#this fic got far longer than i expected rip

[wannabehockeygf]

Tough Love - Quinn Hughes

“I took a train to Boston and I wanted to cry,

He’s gone, I’m twenty-four, and it’s a Saturday night,

I ran and took his jacket with a rip in the side,

I hate when we fight. Sucks when we fight.”

***

part 1 // quinn hughes x gracie abrams fic trilogy

part 2 part 3

***

Summary: A business trip and a longer than expected playoff stint turn out to not mix well.

Pairing: Quinn Hughes x fem!reader

Word Count: 4.5k

Warnings: slight allusion to smut, alcohol

Notes:

- finally getting to write angst

- based tightly on the song, I love the song so much.

***

Business trips were a rarity for you, something that happened just often enough to remind you of how much you disliked them. Tonight, you found yourself weaving through the crowded streets of Montreal, the evening air crisp and biting as you made your way back to your hotel. You’d had one too many glasses of wine at the company dinner, and now the world around you seemed to tilt slightly with every step.

The middle of June was usually pretty warm, but once the sun dipped below the horizon, it got colder. You shivered, pulling your coat tighter around you, feeling the chill seep through the fabric. The streets were unfamiliar, the language foreign, and the soft hum of conversations in French made you feel more isolated than ever. You couldn’t understand a word of it, and the half-drunk haze you were in didn’t help. The idea of calling your boyfriend for some comfort flitted through your mind, but you quickly dismissed it. It was already ten, and you knew he had a big game tomorrow—the first Stanley cup final game of his career. He’d be in Boston by now, probably already asleep, and you didn’t want to wake him.

But just as you were trying to reassure yourself that you’d be fine, your phone buzzed in your pocket. His name lit up the screen, and without thinking, you answered the FaceTime call.

The screen flickered to life, and you found yourself staring at him—Quinn. His face was usually a comforting sight, but tonight, something was different. You didn’t immediately notice the tension in his expression, the way his brows were drawn together in concern, or how his lips were pressed into a tight line. Instead, with a drunken giggle, you greeted him with a cheerful, “Bonjour!”

Your voice echoed in the cold air, and you could almost feel the disapproving glares of the locals as you cheerfully butchered their language. But all of that faded as you looked back at the screen, finally registering the way he looked at you. The furrow in his brow deepened, and his eyes scanned your face, taking in the telltale signs of your tipsy state. His lips parted as if he was about to say something, but for a moment, he seemed at a loss for words.

Oh.

The realization hit you all at once. You weren’t sure if it was the cold, the wine, or just the fact that you were far from home, but suddenly, you felt incredibly vulnerable. You decide to probe him at first, just a little.

“Hey, Quinny, what’s up? Shouldn’t you be asleep?” You try to keep your tone light, your smile easy, but there’s a nervous edge to your words. His eyes are too intense, too knowing, and you feel like he can see right through you—like he knows exactly how many glasses of wine you’ve had, how lost you feel, how you’re trying so hard to pretend everything’s fine.

Quinn shifts slightly, and the screen wobbles as he props his phone against something. He’s sitting on the edge of a bed, shoulders bare, the dim hotel room light casting shadows across his face. His hair is a mess, sticking up in all directions, and you can’t help but think how he’s always been so beautiful to you, even when he’s unguarded like this. Especially when he’s unguarded like this.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says finally, his voice a low, quiet rumble that vibrates through you even from miles away. There’s a hint of something there—something heavy and raw—that makes your stomach twist. “I just... needed to see you.”

You blink, the words hanging in the air between you. There’s a vulnerability in his eyes you’re not used to seeing, a nakedness that makes your heart ache. You open your mouth to say something, to ask him what’s wrong, but the words get stuck in your throat.

Quinn’s eyes flicker away for a second, as if he’s embarrassed, and he runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands in a way that makes you realize how tense he is. “It’s stupid,” he mutters, shaking his head. “I just... I don’t know, I’m nervous about tomorrow. More than I should be.”

It’s such a simple admission, but it hits you like a punch to the gut. You know Quinn, know how fiercely he guards his emotions, how he hides his fears behind that confident smirk and those sharp, playful eyes. For him to admit he’s scared... it’s huge.

“Hey,” you say softly, your voice catching in your throat as you take a step closer to the hotel’s entrance, away from the cold that seems to seep into your bones. “It’s not stupid. It’s a big game, I get it. But you’re going to be amazing, Quinny. You always are.”

He shakes his head again, and you can see the frustration tightening his jaw, the way his hand clenches into a fist. “It’s not just that,” he says, voice thick. “It’s... everything. The pressure, the expectations. It feels like everyone’s counting on me, and I just—fuck, I don’t know if I can do it.”

Your heart aches for him, and you wish you could reach through the screen and pull him into your arms, hold him close and tell him it’s all going to be okay. But you’re here, and he’s there, and there’s three hundred miles between you. So, you do the only thing you can—you try to make him laugh. “I’ve seen you play, Hughes. You’re practically a wizard on the ice. Remember that time you deked out three guys and scored from behind the net? If you can do that, you can handle a little playoff game.”

He lets out a short, humorless laugh, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead, they darken, a shadow passing over them that makes your chest tighten. “It’s not just a ‘little playoff game,’” he mutters. “It’s the fucking cup final. If I screw this up...”

“Hey,” you cut him off, your voice firm, “you’re not going to screw up. You’re one of the best players out there, Quinn. You’ve worked your ass off for this. You deserve to be here.”

He’s silent for a moment, staring at you through the screen, and you can see the battle waging behind his eyes—the fear, the doubt, the desperate need for reassurance. “I just... I wish you were here,” he says finally, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

The words knock the breath out of you, and for a moment, you can’t speak. You want to tell him you’ll get on a plane, that you’ll be there in the box with the other girlfriends, cheering him on like you always do. But you can’t. You have your own commitments, your own life to live. And besides, your company would kill you if you just up and left in the middle of this trip.

“I... I can’t, Quinny,” you say softly, hating the way the words taste in your mouth, bitter and wrong. “I’m in Montreal. I can’t just leave.”

His face falls, and you can see the hurt in his eyes, the way his shoulders slump forward as if he’s been punched. “Right,” he says, his voice flat. “Of course. I get it.”

“Quinn, it’s not that I don’t want to be there,” you say quickly, trying to make him understand. “I do, more than anything. But I can’t just drop everything and go. You know that, and even if I could, I can’t afford to fly to Boston.”

There’s a pause, and you see the way his jaw tightens, the frustration simmering beneath the surface. “What if I paid for it?” he blurts out, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I’ll buy the ticket, the hotel—everything. Just come, please.”

Your heart lurches at the desperation in his voice, but you shake your head, even though you know he can’t see it. “Quinn, no. I can’t let you do that. I’m not going to let you spend your money on me like that. It’s... it’s not right.”

“Not right?” he echoes, his voice rising with disbelief. “What’s not right about it? I have the money, it’s not a big deal. I just need you here with me, okay? I need you.”

For a moment, neither of you speak. The silence between you is heavy, oppressive, filled with all the things you want to say but can’t. Your fingers tremble slightly as you grip your phone, and you force yourself to take a deep breath, trying to steady the whirlwind of emotions churning inside you.

“I know you have your own stuff going on,” Quinn finally continues, his voice low and rough, like he's trying to keep it from cracking. “I’m not trying to guilt you into anything. I just—” He breaks off, running a hand over his face, and when he looks back at you, his eyes are dark, shadowed with a pain you don’t often see there. “I just really fucking need you right now.”

The words cut through you like a knife, sharp and searing, leaving a trail of guilt and regret in their wake. You’ve never heard him sound like this before—so raw, so vulnerable. It’s terrifying and heartbreaking all at once, and you wish more than anything that you could just reach through the screen and hold him, tell him that everything’s going to be okay. But you can’t. You’re here, and he’s there, and the distance between you feels like an insurmountable chasm.

“I know,” you whisper, your voice barely more than a breath. “I wish I could be there. You have no idea how much I wish that. But I—”

“But you can’t,” he cuts in, his voice sharper now, edged with frustration. “I get it. You’ve got your own shit to deal with. I’m just... I’m just being selfish, right?”

You wince at the bitterness in his tone, the way it twists his words into something ugly and jagged. “That’s not what I meant,” you say, struggling to keep your voice steady, even as your heart pounds in your chest. “I want to be there for you, I do. But I can’t just leave in the middle of this trip. You know that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he mutters, looking away, his gaze drifting to the side as if he can’t bear to look at you anymore. “I’m just supposed to suck it up and deal with it, right? Like I always do.”

The words hit you like a slap, and you can feel the sting of tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. “That’s not fair, Quinn,” you say, your voice trembling with a mixture of anger and hurt. “I’ve always been there for you when I could. But this... this is different. I can’t just drop everything and come running every time you need me. That’s not how this works.”

He flinches at your words, and you can see the flash of pain in his eyes, the way his jaw tightens as if he’s trying to hold back whatever it is he really wants to say. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he says, his voice cold, distant. “I guess I’m just asking too much, huh?”

“Quinn, that’s not—”

“No, it’s fine,” he interrupts, his tone clipped and final. “Forget I said anything. I’ll be fine. I always am, right?”

The bitterness in his voice is like a punch to the gut, and you feel your breath hitch, your chest tightening with a pain that’s almost physical. You’ve never fought like this before—never had a conversation that felt so raw, so full of things left unsaid. You want to reach out, to bridge the gap between you, but you don’t know how. You’re standing on opposite sides of a canyon, and every word you say seems to push you both further apart.

“I’m sorry,” you say finally, your voice breaking. “I’m sorry I can’t be there. I wish I could. But I can’t.”

