only wrestle you into an upright position anyway. He always gets his way. 

“Yikes.” He makes a face as you sit up, revealing your bedhead and swollen eyes. “You’re having a rough one, huh?” 

“Shut up.” You glower at him and take the plate. “It’s not that bad.” 

Despite your grumbling, a bit of vulnerability sneaks into your tone. Sirius softens.

“No, it’s not,” he agrees, reaching forward to brush a piece of hair away from your face. “We’re always pretty; it’s in the genes.” 

You can’t help the small smile that fights its way onto your face. This is exactly the sort of thing your older brother would say when Regulus was twelve and sulking over getting his first pimple or when you nearly broke down in tears trying to style your hair. Despite his tomfoolery and general ridiculousness, Sirius’ levity actually provided a voice of reason in your family, reminding his siblings and cousins that things weren’t always so dire. 

“Thanks for bringing dinner,” you say.

“No problem,” Sirius replies softly, as though worried his gentle tone will be overhead and his rapscallion’s repute thusly destroyed. “Is it good enough that you’ll tell me what’s gotten you so upset?”

You blink at him in surprise. “Reg didn’t say?” 

Sirius’ mouth twists, dissatisfied. “He didn’t. I guess I would’ve been more likely to find out if I’d just pretended I already knew, huh?” 

That makes you chuckle. “Probably, yeah.” 

“Well, come on. Now you’ve gotta tell me.” 

You feel your shoulders hunch inwards. “Do I really have to?”

“Yes.” Your brother’s voice is firm, but his eyes are hopeful. 

You want to tell him, you find. You don’t suppose any harm can come from it now. 

You eye him carefully. “I broke up with my boyfriend.” 

Sirius’ eyes pop. He nearly topples your plate leaning forward, like you’re back in your childhood beds trading secrets. “You were dating someone?” 

“I was.” You can’t quite look at him, focussing on cutting your meal into small bites. “Or I thought I was. It doesn’t matter. I’m definitely not now.” 

“Wha—how did I not know about this?” 

“Because obviously I’m not going to talk about my dating life with my brother,” you huff a laugh down into your lap, and you swear you can feel the force of Sirius’ eye roll burning into the top of your head. “No one really knew. He wanted to keep it private.” 

Sirius tilts his head, slotting a piece of his hair behind his ear. “Private in an avoid-the-gossip-mill way or private in a dirty-secret way?” 

You close your eyes, shame curdling in your gut. Even your idiot brother knows enough to be suspicious of something like that. Maybe if you’d told him all those weeks ago, you wouldn’t be where you are now.

“In the second way,” you admit in a whisper. “I, um, sort of assumed it was because of the first, and I liked the idea of keeping things private too, but it turned out he had other reasons.” 

You try to take another bite of food, but it feels soggy and unappetizing in your mouth. You set your plate aside. 

“What happened?” Sirius asks. 

Your face feels miserably hot. “He just didn’t like me as much as I liked him. He didn’t want his friends to know.” Tears burn in your eyes, and when you try to speak again they show up in your voice, too. “I feel really stupid.” 

“Oh, sweetheart.” Sirius sits up on his knees, bending over you to fold you into a hug. His hand presses reassuringly between your shoulder blades, and you let out a little sob. “That doesn’t make you stupid, it only makes him a prat.”

You hug him tightly. “I just feel so silly being upset when he probably doesn’t even care.” 

“You are being silly,” he chastises, but there’s fondness in your brother’s tone. “Of course he cares. He may not be regretting things right now, but I’d bet ten galleons he will be by the end of the month. Trust me, babe, boys are idiots. We don’t know how to act, we almost never know what we want, and we’re ten times more likely to fuck something up if it’s important to us. Just ask Remus.” 

Your laugh is a soggy thing. Sirius rubs your back encouragingly. 

“So, what’s the sod’s name?” 

“Oh, no way.” You laugh even harder, pulling out of the hug to wipe under your eyes. “I’m not telling you.” 

“What?” Sirius throws up his hands. “But we were doing so well!” 

“I’ve handled it, Sirius. I don’t want you to go and turn his skin green or make him sprout nose hairs down to his chin.” 

A giddy grin. “That’s actually not a bad idea. Does Regulus know who it is?” 

You fix him with your sternest stare. Most other people would soil their pants, but because he’s your older brother, Sirius only raises a brow. “If he did, he wouldn’t tell you.” 

“That’s alright.” He steals a roll off your plate, biting into it insouciantly. “I’ll find out.” 

[rad-batson]

Headcanons of Tim and Damian’s Love/Hate/But-Mostly-Begrudging-Love Relationship (They’re My Babies)

They will take EVERY opportunity to be a little bitch to one another

Tim: “Don’t get too close to me. You probably have rabies.” Damian: *actually bites him*

Damian tripped Tim once, which started an all out prank war that lasted several months. It only ended when Bruce walked into a glue trap and couldn’t reach his phone to call for help. But he couldn’t figure out who put it there so they were both grounded. (It was Tim.)

Tim teaches Damian to finish his vine references when Bruce tells them they need to “bond.” They proceed to try and speak in exclusively vine references and TikTok sounds during patrol. Bruce benches them for his own sanity.

Damian: “I’m not touching you” *gets pushed down the stairs*

Tim: “I’m not in your room” *gets hit in the face with a book*

Tim calls Damian short even tho he’s only like two inches taller for quite a bit of time (and Damian never hears the end of it after Tim’s growth spurt)

Family Game Night could go in one of two ways: they’re opponents and spend the whole night one-upping each other OR they team up and wipe the floor with everyone else’s pieces

Damian: “Just trust me.” Tim: *remembering that one time Damian tried to kill him* “Okay.”

Tim: “Don’t ask questions.” Damian: *recalling the multiple genocidal Tim variants* “Whatever.”

During one Wayne Gala, they make up this game called Freestyle Checkers where they choose guests as their “pieces” then subtly manipulate them into walking to their opponent’s side of the ballroom without talking to someone from the other team or they’re out. No one can know that they’re part of a game or their opponent wins by default.

Bruce is proud of them at first for being more sociable during galas until he realizes what’s going on and immediately loses five years from his lifespan.

Both have attempted to fake their deaths to get out of the same school project

They’re both notorious for stalking people to get information instead of just…ya know…asking like a normal person. So they’re bound to team up one day.

Like maybe it’s Bruce’s birthday soon and both are like “No, I’m getting him the better present,” but then they run into each other in the vents trying to find out what he wants and they end up trading secrets. Just brotherly things

Tim: “I need you to follow this guy for me. I think he’s our culprit.” Damian: “I would rather die than take orders from you.” Tim: “I’ll buy you that fancy oil painting kit you want.” Damian: *already changing into his Robin gear* “Where is he?”

Tim makes Damian play the dumb, helpless kid in all of their covert operations, which pisses Damian off until he gets so good at it that he uses it to his advantage and annoys the hell out of Tim when they’re paired up for public appearances

“God, he’s so annoying.” “Yeah, totally.” “What the fuck did you say about my brother?”

Damian is the only person who can get Tim to actually sleep for once. No one knows how he does it, but the strongest theory so far is blackmail

Tim “I’m ignoring Bruce’s instructions because they failed the vibe check” Drake and Damian “I can totally do this mission that requires four people on my own” Wayne teaming up behind Bruce’s back and immediately getting into deep shit but somehow making it out alive with the bad guys behind bars.

During one of said missions, they thought they were going to die and said “I love you” to one another. After they survived, they silently agreed to never mention it again.

Damian gifts Tim a new board that he designed for his birthday. It took weeks. Tim cries

[togrowoldinv]

Instagram

Natasha Romanoff x Female Reader

You find out about Natasha’s secret Instagram while she’s away on a mission

Note: Inspired by the romanoffthereal account Scarlett is definitely running lol. Enjoy this one!

Natasha Masterlist 1, Natasha Masterlist 2, Natasha Masterlist 3, Main Masterlist

When you walk into the living room, you hear your oldest kids giggling. You smile at the sound, but your curiosity is piqued when you notice their attention is on a phone.

“What’s up?” You ask them. Ali drops her phone into her lap and they all turn to you. You raise a brow.

“Hi Mom,” she says. Her voice is sincere but her eyes don’t quite meet yours.

“Do I even want to know?” You ask, assuming it was something the kids wouldn’t want to spend time explaining why it’s funny.

The boys stand up as if on cue and excuse themselves with a little side hug to you. They’re getting older, but still remain sweet.

“Just ask Mama,” Ali says before running off too.

You shake your head in confusion. Why would Natasha know what they’re laughing at? She’s not even in town. A mission she didn’t want to go on pulled her away for a couple of weeks.

The rest of the day is spent trying to wrangle all of the kids. You don’t find anymore sneaky laughter sessions. Settling in for the night, you lie down and get on your phone.

That’s when you see your friend sent you a post on Instagram. It’s been a while since you opened the app, finding yourself way too busy with kids and with Nat not wanting too much of the family information online.

You open the message to see a picture of a Black Widow toy along with other Avengers. Before you even read the caption of the post, you read the message from your friend.

Is this your wife?

You furrow your brow in confusion. Clicking on the photo, you see the post is written in first person from an account named romanoffthereal.

Surely not, you type in response.

You examine the photo further and wonder if it really could be her. But surely she would’ve told you she made a secret Instagram. Right?

You try to sleep, but the cold spot in the bed next to you doesn’t help. You miss Natasha. Glancing at the clock, you decide maybe she’s getting up across the world.

Your contact photo of Nat always makes you smile. A silly selfie she took one day on your phone when you left it on the table. You click on it and wait for your wife’s voice to ring through.

Unfortunately she never picks up. You sigh and put your phone back on the nightstand. Sleep never comes around and soon it’s 5am.

You get up and start on breakfast for the kids. It’s a never ending process, but you wouldn’t trade it for anything. The life you and Natasha have made is absolutely perfect.

As if she knows you’re thinking of her, Natasha finally calls you back.

“Hey,” you answer.

“Hi sweetheart,” she replies. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You sound upset. Plus, you called me in the middle of the night,” Natasha explains.

“You knew I was upset by me saying one word?”

“I’m a spy, baby,” she jokes. “And we’ve been married forever now. I have good news though.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“One second,” she says.

You wait for her to reply over the phone, but instead you’re met with the front door opening. Natasha walks in with a grin on her face.

Whatever fruit you were cutting is abandoned. You run over to her and hug her tight.

“It’s okay,” Nat says. “I’m back.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you more,” Nat replies.

You kiss her lips and hold her tight once again. Soon, the kids wake up and everyone is so happy to see Nat.

By dinner time, she’s soaked up all of the love she can take. Nat escapes to some solitude to decompress from the mission.

You take her a plate of food to your bedroom. She’s sitting on the bed on her phone.

“So, I have a question,” you say. She narrows her eyes. “And I expect you’ll have an answer.”

“Okay,” she says, but comes out more like a question.

“Do you have an Instagram you didn’t tell me about?”

Natasha smirks. She’s been caught.

“Which one of those kids ratted on me?” She asks.

“Wait, it’s true?!”

“It was for fun,” Nat shrugs. “For the kids to laugh at. So who told you? Was it Jack? He never could lie to you.”

“It was not the kids actually,” you say. “Although, I did see them all laughing at their phone’s yesterday and Ali said to ask you why.”

Natasha chuckles and smiles softly at the fact that she made the kids laugh. She prides herself on being humorous, even in a nerdy way.

“My friend sent me the post though,” you say. Nat doesn’t smile at that.

“Shit, I thought I made it private.”

“No, baby. You know for a super spy, you’re really bad at using media,” you tease her.

“I’ll remember you said that,” Nat says, feigning seriousness.

You laugh and lean into her. Nat wraps you in a hug so tight you can barely breathe.

“I’ll delete it,” Nat says after a minute.

“The kids like it. Just have them help you make it private,” you suggest.

“Deal.” A minute later she adds, “I love you.”

“I love you more,” you reply.

“Mhm,” she hums.

You pull away from her just enough to look in her eye. She kisses you deeply. Her want for you is evident in her touch.

“The kids occupied?” She asks.

“I turned on a movie,” you say.

“Perfect.”

The two of you don’t waste a second getting reacquainted with each other. Life with her is perfect with her silly Instagram and all.

[wrioluvr]

coming out to + confessing to belobog men. ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆

note: wanted to try my hand at writing more cute stuff <3 also there are like ZERO posts in the luka x male reader tag my baby deserves more. happy pride my beloved readers!!! i wrote this like 6 months ago and coincidentally just picked it back up in time for june! i don't even play hsr anymore... crying emoji content: male reader, fluff. luka, sampo, gepard

sampo (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

would 100% know before you even told him

"hey, [name]! heard you got something to tell me, don't worry, your good pal sampo's all ears."

"sampo... uh.....i like... guys...."

"oh, is that it? i thought it was obvious..."

"HUH????"

"i meant- thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. your secret's safe with me, hehe." placing his hand over his heart in a dramatic gesture, he promises sincerely. despite his initial reaction, he really is touched. not many people trust him, so your willingness to share something so personal made him feel special.

"oh, and one more thing....."

"what is it? you got a secret boyfriend you didn't tell me about?" he asks teasingly, not expecting the bomb you're about to drop on him.

"...i like you."

his eyes go wide. "now that's a surprise."

even though he'd scam people without a second thought, some calling him cruel, he can't bring himself to be indifferent to you. here you were, pouring your heart out, with such a nervous expression on your face, how could he maintain his usual sly demeanour? in all seriousness, he knows he's a bit scummy, so he would be a bit hesitant about getting into a relationship for your sake. he's always running about, chased by the authorities, he doesn't want you to be involved into all that. but if you're willing to accept him and his slippery ways, he'll be sure to put an equal amount of effort. he hates owing favours, after all.

"oh, how could i refuse such a an enticing offer? of course i'll be your boyfriend, [name]." he can't help the grin that appears on his face at your expression, simultaneously shocked and overjoyed. "seriously, you're too precious.... c'mon, let's go on a date!" throwing an arm around you, he squeezes your shoulder excitedly.

"wha- like right now?? and you accepted my confession just like that???" you're at loss of words as he drags you along to who knows where.

"what are you waiting for? let's go, pal! wait- should i call you pal now that we're dating? how about buddy? hmm... still too friendly. how do you feel about sweetheart?"

જ⁀➴

every time he appears at your door, giving you a sheepish grin as he explains how he needs to lay low for a bit, it always comes with a kiss, or several, along with a heart-shaped box of your favourite chocolates. he might go missing for a few days at a time on "business" (probably some illegal trading), but he always makes sure to update you on his whereabouts so you don't worry, sending a bunch of heart pom-pom stickers to let you know he misses you. if anyone were to ever make some snide comments about your sexuality, his first instinct would be to drop every job he's doing and comfort you, followed by using his various contacts to deal with that person swiftly. natasha and seele can't believe he actually got someone to like him, much less get into a serious relationship, but nevertheless, they make sure to look out for you to ensure he doesn't break your heart. he vows not to ever hurt you though, it's the last thing he'd ever want. his promises are often fickle with his clients, but with you, they're always sincere.

luka (૭ ｡•̀ ᵕ •́｡ )૭

would definitely being overenthusiastic about being an ally

"[name], hey! you wanted to tell me something? i hope it's about training with me...."

