#they had to sidle up on it and make it so it was never about him or how they felt about him to avoid triggering him

[schrodingers-romy]

Heaven Works on Borrowed Time [Karasu Tabito x Reader]

Pairings: Karasu Tabito x GN!Reader Word Count: ~1200 [Ao3 Link]

Summary: Two people escaping an office party have a first meeting under the stars

Warnings: no gendered pronouns/language used for reader, reader doesn't like their job and is kinda bitter about it, discussion of the fermi paradox, karasu-typical tacky nickname, pre-relationship

Notes: very pointless little convo between crow boy and reader but I thought it was fun. title from fermi paradox by avenged sevenfold bc i think i'm funny

You sighed into the night air, relaxing as the late breeze cooled your heated face. Office parties sucked. You were glad you were able to sneak away from you drunk, overly friendly coworkers, and find yourself some peace.

Your jaw had just finished unclenching when the door behind you clicked open, bringing with it a rush of sound from the party inside before it swung back shut.

So much for your peace.

“Didn’ know anyone else was out here. Hope ya don’t mind me intrudin’,” said the newcomer.

“’S fine,” you said, even if you wanted to scream a little.

You recognized the voice; Karasu Tabito, who worked on the floor above you as part of the company’s legal department. You never really interacted with him, aside from including him in a few email chains; if you didn’t know he was friends with Otoya Eita, you wouldn’t have an opinion on the man at all. However, considering you did know Otoya (both by his reputation for dating or hooking up with half of the office and cheating on at least an unlucky third of them, and because he tried to hit on you during your first joint meeting), your opinion on Karasu leaned towards the negative. Still, you didn’t need any more rumors of your snappishness circulating, so you didn’t kick up a fuss at sharing the balcony with him. You would be making your excuses to leave soon anyways; you had been there for over an hour, which was enough to say you had socialized.

Ignoring the man who had sidled up beside you, you blinked up at the sky. The city didn’t have the greatest clarity, but letting your eyes adjust for a moment revealed a splattering of the brightest stars, visible against the deep purple of the heavens. You wished you were in the countryside, where it was so pitch-dark that you could see all the constellations, and the pale, cloudy arm of the milky way as it stretched above you. Where the air was clear, and you were away from the nagging voices of your coworkers and the ambient, unsleeping, anxious hum of the city. But instead, you were stuck at a shit job you were overqualified for, with officemates you barely tolerated most days, just because you were too apathetic to try for anything better.

You slumped against the railing. You should’ve stayed home.

“Hey,” came the deep voice once more. “Ya okay over there?”

You turned to look at him, your cheek pillowed in the crook of your arm as you squinted up at him. His expression was fairly flat, but his eyes seemed honest enough, so you replied. Albeit sarcastically. “I’m doing awesome, man. I love it here.”

He snorted, lip twitching up into a small smirk. “I can see that. Yer jus’ the life of the party, huh?”

“Yup.” You turned away from him, your gaze returning to the stars.

“I woulda thought otherwise, what with how ya were staring up at the sky like ya were prayin’ for aliens ta come and abduct you.”

A sharp bark of laughter escaped you. “Where did you pull that from? Big alien believer yourself?”

“Not any more than’s logical.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, intrigued. “And how much is logical?”

He moved closer, leaning against the railing so he could more easily catch your eyes. The indigo of his irises caught the light, and, for a second, you thought he was rather pretty. “I mean, it stands ta reason, statistically, that we’re not alone out there.”

“Don’t you think we would have some evidence of alien life, if there was any?” you asked, sardonically. “Statistics aren’t always accurate, or comprehensive.”

Karasu doesn’t seem off put by your tone, smirking right back at you without a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. “Have ya ever heard of the Fermi Paradox?”

“Of course. I’m quite partial to the great filter theory, myself.”

“Do ya think the filter is behind us or ahead of us?”

You stared up at the sky with a frown on your face. “Ahead. I hope civilization hits a wall soon. I’m tired.”

He let out a laugh like a raven’s cackle. “Well aren’tcha a bright spot of sunshine? Personally, I think they’re out there, jus’ watchin’ us.”

“Why?”

“’T’s what I woulda done.”

“Ooh, alien civilization observer Karasu. You’d need a better title than that though, right now it sounds a bit voyeuristic.”

“Tabito.”

You turned back to look at him. “Huh?”

“Ya can call me Tabito.”

You studied him for a moment. The strangely gelled shape of his hair reflected the starshine like an oil slick, and the light seemed to drip down his face and settle into the amused wrinkles at the corners of his bright eyes. He was overly familiar with you, accent and tone breaking down any sort of professional distance, but you found that you, oddly enough, didn’t mind. It was refreshing to talk to someone so frank, who didn’t take your bluntness for an attack. Instead, he seemed…amused by you. (Charmed, even, if you were being wistful.)

“Sure. Tabito,” you said, before offering up your own name in return. You ignored the little flicker of something in your chest at hearing it repeated back at you in his deep voice.

“So, what was that about voyeurism?...”

You glanced away, a little flustered but unwilling to surrender. “I stand by it. Secretly observing a different intelligent species sounds weird as fuck, actually. I don’t want to think about it.”

“Aw, wouldn’t ya want ta observe me if I was ‘n intelligent species? No? ‘M hurt, truly.”

It’s on the tip of your tongue to say, ‘Maybe I would if you were an intelligent species.’ But something in you held back from using one of your typical snappish replies. Instead, you said, “Well. Perhaps I would make an exception. For you. Maybe.”

His smile was so big that it caused his eyes to form crescents. “Aw, that’s so sweet of ya, little storm cloud.”

Your nose crinkled. “Storm cloud? I thought I just gave you name privileges.”

“Ya just reminded me of one, tha’s all. Gloomy. And fluffy.”

“Fluffy?”

“On the inside.”

“Sure, Tabito.”

The two of you are silent for a moment, soaking in the relative peace of the little balcony you’ve found yourselves on. The stars continued to glitter overhead, with more and more peeking through the gloom of the night sky as time ticked past.

“Do ya need someone ta walk ya home?” he asked.

You didn’t. “Sure.”

-

Unlike his friend, Tabito was the perfect gentleman when he brought you home, leaving with nothing more than a good night and a cheeky salute. You wouldn’t have invited him in, not on a first meeting. But. You had a feeling that you might not be so unwilling after getting to know him better.

The next morning, there was a book sitting on your desk. With it, a note: “For my little storm cloud, to borrow. Tell me your opinion on it, I’m sure it’ll be interesting ;)” Hell. Maybe you didn’t want to believe the great filter was ahead; maybe life should continue on. It wasn’t all bad.

[mayasaura]

Just saw your post about the Mercy/John/Augustine whole thing and *chef's kiss* so I have this question that's been on the back burner for a while and thought I'd ask your take on it then, why for dios apate did they chose it to be Mercy and Augustine with John? Why not just one of them? I mean Mercy is an anatomy expert right, she probably could have done something by/on herself or Augustine

Well it's like in the post, right? Dios Apate Major had to be both Augustine and Mercy, because just one of them wouldn't have worked.

If one of them had started coming on to John, it would have put John on the spot and had a much higher chance of setting off his paranoia. Their seduction technique relied on the existing dynamic between the three of them, and played on one of John's most fervid desires: for his friends to get along and like him.

It goes like this: Augustine and Mercy start an old fight, and pull John in as mediator. They let John "succeed" at deescalating the argument, thereby making him feel good about himself, then pivot the remaining tension to sexual tension. John's already part of the argument, so it's easy enough to make it feel like a natural progression when they pull him into their exciting new method of making up. And there you go! John's seduced, their complicated power dynamic isn't upset, and John's none the wiser that it was all a scheme to gain access to his genetic code.

So long story short, just one of them showing new interest in John would have been suspicious. Showing new interest in one another and taking John along for the ride gets under his defences, because he wants so badly for them to get along.

[lilcathsmith]

Greg in every episode of CSI (139/328) • Post-Mortem •

[satoruhour]

HIS FAVOURITE W— STUDENT !

a/n: dilly / @crysugu i am losing the pwp war i needed the lore to be in this HELP. anyway !!! professors bc i cannot stop my mind from spiralling while starting my university classes — im not entirely proud of this but eehhh ….

wc: 4k

warnings: ultimately semi-public sex for all, unprotected sex, cumshot, standing doggy, brief oral (m receiving), brief f! masturbation, brief fingering (gojo), geto is a professor who is also a camboy, camgirl!reader, f! and m! masturbation, mentions of bad dragon’s cumtubes, brief fingering, unprotected sex, creampie / breeding kink (geto), pussy slapping, spitting (on yo pussy), pet names, clit stimulation, oral / cunnilingus, tit play, fingering, implied f! masturbation (nanami), mentions of murder, stripper!reader, riding, degradation, calls you ‘slut’ and ‘whore’, calls you ‘mama’ once too, unprotected sex, oral (m receiving), deep-throating, slight face-fucking (toji), n*sfw under the cut

✶ GOJO

professor gojo was… an interesting teaching figure. he didn’t have a set way of doing lectures or tutorials, nor was his feedback on assignments entirely coherent, but he was fun and unorthodox. he was also hot as fuck, as you’ve heard from your friends, but you never really got the deal even after seeing his photo on the university website or from miles away entertaining some starstruck student. his classes were always left with no vacancies, too, only able to see what your friends meant after stepping foot first into the lecture.

you were a tad bit early, greeted with gojo sitting at the front with his legs propped up on the desk as he shot you a nonchalant greeting and you think maybe you should’ve signed up for another lecture group, but then he speaks and the air is knocked out of your chest. professor gojo is charismatic when he teaches about art, design and media, captivating everyone with the stark white hair and blue eyes, but he’s clever with his glances because you aren’t realising he stares at you more than anyone else.

aren’t you in your second year? how did he not see you anywhere last year? why did you just sign up? 

the smiles he gives you are sweeter than others, the words more sugar coated with lilts in his voice and you’re chastising yourself for not being any different from everyone else, soon turning into the girls who ask for extra tutoring sessions and sidling up to him on campus — at least you’d get the full experience.

“oh! sweetness, what are you doing here?” you’ve managed to get gojo just as he leaves his office, standing outside for quite some time thinking if you’d really want to do this. several lecturers and professors have already walked past asking if you needed anything, but no matter how much you wanted to say professor gojo’s name, it always turned into something like waiting for a friend.

“oh— uhm, professor gojo, just wondering if the grade for that major project is really set in stone?”

gojo makes a show of thinking, but you know you’re asking for the devil himself when he replies yes with a stifled grin and you’re asking if the two week period of appealing works for the major you’re in.

“you can submit other collaterals as an appeal but it might either boost your grade or bring it down,” the professor leans down with a sick smile on his face, because he’s had so many people outside just like this, nervous from his advances and yet not going through with what they thought they could do. but this time it’s you, the you who he imagined taking on his office desk or even in a lecture theatre for everyone to see, who wants the words to fall from your lips just so he could be your knight in shining armour.

“is there really no… other way to appeal?” you swallow when gojo switches the position and gets you in exactly where he wants you: your back facing his office, his face dangerously close to yours while his eyes slyly catching the way your thighs rub together.

gojo smirks to himself when you knock down yet another cup of stationery on his desk after “discussing” ways you could improve your grades, nails making unsatisfactory noises on the wooden desk while he can hear your cunt gush around him, made obvious from the squelch of your hole and he’s muttering praises into your neck from behind.

“this what you had in mind, baby?” just another girl in his roster, getting ruined just for a grade that wasn’t even that bad. what you didn’t know is that you were the only girl, getting professor gojo so hard in lectures and tutorial classes just from the sight of you that to finally have you — it’s a sweet reward. you shiver when his hand reaches to your front to rub at your clit and you’re grasping at nothing as moans leave your lips.

“y-yeah, professor—” gojo is filthy, lewd, lifting your leg to prop up on the desk just so he could get deeper in you, your pussy everything he imagined and more as he continues to fuck into you. you’re warmer than his hand, than some hookup’s mouth from the club, clenching around his cock so tightly his hips stutter.

“f-fuck, angel, tryna snap my dick off?” you let out an incredulous chuckle at that, hips moving back to meet his while the sounds of his balls slapping against your ass fill the room. your juices are coating his length so well, too, that gojo’s eyes lock on your cunt that sucks him in over and over again, the spread of your pussy lips just amplifying his moans. the other spreads your cheeks and sighs at the translucent ring of cum at the base of his cock, hips fucking up to hit your sweet spot that you’re cumming with a shock down your spine — so hard, so deep, so intense that you’re jolting from the orgasm with whimpers of his name. gojo never truly is done with you after pulling out to cum on your ass, however, and you aren’t either.

there’s a thrill that runs through his veins when you back him up onto the sofa, a glimmer in your eyes that suggest you’re as intoxicated on him as he is on you, a sultry gaze taking over your shyness from earlier before he’s pushed onto the cushions.

“thank you for the meal, professor,” you giggle and gojo swears he’s reached his death when your mouth first closes around his still sensitive tip and he whines loudly, hearing your fingers fill your drooling cunt as your hand squeezes out leftover cum from before. a hand runs through your hair and your cockdrunk face is enough for him to see white—

professor gojo thinks you look heavenly between his legs.

✶ GETO

you sigh echoes throughout your dorm room, ending the stream and collecting your keep for the day as you grimace at the mess you’ve made on your sheets. it’s not like it wasn’t pleasurable, but on some days you’re wondering how long you truly need to serve gross men on the internet for it to be enough to pay off your university fees. sure, there were a few attractive people who commented and tipped you, but that was the extent of it. it’s not long before you can only think about cleaning up and taking a big fat nap, but a video in the sidebar catches your attention.

it seemed like a casual stream — no script or planned storyline apart from a heavily tattooed arm taking up half the screen, his pelvis just slightly off the thumbnail. he was faceless, too, filming rather from the chest down which was also inked, something that sends a chill to your core.

it’s only later when you’re slipping your dildo back into you as you watch this stranger pump his cock, guttural groans and slick noises filling your airpods that you realise the dragon wrapping around his arm looks awfully familiar. you’re so blissed out by pleasure, focusing on the needy moans that the man lets out before he cums with a grunt, so much cum leaking out from him. you’ve reached your high too, but you have no time to admire the stranger because it seemed like he was in a hurry, but not before you’ve caught a glimpse of his lip ring.

you know why he looked so familiar, now, standing in front of him in his office while his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, something he doesn’t do often. geto suguru doesn’t wear his lip ring in lecturers either, and now you think you know why because they match the video you’ve seen just last night. you aren’t even entirely sure why you were called in, and you think maybe it’s because you “accidentally” sent a friend request, but you’re taken aback when he asks you if you’ve already selected a tutor to be your mentor throughout your major project.

“surprised? i sent out the email a week ago, love.” you try not to let the name get to you, and the confession lingers at the tip of your tongue.

“y-yeah! i saw it, professor geto, just—”

everyone was no stranger to professor geto’s striking looks, always turning heads with his unconventional gauges and long hair that probably should’ve landed him in a modelling agency in the first place. except, he’s opting instead to teach linguistics, a fitting major for him to talk of the history of language and its formation of it, even slipping in some latin and greek to show its origins but you can hardly listen when all you can focus on is the tight pull of his shirt around his body while his hair falls around his face and you think maybe it was a bad time to think if his hair falls out of his bun while he rails someone. you hope soon it’ll be you, just so you can confirm it for yourself with no other reason involved (you’re a fucking liar).

geto clears his throat and you swallow and the flex of his forearms only distract you further, the dragon on his arm seemingly laughing at your torment as it moves along his skin — the other doesn’t miss your dilemma, staring at you for your answer with a dark stare and enjoying the effect he had on you. your brain doesn’t respond fast enough, though, and you’re blurting out the first thing as you watch the curve of his mouth turn in either distaste or satisfaction; you weren’t sure.

“i saw you stream yesterday—” and you slap a hand over your mouth, wanting to run immediately, but you didn’t expect him to smile after a moment of recognition, making the connections to your account until his mouth falls open just a little.

“you’re the little cutie who sent me a request last night, aren’t ya?”

as he asks the question you hoped he wouldn’t ask, you find there’s nothing on your mind except maybe seeing his tattooed arms wrap around you — and you did. they looked so much better up close, leading from one thing to another in that stuffy office soon they’re looking especially good with how he’s currently dragging the tip of his cock along your folds, collecting your slick as you hold onto his biceps after confessing sin after sin about you from—

“i’ve jerked off to your videos.” a burn on your cheeks when geto sets you on his office table, palms leaving hot trails along your thighs and skin. he lets you play with his bulge, hands probably forming bruises on you from how you relieve the tension in his pants.

“the way your cunt wraps around that dildo — makes me wish i was there fuckin’ your pussy instead.” a gasp and a moan when he preps you with both fingers as he sucks hickeys into your neck and plays with your tits, pinching your nipple that has you clenching around him.

“didn’t miss how you like to be bred in your videos too. think maybe you need some real cum, princess,” geto’s button up shirt is pried open by now, trousers just barely pulled down below his hips because he has a lecture in about half n’ hour. though, he wanted your pussy all to himself and if 27 minutes was all he was granted, he was going to make full use of it. geto groans into your hair when your legs wrap around his middle and he’s reeling at how he’s been watching your videos for the longest time and yet, nothing compares to having you fall apart by his hands.

a quick glance to his watch tells him fifteen minutes, eyes flitting back to the squelch of your cunt around him and he smiles smugly at the whimpers he knows so well. he’s sure it’s imprinted on his brain by now but his dick still jumps at the many variations you’ve let out during the 27; he’d commit every single one to memory. “professor— s-shit!”

geto angles his hips up, the curve of his cock hitting that spot just right that your back arches and you let out a drawn out moan, “yes, baby?”

“w-wan’ your cum in me, suguru,” you’re pleading with a drunk little smile and your face is twisted into such pleasure he’s only seen through pixels that geto cums almost immediately with a pained laugh seeing the real thing, hips stilling as he fills you up, up, up to the brim with hot, white semen that geto feels embarrassed to climaxing so quickly. but what can he do? when his favourite camgirl and student asks to be bred, it’s only natural.

how could he possibly say no?

✶ NANAMI

“does that mean the poem is written from the cross’ perspective?” your hand shoots up in hopes of interpreting the text correctly, but also because, just maybe, that you wanted to impress a little someone at the front of the lecture theatre. beside you, you can hear the gasp of your friend along with the eyes of various other students. “sort of like— personification?”

nanami points to you with his glasses that he’s long removed, a small smile on his face. it’s not like you’re trying too hard, but of course you know your shit fairly well. you always have in every class, it was just a bonus you were so attractive that all nanami could think about was spreading your legs right on this desk. “yes, almost. anthropomorphism, something that was very common in poems or works written in old english.”

you were sceptical about professor nanami at first, especially since he was a lecturer who was transferred here from overseas only three months ago and is technically quarter of a white man, but he held command of the japanese language well enough for you to understand, both in speech and concepts. you were more interested in the lecturer himself though, piqued from the moment he explained his grandfather was danish and you turn to your friend, explains the blonde hair, doesn’t explain how he’s so insanely fine, giggling quietly to each other the first day.

as for your major, it was texts after story after poem, but you enjoyed it alongside giving your own input in class — something you knew would help your participation grades. you’ve raised your hand in more ways than one, always coming up at the end of lectures with a question, stopping him in hallways to show him the book you were currently reading. so that’s why you were confused when you were called to the front of the lecture theatre after everything’s over. it couldn’t be bad, right?

it wasn’t bad, it was much better, especially when nanami’s got your legs on either side of him on the lecture theatre desk while he takes his rightful place between your legs — somewhere he’s always longed to be. both the front and back doors are locked, with only your soft, muffled moans filling the room. but nanami has no shame, slurping up the juices that drip from your pussy loudly, possibly staining the desk below him. he’s cared before about the condensation of his drinks but when it comes to your sweet, sweet cunt? he doesn’t give one fuck.

“taste so good, sweetheart,” nanami moans wrapping a forearm around your thighs and just eats. he flicks his tongue over your clit, while the other hand goes up to squeeze at your tits, kneading and playing with them while you’re still at awe at the man on his knees, at how you’ve gotten one of the hottest professors in the university eating out of your pussy like it’s the last meal on earth.

you’re snapped out of your daze when nanami lands a few slaps onto your pussy, brown eyes boring holes into your skull. but this stare is different, as opposed to glaring down the mischievous boys who can’t stop making noise, this is…

“pay attention when i eat your little pussy, angel,” the demanding tone has you shivering, a small grin stifled when he nods in deserved approval and continues his assault. fingers slip in before you have time to react and your head is thrown back so hard it bumps against the wood but you don’t care, clamping down around his fingers. nanami’s pace is unforgiving, sucking hard on your clit while he pumps them in and out.