He doesn’t respond right away, just stares at you with those intense, stormy eyes, his expression unreadable. The silence stretches on, thick and suffocating, and you feel like you’re drowning in it, like you can’t breathe.

“Yeah,” he says at last, his voice flat and emotionless. “I guess I’ll see you when I get back to Vancouver, then.”

And just like that, he hangs up, the screen going dark in an instant. You’re left standing there on the cold streets of Montreal, your heart pounding in your chest, tears streaming down your face. The chill bites into your skin, and you feel more alone than ever.

You stare at the blank screen, your mind reeling, trying to process everything that just happened. The conversation plays over and over in your head, each word echoing like a gunshot, each look and gesture seared into your memory. You feel a thousand different emotions at once—anger, sadness, guilt, regret—all tangled together in a messy, painful knot.

How did it come to this? How did you go from comforting each other to tearing each other apart? You don’t know, and that’s the worst part. All you know is that you’re here, and he’s there, and the distance between you has never felt so vast, so unbridgeable.

You take a deep breath, trying to steady yourself, but it’s no use. The tears keep coming, hot and relentless, and you feel like you’re going to break apart right there on the street. You want to scream, to shout, to do something—anything—to make this pain go away. But you can’t. All you can do is stand there, shivering in the cold, your heart aching with a pain that’s too big, too raw, to put into words.

You don’t know what to do. You don’t know how to fix this. All you know is that you miss him. God, you miss him so much it hurts. And you don’t know how you’re supposed to go on without him.

***

It started raining by the time you got onto the train, dingy carry-on suitcase in hand. The ticket was a little pricey, especially to go all the way to Boston, and you’re pretty sure the attendant upcharged you since you couldn’t speak French, but it still ended up way less than a flight.

You tried calling Quinn again, to let him know you were coming and that you completely ditched your business trip for him, but he ignored you. You assume he went back to sleep and he’ll see your texts in the morning, at which you’ll already be in Boston.

Your eyelids feel heavy as you just about drift to sleep, but are rudely awakened by a smooth, feminine voice. “Je n'aime pas votre veste. Pourquoi t'infliges-tu cela?”

Eyes snapping open, you look up to see a young-ish woman with short, dark hair and multiple piercings. You cock your head slightly, and part your lips to speak, to tell her you didn’t understand a word she just said. “I’m sorry, I don’t—“

“Ugh, Touristes,” she interrupts, sitting down in the seat in front of you with no clear intention. She flicks a piece of hair out of her face before speaking again, in an accent at that. “Canucks? Why? They make the playoffs like, once every ten years.” She adds on, gesturing to your jacket which is sporting a rip in the side.

You blink at the woman, still disoriented from the sudden wake-up call. Her words cut through the fog of sleep and confusion like a knife, and you find yourself staring at her, trying to piece together what she just said. Canucks. Of course. You glance down at your jacket, the familiar blue and white logo now feeling like a heavy weight on your chest.

“Um,” you start, your voice coming out hoarse, still thick with sleep. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

She waves a hand dismissively, a small smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “Canucks fans. You lot are always apologizing. It’s a shame you had to pick such a tragic team. Cursed, really.” Her accent is thick, the Quebeçois lilt giving her words an almost melodic quality, even as they cut through you.

You should be annoyed—maybe even a little offended—but instead, you just feel tired. So, so tired. The weight of the night’s events, the argument with Quinn, the cold streets of Montreal, and now this stranger's sharp commentary... it’s all too much. You lean back in your seat, running a hand over your face, trying to shake off the lingering remnants of sleep.

“Yeah,” you say, your voice flat, devoid of any real emotion. “I guess I’m just a sucker for punishment.”

She raises an eyebrow, her gaze sharp and curious. “Punishment? That’s an interesting way to put it, especially since they made the final. You with someone on the team?”

The question catches you off guard, and for a moment, you don’t know how to respond. You glance at her, taking in her sharp features, the piercings glinting under the harsh train lights, the dark hair framing her face in a way that makes her look both intimidating and oddly approachable.

“Yeah,” you say finally, your voice barely more than a whisper. “I am.”

Her gaze softens, just a fraction, and she leans back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, that explains the jacket. And the bags under your eyes. You look like you’ve been through hell.”

You let out a humorless laugh, the sound bitter and hollow even to your own ears. “You could say that.”

The woman tilts her head slightly, studying you with a look that feels too knowing, too perceptive. “Let me guess. He called you, all nervous and shit, asking you to come to his game, and you said no because you’ve got your own life to live. And now you’re on a train to Boston in the middle of the night because you feel guilty as hell.”

You stare at her, your mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. How could she know that? How could a complete stranger read you so easily, see right through all the layers of anger and hurt and guilt you’ve been carrying with you?

“How did you—”

She shrugs, cutting you off. “Happened to me once. Well, more than once, actually. You’re not the first girl to hop on a train because her boyfriend’s in his feelings, and you won’t be the last.”

The train rumbles along the tracks, the rhythmic clatter almost drowning out the voice in your head—the one that’s been relentlessly replaying your conversation with Quinn. You can still see the hurt in his eyes, the way his voice trembled with something so raw it made your chest ache. It’s like a heavy weight pressing down on you, suffocating, and you can’t shake it no matter how hard you try.

I should have stayed on the phone longer, you think, the regret gnawing at you. I should have told him I was coming. Why didn’t I just drop everything right then?

But the truth is, you know why. You’re scared too—scared of what this trip means, scared of what it’s doing to you both. Scared that maybe, just maybe, the distance between you isn’t just physical.

“Men,” the woman mutters again, drawing your attention back to her. Her gaze is still locked on you, and there’s something in her eyes that’s almost... sympathetic. “They’re a pain in the ass, but you already know that.”

You nod, unsure of what to say. You can feel the tears starting to gather again, blurring your vision, but you blink them back furiously. No crying, not here. Not in front of a stranger.

The woman seems to sense your struggle because she leans forward, her voice dropping to a softer, almost conspiratorial tone. “Look, I get it. You love him, right?”

You swallow hard and nod again, unable to find your voice.

She sighs, shaking her head. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You love him, so you do things like this—ditch your work, jump on a train in the middle of the night, all because you can’t stand the thought of him being upset.”

You wince, feeling the truth of her words hit home. She’s right, you think bitterly. I’m an idiot.

“But here’s the thing,” she continues, her voice taking on a hard edge. “If he really cares about you, he shouldn’t be asking you to make sacrifices like this. He shouldn’t make you feel guilty for having your own life.”

You open your mouth to protest, but she holds up a hand, stopping you. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying you shouldn’t be there for him. But it’s a two-way street. If he’s worth it, he’ll understand that sometimes you can’t just drop everything for him. And if he doesn’t... well, can he even make you come, sweetheart?”

You stare at the woman, her words hanging in the air between you, heavy and sharp. Her bluntness catches you off guard, leaving you fumbling for a response. But before you can say anything, she raises an eyebrow, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips.

"Well, can he?" she presses, her voice laced with a mixture of curiosity and challenge.

Your mind flashes back to the last time you and Quinn were together. You’d just gotten back to his apartment after one of his games, his hair still damp from the shower, and his eyes dark with that post-game intensity you’ve come to know so well. You remember how his hands felt on your skin, rough and desperate, how his breath hitched when you whispered his name, the way he pulled you closer like he couldn’t stand even an inch of space between you.

Your cheeks heat up at the memory, and you find yourself squirming in your seat, your gaze dropping to the floor as the images play out in your mind. The way his lips felt against your neck, the low growl that rumbled through his chest when you wrapped your legs around him, the way he whispered filthy, desperate things in your ear as he moved against you...

But then the doubt creeps in. The argument you just had, the way he hung up on you, the miles between you right now. Can he really make you come, in every sense of the word? Or are you just convincing yourself that he’s worth all this pain?

The woman’s smirk grows as she watches the flush creep up your neck, and she lets out a low chuckle. “Thought so,” she says, her voice softer now, almost sympathetic. “But here’s the thing, sweetheart: It’s not just about that. Yeah, the sex is important, but what really matters is if he makes you feel wanted, if he’s there for you even when you’re not in the same room.”

You let out a long breath, the weight of her words settling on your shoulders. She’s right. The chemistry you have with Quinn is undeniable, but is that enough? Is it enough to carry you through the hard times, the nights like tonight when you’re three hundred miles apart, and the only thing connecting you is a shaky FaceTime call?

“I don’t know,” you admit quietly, your voice barely more than a whisper. “I don’t know if it’s enough.”

The woman leans back in her seat, crossing her legs and giving you a long, appraising look. “You remind me of myself a few years ago,” she says after a moment, her tone a little softer. “I was in a relationship like that—crazy about the guy, but always questioning if it was enough. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. He left, just like the ones before him. But you know what? I survived. Hell, I thrived.”

You raise an eyebrow, skepticism creeping into your expression. “So, what are you saying? That I should just give up on him?”

She shakes her head, her earrings jingling with the motion. “No, no. I’m not telling you to dump the guy. I’m just saying, don’t lose yourself in him. Make sure he’s giving as much as he’s taking. And for God’s sake, make sure he’s actually good for you. Sometimes, we fall for the wrong ones, and it takes a while to figure that out.”

You frown, turning her words over in your mind. It’s not what you want to hear, but deep down, you know there’s truth in it. You’ve always been there for Quinn, but has he really been there for you in the same way? And if not, what does that say about your relationship?

“I don’t know if I can just... stop caring,” you say, your voice wavering. “He means so much to me.”