"sorry, luka, it's not about that.... i.... i just wanted to let you know that i'm gay."

"oh! like seele and bronya!"

"i mean- i guess....?" your nervousness was immediately replaced by a comical surprise at his response, you had to suppress your laughter. he was so genuine, it was endearing.

"don't worry! if any thugs give you shit for it, just tell me. i'll deal with them right away... i've been itching for a fight anyway." he immediately gets into a fighting stance, throwing a few punches in the air to get his point across. he ended his little show with a wink, causing your stomach to fill with butterflies. you decided to tell him then and there.

"and uh, luka. i like you."

"aw, thanks! i like you too. you're a great friend, [name]."

"like, in the romantic way..."

"that works too! that way, i can protect you easier." without missing a beat, he flashes you a grin and a thumbs up, seemingly unfazed by your sudden confession. but the slight dust of red on his cheeks let you know your words did have an effect.

"wait... you know this means we'll be boyfriends?" your head's reeling at how easily he accepted your feelings. did this man really not think about anything but training and beating up thugs??? not that you were complaining, his drive was one of his charming points, but still.

"yeah, i don't mind. with someone like you by my side, i'm sure i could take on any enemy. thank you for giving me this opportunity."

જ⁀➴

even though he puts on a strong front, secretly, he's deathly afraid of becoming a burden, especially to you. one of his favourite pastimes is training and working out with you, or he'd be content for you to just watch him train and cheer for him as well. as long as he has the reassurance that you know he's getting stronger, allowing him to shield you from the dangers of the underworld. if he ever gets injured, a simple persuasion won't work, you'll have to physically hold him in place so that you can treat his cuts and bruises - no matter how much he protests and insists he's fine, he does appreciate it. a lot. he enjoys the little things, the way you run your fingers along the cool metal of his arm as you ramble about your day, or the enthusiastic whoop you give every time he knocks an opponent out at the fight club, or the scent of the freshly cleaned towel you bring him to dry his sweat. you help him realise that there's time to relax, his self-imposed training schedule being so intense and demanding. getting him to not be so hard on himself would be a treat. if you ever get derogatory comments about your sexuality... trust, he'll personally teach them a lesson, and ask natasha not to treat them once he's done. after all, you give him another reason to continue training to be the strongest. he has to be there for you.

gepard ( •̀ - •́ )

dense cutie... wouldn't get your hints until you told him explicitly

"my apologies for being late, [name]... you had something you wanted to tell me?"

"no problem, gepard... i just wanted to tell you that-" taking a deep breath, you prepare youself for his reaction. "-i like guys."

"oh? me too, i'm quite fond of the guards under my care."

"i mean that i'm gay..."

"oh, that's what you meant. are you telling me this because you've faced some form of discrimination lately? don't worry, belobog has strict laws in place to prevent-"

"no, gepard- i'm telling this because i like you..."

"oh."

જ⁀➴

congratulations, you've courted the sweetest man in all of belobog! initially, he was slightly worried that your newfound relationship would interfere with his duties as protector of the people, but much to his surprise, making time for you is easy. or more so, it's because you always make the effort to stop by whenever he's out patrolling, so you end up spending a lot of time together anyway. his face might get red when you blow him a kiss behind the rest of the silvermane guards' backs, but he always makes sure to let you know how much he appreciates your guidance. he's a little self-conscious about his lack of romantic experience, so be gentle with him! don't tease him too much. while he is fully devoted to his duty, he's not above slipping away for a few minutes when you text him to meet in a back alley, to gift him some flowers you may or may not have stolen from belobog's florist. the next day, he would return the favour by holding out a bunch of your favourite flowers, home grown (an attempt was made) in his very own garden. hey, even if they're slightly wilted, it's the thought that counts, right? don't look at him with that affectionate gaze! he's embarrassed. it would be quite funny if you had criminal tendencies, gepard would be absolutely torn between lecturing you and turning a blind eye simply because his lovely boyfriend had made lunch for him earlier in the day. especially if you're friends with sampo, the little shit would threaten to snitch to you everytime gepard almost catches him. or.... perhaps.... he let you off the hook because of that one time you pinned him against some alley wall (when he was supposed to be patrolling! blasphemous.) and kissed him so hard his legs gave out. you've become one of his weaknesses, but he doesn't mind it. at all.

pic credits to dailysampo, dailygepard and dailylukaa on twt!

[seattlesellie]

don’t cross the line

pairing: ellie williams x reader

warnings: smut (mdni), cheating, angst, mutual masturbation, just morally wrong, mentions of alcohol

Parties in Jackson fucking suck.

It’s not like youve ever been at a different party, but still. You’ve read about them in the little magazines from the old days you found on patrols. Small blurbs about meaningless celebrities, a concept you barely even understood, drinking themselves to oblivion. Paparazzi pictures of young starlets in black limousines, rappers getting coked up in dark bathrooms. You never really got it. Parties in Jackson were like a parallel universe.

“They must have made that up” you told Dina, your best friend and trusty patrol partner. “Nope” she shrugged. “Heard that Paris Hilton girl was really like that.”

Paris hilton would have hated Jackson parties. A bunch of old people, and a handful of young ones, dancing around to the beat of an old country song, if you could even call that a beat.

You could have responded with a simple “No thanks” when Jesse had invited you to tonights party. You could have told him you were tired, busy, sick, he would have left you alone - But you didn’t, alas, this is how you found yourself here. Alone, in an old barn, listening to the batshit insane, drunk ramblings of an old fart named Seth.

“Ripped that fella’s throat with just one move” Seth mumbled, laughing stupidly at his own words.

“Go — got him real good n’dirty, I tell ya”

Whoever said “respect the elderly” clearly never met Seth. His breath reeked of whiskey and cigarettes that he traded for food and supplies, and my god, he was standing so close you could see the veins in his yellow tinted eyeballs. You really were too polite for your own good, you thought to yourself, because Ellie would have shoved him away already.

Ellie.

You felt like slapping yourself in the face. What the hell does she have to do with this? Why can’t you just let it fucking go already? It truly was desperate, and pathetic, and borderline immoral, the amount you spent thinking about that girl.

So what if she used to be your best friend. So what if she was the first girl who ever made you feel something, even if it was too late. She has a girlfriend, and she’s not thinking about you, she doesn’t care, maybe never has, probably never will. She left you for her, with that useless excuse of “Cat doesn’t like it when we hang out” followed by a pathetic “We can do it in secret, though.”, when she saw your eyes turn glossy and your breath hitch up. Fuck her, and fuck those memories. Fuck all the nights you spent together telling each other your deepest and darkest desires, and especially fuck that time you almost-

“Hey”

You'd recognize that voice anywhere.

A royal blue flannel button up shirt appeared at the corner of your eye.

“Mind if I steal her for a sec, Seth?”

She sounded raspy, laced with that velvety layer her voice had adorned whenever she had a sip or more of Whiskey. When you drank together for the first time, at the ripe age of sixteen, next to a big bonfire and the ever so familiar scent of pine lacing your sense of smell, you told her that she sounds different when she’s drunk. More mature, somehow. Less fidgety, slower, sultrier. She replayed that sentence over and over again in her head. “Sultry”, she whispered to herself. “I sound sultry.”

Seth cleared his throat, a deep cough escaping his lungs.

“Of course, pretty girl like her shouldn’t be around me for too long, might start acting all wild!” The old man threw his hands in the air, and disappeared somewhere in the scarce crowd.

Your heartbeat was faster than normal, but that’s not new. Not when she was around, anyways.

Ellie stood by your side, hands crossed over her chest. She had a glass of Rum in her hand, not Whiskey. Funny.

“You’re a Rum type of girl now?” you questioned, never meeting her gaze. If you bothered to look to your side, you would have noticed she was staring.

“Fame’s changed me, I guess” She responded, mixing the fluid in her glass.

One week ago, Ellie went on patrol. One week ago, Ellie killed more infected in one go than anyone else had in years. She was the town’s hero, the infected slayer. Cat even made her a badge. She wasn’t wearing it now.

“Cat or fame?” you quietly mumbled under your breath.

You weren’t spectacularly brave with your words, but one glass of presumably expired white wine made a simple girl go very far.

“Hah. Funny” she scoffed dryly, earning her Rum another pointless swirl.

“You’re the towns hero, I’m the towns comedian, we’re both pretty famous, i’d say.”

Ellie’s gaze was fixed on the wall. She squinted her eyebrows slightly, humming in response. You looked over at her, for just a second, noticing the dim light reflecting in her eyes. She was a sight to behold, the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen. You wish she knew that. You wish you could be the one to tell her.

You inhaled deeply, and it came out so shaky that when you exhaled you were terrified she heard the tremor in your body.

“Thank’s for the save, by the way” you said quietly, apologetic. You even smiled politely, which was absolutely for nothing, because she wasn’t looking at you, avoiding your gaze like the plague.

It’s not like Ellie and you didn’t talk since that night she told you she couldn’t see you anymore. It’s been two whole years. You had to talk, you had to communicate somehow, even if it was through polite smiles and dry conversations during shared patrols. Hell, you even went to Cat’s birthday party you somehow were invited to. Dina was practically on her knees begging you to come with her, and who could say no to Dina when she looked at them with those puppy eyes that could tug at a monsters heartstrings?

“Yeah, no problem. That man’s a fucking dickhead” Ellie scoffed, leaned against the bar and crossed her legs.

“Where’s Cat?” you questioned. Are you sure you only had one glass of wine?

“She’s not here” Ellie responded dryly, seemingly annoyed at your question. She almost tsk’d when you asked. She didn’t look surprised by your rude antics, maybe you got like this more often than you thought. How about that time you told her you’re surprised Cat didn’t pack her a sandwich with a sticker on it’s wrapper during patrol?

“I can tell… why?” you inquired. Your own voice was deeper too, it almost matched hers.

“Didn’t wanna come” Ellie said, stuffing a hand inside her pocket. She was uncomfortable, clearly, and wanted, needed, to make you shut up. It’s not because your presence annoyed her, It’s because she knew she was wrong. She knew she fucked up when she ditched you, and if only you knew how it was eating her alive every day. She had to do it, because in her eyes, she would have done something much worse if she hadn’t.

Being around you when she wasn’t with Cat was hard enough, because she knew she could never have you, that you’d never want her. Not if you knew. You were too smart, and too good, to ever want to be with her. Cat was easy, she didn’t ask too many questions. She’d lay there for Ellie when Ellie told her to, and she would agree to stop a conversation when it got too personal. When Ellie cried at night, and woke up sweating, she didn’t ask why. She let it go, and Ellie knew you never would have. You’d fucking hate her if you knew. She could have saved the world — and she didn’t. He didn’t let her. The wounds she had were too deep, they were clawing and tugging at her skin from the inside. Ellie was a tortured soul, and you didn’t deserve that. That’s why she left, and maybe, that’s why she was here right now.

“That’s too bad” you mumbled quietly. You did your best to make it sound genuine, and you failed miserably.

Ellie scoffed.

“Yeah”

You shifted slightly, and walked over to stand right in front of her. You met her eyes for the first time. Those stupid, beautiful emerald eyes.

Ellie looked down, and looked up at you. She swallowed deeply.

“Anyways” you sighed. “Think I’m gonna go”

“Already?” she questioned, slamming her Rum filled glass on the bar counter.

“Yeah, I’m cold and it sucks in here, so” you said, and smiled politely. It really was freezing, and talking to her like this was painful enough.

“Let me walk you” she blurted.

What?

“Huh?” walk you where? the door? you knew where it was.

She tugged at the loose string on the bottom of her button up. It was ironed, where did Ellie find and iron? Did Maria do it for her? Town hero perks?

“Let me walk you home” she repeated, her voice carrying a touch of insistence. Once again, you found yourself captivated by her burning gaze, those eyes that seemed to hold secrets yet to be unveiled.

“I can walk home alone, Ellie” You huffed, ever the stubborn.

“No” she exclaimed.

“Maria said it’s been pretty dangerous”

“I can have my own back, you know, I’m not an idiot” You scoffed. You knew she didn’t think you were an idiot, why did she have to walk you home?

“I know that — Just wanna make sure you’re safe”

“Gosh, Ellie thank you! thank you!” You said in the most high pitched voice you could fathom. “The town’s hero is at it again, everybody!” You exclaimed, slightly raising your voice, earning both of you a few curious looks from the townspeople.

Ellie wasn’t embarrassed. She was just annoyed. And she wanted to slap you in the face for being so stubborn.

She grasped your arm with an unexpected forcefulness, pulling you along as she swiftly guided you outside. In the process, you accidentally bumped into a few people, hastily muttering a string of apologetic "sorry" and "excuse me" as you hurriedly tried to navigate through the crowd. You attempted to resist her firm grip, trying to free yourself with a burst of strength, but you found yourself overpowered by her determination.

Once she managed to pull you outside, she finally released her grip on your arm, allowing you a brief respite from her firm hold.

“You are not walking me anywhere, Williams” you scoffed. What made her think you needed her help?

“You’ve always been so fucking stubborn” she turned to face you. Her hands were on her hips. Her face wore the same expression she did when you went on your first patrol together, when you insisted on going left, even though she knew you had to go right.

“I’m walking now” you stepped away, and started walking. “And if you followed me — you wouldn’t be walking me home, you’d be stalking me” you exclaimed as you backed away.

Ellie quickly followed your pace, her boots stomping on the snow covered ground.

“You are”

Step

“So fucking annoying”

This was the longest conversation you’ve had with Ellie in two whole years. It felt like nothing’s changed, except for everything.

The following ten minutes were torturous. You were walking fast, Ellie right behind you. No words were exchanged between you, the silence enveloping the crisp air as you both walked in silence. Your attention turned inward, focusing on the sensation of the cold air filling your lungs with each breath, and the soft sound of Ellie's boots pressing against the creaking snow beneath her.

You finally arrived at your place. It’s grey exterior blanketed in a pristine layer of snow. Every inch of its structure was adorned with a delicate coat of white.

You turned around to face her.

Ellie’s skin appeared slightly flushed, with a rosy tinge highlighting her cheeks, and her nose bore a noticeable reddish hue, hinting at the crisp winter air. She didn’t say a word.

You took a deep breath. She looked cold.

“Want me to make you some tea?” you questioned. You didn’t mean to let her in, and she didn’t expect you to ask. She looked surprised, her eyebrows turned slightly upwards.

“M’fine” Ellie insisted, her voice resolute despite the chill in the air. She sought warmth by tucking her hands deep into the pockets of her dark green coat.

“Jesus, Ellie — Just come inside” you urged, the concern evident in your voice.

“If walking you was stalking wouldn’t coming in be breaking and entering?” she inquired, a sarcastic tone lacing her words.

“Just —“ you uttered, your voice trailing off as you reached for the doorknob, slowly opening the door.

“Come inside”

"Fine," Ellie relented, her resolve wavering as she decided to follow in your footsteps.

The house welcomed you with its cozy warmth, though slightly disorganized in its appearance. Yet, amidst the subtle chaos, it remained a comforting sanctuary, always your safe space. Being there brought a sense of solace, as if the troubles of the outside world faded away. And with Ellie's presence by your side, an inexplicable tingling sensation spread through your being.