“feel good?” nanami asks through slurps as he catches your eye, licking one last stripe before gathering his saliva into a ball and he spits onto your clit, sight so lewd you clamp around his fingers. he admires how the way the glob of liquid runs down your cunt and mixes with your arousal that he can’t wait for it to be his cum instead.

“better than…” your voice trails off when he rubs in his spit, a thumb on your bud while he continues to move his fingers and your thighs are already trembling from how nanami knows all your sweet spots in such a short period of time. nanami simply chuckles at your sensitivity, meeting you halfway as you sit up to feel his lips against yours and he whispers against your lips—

“what were you gonna say, baby?”

you’re heaving for oxygen as he adds a third finger and you’re just hoping he’d show you his fucking dick already. hot breath fans across your lips and you smile to yourself seeing how your words affect him.

“better than fucking myself with my fingers thinkin’ it’s your cock, prof.”

✶ TOJI

it was nine in the morning, and toji could already feel a headache forming from the amount of absentees in his class, simply sighing before pulling up the details for today’s lecture, eyes unknowingly looking for you in the large lecture theatre. he finds that you’re already looking, clad in a cardigan and tired eyes — no doubt from trying to reach his deadline earlier than usual. toji found that you liked to do that, the first one to always submit your essays and assignments, so that’s why he knows what game you’re playing at when you’re asking the difference between first, second and third degree murder when you already know their definitions.

he would know — you got full marks the other time. 

“hm?” toji only hums when he sees your enthusiastic face and a quick look down to your lower half shows how your legs spread naturally for him. the professor only licks his lips before he spots your underwear, entertaining you for now as you stare on earnestly, while nothing is actually entering your brain. that’s okay, though, you’re smart.

toji can count on one hand the amount of times you manage to catch him off guard, but he didn’t expect both of those times to be on the same day. it was a busy night at the club, trailing behind professor gojo, bored, until the clock hits 11 and the shift changes, some dancers retiring for the night whilst others make their way out. they emerge with pumps and skimpy outfits, but toji still hasn’t found someone worth wasting his loaded bank account on until you’re stepping out in a corset and garters and toji whistles lowly, eyes travelling up your person unforgivingly before he hears a small gasp.

his curiosity is piqued at the small noise, only to be greeted with your widened eyes and taut muscles at having seen your professor at the strip club you work at, but with a clap from somewhere backstage your body moves naturally into a professional stance, and perhaps a little more sluttily than other days.

your professor was hot, of course you would work twice as hard, twisting your body around the pole while you show off your assets — things you were covering just this morning in professor toji’s lecture. he taught criminology, a minor that you were trying out in your second year of uni and if it didn’t work, you’d drop it, but no matter how much you complained about the class, the green eyes that bore into yours in lectures always seem to ask you to stay. you never really knew whether he was looking at you or not.

at least now, you’ll make him.

toji’s hands tightened around the wad of cash he planned to waste tonight, all put on hold just from watching the way you put your body on display. he wouldn’t have imagined seeing you tonight at the strip club he let gojo drag him to, but he’s almost glad he’s here when you seem to be only dancing for him, all focus on the other patrons lost.

your eyes are still locked with toji’s, reminding you of the times in the lecture theatre where green was all you could see, a smile creeping on your face when one of your girlfriends behind you whispers that the man with the black hair and tight shirt wants a private session with you.

that’s all it took before you feel toji’s hands on your ass later in the private room, pulling you to his front with a smirk. “what’s a sweet girl like you doin’ here?”

you roll your eyes as you feign annoyance. your heart was pounding along with the music, finally being able to feel his toned body from the front., “cut the crap, prof. you booked me for a reason. what, here to talk about my grades or something?”

“what? can’t see my favourite student?” you scoff with a small smile.

“and how did you know i work here?”

“i didn’t, but seeing you work that pole,” toji grins, landing a smack on your butt before grinding his very obvious, large bulge on you and he’s loving the way it seemed to stimulate your clit, “i need ya to show me what i’ve been missing, mama.”

toji groans later while you’ve got his cock in his mouth, on your knees in front of him while you’re fisting the places you can’t reach. you take most of him easily, feeling the tip of his length reach the back of your throat. there, your eyes flick up to him, doe eyed and pleading. it isn’t long before you feel his hips bucking into your mouth and the cute twitch of his cock in your mouth, moaning around him as you knead his thighs, dragging him closer with what little strength you had.

“dirty fuckin’ slut, huh?” toji mumbles out breathlessly, tightening his grip around your hair before you start bobbing your head again, a plethora of lewd noises alongside the slurp of your saliva and his pre-cum mixing only makes your panties wetter and sends your cunt clenching around nothing. “who knew my cutest student was such a whore?” your head reels at the degradation, sucking in your cheeks even more while you slobber over him. toji swears under his breath when your tongue sweeps over his tip, collecting his pre-cum.

“it’s s’big in my mouth, professor,” giggling, you bob your head faster as the other’s noises increase in volume, and he’s left to tap the side of your skull, causing you to tilt your head in question. the vibrations of your moans has him grinding into your mouth, shutting you up until he’s cumming down your throat with a loud groan. toji spills so much into your mouth that you have to swallow twice, pulling on your jaw as you show him the remnants of the cum still on your tongue.

“’m sure they have it somewhere in the conduct about professors not having sexual relations with a student,” toji chuckles when he sees you peel off your underwear, eagerly wrapping his arms around your waist. “or even something about cutting corners to get your grades up…” it’s a little soft, trailing off when he feels you drag his tip along your pussy and he’s mesmerised with how your dripping folds accommodate him easily.

you pout in dramatics, thighs tightening around his when you take inch after inch of him before you’re bottoming out. there’s a deep sigh coming from you before you’re moving your hips lazily, a certain slur to your words that already show you’re drunk on your professor’s cock and toji only smiles.

“yeah, but my grades are perfectly fine,” you whisper with a small whine when toji squeezes your ass, something he never thought he’d get a taste of.

“plus, we’re not in the classroom now, are we, professor?”

[rottenaero]

They were gonna put Eddie down like a damn dog.

The group had insisted that Steve visit the hospital today, one year and two months after the incident. It was a random day, and he thought, ‘ why the hell not?’

Family Video had been closed for months, doing ‘ repairs’, so he really didn’t have much else to do.

He thought it was weird, the way the group was as far away from the bed as possible, and how when he entered the room, Hopper almost blocked the exit.

He doesn’t question it though, sidling up to the open chair beside Eddie, who was still asleep after all this time, and punching his shoulder lightly.

“ Hey, Hero.”

He’d taken to calling it sleeping instead of what it was, a coma. Sleeping sounded more peaceful, because with sleeping came dreams and relaxation.

Eddie doesn’t respond, doesn’t react. Steve didn’t expect him to.

He turns his head to Dustin, the one who’d called him in the first place. “ So, why’re we gathered here today? Any updates?” He asks, addressing the whole room.

The boy swallows, and something tells him something’s wrong. Really wrong.

“ Yeah, actually. Uhm, since it’s been so long, we were thinking-“ He cuts himself off, crosses his arms and starts tapping his foot. Thinking, probably.

Hopper glances to him, and sighs, deciding to lead. “ We’re gonna have to let Munson go.” He states.

Steve takes a sharp breath.

“ What?”

‘ Let him go’ like this is a job. Like this isn’t him losing his life. He wonders when they decided to do this, in the hospital room for the ten minutes they were waiting.

Eddie doesn’t give any indication he hears what’s being said, the beeps from the heart monitor still steady and even as ever. A constant metronome of the exact same sound on the exact say beat, all the time, always.

Except maybe not always.

Dustin takes over again, arms placating. “ It’s been a really long time, Steve. We’ve come to terms that he probably won’t wake up, and it’s doesn’t have to be sad-“

“ You’re killing him.” He hisses, “ You’re killing him and it’s not meant to be sad?”

Nancy steps forward, seeing it as her time to speak. “ Steve. You barely knew the guy, and you spend all your time here, it’s not good for you.”

“ There’s been no good signs, no nothing, not even when El looks into his brain.” Dustin nods at the girl across the room, who’s fiddling with her fingers.

Steve furrows his brow, “ Oh, so I guess you’re gonna pull the plug on Max too?”

Lucas’s eyes widen, mouth dropping open, and Nancy glares. “ That is not fair, Steve.”

“ This whole situations pretty fucking unfair, so I guess you’re gonna have to explain to me how this is different from Max.” He stands, stance wide as he points to the man in the hospital bed.

“ Max is making progress.” Lucas says weakly, and El sets a hand on his shoulder. The boy deflates.

He turns toward Hopper and Joyce, the latter still not having spoken. The Byers family had moved back to Indiana for God knows what reason, and Steve knows that if he had the money, that he could’ve moved somewhere else long ago.

“ Does Wayne know you’re killing his kid?” He asks.

He’d met the man while visiting, and they’d usually sit in silence and watch baseball or whatever was on. He never questioned why Steve was there, or why he was holding a limp body’s hand and taking off it’s rings and putting them back on.

When they did speak, it was stories he had from Eddie’s childhood, about how he buzzed his head because a spider crawled on him and he was convinced it was hidden in his hair, making babies.

Hopper pinched his nose, like he was being a pest. “ Stop using words like killing, and yes. He said he didn’t want Eddie to have to suffer, and his bills are getting expensive.”

And he blinks, realization dawning.

This hadn’t just been decided, had it? This wasn’t a ten minute decision while Steve was getting ready to come here.

He speaks, his voice low and keeping even through each word, “ You guys had a meeting.” The ‘ without me’ goes unsaid, but still echoes throughout the room like if would’ve if he shouted it.

They’d decided this whole thing beforehand, somehow knowing that Steve would hang on. And he would, will. He can’t let him die, he can’t lose.

Will nods, and next to him Mike and Dustin look ashamed. He would’ve thought they’d hold out more.

He racks his brain for any reason they should keep alive, can’t find one. Somehow, even without one for them, he has a million for himself.

“ If the bills are the reason, I’ll pay the damn bills. He’s fucking alive.” He tries.

“ You don’t have a job, Family Video is closed. Just let it be, Steve. Please.” Robin had been eerily quiet during this entire conversation, and it brings him chills him when she speaks.

His best friend had been in on it.

He crosses his arms, “ I’ll get a job. Listen, I’ve been having dreams,-“ He lies. He lies because there’s nothing true to prove Eddie is getting better. “-dreams that he’s alive in like a dark space, I don’t know- his mind maybe? I just- I really think he’s in there.”

The hope Dustin gets on his face hurts, but he doesn’t care. The guy will wake up and it won’t matter that the ‘ dreams’ never existed.

Maybe it’s because he’s an optimist, and that’s why he’s trying so hard, as pessimistic as he can be sometimes.

“ Why didn’t you tell us?” Dustin asks and Steve licks his lips.

Why didn’t he tell them? “ Despite all this crazy shit, me having dreams that he’s alive still sounds crazy.” He doesn’t look at the boy as he says this, eyes roaming over Eddie’s face.

He looks serene, the bat bite on his face as healed as it can get. The doctors had mentioned swelling on his back shoulder blades, but Steve thinks his would be swollen too if he sat on them for a year.

‘ A year and two months.’ He corrects himself.

He stares at the hair that, occasionally when it got matted, Steve would go through and brush it, not wanting him to wake up to being bald because a doctor seemed it necessary.

Wayne mentioned how much he hated the shaved head, and he wouldn’t put him through that again.

As he looks at him, he thinks ‘ I’m doing this for you, so you better wake up, asshole.’

Dustin’s eyes are wide, staring at the members of Hellfire. Steve could only describe the look as ecstatic.

“ Holy shit, I mean, holy shit!” He laughs, and Mike breaks into his own grin.

Jonathan chimes in, disbelief sketched into the lines all over his face. “ Sorry, but doesn’t that seem too convenient? I’m not saying you’re lying Steve, just… If El didn’t find anything, that’s pretty much it.”

His lips form into a line, determined. “ I told you, I’ll be paying for whatever. It’s no skin off your back, or money out of Wayne’s pockets.”

Joyce nudges Hopper when he goes to speak, and nods at Steve. “ If you wanna try, sweetheart, you can. But I don’t want you visiting too much, it’s doing you more harm than good.” She wraps him in a hug, before leading the ex-chief of police out of the room.

Slowly, everyone vacates, until it’s just Steve, Eddie, and El.

She doesn’t make a move toward the door, eyes locked onto his face.

“ You’re lying.” She whispers like a secret.

He nods.

She looks toward Eddie, nervous, and she messes with the hem of her shirt when she starts to speak again. “ I lied too.”

She doesn’t elaborate, walking out of the room without anymore information, and Steve blinks.

The hospital has to call Wayne to confirm the transfer, that's how he learns of the circumstances. He doesn't say much of anything, aside from a promise of a visit on Tuesday before he hangs up.

That night, that same fucking night, he gets a call.

It's the front desk lady, voice distressed rushing through an explanation.

" Eddies gone...Only blood in his bed...We don't know where he is."

Steve stares at the wall, the rest of the words falling upon deaf ears.

Someone had probably found out where he was being held, murdered him a year later for his crimes, and stashed the body away.

He sets the phone back in its holster without saying anything to the other line. Not even a goodbye, or a thanks.

He thinks, it only for a second, that he should've let them just pull the plug, it would've been far less painful.

A creaking brings him out of it, and his eyes dart to his door.

It's dark, too dark, and Steve's aware the Upside Down fucked him up in incomprehensible ways, and now every shadow looks like something,

But there was definitely someone in his house.

He keeps slumped on his bed, the same position as when he'd answered the call. He doesn't flinch when the door pushes open enough for a body to slip in.

There's the sound of something dragging along the carpet as they come closer, probably a shotgun, or maybe they're gonna beat him with his own nail-bat.

He doesn't care to decipher the shape, instead shutting his eyes.

A hand grabs his, sets it on dry skin. His thumb touches a rough patch, a scar like feeling.

One his hands had roamed over while patching up his stomach, refusing to get looked at. That concave patch of scratchy skin that they tell you eventually will just be soft, scarred, but normal.

The skin stretches, and he feels a cheek.

Somehow, he thinks if he keeps his eyes shut, he doesn't have to face the thing in front of him, that it somehow isn't real.

A scratchy, disused, and croaky voice sounds out.

" ' Hey, Hero.' "

[peachesofteal]

Simon Riley / female reader Secret baby trope / 18+ Inspo musing

It’s your eyes.

He notices them first.

They glance over from across the room, incredibly brief. You touch on everyone seated along the worn wood, cataloguing, categorizing, before turning your attention back to your friend, who seems to be in the middle of a story.

Like Johnny is.

“LT, ye even listenin’ to me?” Simon nods, but he’s still watching you. Tracing your spine, staring at the exposed skin on your neck. He imagines you smell like lavender, or citrus. Something spritely and soft. He conjures up the image of his thumb pressing into your bottom lip, and he wonders how plush it is.

You look like a perfect little treat.

And he’s in need of one.

“She’s bonnie.” Johnny sips his beer, eyebrow raised. “Like what ye see?” He shrugs. He hasn’t taken a woman to bed in years. It always ends up feeling wrong somehow, stale. Unease twists in his gut when clothes start to come off, anxiety trembles in the swell of his blood, and his scars begin to feel fresh. Torn open.

Sex makes him feel torn apart. Ripped to shreds.

But he’s not opposed to having another go at it. Not if you're the one taking his cock like a good girl.

There's something about you. You’re bright, like a little jewel, sparkling in the sun. A piece of something precious. Too golden to be tarnished, too sunny to be sullied by darkness.

He nearly swallows his tongue when you appear at the end of the bar, opposite of Johnny. You’re waiting to order another beer, he assumes, but you look over at him for too long, a second or two, and it tells him all he needs to know.

It’s in your eyes.

“Hi.” Your lips curve upwards at each side, a secretive smile, imparted only on him. His heart flutters like a school boy, young and naive all over again. His skin is hot, prickled under his clothes, hair on the back of his neck standing straight up.

Fuck, you're so pretty. You're perfect.

He's staring at your lips, memorizing the pert Cupid's bow, the soft color that shines when your tongue darts out to lick them.

Johnny clears his throat. Simon's brain catches up to his body. "Hey-"

An oversized brute jostles you, his shoulder nearly pushing you into Johnny. You blink, doe eyed, and then step back from the bar, allowing him to take up the space where you just occupied.

Simon grits his teeth, vision tunneling red.

Kitten doesn't have any claws.

That's okay, he thinks. You wouldn't need them, if you had him.

He wonders if violence scares you. If he beats this ogre to a bloody pulp, would you run from him? He takes in the confused crinkle in your brow, wide, shy eyes, and decides on a different tactic.

"C'mere love." He husks, extending his hand, pushing Johnny's stool over with the heel of his foot, carving out a space for you to sidle in between them.

You press against his thigh as you take your spot, leaning forward to talk to the bartender, and when you look over your shoulder at him, small smile tugging at your lips, he presses his palm to the small of your back.

"And... two shots of whiskey, please."

You're... everything.

Naked, laid out on your bed with your legs spread, eyes still wide and sweet, and he can barely get his mouth to work as he looks at you.

"Simon," you whimper in the dark, hands reaching, searching, and he kisses each finger like they're a decadent treat, one he'll never have enough of, "please."

Moonlight illuminates your face, shines across the curves of your body, and he has to blink multiple times to steady himself, to keep himself grounded.

Your fingers don't feel like razors. Your mouth isn't torture. Every soft word you give him is like a balm. You're everything.

And he's going to show you, he's going to make sure you know- you're everything.

He's going to fuck you face to face.

But first, he needs-

Your hand wraps around his wrist. "I'm on the pill." you whisper, desperate. "I want to feel you... I'm clean, if you-" The trust you're implying is a foreign concept, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he worries. You're going to let him fuck you raw? You're going to let him feel the clutch of your pussy, without any protection?

You're out of your mind.

But so is he.

"I haven't been with anyone in years." His accent is a rasp, heavy with desire. "And 've got a clean bill of heath."

It's a mutual agreement. And it doesn't take any convincing.

"You want me to fuck this pretty little pussy raw, sweet girl? Is that it?" His mouth covers yours, and then trails down to your neck, nips across the tops of your breasts. "Want me to fill you up?"

"Yeah," his fingers slide through your folds, teasing from top to bottom, swirling around your clit, "fuck, yeah, I want-"

"I've got a lot of cum for you, honey. You sure you can take it?" You clench around the finger he's slipped inside, and moan.

"Oh my god," Your spine arches, and he holds your hips, aligning himself before pushing into your body, melding the two of together almost perfectly.

Almost, because you're so bloody tight, it's like you're strangling him. He's not going to last.

"Relax," He murmurs, kissing your jaw, rubbing a slow circle around your clit. "There you go, that's my girl." It slips out, but you don't seem to care. Neither does he. Tonight, you're his. You and your body and your heart and your soul, belong to him. He'll mark you like you’re his. A fantasy, a wish, a far cry from reality.

In another life, maybe he'd have you forever. For real.

But in this life, he'll take what he can get, and you let him. You let him take and take and take all night long, on your back, face bared to him like he's the brightest star and not the darkness haunting dreams. You kiss him like it's real, and when he comes inside you once, and then twice, you let him stay there, locked tight, staring down into your eyes. He rubs your cheek with his thumb, and you smile. He presses his forehead against yours, and your cup the back of his head, gingerly kissing him, carefully, like you know. Like you can see him.

You say his name. You moan it. You scream it. It's never sounded so good, and he wonders if this is what it's like- to have and to hold.

In the morning, before the sun rises, he stands at the foot of your bed, watching you sleep. He wishes you'd wake, wants you to open your eyes and ask him to stay, hopes you'll roll over and realize he's not there and call his name-

It's all a fantasy. Something that could never be more than what it was in that moment, in the moonlight, a secret held between two strangers, the first breath in the dawn.

He brushes his lips across your forehead one last time, and then disappears down the hall.

Out the door.

Out of your life.

[heartthrobin]

all's fair in love and war (2)

oliver wood x female!reader

wc: 7.87k

warnings: enemies to lovers, still so damn much pining, set in poa, timeline is a bit wonky, limited use of y/n, archie being my fav oc, cheese fest

an: literally fell asleep on my laptop last night editing this, i was so exhausted from school so i’m sorry it’s late !!! but i had the most fun in the world writing this and i hope everyone enjoys :)) don't forget to comment and repost your favourite writers

summary: Oliver is still impossibly miserable, maybe more uncooperative than before, except now when you look at him: you can't think of much else beyond how sweet his lips tasted.

part one

You can’t sleep.