The woman’s expression softens, and she reaches across the aisle to gently touch your hand. “You don’t have to stop caring, sweetheart. Just make sure you’re caring about yourself, too. Love isn’t about losing who you are; it’s about finding someone who makes you better, who pushes you to be the best version of yourself.”

You nod, trying to absorb her words, but your mind keeps circling back to Quinn—to the way he looked on that FaceTime call, all raw and vulnerable, the way he admitted how much he needed you. He’s not perfect, but he’s yours. And maybe, just maybe, that’s worth fighting for.

The woman leans back, sensing your inner turmoil, and her smirk returns, but it’s gentler this time. “But hey, if he can make you come like that... maybe he’s worth a little more thought, huh?”

You can’t help but laugh at that, a soft, breathy sound that feels like a release of some of the tension that’s been building inside you. “Yeah, maybe,” you say, a small smile tugging at your lips.

She grins, satisfied with your reaction, and settles back into her seat. “Look, relationships are messy, and they’re hard, and sometimes they don’t make a damn bit of sense. But if he’s worth it, you’ll figure it out. Just don’t lose sight of yourself along the way.”

The train rumbles beneath you, the rhythmic clacking of the tracks providing a steady, comforting background noise as you mull over her words. The exhaustion you felt earlier is still there, but it’s less suffocating now, the weight of your doubts a little lighter.

You glance over at the woman, her eyes now closed, arms folded across her chest as she settles in for what’s left of the journey. There’s a quiet strength in her that you admire, a resilience born of experience and heartbreak, and you wonder if someday you’ll be able to look back with the same clarity, the same sense of peace.

For now, all you can do is keep moving forward, one step at a time. You still have hours to go before you reach Boston, before you can see Quinn and try to bridge the gap that’s grown between you. But for the first time tonight, you feel a small spark of hope, a tiny flame of determination that maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.

And with that thought, you close your eyes, letting the gentle sway of the train lull you into a fitful sleep, Quinn’s face still lingering in your mind, his voice echoing in your ears.

You’ll figure this out. You have to.

[kkyaka]

Summary: Running into someone who was a key part in making high school hell for you wasn't what you expected when you settled into college Pairing: Ukai Keishin x black!fem!reader Warnings: friends to lovers (kinda), college!au, a handful of angst, reader kinda overworks herself, ukai is whipped for reader, one random bad encounter with an oc, reader was bullied in high school and is still holding onto that LMFAO, making out, grinding, tit sucking, little bit of marking, fingering, i think that's it, if there's anymore please tell me ya girl is tired Word Count: 21,351 (oops) A/N: Um, it's been a while LMFAO. I'm honestly not very proud of this fic, but I wanted to post it anyway as kinda of gateway to getting back into posting my fics cause I have four more (maybe five) that I wanna post. This was a part of my scrapped follower event (RIP). Reblogs are appreciated, and thank you for reading if you do read this trash!

The first week of classes always makes you anxious. This semester, you’ve got some classes in buildings you’ve never been in, and you didn’t get a chance to walk the campus to find them because you moved in so late. You don’t know why the apartment you moved into decided that moving in the weekend before school started was a great idea.

Luckily, you found your first class with ease, a simple elective that you need to graduate, and you hope that the coursework won’t be too hard. You got here early just in case you had trouble finding it, so you scroll on your phone to pass the time as the class fills in. None of your friends are in this class, so you’re not waiting on anybody.

By the size of the room, it doesn’t look like the class size will be that big, so you hope that the people that are taking it with you are bearable. No one is sitting at the desks around you, and that doesn’t bother you, but what does bother you is that someone sits right next to you when there were other seats open. 

You try to keep the sigh you make as silent as possible, not even giving the person a look as you keep your attention on your phone. You put it away when the professor walks in, pulling your laptop out of your backpack as she introduces herself. “Make sure you guys introduce yourselves to the people around you because you’re going to be working with them a lot this semester.”

You try to hide your annoyance, putting on a nice smile before you turn to the person that’s sitting next to you, but it drops the moment your eyes land on them. You feel something run through you that you can’t explain, grabbing the corner of your desk in a tight grip. 

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he laughs, but there’s not a single part of you that finds any of this funny.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you whisper, thankful that you’re in the back of the classroom so no one can eavesdrop. 

“Why so hostile? I thought we were friends.”

“We’re far from that Ukai, and you know it.” His name feels heavy, foreign on your tongue, something you hadn’t even thought about saying in months. 

Ukai Keishin. Someone that you’d never thought you’d see again. Someone who’s been haunting your past for way longer than you’d like. You thought that college would give you the chance to get away from him, and yeah sure, you picked a relatively small college, but out of all of the colleges, he picks this one? You can’t help but look over him, seeing how much he’s changed; how much he’s grown. He is not the same boy that you’ve known for so long, and you willfully ignore that part of you that wants to examine that even further.

“You’ve always been so mean to me,” he whines playfully, which makes you roll your eyes because that’s rich coming from him. 

“Answer my question,” you say, hoping that you get an answer from him, and then you just go back to ignoring him. 

“Same reason you are, no?”

“Why this one, specifically?” you press, looking around with your eyes for somewhere else you can sit the next time you have this class.

“You can ease up, alright? I’m being totally honest when I say I had no idea you would be here too.” It doesn’t sound like he’s lying, looking over his face before finding something else to do. You don’t bother to continue the conversation; thankfully, the professor gets the class's attention again. 

She asks if anyone wants to share something about the person that they introduce themselves to, and a few people raise their hands. You sigh slowly, resting your chin on your hand after you put your elbow on the desk. After a few people have shared, she goes over the syllabus, but you’re not paying attention.

Even though you’re not looking at him, the fact that you now know he’s sitting next to you, is the only thing you can focus on. You’ve never wished for a class to be over so fast in your life so that you can just get out of here without having to speak to him again. You sigh a bit, feeling like he’s watching you, but you refuse to look over at him to confirm that.

The longer your professor talks, the more uneasy you start to feel. You knew that the class wouldn’t last the whole time today since it was the first class, but you swear that time has slowed down. You see Ukai move a little bit closer to you in the corner of your eye, and you try to act like you didn’t see it.

“When’s your next class?” you hear him whisper, but you don’t answer, only responding with a quick side-eye. You turn your attention back to the front, and you sigh in annoyance, but that’s not enough to deter him because you feel a nudge at your desk. 

“Leave me alone,” you whisper, keeping your eyes forward.

“I will when you tell me.” You ball your hand into a fist, sighing again because you’re pretty sure he’s not going to mess with you anymore; figuring he just said that to get a rise out of you. You shake your head softly. It’s too fucking early for this. She’s starting to get toward the end of the syllabus, so you decide to order some food since you skipped breakfast this morning. You leave your phone on your desk while you put your laptop back into your bag, and when your eyes land on your desk, your phone is gone.

Your head immediately turns to the culprit, and he’s looking at the screen, but you can’t tell what he’s doing. “Are you a child?!” you grit, glancing at the front of the room before you try to reach for it. He’s quick to move away from you so that you can’t reach your phone, and right as your professor dismisses the class, he gives you your phone back.

You frown, thinking that he was going to put up more of a fight, and you notice how he steps closer to you when the other students are leaving the classroom, but there’s nowhere for you to move to. When the last student is out, you quickly make your way out, sliding past him when he puts distance between the two of you. 

You have a class in about another hour, so you order your food before you check to see if he did anything to your phone. Nothing looks different, and he cleared your apps, covering his tracks, so you’d have to do some digging to figure out what he did. You don’t bother to find it right now, trying not to concentrate on the fact that you will now be in the same room as Ukai.

You cross your fingers that he’ll drop the class, and you could also do that, but there’s no way you’d go through with it. You had left high school with high hopes that you would never see him again, but it’s just your shitty luck that you do. He made your life a living hell before college, and you were hoping that you could start fresh, leaving all of that behind.

But how long has he been here? You’ve been here a year already and you had no clue that he was here. And even if he was, your mom would’ve probably told you about it since she stays in touch with some of the other parents of your peers from high school. So, why were you unpleasantly surprised today?

You check to see how close your food is to being ready when you get a text. Your walking slows when you see Ukai’s name pop up, and seeing it allows you to figure out what he was doing with your phone. You swipe it away, shaking your head before you pick up the pace, but you falter when you see that he’s calling you.

You stop, stepping off to the side so that you’re not in the way of other people before you answer it. “God, what do you want?” you groan. 

“It’s only ten-thirty in the morning, and you’re already this grumpy?” he chuckles, and you ball your hand into a fist, taking a deep breath to try and calm yourself.

“I’m blocking you,” you say.

“Aw, you don’t mean that, do you?” You can hear his voice more precisely this time, but it doesn’t sound like it’s coming through the phone. You turn around to see him walking up to you with a smirk on his face, phone by his ear.

You hang up the phone, sighing heavily. “What do you want?” you repeat, way past annoyed right now, and when you look back at him, you see something flash in his eyes, but it’s gone before you can figure out what it was.

“Just give me fifteen minutes, okay?” He’s lost that teasing tone in his voice, and you chew on your lip softly while you contemplate before you finally give in. 

“Fine. I’m heading to the student union to get some food,” you tell him, hoping that this will finally get him to leave you alone. You start walking, and he happily steps in rhythm right next to you. It’s pretty silent for the first couple of feet you walk, and you expected him to continue the conversation, but he stays silent.

You definitely don’t have anything you want to say to him; well, in public at least. Your mind is racing as you walk, and you’re starting to wish that he would talk to you so that you can shut your thoughts out. You can’t help but think about how he treated you when you were younger, and how most of the time he was the aid in your bullying. 