You proceeded to heat up some water, carefully attending to the task of preparing tea, a familiar ritual.

Ellie never knew where to sit, or where to stand, so there she was, examining every single one of your movements. The air felt thick, like you could cut the tension with a switchblade.

"Your house looks different," she murmured in a low voice, leaning against the cream-colored wall.

“Bad different?” You questioned, taking out two mugs from the cupboard.

“No, just… more stuff” she murmured.

"Well," you uttered as you gently placed the teabag into the awaiting mug. “You haven’t been here in a while, so”

Ellie hummed in response, and bit her lower lip.

“You’ve kind of changed too.” you murmured.

“Tattoos looking bigger. And you look more tired. Plus, your shirt looks ironed, so maybe you even… showered? Woah.” you teased.

“Fuck, you really are funny huh?” she said, crossing her arms.

“Always were a sucker for my jokes” you responded with a sly smile.

She didn’t mean to say what she said next, because that was like opening a pandora’s box. Or, more like, the gates to hell.

“This is the longest conversation we’ve had in years” Ellie murmured. You handed her the green colored mug, your finger brushing her’s for a second. You both flinched.

“Mhm” you took a sip from your tea. It was still so hot, it burned your tongue.

“And who’s fault is that?” You questioned, raising your eyes to meet her burning gaze. It was incredibly impulsive.

Ellie rolled her eyes. She looked baffled.

“You still don’t get it, do you? She questioned.

“Get what? that your girlfriend doesn’t like me? trust me Ellie, I get that, crystal clear.” You smiled, as you slammed your mug on the counter.

“I’m not doing this right now” she declared, her tone firm and resolute.

Oh, did that sentence burn through you.

“I think you are” you stepped forward to face her. She looked terrified, like a lost puppy. Not so “town’s hero” now. Thank god she wasn’t wearing Cat’s badge, because she would have looked ridiculous.

“I’m not” she said quietly, looking at the floor beneath her.

You felt the ever so familiar lump forming in your throat. She owed you.

“Tell me what it is exactly that I don’t get” you spat. The pent up anger from all these years finally just fucking bursted. She left you. She left you for her, your best fucking friend.

“It’s just funny how she didn’t give a shit about Jesse, or Dina, or anybody! Just fucking me, right? I’m the fucking problem?” you blurted. Your voice was shaky, filled with rage. The tears in your eyes started forming. You didn’t even know how much you were holding it inside of you, it all overflowed, at 2AM, right in your kitchen. Right where she told you she couldn’t see you anymore.

Ellie was frozen, her mouth parted slightly. She was flushed, and it showed. It wasn’t the cold weather anymore, it was you. She didn’t expect this to happen so fast. She came inside for some fucking tea.

That’s when you shoved her. And she didn’t even fucking move.

“Don’t fucking do this to me” she begged. Her voice was desperate, and shaky, and what the fuck was she hiding?

You found yourselves standing uncomfortably close to each other, the proximity palpable. The warmth of her breath gently grazed your forehead, creating a tantalizing sensation that sent a shiver down your spine.

She took a deep breath.

“What I did was bad. But — fuck, Jesse and Dina never slept over, you know that?”

The room fell quiet.

“So?” you whispered. You couldn’t even look at her.

“Don’t do this” she begged. Her eyes were glossy. She looked as if she was about to cry, too. Her chest was pressed up against yours.

“I’m not doing anything” you mumbled quietly. Her body was so warm. You felt like you were about to have a heart attack, and Ellie felt like she already did.

“If I would have stayed… I would have done something… so much worse” she whispered. Her hands were trembling.

“What would you have done?” you whispered against her. Dangerously close now. You could feel her unsteady heartbeat.

“You know” she whispered back. You saw the vein on her neck, how beautifully spattered the freckles on her skin were, like a constellation.

“Please” you begged.

That’s all it took.

Almost.

"No," she whispered, her voice barely audible. The proximity between your lips was almost intimate, an agonizingly close distance.

“Please” you begged.

Her eyes were dark, breaths unsteady and fast, like she just ran a marathon. Her chest was rising up and down. She’s dreamt of this moment, for so fucking long. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t fuck more people up. She’s done more than enough.

“You don’t know what you fucking do to me” She whispered against your skin. Her eyes were shut closed. If she didn’t see, maybe it would’ve been less wrong. If she didn’t see, maybe Cat wouldn’t either. She could go home, kiss her girlfriend good night. Walk away. But there you were, pressed up against her, making her head spin like a carousel, fogging her brain with your scent, and your lips, and all of the times she pictured you like this, helpless and begging. She never looked at Cat how she looked at you. Cat never made her feel like she could faint at any given moment. Cat was safe, she was a sunny day. You were a thunderstorm, a cloud, soaking her up. When Ellie said she would have done something so much worse, she meant that.

Cat was right when she told her to stay away, she always was. When Ellie begged Cat to stop her ramblings, Cat told her she looks at you like she’s hungry. That it’s disgusting, that she wishes it was her. She was crying, and begging, and she was right. That’s why Ellie knocked on your door that way. One person she could save.

Ellie’s hands were firmly pressed up against the wall, locking you in.

“You dont know…” she whispered.

You whimpered silently at her words. You were aching everywhere, you just needed her to do something.

“Show me” you said, and it came out more as a plead. You were begging her.

Ellie leaned in, drawing her face closer to yours, and your lips delicately brushed against each other. The electrifying touch sent a shiver down your spine, evoking a soft, involuntary moan that escaped your lips. It went straight to her heart, and then slipped right to her cunt.

Her lips were plump against yours. Just barely touching.

She delicately brushed her lips against yours, causing a gentle collision that sent a jolt of electricity through both of you. A shaky breath escaped her mouth.

“Ellie…” you whispered. Ellie, just do it. you can’t take it anymore.

She abruptly slammed her hands against the wall, causing it to tremor ever so slightly. The suddenness of the action startled you, making you jump in response.

“Shit” she huffed.

And her lips weren’t against yours anymore, neither was she.

Ellie backed away. She couldn’t.

Your lips quivered, and there it was. Her precious thunderstorm erupting.

The tears came out hot, and sticky. They ran all over your cheeks. You let out a quiet sob. Ellie was staring, her breaths uneven and her mouth agape. She almost did what shes been dreaming of doing since the moment she saw you. Almost.

your legs betrayed you, giving out completely. You crumbled down onto the floor, unable to stand any longer. With tears welling up in your eyes, you instinctively curled up, bringing your head between your legs as you tried to suppress the sobs that threatened to consume you.

It was a truly pathetic sight, Ellie towering over your quivering body. It’s been two whole years, and you missed her every single day that passed. It was gnawing at you. Seeing them hand in hand, kissing on the street, making out behind the dumpster. Thinking of Ellie hugging her at night, caressing her skin, touching her everywhere, telling her she loves her, fucking her, tasting her and not you. It should have been you. But it couldn’t be.

If only you knew that when Ellie was between her thighs, you were the only one she thought of. If only you knew Ellie had to bite her lip till it bled to stop from screaming your name. That’s why Ellie always turned off the lights, That’s why Ellie shoved Cat’s face down on the bed with her entire palm when she took her from behind. That’s why she always closed her eyes.

Her body gave up on her, too.

She sat on the cold concrete floor, trying to steady her breaths.

“Look at me” she commanded. It was breathy, and shaky, more of a plea than a real command.

You wiped your tears.

“I can’t” you whispered.

“Please” she begged.

You mustered the strength to lift your face, raising your gaze to meet hers.

“I think about you all the time” you blurted.

She huffed in response. Your soft voice was killing her. She couldn’t even respond. She just watched.

“Ellie…” you whined. The distance between you was torturous. There was so much space, and at the same time, no space at all. You could still feel her lips brushing against yours. You wished you could taste her. She yearned for that even more. She felt like something was chaining her down to the floor, holding her captive.

What you did next, is something Ellie had buried deep inside her darkest fantasies.

You delicately caressed your smooth neckline, doe eyes burning through her’s.

Ellie swallowed deeply.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled, lower than a whisper. Her voice was raspy, and her pupils were blown out. She was imagining, for sure, hallucinating, intoxicated by the picture of you being pressed up against her. It couldn’t be real.

“I need you” you whimpered.

She almost crawled right to you right then and there. Her knees were spread open in front of you. Her breath hitched in her throat. Her heart felt like it was leaping out of her chest.

“You cant” she insisted. It felt like she tried to convince herself, and not you. You couldn’t. There’s no way.

“I want you” you whispered, lowering your hand to caress your breasts.

Something took over you. Being pent up with frustration for years birthed such a desperate sight, she couldn’t fathom it.

She grunted in response. Do that again and she’d lose her fucking mind.

You cupped your breast.

Ellie threw her head against the wall. She forgot how to breathe. Her nostrils were flared, and she almost slapped herself in order to convince her that this was real. This was happening.

“Holy shit” she wheezed.

“Please” you begged, and squeezed your breast forcefully. Your nippled hardened against the material, so you gave them a twist, sending a bolt of electricity right through your clothed cunt.

Ellie’s mouth was agape. She was transfixed, mesmerized. Her cheeks grew more red by the second. It was so fucking wrong, she almost told you to stop, but she couldn’t. Her voice felt dry and her brain was buzzing. Her ex best friend was so desperate for her she couldn’t even help herself.

The image of Cat went through her head. Cat seeing, walking in. Cat trembling and crying, telling her she told her so. Cat screaming at her that she’s an awful person, that she hurt her, That she should burn in hell.

Then, you took your shirt off.

And Cat was gone.

Her eyes were darting from your tits to your needy eyes. You were giving her that look she only saw in her dreams. That desperate, pathetic twinkle in your eye. She saw a girl look like that in an old porno she found. Ever since, that picture of your face replacing the actresses burned through her memory. She knew it was for her, you were showing her, but she looked like she wasn’t supposed to see, a peeping tom, a pervert. Her cunt twitched inside her tight black boxers. Cat never made her cunt feel like this.

The dainty lace bra adorned your body. you looked like an angel, eyes red from crying, cheeks still wet, chest rising up and down. She wanted to ruin you.

You stopped for a second, looked for a sign to keep going.

The room was silent, the only noises that muttered were your soft whimpers and Ellie’s harsh, uneven breaths.

“Take it off” she whispered. You almost couldn’t believe she said that. You nodded pathetically. She always knew you’d be like this. She imagined you nodding your head frantically, kneeling beneath her and undoing her belt, way too many times she wouldn’t dare to admit. Her heavy breaths were a confession to all of her sins.

You unclasped your bra, your tits spilling out of it with a sigh of relief.

Ellie was hypnotized, fully staring. She remembered the first tine she saw you in a bikini. Jesse noticed she was staring, and he gave her some advice. “Look at the ground or the sky, pretend there’s something super interesting going on there”

She didn’t need to pretend now.

“Fuck” she grunted, feeling her cunt twitch inside her briefs. Her mouth was agape, she wanted those nipples between her teeth. Her tongue slightly moved involuntarily inside her mouth, imitating the kitten licks she’d give your tits if she could. It was truly pathetic. Thank god you couldn’t see. Her fists were clenched, and she was forcing her feet onto the ground. If she pretended something was pulling her in, she wouldn’t crawl towards you and take you like she always wanted.

You toyed with your nipples, rolling them between your fingers, almost as if you read her mind.

“Spit on ‘em” Ellie demanded desperately.

“Ellie…” You whimpered, her voice was making you grow wetter by the second. If you took your pants off, she could see the wet patch that soaked through your panties, making them almost sheer. You were almost embarrassed, but it was too late now.

“Do it” she commanded.

“Do it for me” Ellie begged. She brought a hand up to cup at her perky clothed breast. She imagined it was you, your tits between her fingers. She wanted to squeeze the fat, take it in, spit on it, latch her mouth onto your nipples, slap them as you ride her thigh, or her face, or her whatever the fuck you wanted.

The saliva ran down your chest, droplets flowing at an incredibly slow pace, each and every one of them teasing Ellie, mocking her. Almost there, almost reaching your sensitive nipples. When it finally did, Ellie was breathing so heavy she almost wheezed.

You rubbed the spit all over your tits, glazing your nipples with the liquid, coating them shiny with your saliva - all for her. You were staring at ellie with your mouth open. You moaned at the sensation, making Ellie shift and slightly slide off the wall. She was gone.

“Feels so good” you whined.

“Fucking shit” She huffed. She bucked her hips, searching for that friction. She didn’t do it yet, but oh she will.

“Mhhm” you hummed, a high pitched moan escaping your lips.

Ellie almost went cross eyed.

“Need you, please” You whispered while massaging your breasts. You were squeezing the fat harshly, almost punishing yourself for being such a dirty, desperate girl.

“Show me” She begged, in between breaths.

“Show me how bad - shit”

You cupped your cunt, your hand feeling warm over it. Your clit twitched. Ellie let out a moan so deep, you almost came right then and there, all over your panties.

You circled your clit through your pants, teasing Ellie without even realizing. I can do it, and you can’t! It felt like you were mocking her.

“Take that shit off — fuck” she huffed. Her hand was resting on her thigh, pinching it. Stay down. Don’t crawl, don’t fuck, don’t cheat.

In a matter of six seconds, your pants were on the floor. You crossed your legs together in embarrassment. What if she saw how wet you were?

“Spread” She commanded.

You looked at her stupidity.

“Spread ‘em, please” Ellie begged.

You spread your legs slowly, revealing your soaked white cotton panties to Ellie. Her eyes rolled back at the sight.

“Fucking shit” she grunted.

Her hand met her own cunt and gave it a stinging slap, followed by a desperate grunt. She moved her veiny hand up and down, almost grabbing her pussy. She felt perverted, and sickly, and so, so good. The friction of her hand on her cunt was followed by a string of deep moans, chanting your name like a prayer. She didn’t even know how bad she needed it.

“Wider” She commanded.

You spread your legs so wide your thighs almost hurt. When Ellie saw that wet spot, she lost it.

“So wet” she whispered in disbelief.

“Show me that pussy” She whimpered.

“Show me that fucking pussy”

You moved your panties to the side, the cold air hitting your clit making you flinch. You swore you could cum just from clenching in and out, listening to the obscenities leaving her mouth.

“Holy shit” She moaned, and cupped her cunt forcefully.

“So pretty” she whispered. It was even prettier than she thought, glistening folds and a little puffy button poking out. She needed to see inside, everywhere.

“Spread it with your fingers” She grunted. You parted your lips with your pointer finger and your thumb, wide open for her. She saw how bad you were clenching, begging for something inside. Your puffy clit moved with every pull.

“Wanna fuck you so bad” she groaned, it was killing her.

“Need to see you Ellie, please, please” you begged.

With that whine leaving your mouth, Ellie unzipped her jeans, and pulled down her boxers slowly, revealing you of the most beautiful sight youve ever seen in your life.

Her thighs were creamy, a mound of soft, dark hair adorning her pubis. Her slick was shining on her milky inner thighs from the boxer briefs she took off slightly brushing on them. She was so wet, it almost glistened like a far away star, deep in the galaxy. Her mouth was parted and she looked famished.

Tiny droplets of sweat were shining on her forehead, making her hair stick to her face. She was a panting, desperate mess.