You're not sure you'll find sleep ever again.

“I knew it, I knew it—“ Cherry had bounced the whole way to your dormitory, howling into your ear. “I knew it!”

The image of Oliver’s fluttering eyes swum around your brain as you blinked into the darkness of the poster bed. The taste of his tongue and his words still right against your lips.

It was a riddle of a calibre that you can’t seem to detangle. More than anything, you try to remember how strong has he tasted of Firewhisky - was he so drunk to really dismiss it to nothing at all?

You lingered on it all weekend.

Cherry didn’t help at all — he’s been in love with you forever, that’s literally so obvious — and Enzo even less so once he’d been filled in: Oliver doesn’t seem a bloke who let’s alcohol make his decisions for him, something about Scottish genetics I think.

The interaction plagued you: digging a wide hole in the base of your stomach. You mourned the thought that you may never have the opportunity to kiss those soft lips again, more than anything: preparing yourself for the feud between yourselves to worsen.

There’s barely enough time to make sense of your situation before you’re racing down over the grassy hills of the grounds, bag swinging violently over your shoulder and extraordinarily late for your Herbology lesson in the greenhouse.

Your morning alarm had rung right into one ear and out the other, a product of the tossing and turning you’d been doing for the last two nights.

When you swing the greenhouse door open, panting and face flush from the beating sun, the whole room turns to you. Sprout pauses where her hands are flailing in explanation.

“Sorry I’m late professor,” you wheeze, readjusting your strap over your shoulder.

Cherry is smirking at you from her bench, sidled up with Jane Emmet.

It hadn’t escaped you that you’d be sharing the lesson with the Gryffindors, but you’d precious little time to worry about it in the five minutes you had to pull a robe over your head and stick a toothbrush into your mouth.

Your eyes are purposeful in not looking over the room. Scared to catch the wrong eyes.

“Not a problem peach, we’re just repotting some Fire-Seed Bushes.” She brings a stubby hand to her chin, “uhm … well, Mr Kumar there in the corner doesn’t have a partner. Go join him by his pots.”

Archie has a lopsided smile on his face when you approach, a thick black curl drooping over his left eye.

“Hey.” He nudges gently.

You set your bag down and grab a pair of gloves, chuckling. “Hey Archie.”

The soil is warm when you stick your fingers into the dirt, shifting it gently enough not to mess over the edge of the bucket. There’s a Fire-Seed Bush sitting tentatively at the end of the bench, spitting sparks and emitting smoke.

“So …” Archie speaks first, the back of his hand bumping yours between the black soil. “How was your weekend?”

It’s a veiled question, a poorly veiled one at that. The question draws a laugh from the base of your stomach.

You shrug, adamant on missing the point. “It was alright, I guess. How about yours?”

He shrugs right back. “Wasn’t the greatest. Penelope Clearwater rejected me for Percy Weasley.”

You don't mean to, you really don't, but it draws another bout of laughter out of you - you clap your hand over your mouth. “I’m sorry—“

“No, I get it. Percy bloody Weasley?” His brow is creased, dirt-stained hands rising messily from the soil to swipe at a fallen piece of hair in his face. “Dead sure that bloke's own mother can't say he’s handsome. I’m better looking than him, surely?”

There’s the hanging insinuation that it was rhetorical, but you reply anyways: “you’re definitely more handsome than Percy Weasley, Archie.”

His head cocks down at you, stained paws finding his waist and pressing black fingerprints into the red jumper. “You really think so?”

“Without a doubt.”

Archie smiles, bumping your side against his. You think he might be blushing. “You’re very charming. I understand what Oliver sees in you.”

You jolt involuntarily, spilling some black soil over the edge of the pot.

Swiping at the mess lazily, you play the comment off with another crumbly chuckle: hoping it convinces him more than it does yourself. “Oliver sees in me what a bull sees in a red cape.”

Archie’s reaching timidly for the Fire-Seed Bush, lifting it off the counter and holding the dangerous botanical at arm’s length. “Not true. The boy’s half in love with you.”

This conversation is getting awfully uncomfortable awfully quickly. It picks at your curiosity nonetheless.

“He said that?”

He’s quick to shake off the question, eyes still trained on setting the roots of the bush into the gap in the soil. “Oliver doesn’t have to say anything. He spends practically every fucking mealtime mooning over at your table, and he talks about you way more than necessary—“

“That’s just because I work on his nerves. Oliver doesn’t love me, he barely tolerates me.”

The boy turns on you, confusion set in his brow. “Why is this news? Last I saw you, your tongue was halfway into his stomach.”

Zachariah Smith and his Gryffindor partner look up at that. Your face goes hot all over - Archie doesn’t seem to notice.

“We were drunk.” You say softly, eyes stuck on a loose leaf crackling against the wooden counter.

There’s a special kind of fear that's crawling into your heart where you stand. The fear of putting too much faith into the words of Archie Kumar.

That it’s an elaborate ruse. A set-up, canons of confetti and a banner screaming “you’ve been fooled!” if you were to indulge his words. The danger of allowing your mind to drift too far off into the possibilities of a world wherein Oliver Wood doesn’t hate you - at least not as much as he lets on.

Archie looks at you out the side of his eye, you can feel it, but says nothing. He hands you a miniature yellow-handled spade.

Instead you fill the space. "I heard Isla Flynn has a crush on you."

He perks: "really?"

Across the room, Oliver is bumping elbows with Poppy Davis.

"Ow!"

A loose spark has evidently landed on her exposed arm. The sparks that Oliver was supposed to be watching for, the ones that he is intent on ignoring with the constant glancing back over his shoulder to where you and his best mate are in the corner of the room fucking giggling at each other like toddlers with a box of matches.

“Oliver — can you just focus for five seconds!” Poppy isn’t impressed.

Oliver isn’t either, with the situation as a whole. The pads of his fingers are blistered from the repotting of the bush and Poppy’s careless bumps and his general indifference to the task at hand.

It eats at his brain. What are you guys talking about? Is it about him?

You laugh again and it’s loud enough that it draws his shoulders all the way taut. There’s another snap of a spark and Oliver feels where it lands at his wrist, but he doesn’t react.

“Just pass me the bloody spade.” He grumbles.

-

The lesson passes more slowly than Oliver could swim shoulder-deep through molasses.

It feels like years later when he tosses his gloves into the box with the rest, when the class shuffles to return tools and begin slinging half-open bags over their shoulders.

Oliver doesn’t think he’s ever packed up faster - Poppy is still scowling at him, he doesn’t care - before he’s knocking through yellow and red tied students to find Archie’s head of curly black hair.

“Hey!” He catches him by the wrist, tugging on it like a dog with a bone. Archie jumps, eyes winding down to find his friend. “What did she say?”

You’re far ahead, Oliver can make out the back of your head: hips bumping with Cherry’s up the hill towards the castle.

Archie grins. “She said Isla Flynn has a crush on me.”

Oliver groans, “Not about that, you prat. About— wait, really?”

"Yeah!" He hikes his bag higher on his shoulder. "Can you believe it? She's got that hot Irish accent and everything."

Oliver nods, "Yeah ... yeah. Good on you, mate."

He's trying desperately not to steal this moment from his best friend, but he's fucking itching to know what else you and Archie had been giggling about.

"Did she ... say anything else?" He presses, more gently than his character usually allows. "Like about me?"

Archie shrugs without looking down. "I asked her, but she seemed tense about the whole thing."

"Tense?"

"Yeah, she said something about a bull and a cape, and went like all quiet when I told her you like her--"

At that, Oliver's stomach leaps up into his throat. He grabs his best friend by the arm, jolting him to a short stop. Some Hufflepuff bumps into their halted figures, grumbling before shuffling around them.

"You told her what?" His eyes flare erratically.

Archie shrugs, an innocuously confused look painting his features. "Well I said Oliver's half in love with you, or something like that and she looked all confused about it--"

Oliver's grip on his friend's wrist tightened to a degree that a ring was sure to form on his dark skin. "You fucking pinhead! You told her I liked her?"

Pulling his arm violently from his grip, Archie has the nerve to look affronted. "You don't?"

The morning sun shining over Oliver's head feels like it's growing hotter by the second, there's a dribble of sweat running down his spine.

"That's -- that's not the point. Even if I do, which I'm not saying is the case, she doesn't need to know that."

"Were you two obliviated in your sleep last night?" Archie's eyebrows are pressed down against his eyes, slouching down to meet his friend's face. "I caught you two making out like the world was ending less than three days ago! Surely she has to figure that you feeling something for her, she's not stupid."

Oliver struggles between his thoughts, worse around his words. "That was ... we'd been drinking. For all I know, she only kissed me back cause she was trollied off Dragon-Barrell--"

"She said that, too."

Eyeing him, Oliver's hands find his hips. "Said what, exactly?"

"That you were drunk, I mentioned the kiss and she said we were drunk."

A sensation he can only identify as closest to guilt seeps up into Oliver's chest from his stomach. "She thinks I kissed her just cause I was drunk?"

Archie's hand finds Oliver's shoulder. "You should probably talk to her, mate."

He sighs, eyes drifting over the silhouette of the castle in the distance. He shakes his head like it'll rattle the plaguing thoughts loose. "We're gonna be late for Transfig."

-

"I mean, Archie is his best friend." Cherry is trying to rationalise the whole story. "I don't see why he'd lie about it?"

You shake your head, knocking shoulders with a Ravenclaw girl trying to pass through the corridor. "I'm not entertaining it, Cherry."

"Come on," she sighs, practically skipping to keep up with the furious pace you've set. "Would it be so terrible if he likes you?"

"Yes." You don't look at her.

The redhead's eye-roll is practically audible, "Let me rephrase, would it be so terrible if he likes you back?"

You meet her eyes for the first time since you'd entered the corridor.

She sighs, "we're gonna see him in Muggle Studies in five minutes. I think you should say something."

"Forget I said anything, Cherry." Heat flares at your neck again, prompted by the embarrassment of even imagining how such a conversation might go.

The rest of the walk is quiet, but you feel Cherry's gaze warming the side of your face.

Burbage's classroom is over-populated with Gryffindors by the time you drop your bag against the marbled floor beside your desk. In the corner of your eye, your brain has already fixated on Oliver's silhouette leaned against the edge of his own desk. You flush hot all over again, as if your thoughts were transcribing into subtitles and floating above your head for the whole class to read.

The click of Burbage's heels prompt the lingering students to find their seats, "Please take out your copies of Muggle Wars: Cause and Effect. We left off on page eighty-seven--"

You suddenly regret snapping at Cherry. Wishing for the comfort of her presence, your eyes glazing over where she's perched in the first row of desks closest to the chalkboard.

Unusually, the class trickles on without disruption. There's a few glances over at your direction, like everyone is waiting for another outburst from the grade's most volatile duo. They're sure to be let down, you're adamant to not even breathe in the direction of Wood.

Burbage comments on it, too, nearly ten minutes from the bell.

"It's suspiciously quiet in your corner today, captains." she looks down through her fingerprint-smudged frames, brushing over you and then Wood three seats away. "Something the matter?"

You shrug, refusing to acknowledge the boy. He seems to be doing the same: completely unfairly, the thought that he wouldn't look at you made the hair on your arms stand straight. "We can start up if you'd like, professor?"

Her face contorts into that irritated look that you'd grown accustomed to when Professor Burbage addresses you. "You're flirting dangerously with another session of detention, miss."

"She's just answering your question, professor."

Nobody in the class seemed more surprised than Burbage, although that in itself was a feat. The two Gryffindor boys in the row ahead of you swivel all the way around in their seats to look at Oliver, who'd just spoken.

You fight the twitching urge to look at him.

"Detention for two, it seems. I'll be seeing you both Friday afternoon."

A calm air settles again over the class, as if order had been restored. You and Wood had lost the interest of the room and students shift back to the board where WHAT IS A PRIME MINISTER? is sprawled across it in chicken-scratch handwriting.

Sighing, your eyes find the clock against the wall. Eight minutes left.

You pick at the end of your quill irritably: electing to dip it into the ink at the edge of the desk and entertain yourself quietly by drawing a miniature snowman at the corner of your page, trying not to think about another Friday afternoon in too close of a proximity to Oliver Wood. There's a soft whir, barely audible if you weren't so focused on outlining pebble eyes, and a tiny paper-airplane whizzes quietly from under your desk: landing squarely on the nose-less head of your snowman.

Fear prickles at you. You don't look up for the source, lest a suspicious sideways glance earns you another weekend with the party-animal Charity Burbage.

Instead, you carefully undo the intricately folded wings of the plane. It's barely big enough to fit into your palm once open, the top of the little note marked in black ink.

It was the same handwriting that marked the sign-out sheet for equipment in the Quidditch storage rooms down at the pitch.

'Thanks for that one, smart-mouth.'

Your eyes flicker up to Burbage, who's back is turned, before you dip your quill into the ink and scribble out a response. In your peripheral, Oliver is leaned back in his stool: biceps folded over each other. There's an unexplainably airy-fairy, fuzzy feeling warming your rib cavity.

'Believe this one was your fault, dickhead.'

You quietly refold the creased edges, before tapping it lightly with the end of your wand: then watch how it takes off the airstrip of your page and zips quietly under the cover of desks to land back in front of the sender.

There's a long pause - enough for Burbage to draw out a whole flow diagram of something called "parliament" - before the edge of the paper wing grazes at your calf again. It lands quietly again.

'Maybe.

We good?'

There's a gentleness to the sentence. Like you can hear it from Oliver's mouth, like he's avoiding your gaze when he whispers it.

You hunch over the note again.

Oliver's knuckles are turning white, twisting his wand in his hands under the table. He shouldn't have said anything. He's regretting the whole fucking idea of the stupid paper-plane now.

He's trying not to watch you write, not to notice how long you stared at his writing before you picked up your own quill. He does anyways.

When the airplane flutters down into his palm, Burbage is already excusing the class. Stools are scraping against cold tile, the clutter of textbooks being crammed back into bags.

'Never :)'

His eyes run over the word once, twice, three times over. A smile is tugging at the edge of his lip, he forces it taut - but his eyes are still shining unusually brightly when Archie knocks his shoulder to his.

"What you looking so damn happy about?"

Oliver tucks the note into the pocket of his robes. "Don’t know what yer talking about."

-

"But professor, why can't Hufflepuff take Saturday?"

"Well, Hufflepuff already gave up our practice days for Gryff--!"

Hooch sighed so deeply she almost melted back into her armchair. "The decision is made, Oliver. The pitch is being cleaned out on Wednesday, your team can take Saturday for any extra training."

He could practically hear the smile creeping onto your face, the smug crossed-arm look he'll no doubt find when he turns to you.

Irritation bubbles up in his throat, a familiar companion in your presence, and just as he prophesied: you are grinning.

In the weeks that followed that day in Burbage's class, it seemed that both parties decided that the topic of their shared kiss outside the Ravenclaw common room was best left undiscussed.

The arrangement is working. At least Oliver thinks so.

You still bait him and he still snaps, rising to your taunts. He still finds himself in detention more Fridays than he spends free, and his body ripples with anger when you roll your eyes at him.

But it was in moments, like this now, where your little self-satisfied grin doesn't quite vex him to the degree it once did. It's now harder to find a retort, to snap at you with a sharp-edged comment. Not when amusement crinkles at the corners of your eyes where your black lashes kiss so prettily.

Hooch swivels in her chair to find a document between one of her cluttered drawers, you take the opportunity to stick the tip of your tongue out childishly at him.

Oliver draws a tight breath, he hopes his face is still taut in annoyance, because his heart has slipped like a stone down into his stomach. That's the other issue, the tiny little obstacle in these recent weeks: he can't stop looking at your mouth. It's distracting, disarming - paralysing at the best of times.

He strips his gaze away, before he can be outed by anyone in the room. "Whatever." He mumbles.

You seem disappointed in his lack of a real response, but it passes quickly - like a shadow - over your face.

"Thanks professor." You grab up your roster from her desk and turn to the door, practically skipping out into the corridor.

He huffs.

Somehow, you and Archie have become fast friends. Mornings around Fire-Seed Bushes and Venomous Tentaculas in the heat of Greenhouse Three seems to do wonders for a friendship.

It prickles at Oliver's nerves when you pass in the corridors, when you perk up with a high "hey Arch!" and he grins down from his towering height right back at you: "hey Y/n!"

You don't look at Oliver. He's notably sour the rest of the walk.

Alright, maybe the whole arrangement wasn't really working. You were a distraction to him before, no doubt, but somehow your powers of beguilement had tripled. Especially since you seem to be behaving perfectly normal: like you hadn't given Oliver the best snog of his life outside the Ravenclaw common room that night.

Maybe it was just alcohol, maybe he is the only one plagued by the knowledge of the other's taste.

The castle has turned impossibly colder, the bitter bite of winter stinging at the loose cuffs of his robes on walkthroughs of the corridors. He can't imagine how cold the air above the pitch is going to be on Sunday when Hufflepuff faces off Slytherin for a spot in the finals.

It's all Hooch has been going on about for the last two weeks.

Oliver's had to shift around at least four practices - Roger almost twice as much, he's a pushover - to allow for you and Marcus to have more time on the pitch. His complaints fell on deaf ears, Hooch dismissed him with a wave of her bony hand and a "your time is coming, Wood."

You prance into dinner late most evenings, hair in every direction and face flush with sweat: sticking it out like a bumblebee in those awful yellow quidditch robes.

Oliver only notices because, annoyingly, he's found that he is frequenting the bench at the Gryffindor table that faces over to the Hufflepuff's. His eyes drift over the yellow-tied heads to where you clump up with Enzo and Cherry, watches you talk around mouthfuls of toast lazily, giggle behind your napkin: head rolling back to showcase that smooth neck, how it runs down to the soft slopes of your shoulders: disappearing down into your button-up.

Archie has noticed, he's sure, but hasn't done more but allude to it with teasing glances or suggestive comments.

"The Hufflepuffs up to something particularly interesting over there, Ollie?"

The speed with which Oliver's eyes snap to his peas is almost comical. He shrugs and mumbles like a child. "Don't know."

-

On Sunday morning, you don't go to breakfast.

There's an uncomfortable gurgling in your midriff, like a snake is slithering between your organs and you're sure even just the smell of eggs on toast would bring up your dinner.

Instead you find yourself at the pitch a whole hour before the game is set to start. Marcus is running laps around the grass, something he's done since you've known him.

He offers a curt wave, face set like cold stone.

It reminds you of Oliver a little bit, the distraction in his eyes.

Oliver is never all the way there, wherever he is, you think. His eyes mist over like he's halfway between this world and another. You know it's Quidditch: he dreams it, eats it, sleeps it.

But lately he's foggier than usual.

You think it's your imagination, brush off the idea as you have all the millions of others you'd had in the preceding weeks about the surly brute that was Oliver Wood. He plagues you.

Just the vibrato of his unimpressed huff when you get your way, when you quip something purposely annoying at him. It's addictive, the feel of his sugar-brown eyes glaring a hole through you.

Lately, his reactions have been closer to underwhelming. Allowing for only a moment of eye contact: gone are the quick-witted retorts, the Scottish-laced "princess" usually attached. The thought makes you wince in embarrassment, knowing that you've been pressing him harder lately: like a seven-year old jabbing at a claw machine, outwardly desperate for that brown plushy on the top of the pile.

Maybe he's over it. So deathly mortified of your shared kiss that he doesn't want to know you anymore, much less take the effort to hate you. Your chest pinches tightly.

You dress into your match robes slowly, taking your time with the loops of your shoelaces and the buttons down the sweater you're wearing underneath everything. Oliver Wood should be at the bottom of your list of priorities, normally, but now more than ever.

The team filters into the change-room, exhibiting varying degrees of nervousness. Cedric is practically green, but Herbert looks like he's about to go down a water-slide he's waited over an hour in line for. Beyond the swinging doors, you can hear the crowd shuffling loudly into their seats.

Before your wits are completely about you, Hooch is rapping on those same doors. "Onto the pitch, Hufflepuffs!"

You muster up your best excuse for a captain's speech for what might be the last match you ever play as one. The team seem satisfied, you figure it's easy to find solace before a game when you know it's not your last. As the only seventh year, comfort doesn't come so easily to you.

The crowd is deafening when yellow robes take to the sky: Marcus looks over, offering another nod, not unlike the one he'd given you earlier. You can tell he's feeling the dread of finality too.

There's a whistle blow and the quaffle flies past your face with a speed that nearly evacuates your nose from your face. Lee is announcing in the distance and the rumble of adrenaline forces your fingers over the handle. It tilts and you dip, disappearing into the sky of players.