As far as you’re concerned, you didn’t think he liked you, or either he loved to make your life a living hell, and his actions justified that. But what he’s doing now is completely baffling to you. You can’t help but scoff, rubbing over your head as you smile. Who knew that your day could be turned upside down in a matter of minutes?

“What’s so funny?” he asks, making you realize that you accidentally reacted to your thoughts out loud.

“So, did you transfer, or…?” you say, not wanting to answer the question.

“Nah, I was here last school year,” he answers, shoving his hands in his pockets. You nod softly, looking at the ground. The school isn’t that small, so you may have just never run into him. But on the other hand, the school isn’t massive either, so you’re a bit surprised that you haven’t seen him.

“I’m assuming you’re majoring in something dealing with agriculture?” you ask next, meeting his gaze, and the smile he gives you makes you feel too many things, and you don’t like it.

“Horticulture, specifically, yeah,” he tells you with a nod, looking at the ground before he looks at you again. “Now, how’d you know that?”

You choke a bit, clearing your throat as you look off to the side. “I mean, who didn’t? Farming was all you talked about in high school,” you try. It’s a horrible attempt at taking the heat off the fact that you know what he’s interested in, and you know there’s no way that it worked.

“You were listening to me in high school?” he questions, and the teasing tone in his voice increases your urge to punch him in the stomach.

“It’s not like I had a choice, you and your friends talked so fucking loud all of the time.” That you say with confidence because there’s a ton of truth to that statement. He’s always been obnoxious, but with his friends, it seemed like it would always multiply. Not seeing him was the best part of your high school career. 

He laughs a bit in surprise before he nods. “Okay, I’ll give you that.” One of the bigger classes must’ve gotten out because there are a lot more people around as you walk, forcing Ukai to move closer to you. You try to shy away, but there’s no way you can move without falling off the sidewalk, so you just bite your tongue when you feel his shoulder brush against yours.

“Alright, so how’s your schedule looking this semester?”

“Hectic to say the least,” you chuckle, sighing a bit as you think about your future workload. “So, I hope this class will be the least of my worries.”

“Ah, you’ll be fine, just don’t stress too much about it.”

You scoff. “Yeah, that’s a lot easier said than done.” When you get to the student union, he holds the door open for you, and you thank him softly, picking up your pace a little, but he falls in time with your steps.

You quickly glance at your phone, seeing that your order is ready, and you’re grateful for an excuse to get away from him. “Uh, well, my food is ready, so I should probably go.” You try to turn around as fast as you can, but he must notice that you’re trying to leave because he starts talking right when you finish.

“Do you have any other classes today?” he says quickly, and you stop, trying to hide your heavy sigh.

“No,” you lie, but that isn’t enough to let him drop the conversation because he speaks up again, and you wonder why you haven’t just walked away yet. 

“You mind if I join you while you eat?” That sounds like a horrible idea, so you promptly come up with an excuse that thankfully doesn’t sound forced.

“Oh, well, I’m probably gonna go sit in the library,” you say. “Wanna make sure I’m not gonna fall behind since I already have homework.” You feel like you might be playing it up too much, especially when he squints after he hears your words.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like you’re trying to avoid me,” he infers, and you start to panic a little bit, trying to think about how to respond.

“I’m not. I promise.” You chuckle, waving your hand out right as you feel your phone vibrate with a text. “I’ve already made plans to meet up with my friend, so…” Perfect timing, you think in your head because if that text hadn’t come through, you don’t know what you would’ve said.

He smirks at you before he nods his head. “Okay, then. I’ll let you go.” You almost curl your body forward slightly in relief, but you hold that urge back. “It was good to see you again.”

“Yeah,” you say tersely, giving him a tight smile. You awkwardly wave before you finally turn around and walk away to get your food. You don’t walk fast, but you do try to get out of there as soon as you can because you can feel his eyes on you without even having to look. 

It makes you feel a certain type of way that you don’t even want to try and tackle, so you hightail it out of there. Once you get outside, you feel like you can breathe again, but now you don’t know where to go. It’s not like you could sit inside the student union after lying to Keishin, so you look at the time on your phone to try and figure out where would be the best place to go.

Based on the time, there’s a building you could sit in and not have to worry about a lot of people being there, so you head on over there. You slide your headphones onto your head from around your neck and let the music take over the thoughts that you don’t want to hear right now as you walk.

“It’s only the beginning of the week, and you already look like you want it to be over.” Your forehead is pillowed by your forearms on the table, and you lift your head to set your chin on your arms. 

“I had a terrible surprise this morning,” you answer solemnly. You didn’t lie to Ukai entirely. You were meeting up with your friend, but it was after your second class, and you weren’t meeting her in the library. So, it was just a tiny lie. Luckily, you didn’t run into him anymore today, but you hate how you were on high alert the whole day.

You’ve never been more aware of your surroundings, looking around when you leave the building, and making sure you’re continuously looking around as you walked to your car. You could say that you’re being dramatic, but another part of you just wants to consider it “keeping your peace” since seeing Ukai again brought back painful memories.

“What? You tripped in front of a lot of people or what?” You sit up, sighing as you lean back in your chair.

“I saw someone from high school that I thought I’d never see again.” Your friend flips through her textbook, already having homework, as she shrugs.

“So? What’s so bad about that?”

“He made my life a living hell.” Your friend perks up at that, lifting her head to give you her full attention.

“Oh, it’s a ‘he’? Is he cute?” You give her a plain look, which makes her chuckle a little. “Okay, so I need a backstory. We’ve been friends for like a year, and I don’t think I’ve heard about this guy.”

And there’s a reason for that. You would much rather leave painful memories behind, but your luck says otherwise. “Well, I would prefer to not talk about a guy that made my life harder than needed,” you start with a sigh, “but today, he acted like everything from high school never happened.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was nice to me.” You can’t help but scoff a little, laughing because it sounds like the bare minimum, but he was nowhere near acting like that back then. “I thought he hated me or something.” 

“Why do you think he hates you?”

“Because he messed with me non-stop! He and his friends humiliated me as much as they could.”

“Are you sure that it was him that was messing with you or was he just in the background?” That makes you freeze, and you slump a little at her question. If you think about it, he’s never physically done or said anything to you, but the fact that he was there, and didn’t do anything to stop it was enough to convince you that he didn’t like you. And it was enough for you to not like him. 

“What did he say to you today?” your friend asks after you’re silent for a while. 

“He put his number in my phone, and he walked with me to the student union. He said he thought we were friends.” You rub your hand over your face, resting your top half on the table again. There’s so much confusion on a Monday, and you’ve barely been to all of your classes. 

“It doesn’t sound like he hates you to me.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s making me sound like I’m fucking crazy,” you say lightly, looking at what’s playing on the TV behind your friend. “I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to butter me up or something to try and make himself look good. And then he’ll make my life miserable again once I let him back in.”

“You’ve always been so dramatic,” your friend laughs. “I’m telling you right now, that I don’t think that’s the case. He definitely would’ve acted differently, right? Did he ever talk to you in high school?”

“Barely. I caught him staring at me all the fucking time. He sometimes tried to talk to me after his friends did something to me, but I never let him speak.” Your friend is a hundred percent invested in this story, all of her attention on you instead of her textbooks.

“Okay, give me a couple of instances where you were messed with,” she tells you after she laughs at your answer. You take a deep breath, preparing yourself to re-live through some of those moments. 

You tell her about the time they constantly tripped you while you were walking to your seat in a class you shared with him. You tell her about the time they started rumors about you multiple times. Now, that you’re older, they weren’t that bad, but just the thought of people that stuff about you made you hate half of high school. 

You told her about all the times you heard them whispering, knowing that they were talking about you and feeling tears welling up in your eyes at the snickers you would hear behind you. You stop soon after, biting your lip to calm yourself before your friend asks where was Ukai in all of this.

“He never said anything, and like I said, he was always staring at me whenever I looked at him.” You tell her about the times he would come up to you after class, usually after the bullying, but you didn’t give him a chance to speak, darting out of the room before he could even get your name out.

“Maybe he was trying to apologize,” she offers. “I’m not saying that I’m condoning him sitting there and letting it happen, but I don’t think he hates you like you say he does. At all.”

“Well, he had a lot of time to apologize, and he never did.” Yeah, you’re still hung up about it, and you don’t care if you sound like a child. He was a bystander and still dared to call them his friends and hang out with them after what they did to you.

“Well, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but if you wanna hear him out, I don’t blame you. But if you don’t, then you could always drop the class and find another one to fill your requirement,” she says. “But, I know you’re not gonna drop, so it’s up to you,” she tacks on, making you frown at her. She smiles at you before she goes back to your textbook, and you can’t help but copy it, standing up and making your way toward your room, but not without playfully shoving her first.

You spend the rest of your night torn between completely ignoring your friend or taking her advice. Not having homework is a good and bad thing because you don’t have anything to distract you from your thoughts. You kill the time by watching a show that you’ve already seen a bunch of times, scrolling through your phone while you sit on your bed. 

Your friend has a point, but there’s a part of you that’s spent a while trying to lock that part of your life away, and you don’t want to go through the trouble of opening it back up again. You don’t know if you’ll be able to handle it when everything you’ve suppressed comes flying out.

When your eyelids start to feel heavy, you decide to call it a night, hoping in the shower before you do your face routine. When you get in bed, you toss and turn for a little bit, hoping that your dilemma stays out of your dreams.

Wednesday rolls around faster than you’d like, and you find yourself in that class once again in the same seat you picked on the first day of classes. You keep your headphones on as you get comfortable, having about fifteen minutes before class starts. You can feel yourself getting antsier as the class time approaches, wondering if Ukai dropped the class. 