You couldn’t help but slide your hand up your thigh, and started running your fingers through your glistening folds. Finally. “Oh god, Ellie” you moaned. You wished those were her fingers, if you could, if you only could.

Ellie moaned like a porn star at the sight. You thought she might tease herself, might play with her cunt before doing something. She proved you wrong.

She slid two long fingers inside her aching hole, squelching sounds filling the air. She pumped them in and out, fucking herself like a madwoman. Her hungry eyes were fixated on your fingers caressing your needy cunt. Her mouth was watering, borderline drooling, soft “ah!”s escaping her lips.

You circled your clit slowly, and felt your lower stomach leap at the contact. You lapped your slick with your middle finger, and sucked on it. It was obscene. Ellie’s cunt twitched. She almost came.

“Good girl” She groaned at the sight.

“Faster” She commanded, a deep moan escaping her lips.

You fastened your pace, and she was looking you directly in the eyes while pumping her fingers inside her cunt. With every pump, you could see a milky cream coating her fingers, the sight alone made your puffy clit ache with pleasure.

It was so wrong, and obscene, and pathetic, and you almost came.

“Fucking shit — fuck yourself, show me, fuck yourself” She whimpered, fastening her pace as well. The moans that left her mouth were deep, bursting from the inside of her soul.

Her fucking ex best friend.

“E — Ellie m’close” you whined, inserting a finger inside your soaking hole.

“Can see how fucking tight you are - fuck”

“Faster, do it f’me baby faster” She groaned.

The harmony of your moans intertwined, creating an intoxicating symphony.

“Ellie — gonna cum, fuck” You babbled, drool running down your chin. You were so close, eyes rolling to the back of your Ellie filled brain.

“Please fuck me, please fuck me”

“Cu — Fuck, shit, m’cuming” Ellie grunted.

“Say my fucking name” She demanded, her words coming out so sloppy and ridiculous.

“Ellie — Ellie! Please!”

Ellie almost screamed. She wanted to tell you to come for her, wanted to hear the noises youd make, see your face twist and the screams of her name, but she couldn’t help herself, the sight of your desperate cunt and the look on your face, so stupid, so cumdrunk, so pathetic, begging her to fuck you - brought her to the edge. It errupted inside of her like a volcano, pumping and squeezing on her fingers. She rode her orgasm until it tickled and hurt.

When you came, Ellie almost shed a tear.

This wasn’t just wrong.

This was vile.

She pulled up her pants up and left without saying a word, too embarrassed to look you in the face.

When she got home, Cat was sound asleep on her bed. She gave her a delicate kiss on the cheek, and whispered;

“I’m so sorry”

[bigwishes]

Pretty Boy's Mistake

Kye was you average university athlete, mainly there to get a degree a generic sports degree to get a job as a personal trainer in the high end gyms, he rarely went to his lecture but always got outstanding grades. It wasn't that he wasn't passionate about sports or health, in fact he had taught himself pretty much everything the university had to offer before he had even gotten there. He was only there for a piece of paper. He spent most of his time in the gym, lifting weights whilst also training some guys on the side for some cash in hand work but he always made sure to put his own workouts first. His body was almost perfect and he loved every inch of it.

Although he wished he could be bigger. He saw some of the guys in the gym, how their tank tops looked like they could burst at any moment. One time he even saw a guys tank split because of an insane chest pump. He loved huge guys, wanted to be fucking huge like them. He would picture his gym crush and how his entire car would bounce and wobble when he squeezed his massive frame inside, he wanted a guy like that in his bed, he wanted to be bigger than that but a body like that would probably take him another 15 years to build and he wanted to enjoy and flaunt that size before he left uni.

Kye was in the gym when he saw a huge lumbering giant walk in. The man looked like a superhero right out of a comic and something possessed Kye out of no where. He followed the huge meathead to the locker room.

Kye stood there seeing the giant block almost all the lockers on a wall his back was so wide and Kye got nervous, a lump formed in his throat and he spat out what he had to say.

"so...how do I get as big as you bro"

the massive dude turned around looking around the locker room checking to see if he was talking to someone else, he let out a thunderous chuckle.

"you talkin to me pretty boy?"

Kye grew red in the face "y-yeah man, look I been lifting for a few years and I really wanna get fucking huge like you man"

"aaa just keep at it guy, youll be massive like mean real soon"

"how old are you?"

"Im 22 bro"

"22!" Kye yelled "bro im almost 23 how the fuck you get so big man, you gotta tell me your secret"

"hmmm, look, you're kinda cute bro so, I'll let you in on a little secret, for a trade of course"

"Anything man, anything, Ive tried everything I know with diet and routine and I'm just not swelling up like other guys are"

"I'll give you my secret if you tell me why you wanna be so big, annnnd, for a date" the large man raise his eyebrow and walked closer to Kye.

Kye's heart started pounded as he imagined what it'd be like to have his skull crushed by the giant bodybuilder's monstrous thighs

"o-okay, ummm, phew, is it hot in here?" kye tripped and stumbled over his words like it was his first time ever talking to a guy.

"so, why you wanna be big pretty boy?"

Suddenly the man had is arms leaning on the doorframe behind Kye forming an arch over him looking down at him.

"eer, well, I-I like size and, I like guys with size and I wanna be big y-ya know" Kye tried to avoid eye contact as the massive brute leaned in

"So you like big guys hey? why don't you keep your lil jock bod, let a mountain like myself have fun with you"

"Because I ain't no bodies bottom bitch, believe me man, if I was as big as you, I'd of already throw you against the wall and you'd be beggin for it"

The massive meat head in front of him bit his lip

"so you promise, once you're as big as me you'll be tossing me around?"

Kye smirked trying to keep up the confident façade

"yeah bro, but gotta warn you, I'm already a catch, once guys see me with arms tearing out of my shirt and my huge muscled fat ass squeezed into tight gym shorts you'll probably have some competition"

"oh I like a cocky meathead"

the man turned around walking back to his gym bag pulling out a small vial of orange fluid, he handed it to kye

"I'm Jason by the way"

"What is this?"

"My secret mixture, drink it man, it'll make you real big...and give you that fat juicy ass you want"

Kye instantly downed the drink and gave Jason a wink.

"Alright, Im gonna go workout man"

"See you tomorrow pretty boy" Jason laughed as Kye walked out.

Kye was stepping into his car, having to stop to catch his breath, he worked harder than he ever had. He knew the vitamin shot he was given wasn't going to do anything but it was at least energising. Kye felt a strange tingling, as the veins on his pelvis swelled with blood pumping downwards. Kye gritted his teeth feeling like he was about to get hard and suddenly he watched as his package swelled and doubled in size in his pants.

Kye jumped in his car feeling his thighs and arms swell. Like his pump was subsiding but his muscles weren't shrinking down to normal size.

He drove home, gritting his teeth and occasionally grunting the entire way.

Kye stepping of of his car feeling his shirt tight around his chest and arms. He let out a tired sigh feeling strange and walked inside. Kye saw himself in the mirror, his shirt tightly pulled across body. He pulled off his shirt seeing his abs slightly stretched out, rubbing his stomach watches his package swell again.

UUUUUGGGGhhhhhh He groaned.

"W-what the fuck is going on"

Kye watches as his bulge swelled outwards in his pants straining against the fabric, as his stomach swelled outwards with it.

"W-WHAT THE FUCK MY, MY ABS"

Kye grabbed his stomach feeling it strain

UUUUUUUGGGGHHHH-UUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRPPPPP

Kye let out a painful groan that turned into a belch as tears started to form in his eyes, his perfect 6 pack was gone swelled out like he had been bulking all year round.

Kye couldn't hold back the belches escaping his mouth and with each on his body changed. His arms swelled bigger, his thighs swells bigger.

He watched helplessly in the mirror unable to stop the changes, no matter how hard he pushed his stomach trying to get it to shrink the only thing he managed to do was push out another belch. Kye mercilessly began scratching at his jaw and neck feeling an annoying itch take over. He was too busy watching as his body swelled up to notice the changes in his face. Kye finally looked up from his bloated stomach to see himself, hairy, big and bulky.

"WHAT THE FUCK, I" Kye pinched the side of his waist in disbelief

BUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRPPPPPP

Kye's massive meaty hand felt is muscled gut vibrate as he belched. Feeling a surge of change again, but he didn't see himself get any bigger in the mirror, he heard a slight ripping noise and looked around. Turning to the side he saw the fabric of his gym shorts tight, torn and ripped over his massive muscular ass. His face turned bright red.

"Oh god..I'm...uuggh I'm like a fat bear"

Kye's stomach grumbled and he made his way to the kitchen poking and patting his gut hoping by some mirecal it would shrink and turn back into a six pack.

Kye sat in the gym locker room trying to hide his new burly body under bagging clothing. Embarrassed and hoping Jason would walk in at any moment. After about an hour Jason walked in.

"H-Hey Jason"

"Oh hey Pretty Boy, hows it feel bein big"

"I" Kye couldn't even finish his sentence before letting out a monstrous belch

"I didn't ask for this"

"yeah you did bro, you wanted to be big"

"AND NOW LOOK AT THIS, WHERE ARE MY ABS IM TUBBY" Kye lifted his shirt and poked at the muscled slab

"Man you aint tubby, you bulky, thick muscle"

"But I wanted my abs bro, I wanted to look like some pro bodybuilder not like some kinda burping werewolf"

Kye rubbed his gut cocking his mouth open belching causing Jason to laugh. Kye's face turned bright red

"Dude stop laughing and fucking do something, uuuggghhh"

"alright bro, quit the complaining I might have something for you"

"Anything is better than this man"

Jason handed Kye a vial filled with bright pink liquid

UUUURpp "so, this'll fix me?"

"Oh man, it'll give you the perfect body"

Kye looked at it suspiciously feeling the concrete wall he had for a stomach. He closed his eyes and downed, a few moments passed and Kye didn't feel much different, when suddenly the familiar sensation rose up from his gut to his throat.

UUUUUHHGG-UUUUUURRRRRPPPP

Kye's eyes widen and his face turned white

"WHA-UUUUUURRRPPPP DID-UUUUURRRRRRPP YOU GIV- UUUURRRPP ME?!"

Kye tried to speak more but he struggled to form a full sentence from his constant belching

"Looking good man" Jason laughed

Kye, felt is rock hard bloated gut and heard the sound of tearing fabric as his muscles bulged out of his shit, soon he was left standing there in the gym locker room in nothing but his underwear.

Kye looked at himself in the mirror disappointed by his huge muscle gut, he cocked his mouth open and belched.

Jason let out a booming laugh "bro you look like you take roids and smash 6 protein shakes hourly"

"bro why'd you do this" Kye sheepishly asked

"because you wanted to me big"

"then why not make me like you, why give me this huge gu-UUUUURRP"

"Coz you were cocky, and I find it hot when cocky guys get taken down a peg"

"oh" kye smiled "so now you've gotten you kick I can go back right?"

"nah, you were a pretty boy jock, now you can enjoy being a bulky cunt"

Kye went to walk away from the mirror, hearing his underwear start to rip around is massive muscled ass. That'll teach him to take stuff from strangers in the locker room.

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 I, CARRION

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

SUMMARY: the day of the event has arrived and dazai is second guessing everything, but it's too late for him to back out now.{wordcount: 12k; fem!reader; romance & tragedy}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: PART FOUR wow guys we're really getting into the meat of the fic now. HAHAH this is the chapter i had to split into two parts, initially it was going to be one big one but then it would've been a whopping 23k words and that's a bit much even for me. i didn't want to cross the 20k realm HAHAHH. anyway, this chapter really was a pleasure to write, the second scene was my favorite but the ending was SOOOO close to usurping it

GENERAL WARNINGS: again, i'll just leave this warning on every chapter - dazai struggles a lot with disassociation/derealization & losing himself in the pages of the book. as always please let me know if i forgot any warnings

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

“Gin-chan, I’m so nervous.” 

You pace around Dazai’s penthouse anxiously, twisting your fingers in front of your body. The event is taking place tomorrow night. You still don’t have an outfit for it—Dazai told you not to worry about it, you’re still worrying about it because what does that even mean? You don’t know what to expect from the event, and Gin is evasive when you ask her about what will happen, just keeps telling you that it’ll be fine as long as you stay with Dazai.

“There’s no reason to be nervous,” Gin says, as she always does, still tapping away at her laptop. Glasses hang off the bridge of her nose and there are dark circles beneath her eyes. You feel a bit ashamed about constantly going on about your nerves when you know damn well she, Dazai and all of the other executives of his company have been working nonstop the past few days trying to finish preparations. “Dazai-san will be with you the whole time, and if he has to talk business, someone will sit with you until he can get back so you’re not feeling awkward.”

Somehow, you think that might be even more awkward because you doubt a random person is going to want to babysit you while Dazai is busy, but you don’t voice your thoughts, instead just withering as you circle the large room for the sixth time in the past five minutes. 

You’ve hardly seen Dazai all week. You don’t really mind, you know he’s swamped with work and you’ve been keeping yourself busy going out cafe hopping and shopping. Gin comes with you when she can, but it’s usually Nakajima Atsushi or Tachihara Michizo that joins you—Gin had introduced you to the two security guards a week ago when she’d been too busy to come with you to a cafe downtown. You don’t mind the company but you can’t help but wonder why Dazai is so insistent that someone comes with you.

Well. You can’t help but wonder about a lot of things, really. You’re pretty certain that Dazai is still hiding something major from you. You don’t know a lot about business, and you especially don’t know anything about his business, but something isn’t right. You’re not stupid and everyone is not as slick as they think themselves to be, you see how tense and anxious people get when you mention him to them, more so than the average worker would be at the mere mention of their boss, and everyone in the entire damn building is armed, even though they clearly try to hide it whenever you’re in the area. 

You and your friends have joked about the uber wealthy before, and how no one above a certain tax bracket obtains their wealth without some sort of blood money; you’re about 99% sure that’s what’s taking place here too, and it would certainly explain all of the secrecy. More so than trade secrets at least, you feel a bit dumb for that to have even been an explanation in your mind. You just don’t know the specifics. You don’t know if you want to know the specifics, you think you’d prefer to remain ignorant because 1) you definitely don’t want to have any sort of culpability, not when you’re on path to graduate school and hopefully a very prestigious job with the government, and 2) … you don’t want to face the reality of what that would mean. 

You like Dazai. More than like him. You’ve been slowly coming to terms with the fact that you really, truly care for him, and if you end up learning the… specifics of his job, then you’re going to be forced into making a decision you don’t want to make: preserving your future and morals or risking them for him. And you’re not going to sit around and claim to be some upstanding, virtuous person. You’re not. But you are ambitious, and you’ve had your mind set on your future since you learned how to pick up a pen and write. You’ve worked your entire life to get where you are now, slaved your way through a prestigious undergraduate school in Japan and spent months preparing for the entrance exams for graduate school, only to what? Throw it all away for some man?

God, you almost feel sick. Distantly, you wonder how awful of a person you must be for the threat to your future success to be the main reason why you’re questioning yourself, and not the fact that it’s very likely that Dazai and his conglomerate have some sort of business with Japan’s underground, maybe even direct dealings with the mafia itself. 