-

The winter air at Hogwarts was biting enough roaming the corridors, but thirty metres off the ground is something wholly unnatural. Your face was burning crisp from the icy wind, the feeling in your cheeks and nose lost to the Scottish cold.

Foggy white clouds puff out with each heavy breath. Cedric zooms past and Jane loops around his moving figure to knock a stray bludger in the opposite direction.

Your eyes flash between them and the fast approaching Malcolm, he tosses the quaffle at you with a grunt and you catch it at the tips of slippery, ice-frozen fingertips.

Shooting forward again, you duck under Marcus who is hurtling through the sky at you: gone is the look of friendly fondness from his eyes, replaced with a hunger for the leather-bound ball in your grasp.

Just missing the grasp of his meaty hand, the ball passes onto Heidi.

"Another ten points to Hufflepuff," Lee's voice echoes as if from heaven. "That brings the score to ninety for Hufflepuff and eighty for Slytherin!"

It's been nearly ninety-five minutes of sitting on your broom growing colder, and you're not alone.

Around you, the team is descending into frost-induced exhaustion: Jane's nose is as bright red as a Christmas ornament and Cedric has been peeping over the top of his thick woollen-scarf for at least the last half - barely enough to catch a glance of the whizzing canary and emerald robes, much less of a tiny golden snitch.

You sigh out another white breath, letting your eyes drift over the stands. It's saturated with moving heads of faces you can't make out and yellow and green swaying banners. Your gaze lingers on the top left, in the corner facing the castle. It's where Cherry and Enzo park themselves during every match, where you know they're screaming in support, clenching their teeth at every quaffle handover. You can feel them, even when their faces blur into the crowd.

Unintentionally, you think about how Oliver's mixed in there too. Somewhere between your peers. If you had been granted another moment, if the quaffle wasn't mid-air between two Slytherins just under your nose and you'd not taken the opportunity to snatch it from them, you would have meandered into the trap of hoping that deep down in his chest - even if it was core of the earth deep - he was rooting for you, too. That he seethed at a missed goal or clenched a tight fist at his side in celebration when a Hufflepuff makes a beautiful play.

Meanwhile in the stands, Oliver has decided that the desire to play his allegiances in secret has since disappeared from his heart.

He'd played it light in the first few minutes. Mumbling under his breath at a fumbled pass or a slimy move from the Slytherins, but by the forty-fifth minute he'd found himself on his feet.

"Diggory!" His hands waved in front of him, "it was right there you fucking git--"

A Hufflepuff third year a row ahead looked at him askew, but he paid her no mind.

Archie had taken the hint early. As soon as Oliver was out of his seat, so was he. Despite being Oliver Wood's best friend, Archie had somewhat limited knowledge of the game himself and eyed Oliver's reactions to find the appropriate moments to whoop and cheer. Oliver didn't say anything, but he appreciated it more than he could verbalise.

His eyes tracked you more than anything, when you were flying between players or just floating in place: eyes like a hawk, watching over the game. His heart swelled and his pride fell to the wayside.

Just short of the two hour mark, there was a rise in the crowd.

"The seekers have caught sight of the snitch!"

Oliver's stomach rose into his throat.

"They're diving for it, Malfoy and Diggory head to head-- and Slytherin grabs the snitch, winning by 140 points!"

It sank back into place, like a stone to the bottom of the river. He watched how you froze, how you twisted over your shoulder to find Diggory's figure lingering at the bottom of the field. You shoulders sagged, hanging in the air as the others dropped to the ground.

"Slytherin have made it into the finals against Gryffindor for the quidditch cup, back here at the pitch next month!"

After a long moment, the last in the sky, you followed them down.

The raucous cheers from the Slytherins were hard to drown out, he wasn't even sure Archie heard him toss a "i'll find you at the castle" before he found himself pushing through the masses of people.

He fought against the wave moving to find the stairs, eager to return to the warmth of their dormitories, but Oliver was markedly more motivated than the majority. He stomped on some toes and nearly tossed a first year off the stands to race down the stairs.

Only once his feet had found the mushy grass of the pitch, did he pause to consider that he wasn't entirely sure what he was going to say. What was the rush for? To comfort you, tease you for your loss?

The latter option was definitely what he could do, what he could say. What was expected of him, if he was being honest. Recently, however, he's found it harder and harder to come up with remarks to hurt your feelings. Found that he quite prefers that little smile that tucks into the corner of your mouth when he says something unexpectedly fond. How your eyes practically gleam.

There's shoving from all sides of him -- get out the way, bloody hell -- and the teams pass ahead of him. Leading the march, despite it being nothing more than a slow trudge, is your figure: squashed between those of who he recognises to be Cherry Stretton and Enzo Musa's.

Their arms wrapped over your shoulders, talking animatedly into your ear on each side. Enzo tips his head to meet yours, a small touch of comfort.

Oliver sighs. He has nothing to say and no comfort to offer, wondering for a moment what he could possibly bare to hear in his own final moments as captain. He thinks that anything from your mouth would work.

So he waits, parks himself beside the stairs and waits for Archie: watching the six-legged figure disappear up over the hill.

-

You're not at dinner.

He knows because he's been watching the door for the better half of an hour. Archie pushes his plate at him, "Eat something there, Ollie."

Begrudgingly, Oliver brings his drumstick up to his mouth. "She's not eaten a thing since breakfast, it's almost eight."

Archie passes a sympathetic look over him. "Her friends are here, I'm sure she'll be by soon. There's no use you joining her on a hunger-strike."

He's right. Cherry and Enzo and some others that frequent your circle are talking around the table, around the spot that you usually fill. But dinner goes on and students leak steadily out towards bed without your return.

Eventually Oliver huffs, like an irritated bulldog, and grabs for the nearest napkin: unfolding it out in front of him.

"What are you doing?" Archie asks thickly, spitting bits of rice at him.

Oliver reaches for two chicken skewers, placing them neatly on the white square: alongside a dinner roll and a pumpkin pasty.

He wraps them over, double wraps it with another napkin too.

"What does it look like, Arch."

Placing it carefully into the deep pocket of his robe, Oliver goes to stand - lacking the patience it takes for Archie to answer, or for his inevitable teasing. "I'll find you back in our room."

He's halfway out the hall when Archie's voice calls out to him, "You don't even know where she is!"

Oliver shakes his head, brandishing a dismissive hand over his shoulder. "I know where she is." He mumbles for only himself to hear.

-

You’d watched close to twenty-one quidditch matches from the stands at the pitch on Hogwarts grounds: played in almost half of them. 

The seat is still slightly too small, just uncomfortable enough to make a person shuffle. Beyond the rim over the other end of the pitch you can see the orange sun dipping behind the horizon, drawing to darkness over your moment alone.

By now you're sure the party in the common room has long since found momentum. The one you'd been promised by the team, "it's your last game, cap, we need to celebrate!". You're sure someone somewhere is looking for you, bracing a plastic cup of Firewhisky with your name on it, but you can't find it within yourself to face it all just yet.

The silence of the evening is enough, you only wish you'd been fast enough to retrieve your broomstick that's somewhere off with Enzo. Just for one last lap.

The serenity of your loneliness doesn't persevere, however. You can hear shuffling up the steps, you're tempted to look but the sunset is slipping so quickly out of your hands that it's not worth the time wasted.

It's only when the footfalls draw closer, stopping when a body slumps into the seat beside you. The seats are so cramped that his knee brushes yours, the figure long since identified from the corner of your eye.

"Come to gloat?" You ask, eyes never leaving the sky.

He shrugs. "Not today."

You nod. His smell drifts on the breeze under your nose, like peppermint and soap and Oliver.

There's a long silence. Your robes crease against the fist sitting in your lap, you've yet to change out of your quidditch uniform, you know it will be the last time.

"You missed dinner."

"Does it matter?"

Despite your avoidant gaze, Oliver's is warming the side of your face. The evening air cools the same spot.

There's a shuffling that finally draws your eyes. Oliver is still in his robes too, and his hand emerges from a deep pocket with a folded napkin square. "Figured you'd be hungry."

He places it onto your lap with a gentleness you're coming to find more of in him. Something frighteningly warm erupts in your chest and your hands come up to it, pulling apart the napkin to find picky bits inside.

You're fighting between smiling and starting to cry. You do neither.

"You carried this in your pocket the whole way from the hall?"

His eyes flicker between the food and your face before he shrugs. "Yeah."

By now, you were fighting a losing battle and the smile pulled up at the ends of your mouth so tightly that your cheeks started to hurt. "Gross."

You pick up a chicken skewer regardless, biting into it and facing the sky again. You offer him the other one and he looks for a moment like he's going to argue but takes it quietly in the end.

The chicken is tender and only after you'd swallowed the first bit did you realise how hungry you'd actually been. You finish it without a word, going to tear the pasty in half and offering a piece to your companion.

You're picking at the roll now, tearing tiny bits off and feeding it piece by piece to yourself like a bird. "Last game."

He nods. "I know."

"What could someone say to you after your last game, Wood?" You pick at him, eyes flittering between him and the now nearly black sky. "You know, to make you feel better?"

Oliver shakes his head, leaning back and rolling his shoulders: as if the thought itself unsettled him.

"Nothing, probably. I'd probably just walk into the Black Lake and drown myself."

You think he's joking, but with Oliver Wood that was hardly a sure thing.

"You wouldn't."

"What's there left to live for?" He says it with an airy chuckle.

Shrugging, your head falls against your shoulder. "You'd have to figure it out, because I'd go marching in right after you. Carry you out if I had to."

Oliver stills, eyes wide and blinking at you. Your chest goes tight, the ghost of a smile pressing at your face.

"Bridal style and everything ..." You add quietly, stifling your chuckle.

He seems to come back to himself, nodding. "We should get back. Been a long day."

The napkin crumples in your hand, shoved down into the depths of your own pocket. You walk ahead, the pathway to the steps is only narrow enough for one person at a time, and he trails behind.

By the time you've hit the steps, Oliver moving down beside you, you're brewing around an apology. A way to thin the air, to ease where your chest is tight: swirling around well done, now you've made things awkward you git. It's halfway up to your tongue when skin brushes against the back of your hand.

Warm fingers explore your knuckles to find your cool ones, slipping to knot between them.

You work not to look down, because Oliver's skittish like that. From the corner of your eye, you can see he's concentrating his gaze ahead.

His hand tightens against yours, palm callous from years wrapped around the wooden handle of his broomstick. It's a little sweaty and sticky but you're smiling so hard you're about to be sick.

You dare to look at him, Oliver's smiling too.

-

Oliver hasn't been sleeping.

His last few days of seventh year are slipping like water through his calloused hands and he can feel it. Every hour that passes, shadowy and fleeting.

Classes feel shorter than before, the terrible jokes Archie bombards him with over dinner sound funnier than he ever remembers them being and the glimpses he catches of you in the corridor never feel long enough. The ceiling of his poster bed flashes with moments of the day that's passed, feeling like a dream you'll be jolted out of as soon as it gets good.

Even over all his hours of broody contemplation, none of it makes the final whistle any easier to swallow. It hits him like he's been smacked with a bludger in the chest.

"Gryffindor has won the quidditch cup, two-hundred and thirty points to twenty!"

He can hear the crowd's roar, the whoops of the twins floating somewhere below him. Harry's standing on the grass of the pitch holding up his tiny golden trophy. The pitch is red all over: Oliver won.

He won.

Every moment building up over the last seven years culminated into the final blow of the whistle. The wind is whipping at the hair over his forehead: Oliver thinks this might be the happiest moment of his life, but he's not entirely sure.

He never realised that it would all be so fucking soaked in sadness.

It's over. He's leaving the castle empty handed. His engraving will live on the Quidditch Cup in a dusty cupboard for years to come, yes, and he might have a frame up in his future apartment somewhere, reminiscing on the old days. That's all.

He's struck with the devastating fear that in a few short years, nobody will remember him. More than anything, he can't believe he hadn't come to this overwhelming conclusion before right now. Before Angelina is yelling to him, waving a frantic hand and sporting the biggest grin in all of Scotland, before he was seconds from taking the prize he's held in his mind for so many years into his very hands.

Will you forget him?

It nearly knocks him off his broom. He finds that it scares him the most, more than the thought of the dust-caked trophy or the lonely corner at the back of his cupboard where his Hogwarts robes will no doubt live until eternity.

He won't forget you, he thinks. He knows.

You're just so damn annoying. And beautiful, fucking whip-clever and hilarious sometimes--

The handle of his broom is tilting down to the earth now, the crowd zooming into a blur on either side of him. He hits a shaky landing, broomstick abandoned on the grass behind him as he's pulled into the arms of his team and well-wishers.

A golden trophy passes over the heads of the twins and it's shoved into his sweating hands. It's cool to the touch and so much heavier than he thought it ever could be, but he can't seem to keep his mind on the situation long enough to realise any of that. His mind is racing around the castle wondering where you might be and what's the fastest way to get there.

His eyes are racing over the heads of the roving crowd. "Wood, Wood! Speech!"

Shadowing over everyone is Archie's tall figure standing at the back, grinning down at him. The team watches expectantly.

This is it. The moment for the speech he's been practicing in his bathroom mirror since he was seven.

"I--" he looks down at the cup for the first time, his face reflecting up at him in glimmering gold. He finds he can't remember any of the words. "I need to go find someone."

There's a buzz of confusion, but Oliver doesn't linger: shoving the Quidditch Cup into Harry's arms.

"That's the shortest speech Wood has ever given." He hears Angelina quip, but he can't be arsed to turn. He's already flying, moving through the crowd at such a pace he might just have been on his broom.

The sea of students had long since started moving up to the castle, particularly the non-gryffindors: trying to beat the stampede of scarlet that is no doubt to come. Oliver's legs carry him over the smooth green hill up towards Hogwarts, head craning over students to find your side profile somewhere in the mass.

He catches few oy, watch it!'s and congrats, Wood!'s but he doesn't turn, doesn't stop running. Students bespeckle the grass like ants lining up for crumbs, and he's all the way up into the stone corridor leading to the Great Hall when he spots Cherry's velvet red curls over the crowd, and sure enough, he finds you're knocking her shoulder with your own.

It only takes one shout of your name and you turn to peek curiously back, by which time he's taken both your shoulders into his hands and steered you to the wall of the corridor.

"Wood! What are you do--"

His hands squeeze around the plush at your upper arms. "Oliver. My name is Oliver."

Your eyes are wide in surprise, the window behind you showcases the gardens and the pitch in the distance. Sunlight forms a halo over the crown of your head.

With a head tilted in confusion, you nod slowly. "Alright ... what are you doing, Oliver?"

He can feel the eyes of Cherry and Enzo burning a hole through the side of his head, but doesn't bother with it. You're blinking up at him, gentle and benign in your features. He wonders when it became like this, when you'd lost the tight brow and the frown every time you looked at him.

"I won the Quidditch Cup." He says blankly.

You nod, a small smile tucked into the corner of your lip. "I saw. Congratulations."

Oliver only nods back at you. "I wanted to tell you. I wanted to come shove it in your face."

He's shuffling closer to your figure, and he's more than pleased to discover that you aren't cowering from it.

"Of course you did, because you're a prat." But you're smiling so hard now that it's impossible to take your jab to heart. "Is that all, Oliver?"

A warm sensation is spilling into his rib cavity and his fingertips are buzzing with electricity when they come to find either side of your face.

"No." His forehead is nearly touching yours and your hands have wrapped around his wrists. "I came to ask you out on a date. A sappy, disgustingly romantic date where I bring you flowers and pay for your hot chocolate. You'd hate it."

"That truly sounds horrible." Your smile is so wide he can barely see the whites of your eyes and it pumps more adrenaline through Oliver than any argument you'd ever shared over the last seven years.

"So, is that a yes?"

You're bouncing on your toes a little bit, bumping your nose against Oliver's clumsily. The babble of passing students and gawking onlookers has practically fallen mute to him.

"Depends, are you going to kiss me goodnight after?" You whisper it, like it's a secret between just you and him.

He nods slowly, "pretty desperate to kiss you right now, if I'm being honest princess--"

You don't wait for him to finish, thank Merlin you don't wait for him to finish, and push up onto your toes: crashing against his mouth. You're kiss is as dizzying as he remembers, but softer this time. You kiss like you know he's not running away, hands pressing softly over his neck.

It's nothing like your kiss outside the Ravenclaw common room: where that one was desperate and hot and angry, this time it's born from longing and tenderness and acceptance.

It leaves him just as fucking breathless as the first time.

Somewhere behind him, he hears wolf-whistling (he's sure it's Cherry) and when you pull your lips off his, your face is flush with embarrassment.

"I will go on a date with you, Oliver."

He takes your hand into his, curling his fingers between your own. You lean up to peck him softly and bat your eyelashes at him, grinning innocuously when you whisper: "If you treat me like you did with Delilah, I'm throwing your broomstick into the fireplace."

-

don't forget to comment and repost if you enjoyed :)

taglist:

@laurenmckiernan-blog @mooneyswife @meyaareads @buffkittenmuscles @emielry @amora-lilly @maximumride1 @sarcastic-nerd @chanyeolsbeloved @pinkb4t @betty13augustine @toadweed-twinklegaze-silverpuff @bella-rose29 @grimm1992 @mortallytenaciousmoon @alanalanalanalanalanna @amane-enama @sosasi521-blog @head-in-the-clouds222 @she-went-that-way @joeybelle @mahidahi @malenk @lillyys-reposts @m626 @rain-echos @meidl @arwn-yng @hotchberry1245 @avatar-lovergirl011 @silverblur @aphroditesanem0ne @angstywaifu @2-blind-2-see @alanatheblogger @ebklsbxgdsworld @gwnwrites @skskskye @girlqrush @cas-planet @thycia-flowers @badonkadork @malachitecorgi-spicy-account @carter-knight @angelic-destiny25 @nyxm0on @saltistic-dumbass @maddsunn @margflower @curlyblaze @ardrhys8 @carolga @my-beloved-fandoms @leaawrites @ilovelilies @ahead-fullofdreams @perciver4ever @amaliarosewood @iamthejam @inkyfairy

[ellecdc]

thank you, McLaggen

inspired by the TikTok audio of Phil Dunphy saying "if you ever say anything disrespectful about my wife again, I'll kill you. Sorry, I don't know why that sounded like a joke; I will actually kill you."

James Potter x fem!reader who was apparently 'too much' for McLaggen

CW: they're at a party, readers last relationship left her feeling small, but she loves James and is all good now

It took a bit of unlearning when you found yourself in a relationship with James Potter. 

He sensed your hangups immediately; as if you were a duffle bag containing paraphernalia and he was a well-trained drug dog.

He noticed the way you seemed to fold in on yourself when you were excited, the way you cut yourself off when you began rambling, and the way you seemed to make yourself smaller as if that was what was required for the people around you to feel comfortable.

“Why do you keep snuffing out your own light, lovie? I miss your spark.” He’d said to you one night.

In all honesty, you hadn’t been aware you were even doing such a thing.

But you certainly knew why. 

Though your mother always told you to never look back on life with regrets, you’d spent about a year in what you now consider to be a rather unfortunate relationship with Tiberius McLaggen. 

And though you hadn’t noticed he’d been doing it; by the time your relationship ended, you realised you were perhaps a mere shadow of the person you used to be.

He’d ended the relationship after suggesting you were ‘too much’.

The irony of it was you were the smallest you’d ever been at that point; the ‘least’ you that you could possibly be. How could you be ‘too much’ and diminished at the same time?

You spent a lot of time reflecting after that, but it seemed that when you and James started your relationship, those old habits and qualities made their way back into your subconscious and it took James pointing it out for you to even notice.

You were glad he had, though. He was lovely, and he was caring, and he loved you. He loved your energy, he loved your passion, he loved your excitement, and better yet, he loved sharing those qualities with you.

All of the traits that your ex had deemed unseemly or unflattering were the traits you loved most about James, and in turn what he most loved about you.

And why would you deny such a lovely person of anything they wanted?

You just couldn’t.

So the two of you had been dating for nearly five months already, and you felt more comfortable in yourself than you ever had before.

You thought perhaps that this was just the effect James had on people; you found it almost impossible for any of his friends to be anything but their best selves when they were in his presence. 

You loved him immensely for it. 

You were getting a first hand look at exactly that from your spot on the arm of the sofa as you watched Peter throw his head back in boisterous laughter not usually seen from the typically soft spoken marauder. James didn’t even spend any time being smug about eliciting such a laugh from the cushion below you before he was complimenting Remus on his jumper, knowing very well that Sirius was the one who picked it out for him - and also knowing Sirius would absolutely take full responsibility for the compliment - only to coo about how sweet they were together and leaving both boys blushing messes. 