You shrug off your thoughts, questioning in your head why you’re so worried about him in the first place. It doesn’t do much though because you feel your heart start racing when you can see someone sitting next to you in your peripheral. You don’t look, keeping your eyes on your phone, but you decide to switch your attention to your laptop.

You think the professor talks starting, so you turn your headphones off, sliding them off your head. “Good morning.” You hear it almost as soon as you take the headphones off your ears, and it nearly scares you.

“Morning,” you reply softly, glancing to the side to confirm that Ukai is sitting next to you. 

“How was your day yesterday?” he asks, and you shake your head a little as you shrug.

“Uh, it was pretty okay, I guess. It’ll be more hectic next week once my labs start,” you tell him, and it feels weird to be making small talk with him. Your friend’s words echo in your head as you ask him about his day yesterday.

“Mine was pretty okay, too. You know the first week of classes is always dragging.” You give him a nod, deciding to fully turn your head to look at him, but when you see that he’s staring right at you, you quickly look back at your laptop. 

Your professor starts talking, so you attempt to pay attention even though you’re more nervous than you’d like to be. Right as she finishes the discussion about what you’re going to be doing today, someone walks into the class. 

No one notices because they’ve all started talking to themselves in the groups that they’re in, and since you’re sitting in the back right by the door, she catches your attention. You look over her, commenting in your head how pretty her outfit is, but then Ukai quickly averts your attention to him.

“You did the readings, right?” he asks, and you squint at him.

“Did you?” you say right back, and he smiles a little which makes you think about how you’re feeling about that. 

“I did,” he answers confidently before giving you a synopsis of the reading much to your surprise. “I can’t slack off like I did in high school, so I’m trying to start early so I don’t get behind.” His words leave you a little stunned, but before you can even try and form a response, the girl who walked in late walks up to the both of you.

“You don’t mind if I work with you, do you?” She’s only looking at Ukai when she asks, and she must’ve walked up to the professor and had her fill her in on what you’re doing.

“Well, I’m working with her already, so,” he answers, and you make a face when it looks like disdain appears across her face.

“Oh, well, the professor said I could join a group,” she responds, and you can feel the air taking an awkward turn, but you have no idea what to say. Ukai sighs a little, glancing at you before he looks at her.

“Sure, one more doesn’t hurt.” She smiles widely before moving one of the desks closer to him before sitting down, and he leans towards you, which makes you lean back a little. “Are you okay with this?” he whispers.

“Uh, yeah, it’s fine,” you mumble back quickly, overwhelmed by how close he is. It doesn’t look like your words convinced him, but she’s talking to him again, so he doesn’t get a chance to make sure. While he’s talking to her, filling her in on what you’re supposed to be doing, you pull up your annotations from the readings you had to read for this class.

For about ten minutes, absolutely no work gets done because every time Ukai tries to talk to you, she interrupts with questions that have nothing to do with the work. And she’s only talking to him. You have an annoyed look on your face as you stare at your empty word document. Ukai seems to be just annoyed as you, and you truly don’t know why she’s acting like this. You don’t even know her.

You figure that you’re probably not going to get any work done, and by the conversations you’re overhearing from the other groups, they’re not necessarily talking about their group work either. It seems like there’s a lull in the conversation between her and Ukai, so you speak up.

“I like your outfit,” you say, giving her a small smile.

“I didn’t ask.” 

Keishin freezes, his fingers no longer typing on his keyboard, and your face drops. She’s giving you an ugly look, and you’re about to turn and face her, but he stops you by asking you some questions about the work. There’s a look in his eyes that you can’t decipher, but after that, he barely pays attention to her.

Every time she tries to talk, he talks over her, and it’s starting to get to you. “Ukai, it’s okay,” you say softly, and you don’t need to say it that loud because he’s practically in your space, moving over whenever she moved closer to him.

“No, it’s not,” he grits, and you never knew that fifty minutes could be so long. You managed to get some of your document filled, and you start to pack your stuff up once there are about five minutes left in class. You wish you could be out of here sooner. The girl continues to talk now that Ukai isn’t occupied anymore, and you can’t even bring yourself to look their way.

You feel a pit forming in your stomach at what she said to you, her attitude not sitting right with you, but you don’t want to say anything to her. The other part of you just wants to get out of her, and you refuse to let her ruin the rest of your day. Your professor lets the class out a little early once she sees that everyone is finishing up, and since your backpack is already packed, you quickly stand.

Ukai stands up almost at the same time you do, way faster. “So, I was wondering–” The girl is standing as well, and she’s still talking to him. 

“I didn’t ask.” You choke a bit at Ukai’s sudden response, turning your head to look away as you try to hold in your laugh, but not before you can catch her stunned reaction. You jump when he grabs your hand and pulls you out of the room ahead of everyone else. You have to walk a little faster to keep up with him, and he doesn’t let your hand go until you’re both well away from the building.

“Are you okay?” he asks, slowing his steps.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” you say. “I’m a little pissed, yeah, but I’m not stressed over it.” He doesn’t say anything in return, and the silence allows you to remember that he’s still holding your hand. 

You feel your face grow warm as you slightly tug, and he feels it, letting go of your hand immediately. “Sorry about that,” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say lightly even though your body isn’t taking it so lightly. You grab your hand gently, rubbing over your palm as if you’re missing the feeling of his hand against yours. 

“So, it looks like you’re done for the day,” he says without missing a beat, and you frown a bit before you quickly remember that you lied to him about your schedule. 

“Oh, yeah,” you respond slowly, wondering if you want to come clean about it. “I would be, but I do have another class in an hour. My professor canceled the class on Monday for some reason.” You don’t know why you’re telling him this, and there’s a small part of you that regrets it the moment you do.

“Really? What class is it?”

“Uh, quantitative chemistry.”

“Oof, sounds hard,” he grimaces, and you chuckle a little, shaking your head a little.

“I don’t think it’ll be that bad, hopefully. Math wasn’t always my best, but it’s stuff I already learned so I should be fine.” You try not to focus on how close he is to you as you walk, and you know there’s no reason for him to be since the foot traffic isn’t bad. “Do you have anything else today?” you ask, trying to use conversation as a way to keep your thoughts quiet.

“Yeah, I have a stats class in an hour as well,” he sighs.

“God, I do not miss taking that. I’m glad I’m done with it.”

“Lucky you then,” he jests, nudging you with his shoulder. “I absolutely suck at math, so this won’t be fun.” You open your mouth getting ready to say that you remember that from high school, but you quickly shut it. You don’t need to expose yourself anymore.

“It might not be that bad, you’re given the formulas on the exams anyways.” 

“Well, if I ever have trouble, I know to call you.”

“Right,” you mumble. The conversation thankfully stops without being awkward, but you don’t want to listen to your head right now. There’s so much going on, your brain is trying to process too much, so you try to think about where you’re going to kill time until your next class.

“Are you gonna be getting food again today?” he asks after a while even though you’re not walking anywhere near the student union. Which makes you notice that he’s just been walking wherever you’re going.

You shake your head. “No, I ate a pretty big breakfast today, so I’m just gonna find somewhere to sit while I wait for my next class.” 

“You mind if I join you?” You hesitate for a split second before you answer.

“If you want to,” you say, leaving it at that as you try not to reveal how you’re feeling. But hell, you don’t even know how you’re feeling about this.

You find a place outside since it’s nice and not too hot to sit at, and it’s an equal distance for both of you from your next class. Since you already have assignments due for your classes, you try to get a headstart on it, so you pull out your notes and laptop to get started on that. 

Ukai sits across from you, and it takes everything in you to not look at him. He’s on his phone for a while that you can see from your peripheral, but then he’s on his laptop soon after that. You get into your work, finding a groove, and you’re almost done with most of it when you hear someone call Ukai’s name.

Both of you look up, and your heart drops when your eyes land on the owner of the voice. You quickly put your head down, hoping that your undivided attention on your laptop screen will cause him not to notice you. You swallow heavily as they greet each other, and you look at the time to see that you still have twenty minutes until your class starts.

You try to pack up some of your stuff since you’re done anyway, but then you feel your body run cold when Ukai says your name. “You remember her, right?” You hesitantly look up, and you can feel all of the emotions that you’ve been trying to suppress bubble over.

The guy says your name again in disbelief before recognition goes across his face. “Wow, it is you! I almost didn’t recognize you,” he laughs, and you wait for it. “You aren’t as ugly as you were in high school.” There it is.

You barely smile at him because there’s no way you can laugh that off, and you see Ukai frown deeply, turning to the guy, you start to close your laptop. “I’m gonna head out,” you start, and Ukai tries to stop you, but the guy won’t shut up about how much you’ve changed, calling you the names he called you back then, and you can feel yourself starting to break down.

“Don’t leave,” Ukai says, catching your hand before you can put your stuff in your bag. 

“Yeah, we have to stay and catch up,” the guy buds in, and you know there isn’t a smile on your face when you look at him.

“You can go,” Ukai orders, keeping his hand on yours, and this situation is so awkward and embarrassing, but your body is frozen at Keishin’s words. The guy tries to laugh Ukai’s sudden change in attitude off, not even the slightest put off by him. 

“Come on, man. This is hilarious, no? You remember how much she–”

“I remember how much I wanted to beat your ass,” Ukai states. “Now leave before I do.” You try to keep your breathing even as you look around. No one was around to hear the conversation, but some people are looking as they walk to wherever they are going. The guy stops smiling, looking at Ukai like he’s grown a second head.