You pause from where you’re pacing around the room, eyes widening a bit as another realization hits you. You had thought it was odd that Dazai and Gin and all of the executives of the conglomerate have been so stressed and anxious over an event that they’re not even hosting, but what if… Your throat spasms a bit as you swallow, wondering if Dazai is about to bring you not to an event hosted by their rival, but to an event hosted by the mafia. You don’t think he would put you in danger like that, you don’t want to think he would put you in danger like that and you wonder if you’re just sending yourself down a spiral of unnecessary paranoia. 

But it doesn’t make sense. Dazai is enamored by you, and you don’t think you’re being conceited by saying that because he has made it abundantly clear. There’s no way he would ever put you in danger like that. Not unless… you feel a bit green remembering his reaction to you saying that you’d go out on your own and stay with your friend the weekend of the event. You could feel the anxiety radiating off of him for a split second before he asked you to come with him. You also remember how he always makes sure someone is with you when you go out, and god, you swear you’re not a conspiracy theorist but nothing is making sense when you look at it through your rose-tinted lenses but looking at it through these lenses. The lenses of a man who is obviously smitten with you, and who might have dealings with the mafia—of course he wouldn’t want you to go out on your own because he’d be scared that you might be targeted as a means to get to him.

Oh, you feel dizzy. What have you gotten yourself into?

“Are you okay?” Gin is looking up at you, brows furrowed in concern. “You look a little sick.”

“I’m fine,” you say, but the words sound pathetic even to your own ears and you know Gin doesn’t believe you from the way she tilts her head to the side to study you.

Luckily, you’re saved by the bell. Literally. 

Your head snaps to the side as the elevator dings, and ordinarily, you would be ecstatic because who else would be coming up to the penthouse besides Dazai and while you’ve certainly missed him over the past week with how busy he’s been, you’re not sure if you’re ready to see him right now with the way your thoughts have just spiraled, because you think you might blurt something out that you can’t take back.

But, for better or for worse, it is not Dazai that enters the penthouse.

“Good morning, ladies,” a familiar voice croons as the elevator doors slide open. Your eyes light up as you whip around, eyes falling upon a face you haven’t seen in almost two weeks. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Albatross!” you say, excited, a smile splitting your face, because yes, even knowing about the possible affiliation with the mafia, you’re still excited to see the blonde—he’s never been anything but sweet to you, and he’s really the only one besides Gin and Chuuya who doesn’t treat you weirdly because of your relationship with Dazai. 

“D’aw, look at it, Lippmann, told you the doll would still remember me,” Albatross grins, dark glasses hanging on the bridge of his nose as he tosses you a wink and then looks back toward the elevator.

Your gaze follows his, and your eyes fall upon a vaguely familiar person stepping out of the elevator and into the penthouse, carrying a few boxes. Pale hair cut into a bob, a pretty, androgynous face, dressed to the nines in a light purple waistcoat and matching pants—where have you seen him before? Wait-

“You’re-!” you begin, eyes wide and lips parting in shock.

“Walter Lippmann,” the man greets you with a kind smile and soft eyes, you feel a bit flustered, you can hardly meet his gaze. “Everybody just calls me Lippmann though.”

You try to speak, but you’re a bit starstruck—the last thing you’d expected was for a movie star to step into the penthouse. You’re looking between Albatross and Gin and then hesitantly back at Lippmann as you try to figure out what’s going on. 

Albatross cackles. “Looks like she’s gotta crush, Lippmann. Better not let the boss find out, he’ll get jealous.”

“Albatross,” you complain, hands flying to cover your hot face. “Not true, I’m just surprised. Am I allowed to be surprised?”

“Yeah, sure, doll, that’s it,” Albatross says, clearly not believing you at all as he throws himself onto the couch next to Gin, looking up at you. “The boss asked us to pick up a dress for you. Go try it on, I’m going to raid his liquor cabinet while you do—if he asks, you better take the blame.”

You see Gin roll her eyes. “You will not raid his liquor cabinet, Albatross,” she says firmly, but the man only winks at her.

You turn your attention back to Lippmann, who’s carrying the dress in a garment bag, a shoe box tucked under his other arm. He gives you a small smile and then motions for you to follow him; you’re still starstruck as you follow him into Dazai’s bedroom, pointedly ignoring the way Albatross snickers. 

You watch as Lippmann hangs the garment bag up on the closet, placing the shoebox down on the bed. He turns toward you after and says, “Try it on and make sure it fits properly. And make sure you like it.”

You nod, lips parting to speak but no words leave your lips. You look up at the garment bag, down to the shoes, and back to Lippmann and then you ask, “How do you… how do you know Dazai?” 

Lippmann gives you another gentle smile, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. You notice, a bit curiously, that he seems to take a moment before he speaks, as if choosing his words carefully. 

“I knew Dazai’s father,” he says after a few seconds. “I work with the Mori Corporation sometimes regarding press and political matters. Like a spokesperson when Dazai is unable to.”

Hm, you think to yourself before nodding, a movie star as a spokesperson for a corporation, that’s a bit odd, isn’t it?

Your brows furrow slightly as you try to fit the new knowledge in with all of the rest you’ve put together over the past few weeks but it’s just another jagged puzzle piece that’s not fitting in anywhere.

“I’m a huge fan of your movies,” you finally tell him, rubbing the back of your neck as you toss him a sheepish smile. “Like, no joke, almost cried when you had your discussion panel for The Good Society three months ago because it was two days before my entrance exam to grad school so I couldn’t go.”

Lippman laughs, pale cheeks flushing as he looks down at the ground before back up at you. “Honestly, you didn’t miss out. The whole panel was a mess, and the AC broke twenty minutes before, so it was ridiculously hot.”

You don’t really know what to say to that, cursing the fact that you are 1) still half dazed on top of 2) already being naturally awkward, but Walter Lippmann is Walter Lippmann, so of course he knows just what to say and do.

He nods to the dress that he hung up on the closet. “Try it on and then give us a show,” he says, winking at you before he makes his way out of Dazai’s bedroom back into the other room with Albatross and Gin.

You sigh when you’re alone again, tilting your head up to look at the ceiling for a moment, wondering what your life has become before you make your way over to the dress. You unzip the garment bag, curious to see what Dazai had picked for you, and your eyes shoot open when you see the red gown within the bag. Smooth and silky, off-the-shoulder, it’s probably the most expensive thing you’ve ever laid your eyes upon; you feel like you shouldn’t even touch it, much less put it on. 

But Lippmann and Albatross and Gin are out there waiting, you can hear them talking through the door, so you force yourself to gingerly pull it off of the hanger, careful to not be too rough with the material. It doesn’t take you too long to get your clothes off and the dress on, but when you do, you can hardly bring yourself to move away from the mirror. 

You look beautiful. You do. The dress is a perfect fit, it compliments your skin, it compliments your hair. You look beautiful, but you feel like a fraud, like a clown in a ball gown, hoping that the beauty of the dress would draw attention from the fact that it’s not meant for someone like you. 

You don’t know how long you stand there, staring at your reflection. Too long, evidently, because you hear a sharp knock at the door and Lippman’s concerned voice asking if you’ve gotten the dress on.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “I’m dressed.”

You hear the door to Dazai’s bedroom creak open but you don’t turn to look.

“I think this costs more than my student loans,” you breathe out, staring at yourself in the mirror. You smooth your hands over the silky material, eyes catching the way it clings to you perfectly. “God, where the hell did he get something like this? It’s like it was made for me.”

“Probably was,” Lippmann says from where he’s leaning against the doorframe, lips quirked up into a half smile as he tosses you another wink. “Perks of dating one of the richest men in Japan.”

You let out a noise caught between a whimper and a laugh, suddenly feeling very, very out of place.

Lippmann clearly catches your sudden change in attitude and his brows furrow. “Do you not like it?” he asks curiously. “There’s plenty of time for him to send for something else.”

“No, no,” you hurry to say, voice catching. Although you’re unsure how twenty-hour hours constitutes ‘plenty of time’, but you digress. “It’s perfect. It is.”

“What’s the issue then?”

“I just…” you trail off, eyes lingering in the mirror. “I feel silly, I guess. How obvious is it that I’ve never worn anything like this before?” 

“Silly?” Lippmann asks, amused, peeling off the doorframe to make his way over to you. You swallow thickly as he straightens your posture and then uses two fingers to make you raise your chin. “You look stunning. Like a woman who belongs on the arm of the most influential man in Japan… Like a woman who doesn’t need to be on the arm of any man.”

Your face feels a bit hot as you let out a puff of laughter. “Now you’re exaggerating.”

“I certainly am not,” Lippmann says firmly, taking a step back. “You’re only getting in your head. From what Chuuya has told me about you, you’re more than suited to outwit and outclass anyone in attendance at that event.”

Your face feels hotter now, smiling as you roll your eyes. “Flatterer,” you say, but you feel a bit better, chest lighter as your gaze turns back to look at the mirror. “... Do you-”

A sharp whistle from the door draws your attention from Lippmann; there’s a lecherous smile on Albatross’s face as he leans against the frame and looks at you, glasses hanging off the bridge of his nose. “Damn, if you weren’t the boss’s girl…”

Gin slaps him hard on the back of his head, glaring at him before turning a small smile to you. “You look beautiful,” she says softly. “He’ll be speechless when he sees you tomorrow.”

Your throat feels tight as your lashes flutter, a smile on your lips as you look down at the ground. Even though the concerns of your realizations from before still weigh heavily in the back of your mind, you can’t help but feel a bit giddy at the thought of seeing Dazai tomorrow.

The giddiness is long gone.

You still haven’t gotten dressed.

You’re sitting at the edge of Dazai’s bed in your bra and panties, staring at the wall with your knees pulled to your chest. Your dress is hanging on the closet on the far side of the room, heels sitting on the floor beneath it. You’ve done your makeup and you put your earrings on already—pretty, dangly diamonds that are the most expensive thing you own, the last thing your brother gifted you before he cut you off entirely. You need to be getting dressed, Dazai will be up here any second to pick you up to leave for the event, but you just can’t bring yourself to put the dress on, anxiety eating away at you.

It’s not even because of the realization you’d come to yesterday, it’s because you think you’re about to make a fool out of yourself. Even if you’re wrong about the theory that you might be heading into an event hosted by the mafia and their associates, you’re still heading into an event that’s going to be attended by people who are much wealthier than you, and you already feel out of place and you’re not even there. 

The dress is beautiful, but you think you’ll look like a clown in it, everyone will know that you’re not from the same sector of life as them with a single glance. Lippmann’s words from yesterday are in one ear out the other now that you’re closer to the actual time of the event.

You’re so lost in your thoughts that you don’t even hear the bing of the elevator arriving at the penthouse, and you don’t notice Dazai until he pushes open the cracked door to step into the bedroom. And you feel like you should be embarrassed sitting half naked on his bed, rather than being dressed and waiting for him, but you can’t muster it, eyes dragging up from the wall to land on his concerned expression. 

And he’s a sight, you think. He’s so handsome. Absently, you think he might be more handsome than the last time you saw him but you think that’s a bit ridiculous because he hasn’t changed at all. He’s wearing the same long black coat and burgundy scarf, but the sleek, dark suit he wears beneath it is different, more expensive than all of the others that he’s donned the past few months you’ve known him. 

His lips are turned downward as he approaches you, placing a blue box down on his dresser, dark eye soft with concern, and you also can’t help but notice that he still wears the bandages around the upper left side of his face, covering his eye. You want to know what’s beneath them desperately, but you can’t bring yourself to ask, hoping that he’ll show you on his own terms.

He stands in front of you, and you rest your chin on your knees as you stare forward, staring at his abdomen instead of looking up at his face. But he doesn’t let your gaze linger there, bringing his right hand to cup your cheek so he can gently lift your face upward, forcing you to meet his eyes. You can feel the rough edges of his bandages scraping against your skin, and you instinctively lean into his touch. You try to remind yourself of all of the realizations you’d come to yesterday, tell yourself to not be as at ease with him, at least have some semblance of your guard up, but you fail.

“What’s wrong?” he asks you softly, letting you lean into his touch as he brings his other hand up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “Are you okay?”

And you feel selfish, you realize, as you try to figure out what to tell him. You can’t even fathom the amount of money he spent on your dress and the shoes, and here you are being a baby because you’re self conscious. You don’t even want to reply to him, so you try to turn your face away but he doesn’t let you.

“Tell me,” he says quietly. “I’ll fix it, whatever it is.”

“It’s silly,” you finally breathe out, averting your gaze to the ground as you let your eyes flutter shut, turning your face in his hand to kiss his palm before leaning back into it. “I’m being a baby, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not silly if it has you upset,” Dazai tells you, and he kneels down in front of you to catch your gaze again and briefly, you think it’s absurd that you have such a powerful man at your whims like this, kneeling before you, willing to do anything to make sure that you’re content and happy. It makes your throat swell a bit, those inferior feelings rising back to your chest with a vengeance, because what the hell did you do to deserve this? There’s nothing special about you. “Tell me what’s wrong, let me help.”

“I just don’t understand.” 

Oh my god, your voice cracks, you can feel your eyes go a bit misty, and instantly, Dazai’s concerned gaze is narrowing, as if trying to calculate what exactly is the source of your distress so he can remove it, and it only makes you want to cry more because what did you do to deserve all of this? 

If you’re right about all of the assumptions you made the other day, and Dazai is bringing you to this event even though by all means he should not because there’s likely going to be a lot of shady business occurring that could incriminate him and all of the other people at this event, then why? Why would he risk that just for a girl he met a few months ago? You can’t fathom it.

God, you know better than anyone the effects imposter syndrome can have on a person in school, but the last thing you expected was to be dealing with it in love too.

Love, the word makes your stomach churn because you do love him, you realize, as he stares up at you desperately trying to figure out what’s wrong so he can fix it. And how scary is that, considering only twenty-four hours ago you came to the realization that he’s very likely involved in the underground, in some way or another, and you had to come to terms with the fact that you’d have to choose between your future and a man. But he’s not just a man, he’s a man that you love in spite of everything you’ve put together.

A tear spills over your cheek and Dazai’s gaze becomes alarmed as he instantly wipes it away with his thumb before caressing your cheek gently. 

“What don’t you understand?” he presses quietly. “Talk to me.”

Where do you fucking start?

You want to cry even more but you force yourself not to, you can’t afford to let your makeup get anymore messed up than it already is. Instead you sniffle a bit and try to blink away the tears. 

“This,” you finally say, and your voice cracks again, you take a wet breath. Dazai’s lips part a bit, as if he wants to speak but he’s not sure what to say, brows furrowing. “There’s nothing special about me, Dazai, and I don’t understand why you’ve gone to the lengths that you have for me. Meeting me at that club every Friday as if you’re not always swamped with work, indulging me whenever I want to do things. You gave me a place to stay after only knowing me for a few weeks, gave up your own room, your own bed, so I could be comfortable while you slept at your desk. You’ve made sure people are always with me so I never get bored or lonely. You’ve given me literally everything I could possibly ask for and I’ve just been freeloading off of you for two and a half weeks now. Now, I’m going to go with you to this event and end up embarrassing you because I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb compared to everyone else there. They’ll know I don’t belong there and I just-”

You cut yourself off, and you want to avert your gaze from Dazai’s but you can’t bring yourself to. Instead, you watch as something akin to amusement flashes through his eye. He takes one of your hands into his and brings it up to his lips, eye sliding shut for a moment as he kisses your knuckles. You let out a shaky puff of air as his lips linger for a moment before he looks up at you again through his lashes.