You had almost forgotten you were sitting in the middle of a Gryffindor party when someone sidled up beside you.

“Lookin’ good, Y/N.” McLaggen commented as he looked you up and down.

You fought the urge to grimace as you narrowed your eyes at him. “Tiberius.” 

“Didn’t think I’d see you here; not really your scene, is it?” He commented with an air of casualty you knew was entirely for show. “I’m here with my new bird; she’s in Gryffindor.” He carried on without waiting for you to respond.

You hummed in acknowledgement as you looked around the room. “It doesn’t look like you’re here with anyone, McLaggen, seeing as you’re standing here talking to me.” 

“Come now, can’t old friends catch up?” He said salaciously. 

“We’re not friends, Tiberius.” You retorted forcefully.

He held his hands up in mock surrender as he chuckled at you. “Down girl, no need to get all jumpy now. You always were a bit of a handful, weren’t you?” 

You didn’t even have a chance to tell McLaggen where to shove it before James was standing up from his place hidden behind you as McLaggen’s face fell. 

“Ah, if it isn’t Tiberius McLaggen; kicked off the Ravenclaw quidditch team, failing Astronomy, received a mere acceptable in Herbology last term, and totally shit the bed with the most beautiful girl in Hogwarts. I’ve heard so much about you!” James recounted with faux cheer as he stuck his hand out to McLaggen, forcing the bloke to give him an awkward handshake as James stared at him hard.

James Potter was still flashing his (what should be award winning) smile, but it never met his eyes which were no longer their warm hazel. 

“Sounds like you’re the one I have to thank.” James carried on as he dropped McLaggen’s hand, wiped his own hand off on his trousers and threw his other arm protectively, possessively, affectionately over your shoulder. “Turns out if you hadn’t been such an absolute fucking tosser and fumbled the best thing to have ever happened to you, I wouldn’t have my sweet, gorgeous girl here. Congrats on losing the most lovely little thing to have ever looked your way; now sod off before I decide to do something that might just be worth making her frown over.”

You were unsuccessful in hiding your snort of amusement as you hid your face in James’ shoulder and listened to McLaggen scoff and stalk away. 

“Merlin’s tits, Prongsie! Did anyone else know James could be mean!?” Sirius cackled as the two of you turned back towards the group. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen James end a conversation without at least wishing someone a good day.” Peter carried on.

“Did you actually threaten the sod?” Marlene continued.

“No, I didn’t threaten him.” James muttered somewhat petulantly. “I promised him pain if he ever spoke to my girl like that again.”

The group cheered as you felt a shy yet pleased heat spread across your face and you shoved your face back into James’ shoulder.

James, for his part, accepted you eagerly and rubbed his hand up and down your arm as he pressed a kiss into your hair. 

“I’ll never let anyone make you feel small ever again.” He promised quietly; whether he was promising himself, or you, or McLaggen, you weren’t entirely sure.

What you were entirely sure of was that it was a promise he intended to keep.

[sweetteainthesummerx]

it's nice to have a friend !

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

nhl masterlist !

pairings: jack hughes x shy!reader, jack hughes x bsf!reader, nico hischier x platonic!reader, luke hughes x platonic!reader

warnings: mutual pining, fluff

summary: you gain a best friend and a lover, all in one !

song: it's nice to have a friend by taylor swift

word count: 3.3 k

notes: I love me a reformed bad boy! this is based on this request: here. I hope you like it!

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

school bell rings, walk me home, sidewalk chalk covered in snow, lost my gloves, you give me one

"are you okay, miss?" a voice asks from behind you, and you jump.

it's a boy. he's real pretty, features the perfect balance between masculine built and delicate feminine.

you're so sure that you're fifty shades of red right now, but he smiles kindly at you.

"sorry, it's just you look really cold." he points at your hands, and the fact that your teeth are chattering.

you realize that you're still silent.

you hate that you're so painfully shy. it's especially hard after you moved from your hometown for work, where the little amount of friends had to bid you goodbye with worry.

sure, you talk to your coworkers, but it's not the same.

"I-i'm okay." you try to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace.

jack, you find out his name is, was raised by his mother to never leave a lady in distress (you almost laugh at that). he offers you his gloves, still warm from his own hands. you thank him quietly, and he grins wide, "you're welcome, sweetheart."

the sidewalk is still covered in snow, but he walks you back to your apartment building, where the two of you find out something else you have in common: you're practically neighbours.

he lives only 4 or 5 doors down from you.

he drops you off, brushing your fingers with his own bigger ones as he tells you to come find him if you need anything at all.

as he watches you enter the safety and warmth of your own apartment, he frowns.

why would he do that? normally he wouldn't care about this kind of stuff, but you looked so cold and down.

so when you offered him that sweet, shy smile, he melts despite the cold jersey weather.

it's weird, because you're very pretty, but he doesn't have the itch to fuck you and leave you.

he wants to know why you're here, what you do, you're favourite colour.

his phone dings with the notification of some instagram model he met up with a week ago. he sighs, turning back from his own door to go meet her.

for some reason, he doesn't want to go.

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

"wanna hang out?", yeah, sounds like fun, video games, you pass me a note

you bite your lip, and retract your hand once more. you want to knock, but you...

just do it! you tell yourself, and you knock quickly, wincing.

a boy who is decidedly not jack answers the door.

"uh, hi?" he's tall, with curly hair and a lanky body.

you freeze up a little.

fortunately, jack pops up from behind.

he calls your name, with excitement and surprise. it makes something warm bloom in your chest.

"I brought you guys cookies?" it comes out more like a question, "I brought you guys cookies, because you walked me home last week."

normally, luke would be teasing his older brother - and the fact he was cheesing like an idiot still - but he smells the cookies first.

to your surprise, the younger boy grabs you by the wrist to drag you into the apartment, thanking you for the baked goods.

he offers you a hug, introducing himself.

you're a bit unnerved, but he's so cute, like a little puppy that you hug him back, patting his shoulder while stifling a smile. he reminds you a bit of your own little brother.

jack pouts. no way luke got a hug before him. so he sidles up to you, tucking you under his arm.

"wanna hang out with us? we're playing video games."

you don't know much, but you do know you like how he's looking at you, all soft brown eyes and crooked smile.

so you tuck yourself into the couch.

you find out a lot about both of them: they're brothers who play for the same nhl team - impressive - they can finish a whole batch of cookies in 20 minutes, and they have lots of friends.

people start popping up into the apartment, nico, johnny and so many more large, kind boys who hug you in greeting.

you almost don't mind, especially when jack texts you from across the room.

he's watching you from the kitchen where you're speaking in choppy german to nico. he's worried, because the first time he met you, you were so shy and shaking in your boots.

you all good? I can walk you home if the boys are tiring you out

you look up, a small grin on your face as you shake your head at him.

you look so at home on his couch with his friends, that something blind and unfamiliar stirs in his stomach. he ignores an incoming text from the instagram model he met up with, in favour to watch nico explain german grammar to you.

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

light pink sky up on the roof, sun sinks down, no curfew, twenty questions, we tell the truth

jack thinks you're an angel. he'd come back to the apartment after a really hard game, battered and bruised. you show up to his door like you have been for a while, sometimes when it's just the two of you, sometimes when many of the boys are there.

this time, you're holding a bag in your hands. he sighs as he opens the door, falling into your arms.

"oh-! jack, you're too heavy!" you exclaim, trying to hold his weight. he pouts, leading you to the couch. he pushes you down gently, and you let him.

he snuggles up to you, head cradled by your chest.

he waits for you to coo and fuss over him, because you're just so kind and he finds this unprecedented comfort in you.

you feel like home, despite only knowing him for a few months.

"you okay?" you ask, and he pushes his head into your hands. you smile, getting the message.

you finally scratch his head, and he practically purrs. he settles into you, full weight like a thick blanket as you push through his hair with your nails.

"there you go," you murmur, quiet and loving. he thinks you'd be a good mom someday, and his heart twists when he thinks of you with someone else, making a home.

"can you scratch my back?" he knows he's being whiny, but you brush your thumb over his cheek and nod.

you're about to slip your hand under his shirt, but he sits up, tugging it over his head and returning to you like he always seems to do these days.

he slides his arms under your back, rubbing his head to your stomach.

you flush red, something unfamiliar spiking through your blood. he's all thick, soft muscles, unlike the vanity ones you see on some guys. raw, simple strength to take the hits and deliver them in his sport.

he's so handsome.

you scratch your nails down his back and he shivers.

"cold?" you hum, but he shakes his head.

after a while, he lets you get up because your legs are numb.

"you're too heavy," you grin again, and he complains that you're calling him fat.

he's ridiculous, with his abs under soft skin and big biceps. he still hasn't put his shirt back on.

"so, what's in the bag?" he asks, and you brighten up.

you dump it out on to the couch: it's face masks, eye masks and skin care.

"I like to relax with this, so I thought maybe you would like it?" you ask shyly, "we don't have to-"

"no!" jack exclaims, throwing everything into the bag and standing, "I want to. see what the hype is about."

he's seen the cute couple pictures online with the girl doing the guy's skincare; something about you suggesting it makes his feel ten feet tall.

so that's how he ends up with you on his bathroom counter, himself between your legs as you rub shaving cream onto his face.

"you better not slice me up," he pokes your tummy, and you giggle.

"don't worry, jackpot," you use his nickname, "cant' have the fans mourning your pretty face."

you carefully shave off his stubble, eyes concentrated.

you're so close, and you smell you, and you're so careful with him he wants to kiss you and give you his heart.

you hold his hair back as he washes his face. the act is so intimate, and the whole scene is so domestic that it makes him homesick for something he's never had.

"okay, so I'll put the eye masks on you first, then the clay one."

it's actually pretty relaxing, he has to admit. the eye masks are cool, and the clay mask is a little tight, but he likes to see you smooth it onto your own face, matching his.

he takes his phone, and you slide under his arm, linking yours around his waist.

the both of you smile wide for the mirror selfie, and he makes it his lock screen.

after both of you wash the masks from you - admittedly smoother - skin, he orders a pizza, and you make your way up to the roof.

the light pollution is too bad and he knows that the stars won't be visible, but the pink-inked sky is pretty as your smile.

the two of you talk about everything and nothing: some trick he managed to pull during practice, your co-workers pending divorce, something funny his mom said.

he wishes he could stay here forever, with you.

you, with your soft hair and smile, his too-big hoodie over your shoulders as you lean on him.

he likes seeing you all sleepy and vulnerable, answering his questions quietly.

"do you want a boyfriend?" he asks as the sun goes to bed.

"of course I do," you murmur, "but I just want the right person, at the right time."

he smiles at that. he wants to be that person for you.

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

you've been stressed out lately? yeah, me too, something gave you the nerve, to touch my hand

"oh, shit." you swear softly, and sophie, your co-worker turned best friend - don't let jack hear that - apologizes.

"sorry! sorry! don't move, bro!" she rubs where the curling iron touched the back of your neck.

"that's gonna leave a mark. I'm sorry, sweetie." she fusses, and you tell her it's okay.

luke and jack are having a party for new years at their place, so you and sophie take that chance to dress up for once.

your makeup is done, so is your hair. you have to admit, sophie's done a real good job.

"yeah, dude. we look hot."

you're wearing a pretty red dress, with thin straps and material that clung to your body.

you were unsure, but Sophie hyped you up enough for you to put it on, and you felt really confident.

except you were a little scared at how short it was.

"hey, girl!" luke exclaimed when you entered their apartment. "you look great. hey, soph!"

he handed you both a drink, scurrying off to greet someone else.

the two of you link hands, trying and laughing while bulldozing through the crowd to get to the living room.

some guy catches soph's eye, and you encourage her to go off and talk to him.

nico finds you, being pushed around by the throng of people, and tucks you under his arm like your a football.

you giggle a little as he manages to navigate the way. jack's sitting on one of the arm chairs, and his eyes brighten when he sees you.

"special delivery!" nico pats your head like he would to his little sister, and you roll your eyes good-naturedly.

the only thing between you is many half-drunk hockey players and drinks on the ground. nico is about to pick you up like a cat, but jack hops his way over, swatting his hands.

"I got it, precious cargo, after all." he slips one hand under your thighs, and another arm wrapped round your waist so you're pressed against his vertically.

you cling to his neck as he makes his way back to his seat, turning you in his arms to fit you onto his lap.

"you look..." he breathes into your ear, "you look gorgeous, baby."

"thanks, jack."

the night continues like normal, until between the sheer amount of people in the apartment and jack's chest pressed against you is making you over heat. as you laugh at one of johnny's jokes you sweep your hair over your shoulder to let your neck breathe.

you feel jack tense beneath you, and he lifts you to stand.

"I-i need a drink," his eyes are panicked and shaky. he bolts, and you stand to go after him. nico and Luke call after you, concerned.

you find him on the roof, leaning over the banister, shoulders shaking.

"jack, honey?" you ask, slipping a hand between his shoulder blades, "do you feel sick?"

the cool air makes goosebumps rise on your skin, even more so when he turns to you, teeth grit.

"no, m'fine. go back to the party."

"not until you tell me-"

"why didn't you tell me you were seeing someone?" he blurts out, refusing to look at you.

"huh?" you ask.

"why didn't you tell me? I thought we told each other everything."

"what are you-"

"you don't need to pretend. I know-" he shudders, like it's painful for him to say this, "I know you're..."

"jack-" you start, but he grabs your hands, new determination in his eyes as he draws you close.

"you should know that I'm in love with you. so you have options, baby." his lip is quivering, and his eyes are rimmed with red.

"I-"

"I could treat you better than he could. and I wouldn't hide it, either. we would be so good together..." he's rubbing the length of your arms now, trying to warm you up.

"we already work so well together. we're best friends and you make me laugh so much. you make me feel safe and tethered."

he continues, "and...jeez, baby, you're fucking gorgeous. I just want to press you against a wall and..." he's talking low and heavy in your ear, and you lean closer to him.

"please, just consider me. I wouldn't just leave a hickey on your neck behind your ear and not celebrate new years with you."

"what?" you asked, surprised, "no, that's not a hickey. sophie burnt my neck while curling my hair."

jack colours a brilliant shade of fire work red.

he just got all in his head, seeing you dolled up and loose, that when he saw the mouth sized mark on the smooth nape of your neck, his only thought was: that should've been me.

"fuck."

you've got a teasing smile on your face now, "you loooove me!"

"I am a dumbass."

"a dumbass who loves me." you grin, cupping his neck, smoothing circles over the skin there.

"my offer still stands," he tells you, winding his arms around your waist.

"yes. I love you too, you idiot." the people throughout the apartment building are starting to chant.

3, 2, 1, happy new years!

"happy new years, baby." he says, and he presses his lips softly, and sweetly to yours.

he's so delicate, trying to make sure everything is perfect.

and it is, because he's with you, with the promise of more forever.

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

church bells ring, carry me home, rice on the ground looks like snow

"yeah, mom. I know, I've been eating good. my girl's taking care of me."

you hear jack's voice from where you're measuring rice in the pantry. he definitely thinks that the pantry doors are thicker than they are.

you smile, because he takes such good care of you too: he washes your hair in the shower, he carries and stocks your groceries, he always makes sure you're fed and warm when you're too stressed.

and he takes care of you in other ways that makes you warm and all liquidy.

"I'm gonna make her my wife, mom. she's...she's the one. yes, I'll bring her to the lake house for the summer, but I'll have to ask first. okay. bye. love you too."

by that time you've made it out of the room, closer to him. when he says wife, you drop the whole bowl of rice you were holding.

"did you hear that?" jack's ears are pink, but he's got a cheesy smile on his face.

"yeah. you have a really loud voice, honey."

"call me that again." he asks, as you come to stand between his legs as he sits on the barstool of the kitchen counter.

"loud voice," you tease.

he laughs, and when the two of you quiet down, he rests his head on your shoulder.

"I mean it, y'know."

"we've been only dating for like a month," you protest weakly.

"and I can't wait to see you walk down the aisle to me."

"will you cry?"

"no," he lies, even though he's getting a little teary just thinking about it.

"hmm." you kiss him anyways, and Luke finds you there 10 minutes later, still wrapped up together with rice all over the floor.

"you guys are weirdos." he rolls his eyes, making a face as jack kisses your lips again.

"watch it, mister. you're talking to your future sister in law." you joke, and luke jumps, reaching for your hand.

"dude, were you fucking with me?" he whines, "I got all excited too."

jack hollers something insulting his intelligence as you laugh, watching the two boys.

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

feels like home, stay in bed, the whole weekend, it's nice to have a friend

jack kisses your forehead as he hands you a plate of food. you bite his cheek as he shrieks.

you laugh, sitting up so he can see his shirt that's practically falling off of your frame.

you and jack had a slow morning, the sun streaming over your naked bodies as you simply enjoyed each other's presence. around noon, he finally got up to shower.

you refused to join him because "no, the two of us showering together would not save water, it would probably waste more."

so he showered, sad and alone, and made breakfast after you went to clean yourself off.

now, watching you eat toast and watch his past game highlights from last weekend, he knows.

he knows it's going to be you, no matter what.

he knows it's you he wants to grow old with, and have three kids - two boys, one girl, he has the names all planned out - and that picket fence shit.

he knows it's you who'll take care of him with your soft hands and heart at the end of the day, and you'll be the one he'll protect and provide for too.

he knows that he loves you like the back of his hand.

and he knows you're his best friend, the love of his life.

so he knows that he wants to make you his wife.

he leans over to his bedside drawer and pulls out a box.

he got it the weekend after the two of you got together, and he's shaking as you turn to him with wide eyes.

"I love you. you're...you're it for me, baby. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I promise to keep you safe and warm and always finish your plate when you're full," he knows you too well, because your left overs are already on his plate, "and I just want all of you. will you marry me?"

"yes," you breathe, tackling him into the bed with a delighted whoop.

there's no other words to describe it, it's so nice to have you.

it's so nice to have you forever, now.

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

© sweetteainthesummerx.tumblr. all rights reserved. unauthorized copying, translation, or claiming of my writing or any works as your own is strictly prohibited.

[kosagum]

how to fix a toilet — gojo satoru · fluff · 1k words

summary: while moving in with gojo, you fall in love with him again, again, again.

you’re watching GOJO fix a toilet and you think you’ve never been so in love in your life.

of course, you have loved him. but you haven’t gotten to love him like this, standing over the open tank of a toilet with a hand running through his white hair and a pout on his lips as he, with no knowledge about plumbing or waterworks or even toilet repair, tries to fix one.

you should be unpacking in another room, but instead, you lean against the doorway to the bathroom and just…watch him. that is, until he speaks up.

“baby, can’t we call a plumber?” gojo whines, peering into the toilet tank with one hand sifting through the toolbox at his feet. you stifle a giggle behind his back when he picks up a wrench, eyeing it with a frown.

“nope.” you certainly could, but you want to keep him like this longer. “you said you’d fix the toilet if it broke, and it broke. that’s the only reason i agreed to move in with you.”

“the only reason?” gojo looks over his shoulder at you and gapes. “not because i’m your boyfriend?”

that makes you smile, but that’s not it, either.

you’d been all but living together before this; you’d find his socks in your dryer and your favorite snacks in his pantry, he had a spare toothbrush in the cup by your sink and you had one in his, and you both wore the clothes—his jackets, your coats and sweaters—hanging side by side in your closet.

gojo begged you to move in with him every day. and finally, when you realized you didn’t want to live in a home without his socks, his toothbrush, or his jackets, without him, you said yes.

really, there’s no one else you’d rather move in with.

you pretend to think, listing with your fingers as gojo’s gape gives in to a grin. “you’re also annoying, stubborn…”

“still your boyfriend,” he says, pointing the wrench at you with pride. annoying. despite yourself, your smile widens and doesn’t fade when he turns back to the toilet.

malfunction aside, the toilet is shiny and new, as is the bathroom and the rest of this house. the empty rooms are full of sunlight and wet paint and half-unpacked cardboard boxes holding your and gojo’s things. any surface not covered by a box is by housewarming gifts: cookbooks from geto, puzzle sets from ieiri, and a too-big bouquet from all of gojo’s students that you both ended up having to split between vases, leftover bottles, and whatever else could be used as a container.

but the bathroom is not so empty. a shower curtain from gojo’s old condo hangs over the bathtub, towels from your old apartment pile in a corner, and a cup for your toothbrush and his is on the counter by the sink. not a spare toothbrush—his toothbrush, right beside yours.

your eyes fall back on him, still here in the bathroom with you, trying to fix the toilet. and you think this must be love, too. sharing a space, the toilet and the toothbrush holder and everything else in it, and falling just a little more from that alone.

feeling your eyes on him, gojo glances back at you and, to your dismay, catches you staring. “sure you don’t have any other reasons?” he grins again, and you roll your eyes as he tilts his head at you with a laugh.

oh, you have plenty.

you won’t tell gojo all of them now while he’s in the middle of fixing the toilet. but from the eager look on his face, you think he already knows.