“Are you serious right now?” the guy questions incredulously as he looks at you. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling this bitch–”

Ukai is on his feet in a split second, grabbing the guy by the collar of his shirt. “You have two seconds to move your ass before I do it for you. You apologize to her now, and I never want to see your face again.” 

Your body is shaking so badly, you feel like you could cry, and you flinch a little when Ukai tightens his grip on his shirt, shaking him just a little. “I’m not playing around here. Apologize. Now.”

“Ukai, it’s okay, he doesn’t have to–” you try, but he doesn’t even look at you, pulling the guy closer to him and nearly off of his feet.

“Yes. He. Does.” 

“Okay, okay. Just chill,” the guy pleads, and Keishin lets his grip loose just a little, but he doesn’t let him go. “I’m sorry, okay?” At this point, you don’t care for his half-assed apology, but the high school part of you is feeling a rush from hearing him say those words.

“Mean it,” he says angrily, and the guy turns to look at you.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but that doesn’t satisfy Ukai.

“For?”

“For messing with you. I’m sorry for what I just said. I was just fucking around in high school, and I didn’t mean any of the things I said. I promise,” he rushes out, and you’d never thought you’d hear that from him. You’re so overwhelmed with emotions right now, that you don’t say anything, but Ukai lets the guy go with a rough shove.

“Get the fuck out of my face,” he hisses, and the guy fixes his shirt, giving Ukai a searing glare, but he walks off without another word. You take a deep breath when he disappears out of sight, and you jump a bit when Ukai’s next to you. “Are you okay? I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m fine,” you breathe, finally looking at Ukai, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so worried. His hands are on your shoulders, and you give him a smile to try and lessen his worries. “I’m fine. I just thought I’d never see him again,” you say with an airy chuckle, and when you start to relax, he lets his hands slide off of you, but you’re still a little frazzled to notice how long they take to leave your body.

Ukai goes to say something, but you check the time on your phone to see that you don’t have a lot of time until your next class. “Oh, we have to go,” you say softly, packing up your stuff. Ukai stands there, watching you, and you turn to him once you have your backpack on your shoulders. “Thanks, Ukai,” you say softly.

“Of course,” he says just as softly, and you return the smile he gives you. “You go on ahead, I’ll see you on Friday.” You nod, walking off, and he watches you go. He sighs as he starts to pack his stuff up. There’s so much he wanted to say to you. 

Maybe next time.

You’re a month into the semester, and your work is already stockpiling. You try to get ahead of it, but it always ends up catching up to you. You’ve piled up on your classes this semester, and you’re starting to hate your past self for doing that. The class you have with Ukai is the only class where the workload isn’t the heaviest, but it still takes a hefty amount of time to do the work for it. 

The readings that you have to read before class have gotten longer, and you just barely have enough time to read them. You’re dragging ass when you get to class on Monday, feeling like you might fall asleep at your desk when you sit down. You’re surprised you managed to even remember bringing all of your stuff for class today, and Ukai sits next to you as you slowly take your stuff out of your bag.

“Rough night?” you barely hear him ask, and it takes you a while to blink, your eyelids feeling like they’re tied to weights.

“Something like that,” you whisper before you rub your eyes. “My workload is a bitch especially with midterms coming up, so I’m not getting a lot of sleep.” You yawn as you rest your chin on your hand. He doesn’t say anything else, and the professor starts talking, but he keeps his eyes on you while she does.

You rub your hand over your face, even drinking water to try and keep yourself awake. You feel like you might cry when she announces that you’re going to be presenting in front of the class about the readings you’re doing. Ukai watches you make a face at her words, and then he notices that you’re still working on things all the while. 

But when the class breaks off to do work, you immediately start talking about the readings that you had to do for the class. He wants to ask about how you’re doing, but he doesn’t think he’ll get the chance. His concern is only fueled when you keep having to stop to think about what you’re saying. He ends up doing most of the work, which he doesn’t mind, and it seems like class flies by in a blur. 

You and Ukai will have to present at least twice this semester, the first presentation being next week, which means you’ll have to get started on your papers now. When class is dismissed, he waits for you to pack up your stuff, and he can tell that you’re really tired especially since you’re not walking as fast as you usually do.

“So, are you going to be free any time to work on this?” he asks you once you’re both walking outside. 

“It’s gonna have to be at the end of the week. I’m gonna try and get as much work done as I can so I can focus on this. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, I can make it work.”

“We can try and start on it now while we wait for our next class if you want to,” you offer, and you both find a spot inside this time since it looks like it might rain, which doesn’t help your grogginess. Ukai sits next to you, but you’re too tired to freak out about it. He starts talking about the readings that you have to do, and what you could potentially write about in your paper.

You don’t know if it’s because you’ve chosen a pretty quiet spot, or if it’s his voice, but something starts to put you to sleep. Ukai can see your head bobbing every time you doze off, but he doesn’t say anything, continuing to talk about the material, and while you start to doze off again, he lets his hand gently guide it to his shoulder.

You don’t protest, going without a fight, and he looks down at you, only stopping when he realizes he’s been staring at you too long. He continues working, making sure not to move his arm too much so that he doesn’t wake you, and he opens up another document, typing up stuff that you could add to your paper.

When it’s almost time for you to go, he hesitates to wake you up because you look like you need sleep, but he knows you’d kill him for not waking you up in time for class. He gently shakes you, and you wake up with a start, looking around. You calm down instantly when you look at Ukai, looking at his laptop screen before sighing.

“God, Ukai, I am so sorry,” you say, rubbing your head. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“Don’t sweat it. I wrote down some ideas for you to start with,” he tells you. “I’ll send it to you later. You gotta get to class.” 

“Thank you so much. I owe you.” You don’t have to put your stuff up since you didn’t even get the chance to take anything out, and you stand up, stretching when you stand up fully. You check the time on your phone, putting a little pep in your step since you feel a bit energized as you start to walk away. You turn to wave to him as you leave, and the smile doesn’t leave his face even when you’re gone.

“Should’ve taken a picture,” he mumbles.

~

When you get home, you all but drag yourself to your room. You change your clothes before flopping down on your bed, and sleep is calling your name, but if you go to sleep now, you’ll mess up your schedule. You lift yourself when you hear a knock on your door while you let your roommate know that she can come in.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” she questions the moment she walks in. She sits down at your desk with a feigned stern look, already knowing the answer.

“I’ll try tonight. I just have a lot of work this week. And now I have to write a paper to present with Ukai next week,” you groan, and your roommate raises her eyebrows.

“Ukai? Haven’t heard his name since you mentioned him,” she says. “How’s all that going?”

“It’s going, I guess. I don’t know what you want me to say.” You think about how your head was on his shoulder earlier, and you feel your face start to warm, and your roommate notices the change.

“Yeah, okay. You’re not fooling me. What’s up with you two?”

“Nothing!” you exclaim. “I think,” you add softly, ultimately sighing in defeat, and your roommate moves to sit next to you on your bed, very invested. “I mean, we’ve been hanging on a lot during our breaks in-between classes. And I fell asleep on his shoulder today,” you say, grimacing at the thought.

“So, what? Do you like him or something?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “I kinda had a crush on him in high school, but it was mostly bittersweet because he was always there whenever I was being messed with. Speaking of, I saw one of the guys a while ago.”

“What?” your roommate says, her mouth open. “What happened?”

“Ukai threatened him and had him apologize to me,” you laugh which you can do now that the situation is behind you.

“Shit, girl, you don’t think he’s into you too, right?”

“No,” you respond quickly with a shake of your head. “There’s no way he likes me now or back then. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t say that,” she tries. “I feel like there might be something there.”

“Maybe,” you say reluctantly. “I just don’t wanna read anything wrong.”

“I don’t think you are. I feel like he might have a thing for you. He has had a thing for you.” You try not to fall too deep into her words, but with the way he’s been acting, it doesn’t sound totally out of the ordinary. “Just keep me updated, I’m invested in your love story now.”

“Don’t call it that!” You shove her playfully as both of you laugh, and she gets off your bed, heading to the door. 

“Don’t stay up too late, okay?” she says before she closes the door. Once it gets quiet, you begrudgingly decide to start on your work, so you move to your desk, starting on your chemistry homework since that’s what’s taking you so much time.

You play some music to help you focus, and you try to get into study mode. Which takes you a lot longer than it should because your head is focused on a certain someone. You groan softly as you let your head fall on your desk. Maybe if you think about it now, it’ll help you focus.

You definitely had some feelings for Ukai back then. You thought he was really cute, he actually is still very much cute. He looks even better now than he did in high school. But you were never confident enough to even start a conversation with him all through high school. You shared the same classes, but you just kept it to yourself. Not even your high school friends knew how you felt about him.

But then those feelings started to fade a bit when the guys he hung out with started to bully you. You mostly felt anger at first, but then it turned to hurt and a little bit of betrayal because the guy you liked wasn’t doing anything to stop what was happening. And then you hated yourself for being a damsel in distress. Once the bullying seemed to die down by the time you were in your last year, you were “over” him.

You didn’t have nearly as many feelings for him, they were still there, but you sort of suppressed them. And then you attempted to get rid of them when you got to college because you were under the notion that you would never see him again. But of course, you had to run into him, and now those feelings are starting to bloom again.

You never once thought that he reciprocated his feelings, and you never talked to him because it seemed like the only time he was going to say something to you was after his friends did, and the last thing you wanted to do was talk to him. 

“Okay, that’s enough,” you say to yourself, picking up your pencil and trying to get back to where you were. Right as you’re about to start another problem, your phone stops playing music and then your ringtone follows. You pick it up to see who’s calling, and you feel your heart start racing when you see that it’s Ukai.