“Let me help you get dressed,” he murmurs, and you look down at the ground now as you nod, letting him help you to your feet and lead you over to where the dress is hanging up on the closet door.

He pulls it off the hanger and guides you into it, pulling it up and adjusting it so that it covers you properly. He steps behind you, and you realize that he also has you standing in front of the floor length mirror set up on his closet door. You sniffle a bit again as you look at yourself in the mirror. 

Your makeup looks a bit smudged beneath your eye from the tears gathering at your lash line, but somehow, you still look beautiful. You think it’s only because of the dress, the way it clings to your body so nicely and brightens all of your features. You take in another shuddered gulp of air when you feel Dazai begin to zip up the back of your dress slowly, each brush of his fingers against your skin lights your nerves on fire, and once he finally has it zipped to the top, he kisses the nape of your neck, hands falling to your hips to caress them gently. Your eyes flutter shut as you lean back against him, his comforting hold settling your turbulent emotions.

“I met you at the club every Friday because you were the only relief I had from reality,” he finally says, resting his forehead on your shoulder as he holds you. “I indulged your requests because I was indulging in you myself. Every moment I spent with you, I allowed myself to be Dazai Osamu, the person, and not the… Not what I’ve had to become to keep this organization running.”

Your breath catches, lips parting at his words but no sound escapes them. He kisses the nape of your neck one last time before he moves to stand in front of you, kneeling down again as he grabs one of your heels and undos the buckle. You watch with bated breath as he lifts your left foot from the ground to kiss your ankle before sliding the heel on, deft fingers fasting the clasp. 

“I gave you a place to stay because I was selfish and I wanted you around more,” he sighs, resting his forehead against your knee now as he lingers there for a moment before moving on to repeat the process with your other foot, kissing your ankle and slipping the heel on. He continues, “Likewise, I have kept you surrounded by people because I have been desperately afraid that you’re going to get bored and want to leave because work leaves me little time to be around. Unfortunately, I’m not the generous person you’re making me out to be, I’m horribly self-serving and greedy, especially when it comes to you.”

He looks up at you now from where he’s kneeling in front of you, gaze searching your face. You want to reach out and cup his cheek, so you do, and immediately, he’s turning his face to kiss your palm just as you’d done to him before letting his eye slide shut as he leans into your touch, as if basking in it.

“I would give you anything you want,” he admits softly, keeping his gaze shut as he holds your palm against his face. “Anything. And if it was something outside of my reach, I would make it in my reach. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, no lengths I wouldn’t go to and no lines I wouldn’t cross.”

You think your lungs might be burning, you don’t think you can breathe as you stare down at him, heart thudding in your swelling chest, tears building in your eyes again but this time not out of insecurity. Dazai finally rises to his feet after placing one last kiss upon your knuckles, and he doesn’t say anything as he makes his way over to the dresser where he’d placed the blue box. 

You don’t move, watching as he opens it and pulls something out before making his way back over to you, standing behind you. He looks at you through the mirror as he lifts his hands to place a glittering diamond necklace upon your collarbone. You can’t breathe again, you realize, it’s cool against your skin and you think it might be the most expensive thing you’ve ever laid your eyes upon, dozens upon dozens of white diamonds shimmering in the mirror in front of you. Your skin feels like it’s on fire as his fingers brush the nape of your neck as he clasps it onto you. 

“You are beautiful,” he says, voice so raw that you almost shiver at the intensity of it. His fingers brush your hips as if he’s afraid to touch you. “You are beautiful, and intelligent, and everything I have ever wanted. You deserve so much more than me, more than you’ll ever be able to understand, and I’m sorry that I’m not a good enough man to do what’s right and let you go. The last thing you should ever be doubting is this.”

His eye slides shut again as he lets out a soft puff of air, the warmth fans across the back of your neck and you think you could spend forever in this moment with him, wishing that you could freeze time. 

“You said that you thought it was fate that brought us together,” he finally finishes, voice quiet as he references what you told him the first time you met. “Don’t ever doubt your place with me. Wherever I am, you belong, whether it’s a club, or an apartment, or an event.”

“I thought you hate the idea of fate,” you say, voice a bit choked as you try to force the tears back again.

“I do,” he affirms, “but if fate brought us together, then far be it from me to deny the one thing in this world that has ever made me happy.”

You love him.

You feel sick to your stomach—be it from butterflies or the implications of the realization. The words threaten to burst from your lips but you swallow them, instead, another tear trails down your face and he sees it through the mirror, lifting his hand to wipe it away before leaning a bit over your shoulder to press his lips to your jaw.

“I’m ruining my makeup,” you rasp, letting out another shaky breath.

He smiles against your skin.

“You’ll be beautiful still,” he murmurs before pulling back, admiring you for a moment before he asks: “Are you ready to go?”

You nod. “Yeah,” you say, a bit breathless. “I’m ready.”

“Everyone is staring at us.”

You’re not wrong, exactly. As soon as the two of you had entered the room, all attention was sent your way, and though the music was loud enough to drown out most chatter (intentional, of course, so unsavory ears can’t overhear even more unsavory dealings), Dazai couldn’t help but notice the hush that spread through the room at the sight of you. The boss of the Port Mafia with a date on his arm was certainly a sight to behold to all of the rest of the occupants of the event hall,.

“Can you blame them? You look beautiful,” he says, voice laced with a teasing edge that is certainly not matched in his expression. Dazai knew people would be looking at you if he brought you here. Still, he wants to gouge their eyes out. 

His arm tightens around you as he tucks you into his side, cold gaze sweeping across the massive event hall. At least two hundred people are attending Nabokov’s event—an even mixture of pharmaceutical tycoons, technology barons, politicians and mafiosos. 

At first glance, he recognizes four different mafias in attendance. 

Mishima Yukio of the Sun and Steel stands by one of his associates, the president of Mitsubishi Chemical Group; the man’s dark eyes card over Dazai with lazy interest, before his head tilts to the side as he studies you.

Dazai thinks that the Sun and Steel might be the Port Mafia’s only allies in attendance, and even then, allies might be taking it too far. The extent of Dazai’s dealing with Mishima was a general agreement to not encroach the Sun and Steel’s monopoly over the narcotics industry—which Dazai never intended on doing anyway because the industry is far more trouble than it's worth—and an unspoken promise to protect Japan’s underground from foreign mafias. 

Dazai wonders if that unspoken promise still holds or if the Russians have cut a deal with him. 

Nabokov’s Pale Flame, obviously, is in attendance, along with the remnants of Leo Tolstoy’s Three Deaths. Tolstoy himself is sitting at the bar, a glass of whiskey in hand as he leans back on the stool, gaze focused on you. Nabokov is off to the left, making his way across the room to greet Dazai, a curious expression on his face. Dazai recognizes Cao Xueqin of the Red Chamber sitting near Kitazawa Michihiro of Fuji Electric, one of the Port Mafia’s closest associates; and Dazai thinks that might be a bit foreboding, both because of the presence of the Chinese and the company he’s keeping.

Dostoevsky’s House of the Dead is nowhere to be seen, but Dazai knows that they’re here. Somewhere. He just has to find him—and he will.

More eyes are on you than him, and although that was to be expected, Dazai can’t fight the doubt that suddenly swirls in his chest, wondering if he’d made the right decision. If you hadn’t been on people’s radar already, you definitely are now, and the thought makes him a bit sick to his stomach. He tries to console himself with the fact that this was the lesser of two evils—the mere chance of you being on the radar of any of the mafias in this room, no matter how slim it might be, was not something he could gamble with. There was no way he could let you go out alone and unprotected. People like them, people like him, would jump on the chance to take advantage of the weakness and he couldn’t let that happen. 

But is this really any better? 

He’s thrown you into a pit of snakes, and you’re ignorant to all of the threats around you. His gaze drifts back down to you, catching the way your brows are knit together slightly, the way your lips are pressed in a thin line. There’s an indecipherable look in your eyes as your gaze shifts over the room, and Dazai wonders if you know more than you’re letting on. That’s another scary thought, but he can at least find comfort in it for now because it’ll have you keeping your guard up around these people. He’ll just have to deal with the consequences later.

He dips his head down to your ear, speaking quietly before Nabokov finally reaches him: “Just follow my lead, you’ll be fine.”

The look you shoot at him is nothing short of withering, and Dazai can’t help the smile that curves at the corners of his lips as he lifts his head back up to subtly brush his lips against your temple. He catches sight of movement from the corner of his eye and any softness that might’ve been visible in his expression washes away instantly.

“Dazai,” Nabokov greets, beady eyes flickering between you and Dazai, partially curious about you and partially nervous about Dazai. Dazai tilts his head to the side, becoming increasingly more unamused the longer Nabokov’s gaze lingers on you. “I’m glad you came. I wanted to apologize for not being able to attend our planned meeting a few months ago.”

“So I heard.” Dazai’s voice is short and distant, more focused on the feeling of you tucked into his side than the conversation at hand. He has to force himself to keep his gaze steady on Nabokov, wanting to look down at you, but he contents himself with letting his hand slide down to your hip, rubbing absent circles against the silky material of your dress. 

Nabokov fumbles over Dazai’s clipped response, a bead of sweat gathering at the corner of his forehead. He wishes he could peer into your head and see what you’re thinking, about him, about this, about everything. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to get through the night without you realizing who he is, what he is, and that thought scares him because he thinks that maybe he should have been the one to explain it to you, so he could at least try to paint himself in a better light. Although, he’s not sure what sort of light would make anything about him look better.

“Who is this?” Nabokov finally asks, turning his attention toward you. Dazai doesn’t like the way he looks at you, eyes raking over you like you’re a piece of meat.

“My partner.” To Dazai’s credit, his voice is much smoother than the turbulent emotions in his chest would suggest. “Where is your wife, Nabokov?” 

Nabokov doesn’t even respond to the question, laughing loudly. “Never thought I’d see the day you found yourself a lover, Dazai,” he chuckles and then holds his hand out to you. “Vladimir Nabokov.”

You shift a bit to take his hand, but Dazai is faster, lithe fingers wrapping around Nabokov’s wrist in an agonizingly tight grip. Nabokov winces, Dazai’s face is cold as he stares down at the man.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” he warns, keeping his voice low. 

Vladimir Nabokov. Invitation to a Beheading. An ability that grants its user to draw a target into an interdimensional space through physical touch—Dazai isn’t sure what the space entails because no one has ever left it alive.

Nabokov tries to laugh it off, weaker this time as he takes his hand back and shakes out his wrist. “My, Dazai, possessive, aren’t you?”

“Very,” Dazai agrees idly. “Be sure to remember that.”

Nabokov gives him another wavering smile, and Dazai can’t help but wonder how Dostoevsky could have possibly thought anyone would believe the man could head the tripartite alliance of the Pale Flame, Three Deaths, and the House of the Dead. Anyone with half of a brain would know that Dostoevsky is behind their union. Maybe that’s what he wanted, Dazai notes absently as he watches Nabokov’s gaze flicker to the upper left corner of the room. Dazai follows it to where a camera is positioned, encompassing most of the event hall. 

The smile on his lips is nearly as chilly as the air-conditioned room around him.

There you are. 

Dazai’s gaze cuts back to Kouyou, who’s standing a few feet behind you and Dazai with Chuuya, Ace and Piano Man. The woman inclines her head in recognition of his silent order as she fans her face lightly, taking a step away to make a call to Hirotsu, who should be stationed around the building with the rest of the Black Lizards by now, prepared to move in at the first sign of danger.

Nabokov looks as if he’s going to speak again, which inclines Dazai to believe that he’s seeking something out in particular for Dostoevsky, and from the way he keeps glancing at you, Dazai assumes it has to do with you. So as the man's lips waver, eyes darting as he tries to formulate another conversation opener, Dazai speaks before he can get the words out.

“If you don’t mind,” he says, voice cold and clipped as he all but dismisses Nabokov, who flushes a bit, nodding and apologizing before stepping away. 

Dazai realizes that he probably has not prepped you enough for this event, but in his defense, he’s been swamped with his own preparations and how is he supposed to prepare you when he can’t even fully explain all of the dangers? But now, it’s making him anxious, because at some point tonight he’s going to have to step away from you to meet with Nabokov in one of the backrooms, likely with Tolstoy, Cao, and Mishima. Dazai’s executives will have to be there with him, and Tachihara is supposed to slip from the shadows to join you while you wait for his return, but there’s likely going to be at least a good two to three minutes where you’ll be alone until Tachihara can get to you. That’s assuming he doesn’t get caught up on the way over.

He needs to talk to you, at least warn you about the ability users attending the event so you don’t accidentally stumble into a potentially lethal situation without him around.

If he goes to the bar, Tolstoy will take advantage to try to sweep you into a conversation, picking up right where Nabokov left off. If he goes off to the left side of the room, Cao will make his way over to interrupt. If he goes off to the right side of the room, Mishima is there. The only place… Dazai inhales as his gaze focuses on the massive dance floor of the event hall, dozens of couples are spinning around already, and it will be loud enough there for the music to drown out his conversation with you from unwelcome listeners. 

He turns his attention to you, holding his palm up and tucking one arm behind his back as he asks lightly, “May I have this dance?” 

Your eyes widen a bit in surprise, seemingly hyper aware of all of the hungry, curious glances of the other attendants directed your way, but he’s only focused on you, and the way your eyes glitter beneath the chandelier’s lights, and the way your dress clings to your body, and the way a soft smile tugs at your lips. He thinks that even if you hadn’t entered the event on his arm, all of the room’s attention would be on you still, because you’re beautiful, and captivating, and Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever understand how he managed to pull you in one lifetime, much less all of them. 

You place your hand in his and Dazai guides you across the floor, intent on finding the perfect space. It’s hardly obvious the way that the other people on the dance floor would inch away as the two of you passed by, intent on staying out of Dazai’s way and letting him have whatever space he wants, but you pick up on it, he thinks, seeing the curious look in your eyes as your gaze sweeps around the people around you. He bites back a sigh, because he’s sure that you’re tallying everything up in your head trying to put it all together, and once you get that final puzzle piece, everything will be over.

His chest sinks at the thought of losing you, but he forces it away. He has to focus on the situation at hand because even a single slip up could be fatal—not only for him, but for you too. As soon as he reaches a suitable spot on the dance floor, he tugs you a bit closer to him, hands sliding down to your waist. Your own arms instantly come up to loop around his neck as you look up at him through your lashes and Dazai suddenly feels breathless, vision tunneling and heartbeat stuttering at the way you look at him.

God, how is he supposed to focus with you around? He can hardly concentrate on anything but you. He’s flying too close to the sun. Has been since the moment he met you. Drawing you into his life and keeping you there, now bringing you here, so many gambles, too many gambles… the heat is scorching, and it’s only a matter of time before his wings burn. If he was smart, he’d let you go so that you don’t burn with him, but his fingers only bite deeper into your waist at the thought.