“well,” you start, toeing at the tiles beneath you. they alternate between cream and baby blue, your color of choice for the bathroom tiling and his. “i do love you. like this.”

gojo’s grin widens.

he definitely knows.

he sets the wrench down on the bathroom counter and sidles toward you, an eyebrow raised in equal parts amusement and affection. “you love me fixing our toilet?”

you snort as he gets closer, face now only inches away from yours. “i loved you fixing our toilet. which you still haven’t finished fixing, by the way.”

“tell me more about you loving me first.”

you finally laugh, and he tries—and fails—to bite back a grin at it. “seriously,” he says, nudging your foot with his. “tell me.”

you look up at gojo, and in every single one of the thoughts that come to mind is him.

his shoes are kicked off by yours in the foyer. your reading glasses and his sunglasses lie side by side on the counter. two sets of keys are thrown into the tray, matching mugs are stored in the kitchen cupboards, and your clothes are folded next to his in drawers and closets in the bedroom. on walls and tables all over the house sit pictures of you both in frames.

and here in the bathroom is gojo himself, trying to fix the toilet and making you laugh while doing it.

“i love you here,” you finally say, gesturing with an arm at it all.

and gojo grins even wider at you, wide enough for his cheeks to dip into his dimples, and then you’re sure of it: you’ve never been so in love in your life.

he scoops you up, and you laugh again and throw your arms around him as he laughs with you, spinning you around once, twice, before setting you down on the seat of the toilet. your shared toilet.

“i love you here, too,” he says, grinning as he kisses your nose. “and here—” your forehead, “and here—” your cheek, “and here—”

and as you laugh and try to push him away, only for him to cup your face with his hands and kiss you on the mouth, you fall again, again, again.

[leclercstars]

perfectly matched.

college!art donaldson x reader

Summary: You and Art swore to never speak of that drunken night again. But you found yourselves together at your college bar, tipsy, and almost unable to resist each other. Warnings: SMUT! 18! alcohol usage, drunk sex, cursing, biting, protected sex

It was one night.

One night, three months ago. Swept up in too many celebratory glasses of champagne. His messy blonde curls looked like a halo with your blurred vision. The traces of liquor on his upper lip seemed to be beckoning you in, begging you to find out if it was vodka or tequila. You left at the same time, he had offered to walk you home. Always a gentleman, always seemed to care about you. You both were stumbling, the drinks hitting the two of you all at once. You ended up outside your house, and then inside your house, up your stairs, in your bedroom. You’d seen his strong hands gripping the racket before but god they looked even better gripping your ass. Clothes thrown all over the room, not able to undress each other fast enough. His chiseled collarbones the perfect culprit for you to leave bite marks along. You woke up the next morning, head pounding, still naked. You felt him next to you, his tight abs pressed against your bare back, curls tickling the side of your neck. Fuck, how could you let that happen. He left in a haste, each of you promising to not discuss the events of the night prior ever again.

And now here you were. A few too many double vodka lemonades deep inside your shitty college bar. The whole team had decided to go out to celebrate the end of a stellar season and unfortunately, Art looked just as good as ever. His backwards Stanford cap and his loose Budweiser t-shirt made him look like some sort of shitty frat guy, which certainly wasn't unappealing to you since that tended to be your type. You tried to play it cool when he walked over to you. “Having fun?” he smirked, sidling up on the barstool next to yours. He leaned back against the bar, looking so perfectly relaxed. How do people end up this sexy?

“Could be having more fun,” you said casually, sipping your drink. Wait. What the fuck. Why did you just say that. You knew you had drank quite a bit but jesus christ isn’t it supposed to be liquid courage not liquid “ruin this friendship?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Art, looking genuinely confused. God sometimes his innocence was almost a little annoying, made you want him even more half the time.

“Sorry, geez I should not have said that,” you were slurring, the alcohol and your emotions making it hard to think straight.

He leaned in closer to you. You could smell the tequila on his breath, knowing that was his liquor of choice from the last time this happened. “I think I can make this night a whole lot more fun,” Art growled. 

You had never heard his voice sound like that before. Low and lusting, you knew you were not going to be able to resist. You locked eyes with him, and you could just feel how needy you probably looked. The two of you got up and left without saying goodbye.

Art was gentle. He was caring, a shoulder to cry on. Someone you could turn to if you were having a bad day and needed a hug. That side of him was not so apparent behind your bedroom door. He pinned you against the wall, muscles rippling in your face as he sucked on your neck. Your moans were soft, hands pulling on his curls, earning equally soft groans from him. You were obsessed, this didn’t happen often and you knew you had to take in every moment. Every inch of him that you could feel, taste, touch, it was completely overtaking you. His boxers were sitting low on his hips, exposing his v-line. Your lacy bralette had been tossed aside, leaving your nipples free to be caressed by his rough hands. His mouth roamed from your neck down to your tits, taking one in his mouth as he gazed up at you. Fuck, your head rolled back against the wall. His eyes were shut, tongue flicking so expertly across your nipple. You never wanted this image of him, looking so intoxicated with your body, to leave your mind.

He stood back up, leaving no room between your now naked bodies. Suddenly his features softened, a nervousness painting itself across his face. He scratched the back of his head, a tell-tale sign that something was on his mind. “Do you want to like-” he was basically whispering, cheeks flushed. It was astonishing how all his confidence had suddenly evaporated. “Fuck?” you filled in the blank, leaning closer to his lips, teasing him with the thought. That hadn’t happened last time you were together. He was too drunk, and well,  he just couldn’t quite get it up. “Yeah, fuck yes please.” he groaned. You laid down on your bed as he walked to his wallet, pulling out that little gold wrapper. He climbed up on top of you, using his thumb to gently brush the hair away from your face. He looked ecstatic, the drunken-ness painting a stupid grin across his face and making you just feel insanely horny. He slid the condom on over his already throbbing cock, positioning it just outside your entrance.

He slid just the tip in first, making you wince. You needed to get used to how big he was, learn how to take him. His hips rocked gently as he gave you more each time, slowly starting to fill you up.

“God I needed this,” you moaned breathlessly. “Yeah baby?” he cooed, giving you more of him as he pressed his lips against your tits, leaving marks along your cleavage. “Making sure you don’t forget this in the morning,” he smirked, his confidence returning. “Then fuck me like I won’t forget it,” you clapped back, basically saying you wanted all of him.

“Oh yeah?” He thrusted inside you, making you cry out in ecstasy. No dick had ever felt this good before, and maybe it was because you were drunk, but you could just tell he was hitting it like he fucking meant it. Your hands clawed into his back, legs wrapped around him, pulling him deeper inside. He was pounding into you now, the sound of your bodies echoing throughout the room. You watched as he slid in and out. “You like watching huh baby? Like seeing how good you are at taking me?” 

You grabbed his hair in response, pulling his head into your neck and making him groan and fuck you harder. His tip found your g-spot, and the feeling was unlike any other. Watching his muscles ripple with each thrust, so far inside you he was nearly in your stomach. You squirted all around his cock, leaving his abs glistening. He bit his lip and looked at you, your cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “God that is so hot.” he wasted no time getting back to the rhythm of things.

This sex was truly unlike anything else. Watching the man you saw as a teammate, so vulnerable above you. Completely naked, so far inside you. And you were taking him so well, the sexual chemistry between the two of you just completely undeniable. You made great hitting partners on the court, and that relationship suddenly didn’t feel so different from this one. The way you both knew exactly what the other wanted. The perfect balance of teasing and support. “Fuck, fuck.” Art’s moans were primal, and you could feel how close he was getting, watching his arms tense up. “I’m gonna cum too,” you said breathlessly.

“Look at me,” he grabbed your jaw, making you lock eyes.

It was like an explosion, overtaking every inch of skin on your body. You cried out, feeling his cock throb inside your pussy as you came simultaneously. You fit perfectly together, feeling each other up as you rode out your orgasms. His hand was wrapped around your arm, yours clawed into his back. He collapsed onto your chest, looking up at you in awe.

“You are unbelievable.”

dividers by : @.cafekitsune

[izvmimi]

cw: fluff. alcohol.

You’re starting to think Nami must have known something you didn’t, when she whispered a couple weeks ago that Zoro didn’t drink around people he had found attractive into your ear out of the blue, swiveling in her barstool once before sauntering off, leaving you with that information to do what you will. 

Confused, you turned back to Robin and she smiled, knowingly, before she went back to enthusing you about a classic novel you’d both read as children. You remembered the smile, the apples of your cheeks warming slightly, most likely from the cider you’d taken hardy sips from without a sufficient snack (clearly not for any other reason at all), and went back to discussing the plight of your favorite side character. 

But by the end of the night, a furtive glance over your shoulder located him at the opposite end of the pub, focusing on keeping up with the men in the corner.

The longer you look, the more you realize he’s trying to not look in your direction.

Or perhaps you’re simply imagining it.

—

Perhaps you weren’t.

Two weeks later, you decide to test out this theory, shifting from your usual commiseration with the crew’s women and unwittingly Sanji to sidle up close to Zoro, who is four drinks in and the type of stoic that comes with a man trying very hard not to reveal that he’s at least a bit tipsy. He’s near the dart board, having ignored Franky’s demands to play pool despite Franky having destroyed at least two pool tables between grazing them with his cyborg forearms and leaning too hard on the table, instead opting to challenge a few of the bar’s regulars.

Playing darts while drunk is probably a dangerous affair, but it will probably take more than that to kill anyone in the immediate vicinity. 

Tapping his elbow gently to get his attention is possibly one move too far.

“Hey, you won’t hit anything that way,” you joke, adjusting his aim ever so slightly with a careful maneuver.

Zoro freezes for a moment at your touch, a soft pink suddenly painted over his facial features. For a moment you worry you’ve embarrassed him, until he slowly clears his throat.

“Move around me to my other side,” he says.

Surprised, but figuring he just wants you to be careful, you do so, and to your surprise, his hand slips around your waist gently, pulling you close before he throws the dart. 

Taken aback, your heart skips a beat.

“Bullseye,” he says under his breath, leaning into you. He hasn’t let go,in fact turns you towards him so that your noses are inches apart, and his voice is lower, smooth like the top shelf liquor he’s too unrefined to drink.

Your heart catches back the beat, and doubles its pace.

Zoro’s eyes are heavy lidded and immediately desire-filled, and he is so far from his usual self it actually startles you. Turning your gaze quickly to confirm the dart landed in the place where he says, you turn away from him but he resists for a split second, not enough to truly impede your motion but enough to communicate he liked holding you.

“Yeah, that seems about right,” you say, lamely, flustered. He trails behind you a couple paces, coming to a stop when he places his hands on your shoulders.

Again, too close.

“You don’t trust me?” he asks again. He chuckles slowly under his breath and you turn quickly to look him in the eye.

“Are you making fun of me?” is your first go-to response, hostile to overcompensate for your jarred response to his sudden affection.

He raises both hands in front of him in the guise of defeat.

“Would never,” he says, the stupid smile on his face an unnatural replacement for his usual scowl.

You open your mouth to say something else, unsure of what’s going on, when he pulls you into his chest suddenly, and you shriek; a dart whirs past you just behind your head.

“Sorry!” Luffy yells from a distance.

You would yell back for him to be careful, but your heart is pounding again. Zoro looks up at Luffy, and you expect him to revert back to his normal self and yell, but instead he gives him a disapproving look, then looks back at you. 

“You okay?”

He’s still looking at you like that again, like he both wants to keep you in his pocket but also may decide at some point to devour you, still deciding on which one.

Nami is right.

Zoro doesn’t drink around people he finds attractive, and for good reason.

[alchemistc]

both your hands in the holes of my sweater

It starts innocently enough. There's a chill in the air, a crisp and cool morning where neither of them have anything in particular to do, and when Evan plates up two decadent looking omelettes and suggests they eat them out on Tommy's patio Tommy can't think of a single reason why they shouldn't. The pergola is actually fully built, now, wisteria just beginning to creep across the lattice, the Adirondack chairs that have been sitting at the fence line for six months have been sprayed down and placed catty corner to the table with a built in fire pit Tommy had spent months staring at before allowing himself the indulgent purchase.

They're outside for five minutes before Tommy notices how tight Evan's arms are to his body as he eats, how the hair on his arms is standing on end.

Tommy gives it five minutes.

Evan is pretending not to shiver by the time Tommy decides Evan is officially more stubborn than he is. He'd come just off work, in a tight tee and jeans, and it's been hot as shit for weeks and he'd stopped bringing an overnight bag basically immediately when Tommy cleared out a drawer for him, so he doesn't have a jacket here.

"Evan," Tommy admonishes, after Evan's teeth clack together. "The omelettes are amazing, please go grab a jacket before you vibrate right off your seat."

He looks like he might protest, but after a careful moment where Tommy stares him down, he nods, stands - gives in and rubs his hands over his forearms as he books it back through the sliding glass door. Tommy spends the time waiting scrolling the same website he'd gotten what Evan has dubbed his "old-man robe" - he gets all the way through to choosing a cornflower blue one for his cart before Evan returns, snug as hell in one of the cardigans Tommy hasn't pulled from the back of his closet in at least a few years.

And there's something to that, actually. Tommy's dated around plenty - still remembers the way his first girlfriend had blushed beet red the first time he hooked her by her elbow to drop his letterman over her shoulders and how he'd wondered if there was something broken in him that seeing his name sprawled across her back didn't do shit for him. Still remembers the first guy who'd wrinkled his nose at Tommy's Carhartt and flannel, always half a step from dragging him into some high end shop for something Tommy absolutely knew they didn't carry with shoulders wide enough to fit him. Remembers the only other guy he'd dated who came close to matching him for size, and how he'd owned a grand total of three jackets that were tailored at the waist in a way that would have made it impossible for Tommy to close them.

So it's a first - Evan's style is changing, muteable, seems to hinge on his mood and his plans and the position of the stars in the night sky, but Tommy's never seen him in a cardigan. Give him some glasses and a collar under that shirt and...

Evan catches him staring and his grin goes wide, tongue pressing against the backs of his teeth in a way that promises at least one of them is getting a blowjob after breakfast.

---

Tommy winces against the sting as the tequila warms his throat and actually does a double take when Lucy wolf-whistles right in his ear. An hour ago, Tommy had been nursing his one beer and waiting for the text from Evan that he was leaving the firehouse, but a rollover on the 401 had run his shift long and somewhere between Evan's profuse apologies and Donato sidling up to him with a pool cue he'd agreed to shots. Date night was a wash, anyway, and Evan had seemed happy with the idea of meeting Tommy and his coworkers at the bar, and Donato was sneaky about her shots.

Tommy's - warm. Glad he'd ordered them both burgers once he got a text that Evan was on his way. Tommy is absolutely not going to make a fool of himself when he catches sight of Evan and feels the hinge of his jaw go loose.

Evan grins at him and waves at Lucy as he slides into Tommy's space. "Hi," he says, and Tommy knows he's a fucking dork but he's usually a smooth dork. Tommy's fingers drift over the pocket of his fucking flannel, dart over the rolled up shirtsleeves and the bulge of muscle stretching the seams at the shoulders and - "Nice shirts, Buckley," Donato snarks, already sliding a tequila shot past Tommy.

He's wearing one of Tommy's Henley's underneath, too. The fucker.

Evan looks a little bashful as he admits that he'd maybe gone a little too dressy for date night, and Tommy's place was closer.

Tommy knows for a fact Evan has a whole drawer of casual wear at Tommy's, but he doesn't call him on it, because this is doing something for him.

Their waitress is dropping off their burgers at the table in the corner, and Donato has already wandered off, so Tommy snags one of Evan's belt loops to tug him in, to press his lips to the bow of Evan's lip, to inhale Evan's pleased sigh. "If you catch up to me in drinks before we finish those burgers I might be convinced to let Donato mack on you again."

Evan swats his ass as he dances away, but Tommy can hear him adding a beer to Tommy's tab as he makes his way back to the pool tables.

---

Donato spends a month calling Evan "Tommy Too" around the station and Tommy's too smitten to care when half the crew picks it up.

It makes the next time Evan runs into the 217 on a call a little awkward, but Evan takes it in stride.

"No offense to the whole carpenter mechanic vibe you have going, but it's not even my style," Evan tells him, in the midst of explaining that he can't actually explain why he's constantly pilfering Tommy's shirts, jackets, and on one memorable occasion a pair of grey sweats that hadn't even made it past the bedroom door.

"It's - you can just say blue collar, Evan." The whole conversation had started when Tommy realized he was missing four different flannels and one of his tan jackets to boot. "It's fine, just - maybe stop hoarding them at your place, please? I'm running out of clothes to wear."

"We could go shopping," Evan says, with a gleam in his eye, and Tommy thinks of the party supplies debacle last month.

"No. Never again. You're a goddamn tyrant." He eases the words with a nudge of his shoulder against Evan's, and Evan grins back. He'd been mulish as hell about which balloons to get and what type of tape was allowed, and it had worked Tommy up so much they'd barely gotten through the door before Tommy was crowding him against a side table and reaching for his zipper.

One day they're gonna have an argument about trans fats in the freezer aisle of Ralph's and Tommy's gonna get a nationwide ban for public indecency.

Evan blinks away an expression before Tommy can parse it, but even though this is his first real foray into dating a clothes stealing fiend, he's heard the women in his life talk about the sentiment enough to sort of have an idea what it's all about. He takes a shot in the dark. "You can have one thing at your place at all times. Rotate them out if you want, but for the love of god don't make me go to work naked."

Evan's blink is a little less focused this time, which is absolutely Tommy's bad.

---

He doesn't really get it, is the thing. Until he does.

---

He's sulking. Tommy is absolutely sulking and he has no one to blame but himself.

"A whole wide world of fluke accidents and cursed injuries and you sprained your ankle on a basketball court," Eddie says, and they share a quick smirk between themselves at the memory of the last time they'd been to this particular urgent care.

He's got Evan's Jeep, and when Eddie gets him up into the back seat Tommy can feel the edges of his eyes getting heavy. It feels like barely a second has passed before Eddie's popping into the drivers seat

"These are good drugs," Tommy says, and then tosses the bag the pill bottle is in into the passenger seat. "Take them with you."

Eddie glances at him askance in the rearview, and Tommy's pretty sure he mumbles something vaguely coherent about addiction being a fucking genetic gift, but he's distracted by the shot of emerald green tucked into the back of the passenger seat pocket.

It smells like Evan, is the first thing he notices as he yanks it loose, and Eddie is most likely chuckling about Tommy pressing it to his face but there could also be a funny street sign. They'd gone to that brewery up in San Luis Obispo and when they'd left for the day trip it'd been chilly, but by the time they got there it'd been scorching.

Tommy spends a good ten minutes trying to figure out if he can separate the sandalwood body wash from the vanilla and vetiver cologne and then loses that train of thought when Eddie checks in. He's forced to remove the hoodie from his face with something vaguely approaching embarrassment, but Eddie just laughs. "You two are something else," he murmurs, and - it's a sentiment that's been repeated a million different times with a million different facial expressions but from Eddie, here in the quiet comfort of the Jeep, with NPR turned down low even though Eddie complains about it every fucking time he hops in to find Evan listening to it - here, it feels important.

That's probably the good drugs talking.

"I'm gonna marry that man," Tommy blurts, and Eddie doesn't do anything crazy like slam on the breaks or whip his head around. What he does do is catch Tommy's eye in the rearview and take stock of Tommy trying to stuff himself into the hoodie without unbuckling his seatbelt. He's probably gonna regret that, when the drugs wear off.

"He know that?" Eddie asks, and the edge he'd maybe expected is missing from Eddie's voice. He sounds - pleased, maybe. Knowing.

"I thought we had a hard rule about relationship talk."

Eddie hums. "You started it."

And he did, at that. Tommy isn't subtle at all about tipping his head to the side to nose at the hood of the sweatshirt. God, it's like rolling into Evan's pillow after he'd left for work.

"We've talked about it." He's aiming for casual, and it sucks that his vision isn't the best right now because he can't quite read the tilt of Eddie's brow.

Eddie makes it clear, though - a long, low whistle. "Kinda early for 'til death do us part."