You were thinking about him, and now he’s calling you. You don’t wait to answer it, putting it on speaker as you set the phone back down. “You cut off my music,” you say lightly, and you bite your lip a little when you hear his laugh come through the phone.

“Sorry. I just wanted to check on you. Making sure you’re giving yourself a break,” he says, and your roommate’s words start to play in your mind.

“I actually haven’t been working for that long,” you say, but then you look at the clock, seeing how much time has passed.

“Really? When did you start?” he questions, and when you go silent, he chuckles again. “Okay, so that means you need to take a break.”

“Okay, fine,” you relent. “Is that all you were calling about?”

“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice.” You don’t know how to respond to that, his words making you silent again. “I was having trouble focusing so I thought you might be able to help me.”

“And how would I be able to do that?” you ask, trying to calm your racing heart. 

“Don’t know,” he answers, which makes you roll your eyes. “I guess I could try and listen to music like you.”

“You should, it helps.”

“I’d rather talk to you,” he replies almost too fast.

“But I don’t think it’s helping you,” you chuckle. “It just sounds like I’m distracting you.”

“I’m okay with that.” You put your hand over your mouth to stop yourself from screaming. What is happening right now? 

“So, you called me just to distract you then?” you ask after your quick freak out.

“Yeah,” he answers quickly. “Work doesn’t seem so bad now that I’m talking to you.” 

You can’t help but laugh. “Well, obviously. A lot of people would rather be doing anything else other than work.”

He goes silent for a second, and you’re about to ask him if he’s still there, but he talks before you can. “Am I being too much of a distraction?”

You let a shy smile appear on your face as you shake your head even though he can’t see you. “No, you’re not. I like talking to you,” you say, feeling your face warm.

“Good. I like talking to you too,” he says, and you quietly laugh, but you stop the urge to kick your feet like you’re in high school. Time seems to fly by as you talk to Ukai, and you’re having such a good time that you don’t even notice that it has until your roommate knocks on your door.

“Hey, girl, I was checking on you. You haven’t come out of your room,” she says, peeking her head into your room.

“I’m taking breaks, don’t worry,” you tell her, hoping that she won’t see that you’re on the phone with Ukai. “I’ll probably finish up here soon.” That seems to be enough to convince her because she gives you a smile and a goodnight before she closes the door.

“Sorry, that was my roommate,” you tell him.

“Don’t worry about it. Glad to know you have someone that’s making sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

“Yeah, she’s like my mom,” you laugh.

“I didn’t mean to keep you on the phone this long, you probably got no work done,” he says.

“I actually did. So, talking to you helped after all.”

“Well, you’re welcome,” he jokes, and you roll your eyes. “...I don’t wanna hang up,” he whispers after he goes silent, and in your head, you agree. 

“Well,” you start. “I could call you after I get out of the shower,” you offer, and your eyes dart around to the things on your desk as you wait for his answer.

“Yeah. That sounds good. I’ll be waiting.” 

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to you soon.” You hang up the phone, and you have to get it out, so you do a little happy dance before you calm yourself down. You jump violently when your door burst open.

“I knew you were talking to him!” your roommate yells. “You can’t fool me!”

“Thank you for giving me a heart attack,” you sigh, grabbing your phone and standing up.

“So, what’s going on now? A date?” she presses, and you scoff as you shake your head.

“Absolutely nothing of the sort. I’m getting in the shower,” you say, pushing her out of your room so you can get ready.

“Yeah, okay. You better keep me posted,” she tells you again, and you shake your head before closing the door. 

You shower quickly, washing your face, and brushing your teeth before you get in bed. You wait for a little just in case he might be showering too, and it takes you a while to even call him at that. Your finger hovers over the call button in your recents until you finally press it. It doesn’t even ring twice before he picks up.

“I missed you.”

“It hasn’t even been that long,” you say, a laugh leaving your chest against your will.

“Doesn’t matter,” he tells you softly as you start to get comfortable. “You laying down?”

“Yes, I am. I might fall asleep on you if I’m being honest,” you say, a yawn following right after.

“That’s okay. You need to get your sleep.” 

Ukai ends up doing most of the talking which is fine by him, and he can’t help but smile to himself when he hears your responses turning into soft hums. A part of him wishes he would’ve video called you so that he could see you, but he’ll take this for now. He stops talking once he can hear you softly snoring, but he doesn’t hang up. 

Sleep is right behind him, so he rolls over on his side, getting more comfortable. “Goodnight,” he tells you even though you can’t hear him, and it’s not long until he’s asleep himself.

You had gotten enough work done this week that you had enough time to work on your presentation with Ukai. You decided to meet up at his place this weekend, and you feel so conflicted with yourself as you stand in front of your mirror trying to figure out what to wear.

“Why am I being like this?” you mumble to yourself. You’ve been trying to tell yourself not to worry about it and just put on some clothes, but there’s a part of you that has too much of a say to let you do just that. You’ve put on and taken off so many clothes, the pile on your bed and floor only increasing. 

You don’t have time for this, having only about twenty minutes before you have to get there. Ukai lives pretty close to campus while you have to drive back and forth between your apartment and campus. That’s something you and your roommate hate, so you’re currently looking for a new place for next school year. 

You groan out loud as the voice in your head tells you that you don’t like the outfit you have on. You jump when you hear a knock on your door, and the familiar sight of your roommate peeking her head in fills your eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” you say, but she’s always been good at reading you, and she frowns before pushing the door open further. Her eyebrows crease when she sees that your room looks like your closet exploded. 

“You’re worried about what you’re wearing? You going somewhere special or something?” she questions instantly, but even the question doesn’t give you enough time to come up with a lie, because she quickly puts two and two together. “Don’t tell me you’re going on a date.”

“It’s not a date,” you emphasize. “We’re just working on a presentation we have to do on Monday.”

“Well, where are you meeting him?” she asks, and you look away from her, hesitant to answer. “His place?” she says when you don’t respond, and your reaction to the next question is all she needs to know the answer. “This is news to me! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Because I knew you were gonna make a big deal about it, and I didn’t wanna psych myself out.”

“Okay, okay. Relax, y/n,” she says, putting her hands on your shoulders. “There’s nothing to be worried about. I won’t make a big deal about it because it isn’t if you think about it. It’s just two people working on a project,” she offers, and that perspective does make you feel better. “It’s only a big deal if you make it, and it’s not like it’s gonna be awkward. You both have been in close proximity before,” she adds, and you admit in your head that she’s right.

“I guess you have a point,” you say, but you’re still looking around at all of the clothes you’ve put on. 

“But, I can help you with an outfit,” she smiles, and you roll your eyes. 

“You just said it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Okay, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress up a little. You’re going out, why wouldn’t you?” she says, and you chuckle a bit, starting to consider if her words are a contradiction to what she just said, but you let her do it anyway. 

While she’s going through your clothes, you quickly text Ukai to tell him that you’re running a little late, and you can’t help but smile when he responds almost instantly telling you it’s no big deal. Maybe you are overthinking this whole thing. 

“Okay, here ya go.” You look up to see her holding one of your worn t-shirts, and some shorts, but when you look at which ones she’s holding, you put your hands on your hips.

“I am not wearing those shorts,” you tell her, taking the shirt from her and slipping it on. 

“Why not? It’s hot outside, you don’t wanna be sweaty when you get there,” she tries, but you’re not buying it.

“I only wear those around the house,” you argue.

“And you will be around the house! His house,” she says, and you’re starting to realize that you don’t have time for this, but you know that you won’t be able to pick out anything else to wear.

“Fine. I’m only putting them on because I don’t have time,” you say, taking them from her, and she walks out to let you change into them. They’re not that short, but they’re short enough, and seeing that you only have about ten minutes to leave, you can’t waste time debating over what to wear.

You put your shoes on, making sure that you have everything before putting your backpack on. You walk out, tugging on the shorts when you feel like they’re starting to ride up, and you all but glare at your roommate as you walk towards the door. 

“Have fun!” she beams, and you squint your eyes at her.

“Mm-hmm,” you mumble. “I’ll be back later tonight.” You both say goodbye, and you close the door, locking it behind you, putting some pep in your step on your way to your car.

You know where his apartment is, so you make your way over there, and you try to repeat your roommate’s words in your head when you feel yourself starting to get nervous. You know there’s no reason for you to be nervous, but you can’t help it. You know that you’re feelings for him are starting to come back, and there’s a part of you that’s trying to fight it, but so far, suppressing things hasn’t been the easiest thing to do.

Your roommate swears that he’s into you, which doesn’t really help your case, but those words alone are enough to make you sweat. You don’t know how you would feel if he felt the same way. You’ve felt something for him for almost all of high school, and if you think about it, those feelings never really left when you got to college. 

You text him as soon as you park, and he meets you outside of his apartment. “Sorry, I’m running late,” you tell him when you get to him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and you follow him into the building and up the stairs to his apartment. You pick at your phone case as you will your heart to stop racing because you know it’s not from taking the stairs. 

You follow him inside, and you look around, taking in the room. He mentioned having a roommate, but he said he wouldn’t be here while you guys were working. You take your shoes off once you get in, and you see that he already has everything set up on the dining table. It almost has the same layout as your apartment except it’s much nicer. In the back of your head, you think to mention this place to your friend and see if she’d like it.

“Okay, so I’ve already finished my paper, but I wanted you to read over it just to make sure that ours don’t overlap,” he says when he sits down. 

You sit down in the chair next to him, taking your backpack off so that you can get your laptop out. “That sounds good, but I’ll admit I haven’t written most of it,” you admit shyly, and he waves you off.