The music is slow, and the two of you sway in tune to it. The other couples give a wide berth, some casting wary looks at Dazai, ones that he’s sure you’re catching. He doesn’t know where to start, or how to start; what does he tell you that doesn’t condemn him? Luckily, he doesn’t have to start the conversation because you do, for better or for worse.

“Was that man the rival that Gin mentioned?” you ask curiously, and Dazai can’t help but notice there’s a strange look in your eyes as you ask it, one that he can’t place.

He hesitates, but then says, “No. He wasn’t. I haven’t seen him yet.”

You hum lightly, fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck in a way that makes him shiver. But his eyes narrow when he realizes that you don’t look the slightest bit surprised by his answer. 

“You knew that already,” he accuses lightly, and he forces himself to swallow the lump that suddenly forms in his throat because if you figured that out on your own already, what else have you figured out? God, he knew this was risky, you’ve always been ridiculously perceptive—he just needs to get through tonight without you putting everything together, then he’ll be fine.

“I suspected it,” you finally affirm his accusation, gaze searching his face. “He was nervous talking to you. If he was your rival, I’d expect him to be a bit more… assured. And he kept looking up toward a camera, like he knew someone was watching that he’d have to answer to.”

Oh, you did pick up on a lot more than he expected. He doesn’t think that the smile he gives you quite meets his eyes, if the way your brows furrow have anything to say about it, but he distracts you by bringing his hand up from your waist to cup your cheek, thumb brushing over your bottom lip as he murmurs, “That’s my girl, always so smart.”

Your lashes flutter as you avert your gaze, a tell tale sign of you being flustered. His lips quirk up into a more genuine smile, hand dropping back down to your waist. He can do this, he tells himself, he just has to be careful, tell you enough to make sure your guard is up and you know to at least some extent that the people in this room aren’t to be trusted.

“There are a lot of ability users in here,” he finally warns, careful to keep his voice low even with the music covering his words. “Do your best to keep your distance from people. I’ll stay with you as much as I can, but I’m going to get pulled away sooner or later. Chuuya or Piano Man will stay with you when they can, and if they’re pulled away, Tachihara is going to come down to stay with you.”

“... That’s why you didn’t let him shake my hand,” you say, realization flashing through your eyes, another puzzle piece fitting behind your eyes and Dazai has to be careful because it’s only a matter of time before you’re given that final piece and everything comes together. “What’s his ability?” 

“... Nothing good,” he answers after a few moments of silence, but you’re not content with that, brows furrowing. He sighs. “No confirmation on it, we only know it’s lethal. Many are in here.”

Your eyes widen and then you look a bit skeptical. “And you think they would use it here? In public?” you ask slowly.

To Dazai’s horror, it is not skepticism tainting your tone, but rather, you’re fishing for information, trying to put more pieces together, and he doesn’t have much choice but to give you answers because he can’t risk you setting your guard down even for a second.

He chooses his words carefully. “... There is little they wouldn’t do to get ahead in our business.”

“Hm,” is all you say in response, something akin to understanding flashing through your eyes and Dazai dreads to know what his answer has just told you. He feels distinctly like he’s playing chess against an opponent he did not anticipate and he’s at a disadvantage because the opponent is you. He can feel your shoulders slump suddenly, an unfamiliar expression crossing over your face; you look tired, as if you’d aged twenty years in a matter of seconds. “What did you get me involved with, Dazai?” 

You say it so softly that Dazai barely hears it himself, and he knows. He knows that you’ve figured something out, he doesn’t know what and he doesn’t want to know what. He wants to evade it as long as possible, because the moment he has to have this conversation with you, he knows he’ll lose you. He can’t think about that now, it’ll throw him off and this is the last place he can allow himself to be thrown off.

Instead, his grip on your waist tightens again, gaze averting down toward the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. The words weigh heavy on his tongue, not just an apology for tonight but an apology for accepting your offer for a drink two months ago, knowing he wouldn’t be strong enough to let it be a single night of indulgence; an apology for seeking you out again afterward, knowing that he would be sentencing you to death.

He feels sick. 

What is he doing?

Why are you here?

What has he done?

“Dazai.”

You say his name but Dazai hardly hears you. God, he can feel it happening, where his fingers are pressed against your body, the skin suddenly goes cold and stiff, his surroundings are blurring, the people fading into the background. This isn’t the place. Nabokov. Tolstoy. Mishima. Cao. He can’t lose himself, not now, but his grip on reality is starting to waver, the pages pile around him. 

“Dazai.”

What has he done?

Everything he’s planned for, seven years of careful calculations and planning gone down the drain. How does he even fix this? Can he fix this? His mind races, but he’s not even sure he’s thinking coherent thoughts, trying to ground himself to the present because he needs to stay here, he can figure out how to fix it later, when you’re not in danger but-

His vision swims. Not now. He can see it—he can see you. Still on the ground. Sometimes there’s blood, so much that he can hardly recognize you (but he can, of course, he can always recognize you, even when your body is littered with more gaping wounds than not). Sometimes it looks like you’re sleeping, so much so that Dazai kneels next to you, begging you to wake up (he knows in his heart that it’s futile. he can’t stop himself from trying). His head spins, he loses track of where he is and then-

“Osamu.”

His breath catches, gaze zeroing in on you. You. Alive. Your brows are furrowed in concern, searching his face to try to draw him back to reality. He thinks his grip on your waist must be painful but he can’t bring himself to loosen it at all. He stares at you, still desperately trying to keep himself grounded because although you’ve brought him back mostly, the corners of the pages still linger in the edge of his vision, threatening to consume him again.

“You can’t leave me,” you tell him quietly. “You brought me here. I need you here with me. Don’t go off somewhere I can’t follow.”

Oh.

He lets out a breath, slow and maybe a bit more shaky than he would’ve liked, but he tries to focus on the situation at hand. He loosens his grip on your waist, rubbing a gentle circle over your hip in an apology.

His gaze drifts around the room, Nabokov is in deep conversation with Cao, hardly paying attention to anything going on, but Cao’s sharp, dark eyes are pointed over Nabokov’s shoulder, scanning the dance floor. He’s looking for someone—not Dazai, which is a bit worrying, and he becomes all the more attentive to everyone in the vicinity, trying to make sure none of the Red Chamber’s assassins made it through the security. If any organization would be able to pull it off, it would be them. 

Once he’s decided the coast is clear, he turns his gaze back to the bar. Tolstoy is looking at him—blue eyes sharp, blonde hair hanging in them, a curious expression on his face as he sips at his drink and watches as Dazai dances with you. As soon as Tolstoy notices Dazai has caught him, his lips curl up into a smirk and he raises his drink. Dazai’s expression is cold as he looks away, seeking out Mishima only to find the man nowhere to be found.

Hm.

Chuuya and Kouyou are entertaining idle conversation with two executives of the Sun and Steel, both keeping a sharp eye on where you and Dazai sway on the dance floor. Piano Man is entertaining several politicians, doing a good job at ensuring that none of the other foreign executives get any chance to get their ears. Ace, Dazai notes, is in deep conversation in the shadows with one of the executives of the Three Deaths. 

Interesting.

He finally draws his attention back to you, a small smile on his lips as he recalls what you’d said to drag him from his spiral.

Osamu,

“You called me Osamu,” he murmurs, a warm feeling spreading through his chest as he focuses on that instead, trying to ease himself back into reality. Technically, he’s heard you say his given name before. Well. Not technically. It was never you and it was never him, rather it was vague memories of other yous and other hims, but it was nothing in comparison to hearing you actually say it.

You look embarrassed, averting your gaze. “I didn’t know how to get your attention, I’m s-”

“Say it again,” he whispers, lifting his hand back up to your chin to tilt your face back up, forcing you to look at him. His eyes search yours, watching the way you can hardly hold his gaze. You look hesitant, so he continues with, “Please.”

“... Osamu,” you say again, breathless, and god, Dazai wishes the two of you were anywhere but here. He wants to press you back against his bed, run his lips up and down your body, map out all of your curves with his hand. He wants to watch you come undone on his tongue and on his fingers—he wants you, he wants you more than anything else in the world. Every time he’s tried to take the next step with you the past few weeks, he either got interrupted by work or he ended up getting cold feet, nervous about making a mistake. 

Before his thoughts can spiral even more, the music picks up to a faster paced waltz. Your eyes widen, watching as all of the other couples shift into the respective dance. You look up at him, a bit panicked, clearly not sure what to do, and his lips curl up in amusement, beckoning you to lace your fingers with his to take the stance the other couples were taking.

“I don’t know this da-” you begin, voice hushed.

“Just follow my lead,” he repeats the same words he spoke to you when they entered the hall. “You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

You exhale, studying his face for a moment before sighing and mimicking the stance the other women took with their partners. He can feel your fingers wavering against his as he interlocks your fingers and he rubs his thumb over the back of your hand soothingly.

“Keep your eyes on me,” he tells you, just as the music finally picks up for the dance to start. 

He thinks you’re worried for nothing. You moved smoothly in line with him and in tune with the music, gliding across the dance floor as if you’ve danced with him hundreds of times before, your body so in sync with his that the two of you put all of the other couples to shame. Not that any of them matter, of course, you’re all that Dazai can focus on. Your eyes never leave his, not even for the sparest of moments, and Dazai feels like he’s caught in a trance, lost in your eyes and the feeling of your body so close to his, hyper aware of the way your your hand rests on his shoulder and the way your fingers are wrapped tight around his.

God, there’s something so otherworldly about you. Doesn’t know if it’s heavenly or supernatural, if you’re his angel sent to lead him to salvation or his very own siren singing a sweet melody to lead him to ruin. Doesn’t think he cares either way—salvation, damnation, none of it matters as long as he has you.

“Not so bad, hm?” he murmurs, sweeping you out into a spin before pulling you back to him, closer this time. He can feel your chest brush his and he prays you can’t feel the way he’s lost control of his heart, painfully cognizant of the erratic thumping. His hand slides from your hip to the small of your back, holding you close to him. He could stay in this moment forever, surroundings drowning out; all he can see is you, all that matters is you.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “Not so bad.”

His lips part to respond but he’s interrupted when he sees movement from the corner of his eye, freezing.

“Dazai.”

Dazai stiffens as a familiar voice speaks from behind him, shifting to stand partially in front of you as his gaze cuts to the side to see Mishima’s familiar figure standing a few feet away. Turning to face him, he asks, “Do you need something?”

“I’d like to speak to you before we meet with Tolstoy, Nabokov and Cao.”

Mishima’s voice leaves no room for argument, dark eyes absent of any emotion as he waits for Dazai to follow him. Dazai’s jaw tightens, eyes drifting back to you as he tries to figure out what to do. He can’t leave you here, not with Cao’s hawk-like gaze trained on the dancefloor and Tolstoy waiting for the opportunity to make a move. But he does need to talk to Mishima, have some idea of where he stands with the Sun and Steel before facing all of the foreigners. 

“May I have this dance?” 

Dazai hadn’t even heard Chuuya approach, turning to the side to watch as he holds a hand out toward you expectantly, quick to step in to take Dazai’s place so that you’re not alone. You shoot Dazai a concerned glance, brows furrowing a bit, before you place your hand in Chuuya’s.

Chuuya leads you back onto the dance floor, Dazai’s gaze lingers for a few moments, a bitter feeling spreads through his chest because that should be him, and it’s wholly unfair that he has to deal with all of this unsavory business when he should be spending time with you.

He should just kill them all here and be done with it.

The words ring through his head, echoing, tempting. He inhales and forces himself to look away as you loop your arms around Chuuya’s shoulders, swaying in tune to the slow song playing. He turns his attention back to Mishima, voice cool and expression void of emotion:

“Speak.”

Dancing with Nakahara Chuuya is awkward. Awkward is even being generous. It’s not like he’s a bad dancer—in fact, it’s clear that he’s a very good one. He’s smooth on his feet as he spins you around the dance floor, but he’s so stiff. He’s careful to keep space between the two of you, hands never dipping lower than your sides, lips pressed together. He hardly even looks at you, his attention is more on where Dazai had stepped to the side to speak with the dark-haired man who’d interrupted the two of you, but you’re grateful for it, because it’s giving you a chance to gather your thoughts.

You think Dazai might’ve inadvertently confirmed your suspicions from yesterday. You don’t know who these people are, but there’s no way any ordinary business event would be dangerous enough for Dazai to genuinely worry that someone might kill you in a room crowded with two hundred people. A part of you wonders if it’s just different for ability users, that they’re not scared of committing crimes in public because they have an ability that prevents them from getting caught, but you know you’re just trying to make excuses at this point.

Your gaze drifts back over to the older, light-haired man with dark eyes who’d approached you and Dazai when you walked in. He’s off to the side talking with a Chinese man dressed in a red suit—your gaze lingers, trying to piece together the puzzle in your head desperately, but all of the edges are jagged and confusing, you can’t seem to figure out where they each fit with each other. 

You’d thought maybe that Dazai and his business was somehow affiliated with the mafia, because no one with the amount of money and success that he has gets it cleanly, but now you can’t help but hesitate, reconsidering your original theory. Vladimir Nabokov had been scared of Dazai. And it’s not like you haven’t noticed the effect that Dazai has on people. Whenever you’re around people with him, they get tense and on edge, but it’s different seeing the effect he has on someone who doesn’t even work for him, a foreigner supposed to be one of Dazai’s associates if you understood what he meant about not showing up to a meeting. 

Who are you, Dazai?

You don’t even know if you want to know. You love Dazai. You do. You knew it earlier in the night. You know it now. It’s something you can no longer hide or deny. You remember the concerned look on his face when he saw how upset you were. You can feel the way his lips brushed the nape of your neck as he explained why he kept meeting you at the club, the way he kissed your ankles as he knelt in front of you and told you how he was selfish for keeping you around, how he kissed your palm and leaned into your touch as he promised you anything you want. God, you love him, you don’t think anyone has ever looked at you the way he does; no one has ever spoken to you the way he does. 

You love him, and it scares you because you’re realizing you still don’t know anything about him, not really, and you’re also realizing that there’s a high chance he’s been lying to you about what he does. It scares you even more that your first instinct isn’t to run. Because you should run. This should make you run. He brought you to an event with people so dangerous that he’s afraid they might try to hurt you, or worse, but you don’t want to run, because you’d be running from him and you don’t want to run from him. 

Could you sacrifice everything for him though?

Fuck your morals—everything you’ve worked for, all of the years slaving away to put yourself on the path to success. You’ve told yourself your entire life that it would be all you would focus on, that it would all be worth it in the end. You convinced yourself that maybe if you proved yourself enough, your brother would return to your life; he’d be proud of you and he’d come back to you. You know he’s still out there somewhere, you get letters with no return address every month—the only thing in the envelope is a check with a dubious amount of money, but it’s in his hand writing, so you know it’s him. 

A part of you wants to cry, frustration clawing at your chest: the future you’ve worked so hard for, or love? The question you’ve dreaded since your epiphany yesterday is finally thrown right in front of your face, and you need an answer. The two are mutually exclusive—you will not be able to pursue the career you want with Dazai Osamu, not in the way you want at least. And you don’t want to do all of this work to just end up being another shady politician.

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

Your gaze snaps up to Chuuya, who’s suddenly looking at you, and you don’t really know how to respond. 