"I woulda married him a month in, if he'd asked," Tommy admits, and - that's something he hadn't really planned to admit even if it's the truest thing he's ever said.

Eddie snorts. "A month after you ditched him halfway through a date?"

Tommy narrows his eyes. Tips his chin against the warming metal of the zipper where it rests against his chest. "There were extenuating circumstances."

"Like?"

"Like I was already way too invested and I didn't realize he didn't even know he was into men until I kissed him."

Eddie stews over that for the next however many blocks. Tommy tucks his thumbs into the sleeves of the hoodie and strokes them over the still downy-soft fleece lining the inside of the jacket.

"So what's the protocol with two dudes, anyway? You gotta ask each other's parents if they're cool with their sons no longer living in sin?"

Tommy snorts. "Your religious trauma is showing, jackass." He flicks a look at Eddie. "Besides, Phillip Buckley fucking loves me."

Evan had been more surprised by that than Tommy. Tommy's got a way - with fathers, with white collar men in their fifties and sixties, with - well he's got a way. They either secretly wanna fuck him or secretly wanna be him and Tommy knows how to lean into that. Without making it weird.

The rest of the drive is quiet. Eddie seems to be processing, though what, Tommy can only assume. He's got no clue what Evan tells Eddie about the two of them, unless Evan has mentioned it himself.

When he pulls into the drive, Evan's already pushing out the front door with a hand on his hip. He stills when he catches sight of the no doubt haphazardly thrown on jacket Tommy's wearing, and - yeah. Yep. He gets it now.

"I'm staying for dinner," Eddie says, with a finger aimed at Evan's face. "You get that look off your face."

Evan gestures, splutters. He's doing absolutely nothing to help Eddie guide him up the walk.

Five minutes later, when Tommy's settled in the couch with his leg elevated, Evan sends Eddie to the kitchen and spends a ridiculous amount of time fluffing pillows and gentling his hands over Tommy's legs - the good and the bad one.

Tommy's expecting a kiss, but all he actually gets when Evan draws near is an annoyed groan and a punched out sigh. "After Eddie leaves I'm gonna spend an hour telling you all the different shades of green in your eyes I've never noticed before."

Tommy grins dopily. Tugs at the hem of Evan's sweater - an old, old cable knit Tommy's surprised even fits the breadth of his shoulders when Tommy hasn't worn it since the aughts. "Eddie said no dirty talk," he admonishes, and Evan's grin as he drops his lips towards Tommy's is bright enough to power a city grid.

[midascrow]

Alastor x Reader

————

Favoritism Pt.2(1.5)

Part 1

———————————-||————||

Synopsis: Alastor finds himself wondering why exactly he favors you so much

a/n: this is more of a part 1.5 really, as it’s mostly just Alastair’s perspective of what’s going on, but I figured you guys would enjoy this 🍓

———————-<>—————————-<>———-

Fluffy red ears twitched back and fourth, listening to the idle and mindless chatter of the hotel inhabitants.

Alastor couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of mirth at the topic of discussion. While he made no attempts to hide his blatant bias, he hadn’t thought he was quite that obvious.

Though a tiny part of him felt a bit smug, especially at the claim of that empty headed serpent. A kiss?

The idea wasn’t unpleasant but he was unfortunately mistaken.

The two of you had never shared such an intimate gesture, much less in the company of others.

No-, he supposed the closest you had ever gotten was a small bump of the nose to one another’s. It wasn’t an inherently romantic gesture on the radio demons part, more instinctual than anything, but he could suppose there had been a certain layer of affection lined in the action nonetheless.

“What do you suppose they’re talking about Al..?”

His ears twitched forward to fully take in the sound of your candied voice.

Alastor didn’t consider himself a fan of sweet things like candy and cakes. But he always seemed to make an exception when it came to you.

“Hm..~ Seems our dear friends are under the impression that you and I are…an item of sorts.” His smile twitched, inching upwards with amusement when he saw the way your eyes widened, a warmth on your cheeks that roused a small huff of pride from his nose.

“Oh…well that doesn’t..upset you?…right?” Your concern is down right precious. So bothered with his comfort that it makes the fabric of his tail coat shift, just briefly.

“Hmm~…perhaps if it were another sinner who they believed I had such relations with. However because it’s you my dear, I can’t seem to find myself bothered by the idea.”

You were far too naive. (Cute). Your sparkly gaze almost made him angry. Like he wanted to squeeze you till it eased the tight sensation in his chest. Though he wouldn’t dare to act on such an impulse. For fear of losing such pleasant company of course.

But he couldn’t stop himself from teasing you. Just a little. “Infact…I’d say I’m rather flattered by the notion~. To think they see me a fit partner for a gem like you.”

That feeling got subsequently stronger as he watched you bury your face into the crook of your shoulder, a shy, perhaps embarrassed smile painting your lips and making a that shifting of his tail coat return. Like those aforementioned sweets had found their way into his system and subsequently thrown him into a vicious sugar rush. His heart was practically bouncing off the walls of his ribcage, though he hadn't the faintest idea why.

“Alastor…” His name was a garbled whine, swatting at him playfully as you returned to dusting the bannister, distracting yourself as he sidled beside you still, ever attendant while his shadow fluttered around, moving glasses and nicknacks for you to dust off. “Are you going to tell them then..?”

“What ever do you mean?”

Your eyes glanced back, lips pursed. “Well…you are going to tell them we’re not together right?”

Well that sounded unpleasant, and his immediate thought had been an internal grimace. But he pondered the thought for a moment, mindful of the eyes on both your backs as he stepped around the side of you, clawed hands dancing across your shoulder and arm thoughtfully.

“Hmm…~..No.”

He paused, ears twitched backwards as his lips connected gently with the skin of your nose, sweet and lingering as he failed to ignore the twitch of his grin at the gasps that echoed behind.

“No fucking way.”

“I say let them wonder..~”

……

Alastor could admit, even by his standards this was a bit mean.

His “loving” gestures had amped up quite a bit the following week at the hotel.

Lingering touches, thoughtful hand placements, small gestures and sweet words. Nothing explicitly romantic…but there was always something implied in his gaze that perhaps even he himself wasn't aware of.

It wasn’t in an intentional effort to lead you on. He was hardly that cruel. But some part of him…found deep satisfaction in watching your eyes shine and your cheeks darken and become hot.

And that itch had only gotten worse too.

Sometimes it was small. An urge to pinch your cheek which he acted on, mindful of his claws in doing so. His ears always twitched at your disgruntled whines, always tuned to your words and noises. Even unintentionally.

There had been one moment when, your silly little self had gotten caught on that same rug, again. Alastor had been on the other side of the room, but the moment your squeak reached his ears, they swiveled back, and a mass of tentacles lurched up from the ground, gently rolling you onto you greet before disappearing like they had never existed.

And Alastor hadn’t even turned around, still idly chatting with the stunned princess who barely hid her ever widening smile.

Husker seemed the most displeased with his current antics. Always preaching to the others that this was a trick. That he was playing with you. Toying with you.

The radio demon wished that was the case now.

Frankly, he wasn’t sure why he was doing it. He knew he favored you above the others. That was natural. Instinctual. Obvious. And while the others reactions, especially those of the spear wielding ex angel and the gambler were fairly amusing, if that had been the soul purpose it was likely he would’ve grown bored by now. And he would’ve stopped.

But it wasn’t. And he hadn’t.

And it was all becoming a bit overwhelming.

Yet you didn’t question it. Sometimes your brow would raise, at a particularly bold gesture or comment sent your way, and yes your eyes would dart around as if to see who was watching. But you never complained. And if he didn’t know any better, he’d say you were enjoying yourself, if the sweetheart smile that graced your lips after each instance was anything to go off.

So Alastor didn’t feel the need to label what he was experiencing or truly ponder why. He was enjoying himself, as were you. To him, nothing needed to be said.

“So are you two bangin or nah?”

Though he supposed not everyone felt the same.

Taglist: @preciousbabypeter @ouroborostheunholy @chirimeimei @shanksstrawhat @for-hearthand-home @random-3455 @ittoehurt @salutations-demonsanddappers

(Anyone who wanted to be tagged and wasn’t, for whatever reason your blogs weren’t showing up,🍓)

[crushribbons]

𝖇𝖎𝖗𝖉𝖎𝖊

summary: Sebastian Sallow should have been a Ravenclaw. (series masterlist)

cw: 4.6k words, pining, fluff, very light angst, smut (18+ ONLY), male masturbation *cough*saltburn*cough*, sexual imagery, Sebastian in a towel 😵‍💫

a/n: this if my first HL fic :) feedback welcome and requests are open! req rules here. enjoy xx laney

“Mr. Sallow! Would you care to join the rest of the class in absorbing the information I am teaching? I suspect the grounds will still look just as they do now after the period has ended.” 

The wave of suppressed, tittering laughter fluttered around the room and died quickly as Professor Weasley turned back to the parrot on her desk. Sebastian yanked his head off his upturned palm and away from the window he’d been staring out of. Rain was pouring down in resolute sheets and turning the lush Hogwarts grounds to murky mud. Absolutely no good for a flying match against Imelda, because the witch was so talented at flying in any condition, it almost guaranteed that the outcome of their “friendly” wager would be ten less galleons in his already light pockets. 

He turned his attention, or at least tried to, back to the parrot. Weasley had been droning on for so long that he could no longer remember whether it had started as a parrot or if it had been a picnic basket first. He doubted that in his day-to-day life he would find much use for turning either into either.

“Dreamy dreamer,” murmured a voice to his left, and he swiveled his head still further to catch the eye of the witch sitting next to him. She was balancing her head on her fist and smirking to herself.

Dreamy, he was. The Transfiguration classroom was as cold as the grounds were sure to be, but when he remembered that his favorite classmate was seated mere inches from him, he suddenly found his cheeks to be unbearably hot. 

She had plummeted into his life, in the wake of a dragon attack, nearly three years ago now, and Sebastian had never been so instantly intrigued with anyone before. He was intrigued particularly because she refused to tell so little about her past, her travels, herself, that he couldn’t help but be drawn toward this talented little mystery that demanded solving. 

“So,” he had said, on only her second morning at the castle, sidling up to her as soon as he found her not flanked by Professor Fig whispering in harsh, muted tones. “Entrance, pursued by a dragon, is it?” She had whipped around to face him. Her smile was enough to make his knees crumple and he felt a little taken aback. No one had mentioned that the dragon tamer was ludicrously beautiful.

“I fared slightly better than poor old Antigonus, though, don’t you think?” His breath had stuttered in his chest for a moment. Oh, he liked her already. She introduced herself and asked for his name. 

“I’m Sebastian Sallow, but how’d you get here, after the dragon? And where from? And why do all the professors seem so concern–”

“Sebastian Sallow, I think the Sorting Hat may have missed the mark with you. Only a Ravenclaw could be so curious,” she’d deadpanned with a glint in her eyes that told him she was thoroughly enjoying the obscurity surrounding her arrival at Hogwarts. She gave his Slytherin tie a gentle brush with her forefinger and then she was gone. As she’d clipped away towards the Great Hall for breakfast, robes swishing behind her and the imprint of her finger swiping across his chest still present, his jaw had hung slack. He later inwardly punished himself for calling hoarsely after her,

“N-no, I’m a Slytherin!” Very witty, Sallow.

They became friends quickly after that. When he sat down in the first Transfiguration class of fifth year and found himself elbow to elbow with her, he prayed to every deity he could remember that he could manage not to fuck up talking to her this time. And he didn’t; their chats and whispered estimations as to how long it would take Ominis to fall asleep after lecture started and notes passed to one another were the highlight of his week–no, his year. Before his sixth and seventh years, a well-placed and distracting bottle of port had been enough for him to slip into Professor Black’s office long enough to fix the Transfiguration schedule and ensure those highlights would last.

When she’d first asked him to show her how to get in the Restricted Section of the library, however, he’d realized that this witch was not just adventurous outside of school. It had taken all his nerve and self-control not to stare at her bum as they snuck through the library doors and past Scribner’s watchful, hawkish gaze. Reaching the section unscathed and unnoticed was old hat for Sebastian at that point, but it gave his companion such a thrill that she threw her arms around his neck and squealed in delight. Sebastian remained stiff as a board while congratulating her, so as not to reveal that he was, in fact, stiff as a board.

Now, in the never-ending void that was Professor Weasley’s lectures, Sebastian tore a corner off the ancient copy of Transfiguring the Tedious in front of him and scrawled on the paper with his quill. He slid it along the table to her hand and bumped it against her pinky. The pinky surreptitiously rose to slide the scrap under her palm, her eyes never leaving the demonstration at the front of the class. It was so subtle that he would have hardly believed she’d received his note if they hadn’t practiced this fine art of espionage about ten times already that period.

She opened the note under their desk and read what he’d written. Please, if you’ve any humanity, you’ll kill me and save me from this torture. Her lips immediately pressed together hard to contain a snort. She moved the paper back to the top of the desk and jotted down a response. When the paper landed in Sebastian’s lap, he glanced down.

And leave me here to endure it all alone? I think not, birdie.

Birdie. Birdie, as in, should have been a Ravenclaw; birdie, as in, his favorite thing in the world to be called. Whenever his peppering questions regarding her whereabouts during the day or what she did over the summer break (out in the Highlands exploring and assisting and digging and Merlin knows what else!) caused her to throw down a book with a huff or break into a sweet, clear laugh, she would cry, “Enough, birdie! I swear I’ll get that dodgy old hat to put you where you belong!”

Sebastian couldn’t recall when she’d gone from being an interesting new classmate with a secret she kept under her cloak to the reason he was excited to wake up in the morning. At some point, while they grew closer and he had shared his anxieties and fears for Anne, he had realized that he did not want her to bump elbows and waggle eyebrows at that Weasley kid when she passed him in the hall. He had realized around the same time that he did not want Poppy Sweeting to be the one who took her to Hogsmeade every weekend to giggle over butterbeers. 

The pieces of this puzzle slowly continued to arrange themselves over the years, such as that time in Crossed Wands when she had knelt before his crouched body to make sure the gash on his eyebrow wasn’t too deep. She gripped his forearm to steady them both and hissed when she saw the damage to his freckled forehead. “Come here,” she had murmured, and Sebastian was sure that the stone floors were going to open up and swallow him whole as she lightly traced her wand over the cut and it healed into a dark line. “I think it suits you.” 

“I was looking a bit too soft anyway, don’t you think?” He chuckled, touching the healed scar. 

“If it still hurts tomorrow, I’ll kiss it for you.”

As he rose back to his feet, his brain wanted him to shout “Can I have that in writing?!” but instead he opted for the much more suave option: “I can kiss it myself just fine.” 

He ought to have sealed his own mouth permanently with the binding curse. 

The point was, he finally drew the conclusion that he was madly in love with this woman, for she really had blossomed from a somewhat timid new fifth-year student into a self-assured and confident (not to mention talented and brilliant) young woman. It made Sebastian’s heart glad to watch this transformation over the years. The only thing that could make his heart gladder, he was sure, would be her hand in his. 

In an act of blissful mercy, Professor Weasley ended her lesson at the appointed time she always did. “And remember!” She called shrilly over the din of twenty 18-year-olds rushing to shove books into bags and be done with thinking for the day, “Bird transfiguration will figure heavily into the N.E.W.T.s, so practice as much as you can! I have picnic baskets available for those who wish to borrow them.”

“Are you gonna take one?” Sebastian asked the witch to his left, who was sweeping her parchment and quills haphazardly into her leather satchel.

“No, I don’t think I need to practice much. I’ve already got my own little birdie.” Then she actually pinched his cheek in her fingers. Sebastian’s skin turned bright red at the contact, and his insides took flight in an awkward but not uncomfortable way at her words: My own little…

Was she trying to kill him? This had to be the flirting that Ominis insisted was always occurring between the two of them. Usually, Sebastian had no problem at all recognizing and reciprocating attention from the opposite sex, but something about this particular witch made his head go mushy as the mud they avoided as they walked across the courtyard, robes pulled up over their head to avoid the downpour as they dashed towards the Great Hall.

Her affectionate nickname did sometimes feel like a deflection on her part, an attempt to infantilize him into a permanent position of friendship. He couldn’t bring himself to care though, quite frankly. He adored hearing it so much, although only from her lips. As they splashed through the courtyard, he recalled the time Imelda, hoping to goad him during Quidditch practice, had shouted “Come ON, birdie, and FLY, dammit!” He’d sent a bludger straight at his team’s captain, causing her to careen off course with a fresh string of obscenities. 

And down, deep down, buried in the depths of the shameful part of Sebastian that held all guilt and impurities, he wanted nothing more than to hear that nickname leave her mouth in a gasp as their bodies pressed together in his empty dormitory. His shame at this well-visited fantasy was not eclipsed by his desire for her, however, and he far too frequently found himself rushing back to his bed after their shared classes and repeating her sweet words to himself as he tugged his pants down and slid the curtains of his four-poster shut. He hoped today’s rain might cleanse him of his sins just a bit, because that old routine was currently all he had planned for the evening.

Once they found shelter inside, robes still dripping and hair plastered to their forehead, his friend turned to him. “I’m drenched,” she said cheerfully. Even though it was true, she still looked a vision, her bright eyes shining in the low light and smile always in place. “I’m going to go change before dinner…say, are you still flying Imelda?” She glanced back outside at the deluge. “For your sake, I hope not.”

Sebastian put his hand to his heart, feigning offense. “Are you insinuating that I couldn’t beat the most Quidditch-obsessed witch in the school just because of a little rain?” She pursed her lips, and he could tell she was about to fire back with a witty reply; he felt his head swim a little, as it always did when they bantered back and forth, possibly resulting in a playful shove or tweaked nose that he would think about for hours later. 

Suddenly, the Quidditch-obsessed witch in question came barreling around the corner, eyes fiery, and yelled, “Sallow! Outside, now!” Sebastian groaned, partly because he most certainly did not want to race Imelda right now, and partly because the girl he’d much rather be spending time with gave him a wink and departed to her dormitory with a muttered “Good luck, birdie.”

When he trudged into the Great Hall an hour later, sopping from head to toe and more mud than man at this point, he caught her eye at the dinner table and dropped his broom unceremoniously on the ground. She got up to fuss over him as he plopped down beside her and began eating everything in sight. 

“Did you–?”

“Does it look like I did?” he grumbled around a mouthful of chicken.

“It looks like you challenged the ground to a race and lost, my dear.” 

He may as well have. The second Samantha had blown the whistle to start the race, Imelda had taken off like a perfect missile of pure speed, whipping through the hoops at the other end of the field before Sebastian could even kick off. From there, well…he decided it might save him a small bit of face if he told her he only fell off his broom once.

“Poor thing, poor thing!” She tutted, brushing the grimy locks of hair from his forehead. The food Sebastian was swallowing got caught in his throat at the contact and he choked. Ominis got up from his position on the other side of this accidental seductress and whacked Sebastian hard on the back without looking up from the copy of the Daily Prophet he was running his wand over. Once the food made its way safely to his stomach, Sebastian cleared his throat. 

“I’m a mess, I ought to go clean up,” he said. Truthfully, he knew he needed a wash to clean his body, but his trousers were also becoming tighter and tighter the longer he spent with her. He needed some time in a hot bath with nothing but his thoughts.

She smiled and swiped a line of dirt from his cheek. There was no other explanation–she was trying to kill him. His pulse hammered every time they touched, and especially hard when–

“Dirty birdie,” she giggled, and it was too much for him. Sebastian shoved back the bench he was sitting on and clambered haphazardly to his feet. 

“I’m going to go, er, to, uh, the–see you later!” 

He all but ran from the Great Hall, barely pausing to snatch his broom from where he’d left it. Merlin’s beard, this was getting out of hand. He wanted to spend time with her, but at the rate things were going, all his thoughts would be consumed with the idea of getting her naked and he doubted he’d make for a very good friend then. Adventurous and devil-may-care as she was, she was still a lady, after all. His uncle hadn’t taught him much, but he’d taught him how to respect a woman, and no part of that instruction had included zoning out mid-conversation with that woman and wondering if she cried when she came. Or if he could make her.

“Pull yourself together, pull yourself together,” he grunted as he made his way to the dungeons and told the ornate silver snake at the entrance to the Slytherin dormitory the password it required. Imelda was standing in the common room, engaged in telling the story of Sebastian’s spectacular fall(s), but he didn’t even stop to acknowledge when she called, “And there’s the man himself, the Miraculous Mud-Eater!” He blew past her and the gaggle of Slytherins gathered around the fire, all chuckling at his appearance. Their words fell on deaf ears. The only words ringing around Sebastian’s increasingly empty head were, “My own little birdie…my own little dirty…”

He closed his eyes and swayed on the stairs, gripping the bannister for support. The erection that had been encroaching since Transfiguration was close to blinding him with desire by now. Banging open the door to the seventh-year dormitory, he ignored whomever said, “Alright, Seb?” and snatched up the bath towel flung over his trunk. Then, he was out of the common room as quickly as he’d entered it. 