I’m pretty sure you guys are part of the fucking Mafia and you’re all hiding it from me, but also I don’t want to know if you are because that’s going to force me to make a decision that I don’t want to make so I’d rather live in ignorance. 

“My thoughts are only worth a penny?” You deflect with a grin instead, hoping it meets your eyes.

It doesn’t, evidently, because Chuuya’s eyes narrow a bit, and then he tilts his head to the side and hits you with a more direct: “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just worried,” you finally say, not entirely lying but also not telling the truth. 

“About?” Chuuya presses and you sigh, exhaling a bit.

“He mentioned that there were dangerous people here,” you tell him quietly. “I’m just nervous for when you guys go to your meeting… I’m guessing it’s going to be soon.”

Chuuya’s brows furrow and you can see the thoughts racing behind his eyes before he speaks again. “You’ll be fine,” he tells you. “We have people all over the event hall, and Tachihara is going to sit with you until you Dazai can get back. Dazai shouldn’t have worried you with all of this. He shouldn’t have even-”

He cuts himself off, jaw tightening, but you know what he’s going to say: he shouldn’t have even brought you here.

“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Chuuya says quietly, and you think he might be talking more to himself than anything else now, but you listen anyway. “He’s always been hard to read but this is…”

He stops speaking out loud, as if he’s realized that you’re there again, and instead he shakes his head. “You’ll be fine. Back at the headquarters before you know it.”

You aren’t so sure.

Your gaze drifts to the side as you watch Nabokov and the Chinese man make their way over to Dazai and the man he’s talking to. The blonde at the bar that Dazai kept looking at also stands up, drink in his hand as walks in the same direction. 

Chuuya spits out a curse under his breath and gives you an apologetic look. Your heart sinks and your throat feels a bit tight—he doesn’t abandon you right away though, pressing his hand to the middle of your back as he guides you across the dancefloor to the bar, all the while keeping a keen eye on what’s happening on the other side of the room.

He pulls the barstool out for you, eyes still trained on where Dazai is standing with Kouyou, two men that work for him you haven’t met yet, and the four men you assume are business associates of his. Dazai is looking at you, an indecipherable expression on his face. You’re looking at him, suddenly anxious at the thought of being left alone, a bad feeling sweeping over you. 

“Tachihara will be over here soon,” Chuuya finally says to you, tearing his gaze from his coworkers to look back down at you. He flags down the bartender to order a drink for you. “You’ll be fine. Knowing Dazai, the meeting won’t last long anyway.”

Your shoulders only slump a bit as you nod, thanking the bartender quietly for your drink as he hurries to bring it back to you, taking a sip of it. Chuuya doesn’t say much else—once you’re settled in your seat and have your drink, he squeezes your shoulder before making his way back over to the intimidating group of people standing on the opposite side of the room.

Your gaze meets Dazai’s conflicted one one last time before he’s forced to turn away and disappears down a side hall deeper into the building. You sigh as you twirl your drink around, the clear liquid sloshing dangerously close to the brim of your glass as your eyes twist around the event hall, seeking out Tachihara, or Atsushi, or anyone that works with Dazai because you’re feeling distinctly vulnerable alone. You find none of them. You can feel eyes on you—most you’re sure are harmless curiosity, wanting to know who exactly came in on the arm of Dazai Osamu, but you know some aren’t nearly as harmless, you can feel the hungry stares of vicious opportunists directed at your back and you don’t feel comfortable sitting alone.

You don’t even get five minutes to yourself.

“Is this seat taken?” 

You’re startled by the unfamiliar voice, head snapping to the side. Your gaze focuses on a pretty man with soft features, shoulder-length black hair and gentle purple eyes. Your lips part to speak, but no words leave them, caught off-guard by his sudden appearance. He looks harmless enough, but there’s something about him that has you on edge—something simmering beneath the surface of his deceptive eyes that you can’t quite place but you know you don’t like.

“I mean no harm,” he says smoothly, lips curving up into an amiable smile. “I’m an old friend of Dazai’s. I only want to talk.”

An old friend. You don’t buy it, but you don’t want to risk antagonizing him, Dazai’s warning about the many lethal ability users prowling the event ringing through your head. You just hope that Tachihara shows up sooner rather than later as you finally shake your head.

“It’s not taken,” you say quietly, motioning to the stool as you take another generous sip of your drink.

The dark-haired man smiles at you as he takes a seat at the bar next to you, teeth glimmering like knives beneath the lighting of the chandelier. Instantly, you feel like you’ve made a mistake, a chill running down your spine as your eyes meet purple ones that are not quite so gentle anymore. Sharp and shrewd instead. Calculating. Dangerous. 

“Fyodor Dostoevsky. A pleasure, truly.”

[alexanderwales]

The high-level prophecy interpreters all worked for the government or major corporations. They were the ones with the money, and the ones most likely to be the subject of a prophecy. Sometimes you'd have a multi-billionaire hire on a prophecy interpreter, but usually they just had one on retainer. The same went for celebrities who were famous enough to attract significant prophecies.

But at the lower level, there were prophecy interpreters who opened up their own firms, usually just one or two if they weren't in a major city. That was me: I had gotten in prophecy interpretation in college and ended up majoring in it after the Kepler Incident. I had my name on bus stops and billboards, and a single secretary in my employ who thankfully handled most of the phone calls.

In the field we sometimes divide the business up into three sectors based on timing. There's "prophecy impact", which is when we do a consultation right after the prophecy has been made, or at least sometime before it rears its head. Some prophecies are decades in the making, but people want to be told what to do about them. I hate that part of the job, personally, because there's not a whole lot to do, depending on the language. Plus the conversations are pretty repetitive: a guy hears a pretty clear-cut prophecy that he's going to die falling out of a plane, and he's begging for some way out, as though there's something I can do about it, as though I can tell him that prophecies are lairs sometimes. Prophecies are liars, but they're clever liars, hiding meanings inside words, only clear after they've passed. You can't escape prophecy, and at least half of "prophecy impact" clients explaining that fact to them.

The second sector is "prophetic immanence", when the client has a prophecy that they think is coming true. Sometimes this can be because there's a trigger phrase in the prophecy, a conditional that appears to have been met. One of the dirty secrets of the industry is that nine times out of the ten, people are mistaken: the nature of prophecy is such that you can't often pinpoint when the prophecy is nigh. In my opinion, you can judge a prophecy interpreter by how upfront they are about this. The weasels will milk their clients dry by pretending that every moment is a crisis moment.

It's the last sector that I find the most satisfaction from, which is why it's a disappointment that it's the least in demand. This is post facto prophecy interpretation. You're not trying to prevent anything, you're not formulating a reaction, you're just trying to figure out what happened and how it all fit together. These are clients that are in the aftermath of prophecy, or what they're pretty sure is the aftermath, and a lot of the time, they just want someone to talk to more than they want my specific expertise.

My client that day was an artist, a rising star who had a few very successful gallery showings. It had been prophesied that her older brother would accidentally kill her father, but it had been her instead. This wasn't a recent trauma, but the wound was clearly still there, so I tried to navigate it as carefully as I could.

"One of the things that makes prophecy tricky is ambiguity," I said gently. "There are some, outliers, that depend on pretty tortured readings. But in this case, I think it's just an alternate meaning. From what you gave me, the prophecy was specifically 'the child who first draws breath', and that's in reference to your career as an artist."

"That's stupid," she said. "He's two years older than me, would he really never have doodled a person drawing? Just a few lines indicating that something is coming out of their mouth?" Her hands were folded in her lap. They were curiously still, for someone who used her hands for a living, but maybe artists were like that, preserving the tools of their trade.

"It's stupid," I agreed. "But I do think it's entirely possible that his drawings didn't include anyone breathing, and that yours did."

"How can we know for sure?" she asked.

"We can't," I replied. "Though if we take for granted that the prophecy was fulfilled, and that you were the one to fulfill it, then we have to search for answers within the realm of what we know. And if you're not satisfied with that answer, then I need to spend some time searching for alternate meanings, to find some interpretation that lands better."

"I could understand it if I had some obsession with drawing breath," she said. "If I had done a series of paintings of visible breath escaping from a person's body, then that would make sense. But it's not that, it's the first to draw breath, and that's just ... I mean, doodles we did when we were children. It means nothing. We have no way to mark that. It wasn't pivotal."

I shrugged. "It is what it is." I use that phrase a lot. "There's a selection effect with prophecies. The ones we hear about are hugely ironic, they show the hand of fate, they warp and twist people. But many of them are just," I shrugged again. "Things that happened."

"My brother moved away," she said. "My father had kind of accepted it, probably from the moment we were born, or before that. He'd made peace with it, hadn't tried to fight it. But it was a hard thing to learn for my brother, and he'd just left to go to school a thousand miles away, and coming home was always stressful for him, because maybe this was when it was going to happen."

I nodded. "I can see where that would be difficult. How did he handle it?"

"Poorly," she sighed. "Dad was a good guy. My brother lost all that time, and it had always been a source of tension between them, not the death, but their perspective, you know? Dad preached acceptance, my brother wanted to avoid it, and so when my brother went out west, dad was disappointed. He said it was like losing his son, and that he'd have rather died than have that happen. So not only did my brother not have a close relationship with my dad because of the prophecy, it turns out that dad was right all along. It would have been better for everyone not to fight it."

"Maybe," I said. "In the business we don't counsel people not to fight prophecies. Sometimes it's the right thing to do."

"Well, sorry for wasting your time," she said. "Though I guess I'm paying by the hour, and I'm not going to apologize for something I paid for. So I'd like my apology back, please."

I smiled at her. "Certainly."

She stood up to go, and I marked the time so I could bill her later, but she paused for a moment. I put in the time all the same; so far as I was concerned, we were off the clock.

"Do you have any unresolved prophecies that you know of?" she asked.

"That's sort of a personal question," I said. "But I get it a lot, and if it might help you, I can share: I'm going to be eaten by an alligator."

"You're ... what?" she asked.

"An alligator?" I asked. "They live in swamps."

"And how are you going to be eaten by one?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know," I replied. "There's a chance I've dodged it already, or ... dodged it in the way that you can sometimes dodge an obvious reading." I held up my hand and showed her my pinky, or rather, my lack of pinky. "I went down to Florida, had my finger amputated, then fed it to three baby alligators under the supervision of a zoo keeper."

She stared at me. "And that works?" she finally asked.

"We'll see," I replied. "In general, yes, it's an approach with relatively good outcomes. A self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a peace of mind thing."

"But ... your finger?" she asked. She was looking at it. I sometimes thought that going with a toe would be better, or a chunk of flesh from somewhere else, but I had heard that losing a toe could interfere with balance. I had never regretted that it was a pinky finger.

"If I didn't avert the prophecy, I want to be the kind of guy who says 'oh, well that's funny'," I replied. "I think ... whatever helps you, you know? And now I don't need to stay up at night wondering how the hell it's going to happen. See, your father had it right, I think. You have to find a way to make peace with it. And this was what it took for me to make peace with mine. Though I have to admit that I'm not a fan of zoos, and I don't take vacations south of the Mason Dixon, so maybe I'm not as much at peace as I would like myself to believe."

"Huh," she said. She looked away from the missing finger and to my eyes. "Thank you for sharing that."

"It's okay if you think it's kooky," I replied.

"No," she said. "I was just ... thinking that if my brother had something like that, he might have had more time with dad before he passed."

I nodded. "You can share that story, if you think it will help. Sometimes it does."

When she left I went back to my computer, cruising the local news sites to see whether there had been any updates. I hadn't given her the best advice. My mind had been elsewhere.

A local guy had been busted for breeding reptiles without a license. I was sure it was nothing, but they hadn't said what specific reptiles it had been. It was probably nothing. I mean, a full-grown alligator escaping from custody, finding me, and managing to eat me was a little too much for me to believe.

But fate is a funny thing sometimes, and I was going to keep my eyes open.

[sophsicle]

I'm Sorry I'm the One You Love

Part I (Part II)

Sirius Black isn't in love with James Potter. Though sometimes Remus looks at him like he is. Like Sirius is sad and pathetic and...he doesn't even know, pining?

But he isn't.

Well.

Alright.

Sad and pathetic, perhaps. Depending on who you ask. On when you're looking. But he isn't pining. And he isn't in love with James.

That would be too easy.

Sirius thinks he could bear just being in love with him. Thinks that's a pill he could swallow. Unrequited feelings and all that. He'd mope around and write sad songs and drink too much. But eventually he'd get past it the way people seem to do with those kinds of feelings. But he isn't in love with James, is the problem.

He's fucking consumed by him.

"Sirius."

"Don't start."

Remus huffs, but, mercifully, goes back to his coursework, shaking his head while he does. Sirius, on the other hand, keeps staring at James and Lily. They aren't doing anything really, Sirius doesn't reckon Evans is one for big, public displays of affection. But then, maybe that'd be better. James and him don't - they've never - done that. Kiss or anything. So. It probably wouldn't feel so much like a kick in the fucking teeth the way watching them now does. Leaning into one another, heads nearly pressed together, whispers traded back and forth, secret smiles, nudging feet. James and Sirius have done that plenty.

Remus sighs again. "Why don't you talk to him?"

After a few seconds Sirius manages to pull his eyes away from the grotesque spectacle on the other side of the library. Why the hell are they sitting there anyway? Surely they could have sat at the same bloody table?

"I talk to him every day," Sirius says blankly. Which earns him a deeply unimpressed look.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't."

"You do."

"Don't."

He gets an eye roll this time. "Fine," muttering as he picks up his quill. "Have it your way then."

Remus has freckles splashed across his nose and cheeks, and just about the longest eyelashes Sirius has ever seen. He's obsessed with them, to tell you the truth. He's asked Remus if he uses some kind of potion for them but the other boy only scrunched his nose up, giving Sirius a look he didn't understand.

Remus's eyes flick up again now, meeting Sirius's, finding him staring. Sirius doesn't look away. He isn't embarrassed. Not about this. Not about most things, honestly.

"What?" Remus ask warily.

Sirius only shrugs. "Astronomy Tower? Tonight?"

Remus holds his gaze for a long moment before dropping his head again. "Fine." He doesn't sound overly enthusiastic but then, he never does with Sirius.

Sirius has never kissed James. Not even once. Though he's thought about it a few times. Sometimes he wants to ask James if he's thought about it too. Just so he knows. He's never kissed James.

But he has kissed Remus.

Loads.

He thinks he might be an expert at this point.

It takes the edge off. Makes him feel less like he's going insane every time he sees James. Like he wants to eat him and not in a sexual way, not really, more like in the way wolves want to sink their teeth into the necks of rabbits. Want to snap their spines. Want to feel them go limp. Want to swallow them whole so that there's no difference anymore. Between them. Between us. I've made you part of me. Bone of my bones. Blood of my blood. Skin of my skin.

See. It's not love. Sirius doesn't know what it is but it's not that.

After a few more seconds he kicks Remus under the table, causing the other boy to look up in exasperation. But this time when their eyes meet Sirius smiles the way he knows Remus likes. Feeling his insides grow warm when Remus smiles back - even if he's a little delicate about it.

Sirius isn't in love with James Potter.

But he might be in love with Remus.