The nearest bathroom was only a hallway away from the Slytherin dorm, but no one ever used it. Ice cold was the only water temperature available for a bath, and the stone floors were somehow permanently covered in a layer of frost, due to the position of the dungeons underneath the Black Lake. Sebastian sprinted past the door, then skidded to a halt. Perhaps freezing and dingy was alright if it meant quiet and empty, too.

Leaning back against the cold granite of the bathtub, Sebastian finally let out a long sigh. The water had practically given him frostbite when it first came out of the faucet, but after far too long a while, it had warmed to a humane temperature, and he used his wand to heat it until it actually felt good to strip and slide into it. His muddy clothes lay in a heap next to the tub, long forgotten. All that mattered to Sebastian now was the feeling of his hand wrapping around his aching cock and the thought of her voice, sweet and clear and sinful as hell.

It always started the same way. On his first stroke, he conjured the image of her healing his cut in Crossed Wands, only in this version, he actually acted on his instincts and pulled her in by her neck for a searing kiss. Naturally, in this perfect little fantasy, she melted into him with a moan every time, and suddenly, the dueling stage was gone, and the two of them were crashing into an empty classroom and making out furiously. Sebastian pictured the feeling of her, desperate and needy for him, hopping up onto a desk so she could wrap her legs around his waist and grind against him. 

A whimpered and whiny “Fuck, fuck, fuck” left his lips as he tipped his head back against the cold floor. The hand that he wasn’t using steadied him against the bathtub stairs, foamy soap drifting around him and cleaning the dirt from his body. He wondered absently, fucking his hips into his hand, what she looked like when she took a bath. Her clothes falling away, the sight of her ass as she slowly descended into the tub, and the soapy water running down her tits. 

Sebastian was a tit man, through and through, and this latest imagined pornography had him tipping dangerously close to the edge. As he stroked himself harder and faster, water pulsating gently around him, he pictured her swimming over to him and wrapping her arms around his neck (the scent of her hair from when she’d done the same in the library filled his brain). “Little birdie,” she was whispering, and Sebastian swore he could almost taste and feel her. “Aren’t you curious about what it feels like to fuck me?”

Merlin’s fucking sake, of course he was! Back in reality, he swore and groaned as he neared his precipice. A full day of aching for this woman should have had him on the edge of coming almost instantly, but he slowed his hand just for a moment, wanting to savor the idea of her. Her, who he was most definitely sickly in love with, even though she’d had two other relationships since her time here and never expressed interest in him in any other way than friendly ribbing. 

“Oh, baby, Go-oood,” he whined under his breath, because now, in the bathtub of his dream, she was straddling his cock and sinking onto it, her heat wrapped around him like the most perfect silk glove. Then she was moving, bouncing up and down with her arms still clutching his neck and whimpering his name over and over. 

“Seb, Seb, it feels so-s-soo–fuck!” she cried, and Sebastian wished more than anything that his hands were digging into her hips instead of his own as he bit back a groan and panted. Her tits, heaving in front of his face, looked so marvelous that he couldn’t stop his imaginary self from leaning forward and catching a nipple between his teeth. The scream that tore from her lips at the sensation was enough to make him come, and the realization that she’d probably be clamped down on his cock like a vice actually did. 

He let out a hoarse cry, his vision leaving him for a moment, and then his sticky load was being spurted into the water. The relief felt almost better than the orgasm itself, tense as he had been all day. 

He really needed to pull himself together in regards to this witch. 

After he’d regained the ability to think, speak, and move, Sebastian finished his bath as if nothing at all had happened. He quickly vanished his cum from the water so that he could dip below the surface to wash his hair. As he scrubbed his skin with a sponge from the massive carved wooden cabinet that held the bath supplies, the guilt started seeping back in. She was his friend, and that was all, and that was clearly all she wanted. In the wake of finally coming, the words “little birdie” seemed more condescending than sweet. There was no romance behind them; she clearly saw him the same way she saw that first-year Hufflepuff who’d given her a single flower with shaking hands and nearly vomited while asking her to go to the Yule Ball with him. She’d given a very polite, “How sweet you are!” then explained with mock regret that she would be away for the holidays, and would not be able to attend with him.

That was Sebastian: a hapless little boy in love with a girl who was too kind to say anything about it. He mentally added three more layers of clothes to her as he thought of her, out of respect.

When he rose out of the water and looked to where he’d placed his clean pajamas, he saw with a lurch that he hadn’t put his clean pajamas anywhere. A moan of horror escaped him when he pictured them where they actually were: at the bottom of his trunk. In his haste to get in here and rub one out to the thought of his friend, he’d forgotten to grab them.

The only fabric available to him were the muddied and disgusting robes he’d raced in, or the towel currently wrapped around his waist. Sebastian glanced out the bathroom window. The moon over the Black Lake was high in the sky, and his shoulders drooped a little in relief at the thought that most everyone ought to be in bed right now, and he wouldn’t have to walk half-naked through a packed common room. 

Dirty robes safely in the laundry hamper, Sebastian secured the towel around his waist as best he could before poking his head down the hall. It was deserted, the only audible sound the soft whoooosh of the draining bathtub behind him. He exhaled, stepped into the hall, and began half-walking, half-running towards the Slytherin dormitories, leaving wet footprints in his wake.

He had almost made it to safety when the last, the absolute last voice he wanted to hear on the planet, yelped, “Oops!” from behind him. Whirling on the spot, mere feet away from the dormitory door, he locked eyes with his girl.

“What on earth are you doing down here?!” He scream-whispered in indignation, clutching the towel tightly around his waist Her eyes were the size of dinner plates, taking in his tousled wet hair, bare torso that was not at the physical peak he wished it was, and the thin grey towel that was threatening to slide further south at any minute. “It’s the middle of the damn night!” 

“I-I’m…” This was his worst nightmare. Getting caught quite literally with his pants down and the girl of his dreams was stifling laughter at the sight. He turned away from her, determined to lock himself inside the dormitory and never come out. Maybe if he took a draught of living death he could sleep for the rest of the term.

“Seb, hang on!” she laughed, darting towards him as he told the snake his password and lifted a leg to try and clamber inside. He paused and looked back at her, if only because he wasn’t really sure how he was going to gracefully lift himself with only a towel around his waist. “I sent you an owl but never heard back!” she said. “There’s leftover cherry tart in the kitchens from dinner, and I snuck you some.” She held out the tart and his heart twisted into a knot. His favorite. The fantasies he’d made up about her mere minutes ago now seemed doubly inappropriate as he saw the real thing, clad in an innocent nightgown and thick wooly robe. 

“Oh. Thanks.” He took the dessert. They both stood motionless for a second. She was tactfully looking everywhere except at his body. Sebastian prayed for death. “Well, I’m naked, so–”

“Right! I’m sorry! You just darted out of dinner so fast…” She trailed off. Sebastian grunted noncommittally and readjusted his grip on the towel. His head was starting to sweat from embarrassment. “Well, good night, anyway,” she said, trying to muster an awkward smile.

“Good night,” He responded through gritted teeth. “Thanks again for this, it looks great.” With that, he turned around and clambered very clumsily, but fully covered, through the dormitory door. 

As he lay in bed that night, Sebastian replayed the whole fiasco in his head a hundred times. He wondered what she thought of what she saw, or if she would discuss it with anyone. It wasn’t exactly how he’d envisioned her seeing him nude for the first time. She certainly didn’t seem impressed. And he’d been so rude to her, when all she’d done was bring him a treat.

He covered his face with his hands and groaned loudly. “Shut up,” huffed Ominis from the bed next to him. He was a light sleeper and the slightest sound could stir him.

“Give me one of your sleeping potions.”

“Fine, if it’ll knock you out so I don’t have to.”

Sebastian got out of bed and quietly opened the trunk at the foot of Ominis’ bed, feeling around for the small cylindrical bottles the Gaunt boy always kept on-hand for sleepless nights. He found one, uncorked it, and drained the contents.

He had just stumbled back into bed, the effects of the potion working through his blood immediately and making his eyes heavy as boulders, when he noticed a small piece of paper on the windowsill by his bed. Undoubtedly, this was from the owl she had sent him. He managed to throw one leaden arm up to snatch it and bring it an inch away from his eyes so he could make out the delicate writing in the near-darkness of the bedroom

A little birdie told me he liked cherry tart, so I saved him some. I’ll bring it to you in a bit. 

Sleep overtook him.

Back in her own bedroom, the letter writer lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling. She hadn’t been able to form a coherent thought all night. Poppy had asked her what was wrong, why she was being so quiet. She had shrugged and gone off to bed, but the lingering ache persisted between her legs.

Had Sebastian Sallow always been that fucking gorgeous?

pt. 2

masterlist

[natalievoncatte]

19. Bake

Leaning against the doorframe, Lena watched as Kara furrowed her brows in concentration so intense that it seemed her project might burst into flames. Literally. She was was craned over a cookbook on the counter and mumbling to herself about pearl-sized beads of butter and exactly what size a pearl is.

She never admitted it, but Kara sometimes she struggled with metaphors like that, little things that a human would know that eluded one of the last survivors of a doomed planet. The others, even Alex, thought it was cute or funny but they didn’t seem to notice the pain in Kara’s eyes or how lost she looked when she missed something others all knew.

Lena stalked up behind her and leaned over the counter beside her.

“Hey,” said Lena.

“Hi,” said Kara.

“What are you up to?”

“I’m making a pumpkin pie for tomorrow, but the dough doesn’t look right.”

Lena looked over Kara’s work and frowned. What she had was most definitely not pie dough. She then glanced at the fridge and saw the list of things Kara was trying to make.

“Hmm,” said Lena.

She opened the fridge and freezer and looked over Kara’s pantry and sighed.

This would not do at all.

“We’re taking a break,” said Lena.

“We?”

“Yes, we.”

In a few minutes she had an Instacart list cobbled together and had placed the order. Kara pouted when her attempted dough went in the bin, but Lena stood firm.

“Let me help you.”

Kara signed. “I want to do it myself.”

Lena’s heart felt like it was climbing up her throat. Kara was so effortlessly pretty that it was, frankly, unfair. Her glasses were off and her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and Lena was obsessed. She had on a baggy t-shirt that softened her lithe, muscular frame and hung a little off one shoulder. She looked so soft despite the cords of steel hard muscle that flexed beneath her silky skin.

It made Lena a little panicky. Sometimes she’d think to herself that seeing Kara every time was just like seeing her for the first time, which was exactly like the first time she looked at another girl *like that* as if some pathway had just opened in her brain.

After the grocery order arrived and Lena bumped the driver’s tip to four figures for coming on the day before Thanksgiving, Lena set to work.

“I’ve never seen you cook,” said Kara.

“In the only one in the family who can,” said Lena, as she scrubbed a potato. “Lillian thought doing menial tasks was beneath our dignity, and forbade it. Of course I snuck out to spend time with the staff.”

Kara looked at her softly.

“Let’s get that pie in the works while these boil,” she said, slipping the potatoes into the pot.

Kara ended up helping more than anything, as Lena worked her way through the list.

“This way we’ll just have to make the turkey tomorrow,” she explained. “The rest will all be done and we’ll have some time to relax before everyone arrives. Is your mother coming?”

“She’s staying with Alex this year,” said Kara.

She was looking at Lena as she spoke, her voice a little distant. A shiver passed down Lena’s spine and she felt her cheeks pink a little, as she glanced away and turned back to grating frozen butter for the pie crust.

Kara sidled closer, seemingly reading the cookbook, but every time Lena looked over, Kara met her gaze and quickly turned away.

“Here you go, darling. Fold it like a letter, turn, fold it like a letter, turn. Do that three times, then back in the fridge for half an hour and we do it again.”

Lena was, in all honesty, doing the real work and giving Kara the simple tasks, like peeling the potatoes (which was easy, because she could not only do so without burning herself, but could also just reach into the boiling water to grab.)

Kara neatly folded the pie crust while Lena mashed the potatoes and pushed them through Kara’s sieve for perfect, Michelin-star restaurant smoothness. Lena was a little daunted by the “green bean casserole”, not exactly standard Luthor thanksgiving fare, but it was easier as she was watched Kara follow her instructions to knead dough for dinner rolls.

They worked in companionable silence, Lena doing one task while Kara did another, and slowly they built up an array of side dishes and a wonderful smelling pumpkin pie that Lena had to practically tear Kara away from. She almost wished she’d made a spare pie for Kara to eat right now.

“I’m huuuuuungry” she pleaded.

Looking over Kara’s now-full fridge, full of delicious Thanksgiving fare ready to be warmed in the oven, she pulled out her phone.

“We’ll get take-away delivered.”

Knowing what she was dealing with, Lena ordered enough Chinese for a small army and ended up picking at spicy beef and broccoli while Kara sat next to her, devouring her own body weight from five different containers.

“Here,” she said, offering Lena a fortune cookie.

Smirking, Lena popped it open and unfurled the little message.

“What’s it say?”

A great opportunity lies before you.

Lena laughed. “Nothing. Now we have to clean up, you know.”

“I can do that, you just relax.”

Lena sank back into the couch -she was tired- while Kara rolled up her sleeves and did the dishes, moving a little too fast for a human, at least until Lena looked over to watch her, studying the flexing muscles in her forearms as she worked. There was something playing on the tv, but it was vastly less interesting.

Kara smelled pleasantly of soap when she plopped on the couch, rocking Lena towards her. She sank back and sighed, letting her head loll over so she could look at Lena.

“Thank you for doing all that work. I’d have been hopeless without you.”

“It was my pleasure,” Lena said, softly.

It was getting late, the sun having long set; they’d toiled in the kitchen past nine o’clock.

It was time for Lena to go home.

Kara looked pensive, pretty eyes downcast.

“You’re coming back tomorrow, right?”

It was an absurd question, profoundly silly, even. Lena had been to every Danvers family get together for the better part of three years now (there was that one missed year, gaping like a void in her chest, but that was over now, they were better, she wouldn’t spend another Thanksgiving drunk on her sofa and sobbing ever again)

Lena wished she’d opened one of the wine bottles. She needed a little help with her courage. Her voice cracked a little when she managed to say, “It’s getting late. I could just stay.”

Her heart was pounding.

Kara’s hand slid along the back of the couch and she crooked one of Lena’s curls around her finger, playing idly with it. They sat close, turned into each other, almost touching.

“You can have the bed,” said Kara. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Lena felt her throat go dry, and squeezed her hands together to keep them from shaking. She was as nervous as a schoolgirl, and it was weirdly delightful. Kara was watching her cocky confidence and a crooked smile.

“I wouldn’t want to put you out,” said Lena. “I trust you to keep your hands to yourself if we share the bed.”

“What will you sleep in?”

“Won’t you let me borrow something?”

Kara made a little gesture with her head. Lena nodded and headed behind the partition that made up Kara’s “bedroom wall” and turned to the clothes rack that served as her closet. Hand trembling, she swept each item aside, stopping when she found an old hoodie.

It was threadbare and the drawstrings were missing and it was much too large for her, but it was perfect, a maroon Midvale High sweatshirt. Lena carefully laid it out on the bed and in a single nervous, trembling motion, pulled her top over her head and set it aside.

It was chilly in the apartment, and her skin pricked with goose pimples as soon as the air hit it. She licked her lips nervously and popped the clasps on her bra before discarding it and dumping the sweatshirt on over her bare skin. The hem hung well below her waist.

Feeling her pulse in her throat, she pushed her leggings down and stepped out of them, then padded back out on bare feet, toes curling from the cold floor.

“You coming?”

Kara’s eyes went comically wide when she saw her, gaze instantly drawn to her pale legs.

“Yep.”

Lena retreated to the bedroom… then realized that Kara hadn’t changed. Lena was standing there awkwardly when Kara strolled around the partition and, in a slightly too hurried motion, pulled her own top off.

She was facing away, her back flexing magnificently as she stretched, now clad only in a soft black sports bra. Lena knew she was staring as Kara pushed her jeans down, revealing a pair of flannel boxer shorts beneath. She turned and looked at Lena.

Oh holy fuck, Lena thought.

“I usually just sleep like this,” Kara said, her voice quivering a little. “Is that okay?”

Lena nodded.

She climbed into the bed, sort of precariously parking on the edge. Kara lifted the covers and slid under, her weight on the mattress making it curve towards her, as though Lena were drawn, by gravity, to her embrace.

She let it take her. She ended up right next to Kara, and the lay turned on their sides towards each other.

Lena wanted to scream. This was a terrible idea.

“Hi,” Kara whispered.

“Hi, yourself,” said Lena.

God, she was right there, those muscles, the silky golden-tanned skin of her long legs (how did she have a tan in November?!), the supernaturally perfect blonde curls, and those big, pretty blue eyes just drinking her in.

Lena snuggled up under the blankets, shifting closer.

“So we’re sleeping in the same bed,” said Kara.

“Yes, I see we are. Though neither of us appears to be sleeping.”

“True,” said Kara, “though one might say that we’re about to sleep together.”

“One might,” Lena agreed.

“English is such a funny language. Someone might be confused if I went around saying I sleep with Lena Luthor.”

“Some might be jealous,” said Lena, arching a brow.

“Well of course. They don’t know what a little snuggle bunny you are.”

Lena grinned foolishly, trying to hide it behind the baggy sleeve of Kara’s sweatshirt.

“You’re wearing my clothes, too. Someone might say we’re going steady.”

“Aren’t we? Neither of us had been on a date with anyone in years.”

Lena wanted to feel bold, she really did, but she was so nervous she could barely breathe.

“Are you okay, baby?” Kara whispered. “Your heart is going really fast.”

Lena nodded. “I’m okay, just, um.”

She felt so silly. Here she was, bold, sassy, uber-confident battle bisexual Lena Luthor utterly tongue tied and helpless and in bed with her best friend.

Kara shifted closer, then closer still. Lena thought she might literally depart from her body when Kara’s legs tangled gently with hers. She stared in astonishment when Kara gently rolled her on her back… by climbing on top of her, slipping an arm around her back while the other hand brushed loose locks from her eyes and swept around to cradle the back of her head.

“Are we really doing this?” Lena choked out. “What are we doing?”

Kara’s face filled her vision, inches from kissing her. Hot breath ticked her lips.

“I think the real question is why did we wait so long?”

“If you don’t kiss me, I’m going to die.”

Kara did, dipping down slowly to brush her lips lightly over Lena’s in the most teasing, potent first kiss she’d ever had, a kiss to make her forget all her other firsts. Then Kara kissed her harder and Lena could feel the need in her, hunger and passion pent up for years.

She responded with her own, pressing her hips up to meet Kara.

“You took my favorite hoodie.”

“I did.”

“Be a good girl, and give it back.”

Lena, it turned out, was a very good girl.

When she woke up the next… noonish, she was still feeling the afterglow. Kara was passed out and snoring next to her, arm casually thrown over Lena’s belly. She slipped out from under it and stretched in the sunlight before pulling the hoodie back on. She’d have to find something more proper to wear, after a shower and some breakfast. She didn’t want to spoil her dinner, but she was hungry. Kara had been… exhausting, honestly.

She wanted to do a little dance, right until she walked out into the main area of the loft, bare-assed and hoodie-clad, and found herself face to face with Alex and Eliza Danvers.

“What are you doing here?” Lena and Alex both yelped at the same time.

Eliza was beet red, but said, “Ah, hello, Lena. You came early?”

(And often)

“I, um, that is, I, we…”

Eliza was bemused now, giving her a motherly smile.

“Why don’t you go change and wake Kara up?”

Alex continued to stare at Lena, the wheels almost audibly spinning in her head.

“Okaygoodidea,” Lena chirped out, awkwardly tugging her sole garment down as she darted back into the bedroom.

A few minutes later, Lena was in the shower while Kara very loudly explained the merits of texting first or just knocking on the door like a normal person, while Alex snapped back that it was technically still her apartment.

When she finally emerged in Kara’s flannel and Kara’s jeans, Alex and Kara were still bickering while Eliza was simply staring at the contents of the fridge. Lena walked over awkwardly (for multiple reasons) and rubbed at her arms.

“I helped Kara get all the other dishes ready. We only have to worry about the turkey.”

Eliza looked up and smirked at her.

“May I just say… it’s about time, sweetheart.”