“That’s okay. It shouldn’t take you that long anyway,” he reassures, and you pull up the half-written document. You read over his, and you’re relieved that he ended up talking about something completely different from yours. You tell him what you want to talk about for your presentation, and he helps you out by pulling up the reading and offering what parts of it you could pull from. 

Writing your paper takes about an hour, and then you both work on the PowerPoint slides you have to have with questions to ask the class about the readings. Your stomach grumbles suddenly once you’re finishing up, and that’s when you remember that you forgot to eat while you were panicking about what to wear.

“Sorry,” you laugh, and he laughs under his breath.

“I’m getting hungry too,” he says. “There are places around here that we could eat at if you’re okay with that.”

“Yeah, I’m good with that.” You both put your shoes on, and you follow him out onto the street, and there’s a bunch of places that are within walking distance where you could eat. You don’t care where to eat, so you agree on the first place that he offers. You’ve never been there before, but Ukai reassures you that it’s good. You both talk about anything and everything as you walk to the place, and when you get inside, it’s super packed.

“I guess it is dinner time,” he says as he takes the place in. “We can just take it to-go if that’s okay with you?” he offers, and you nod, in no mood to oppose as you look at how many people are in here. Ukai orders first, and instead of paying, he turns to you. “What do you want?” he asks, and you tell him, but then he’s repeating your order to the person at the register, and you realize what he’s doing.

“Ukai, you don’t have to pay,” you try, but he just shrugs you off. You try to memorize the price as you both move to the side while you wait for your food. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Seriously, y/n. Don’t worry about it,” he tells you again, but you don’t look very convinced. “How about you pay me back by helping me with my stats homework?”

“That doesn’t sound like a fair trade.”

“It does to me. I didn’t do well on the first exam, and I need some serious help,” he explains, and you decide that he’s not going to let you pay him back, so you give up.

“Fine. I’ll help you out then.” The smile he gives you makes your heart flutter, and you don’t get much time to take in how you feel because your food is ready. 

You walk back to his apartment, and you silently thank your friend for picking out shorts because even though the sun is starting to go down, the air is still really warm. You aren’t walking that fast, so luckily you’re not a sweating mess when you get back to his apartment. 

You push your work aside so that you can eat at the table, and he puts on a show that he’s been watching for a while. You’ve never seen it, and when you tell him, he looks at you like you’ve offended him terribly. He starts the show over for you, and it seems like a pretty good show, and you make a note of the name so you can continue to watch it. 

You finish eating in the middle of the first season, and you both move to the couch so you can finish it. Ukai tells you that he’ll start on the work once it’s over, and you wonder if he actually means that. Your focus on the show starts to waver when you notice how close he’s sitting to you. He’s wearing shorts, so when his leg brushes against yours, it sends goosebumps across your skin. You try to pay attention because you don’t want to miss anything, but it’s even more difficult when he places his arm on the back of the couch behind you.

You don’t think it’s a cliche move because you look at him from the corner of your eye, and he’s completely engrossed in the show even though he’s seen it probably a million times. You realize how tense you are, and you try to relax, but that means you’d be relaxing into him, and you don’t want to make anything awkward. 

You decide to rub over your arms since it’ll keep you from touching him. “Are you cold?” he asks, and you turn your head to him quickly.

“No, no. I’m fine,” you say with a shake of your head, and you quickly turn back to the TV, but you can see him looking over you, so you put your hands on your lap. He finally follows your gaze, and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

The last episode of the season plays, and Ukai groans loudly. “Guess I have to do my homework now,” he says to your surprise. You guess he was serious about actually doing his work. 

“Can I use your bathroom?” you ask, standing up and feeling relieved that you’re not sitting directly next to him anymore.

“Yeah, my room’s right there,” he says, pointing at the right door. He’s been fighting it since you got here, but he watches you walk away, and his eyes slide up your legs. He can see some of your ass peeking out from your shorts before you pull them down, and he sighs softly to himself as he diverts his eyes. 

He turns his head quickly before he stands and turns the TV off. He sits down at the table while he gets his stuff out, and he hears you come back into the room. You sit down next to him, and he shows you one of the problems that he’s struggling with. You move your seat closer to his so that you don’t have to lean over, and he immediately thinks about how good you smell.

He noticed when he was sitting next to you, and that’s when he also noticed that he had put his arm behind you. He didn’t move his arm because he didn’t want it to be awkward, but he had to strongly fight the urge to pull you into him. He felt his hair stand up on end whenever he accidentally brushed against you, and the entire time he thought about if he should say something to you.

“Keishin.” His eyes snap to yours, realizing that he was just staring at his notebook. “Are you okay?” you ask softly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I just got lost in thought,” he says, giving a smile so that he doesn’t have to explain that he was daydreaming about you.

“Don’t worry about the exam. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” 

“Of course, I will. I have you to help me,” he says, thankful that you think he’s stressed about the exam. His smile widens when yours does, and he feels so much right now that he almost opens his mouth, but then you’re turning your attention back to the work. So, he clears his thoughts and decides to focus on his work too.

He’s relieved when he realizes that he’s not doing as bad as he thought, he was just having some trouble remembering when to do what. You have him go over it multiple times, and it helps, and when you think he’s ready, you have him try some practice problems.

He’s definitely nervous to try them out, but your reassurance is what gets him to try them. You busy yourself with some other classwork, and he’s grateful because he doesn’t know what he’d be able to do if you were watching him. He makes sure to check over his work, even putting his work through the calculator more than once to make sure that he’s getting the same answer as before.

He lets you know that he’s finished, and his professor added the answers to the questions, so you look over his work and the answers. He fiddles with his pencil in nervousness and anticipation as he watches you check. It feels like it takes forever and it almost kills him, but then you finally look up at him.

“You did really well! There’s a couple that you messed up on, but other than that, I’d say that you’d got this stuff down.” He takes a breath of relief, running his hand down his chest as he leans back in his seat.

“Thank God,” he breathes. 

“You just have to trust yourself. You know what you’re doing, just don’t get nervous,” you tell him. “I know when I do that, I end up freaking myself out so much that I start to forget things.”

“Thank you so much. I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s definitely not something I understood at first, so I’m happy to help.” At your words, for some reason, he feels like you might be about to leave, and he selfishly doesn’t want that to happen.

“Do you mind checking over my work again? I wanna go through some more just in case,” he tries, and he tightens his grip on his pencil, hoping you say yes.

“Of course. While you’re working, I’m getting work done too, so it’s a win-win,” you answer, and he’s never felt more elated. He nods, getting to work on more problems, and you switch your attention back to the work you were doing. 

You get up to go to the bathroom again, and you stretch when you do, and Ukai’s eyes catch on your shorts again. He diverts his eyes as soon as you walk out of his line of sight, and he shakes his head. Focus. He sighs, getting back on track, and finishes the problem with ease. He gets to the next one though, and he’s stuck.

He tries to do it himself, but when he feels like he’s not doing something right, he stops so that he doesn’t get too far ahead of himself. Luckily, you come back when he stops, so he asks you right before you sit back down.

“I just wanna make sure I’m starting this right,” he says, and you put your hand on the back of his chair before you lean down to see what he’s doing. You lean down a little bit more to look at his work, and he holds the urge to flinch when your shirt brushes against his ear. He takes a deep breath in, your scent filling his nose, and he desperately wants to know what it is. 

He thinks it might be like shea butter or something but before he can get a chance to investigate further, you break him out of his thoughts. “Yeah, you’re fine. Looks good to me,” you say, and he makes the mistake of turning to look up at you.

He was going to say something, but the words die in his throat when he looks at your face. He gets lost in your eyes and the curve of your lips, and he can’t look away. He looks back at your eyes, and to his surprise, you’re looking at his lips too. He has half a mind to just say fuck it and lean in, but then he feels you rub at his back.

“Have more confidence in yourself, Keishin,” you say, smiling at him before you move to sit back down. He’s glad that there doesn’t seem to be any awkward air between the two of you, and he realizes that his heart is racing when he looks back at his work. It feels like the motion of your hand rubbing his back is burned into his skin, and he would give anything to feel it again.

Ukai yawns as he finishes the last of the problems, and he passes the notebook to you. He rubs over his eyes as you look over them, and it doesn’t take you long to look through them. “You did great. You got all of them right,” you say with a yawn.

“I guess we better call it a night,” he says around a laugh that you copy, but then he looks at the time. “Shit, I didn’t mean to keep you here so late.”

You blink sleepily as you yawn again, looking at the time. “Oh, God. I didn’t even know I was here for that long,” you hum.

He once again doesn’t want you to leave. “You can sleep here for the night if you want, I’ll sleep on the couch,” he offers, and at the same time, you look like you could fall asleep any minute now.

“I couldn’t take your bed,” you try, but you end up yawning again.

“Seriously. It’s the least I could for keeping you here so long.” He’s really tired himself. He woke early this morning to make sure that his apartment was spotless. He’s never done so much cleaning, but he won’t tell you that.

Surprisingly, you don’t put up much of a fight, but he can’t really blame you. “Alright,” you say. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?” 

“Yeah, of course. Just let me use the bathroom first,” he answers, and you give him a nod, turning to your work to finish it up. He mildly panics when he gets to his room because he didn’t think about changing his sheets. He quickly uses the bathroom, brushing his teeth after, and tries his hardest to change his sheets as fast as he can. 

He’s nearly sweating by the end of it, but he can proudly say that he set a record for himself. He kicks the dirty sheets into his closet before grabbing the toothbrush and setting it on the bathroom counter. If you noticed that he was gone for so long, you don’t question it, which he’s grateful for even though he prepared a lie just in case. 

“My room’s all yours,” he jokes, and you can’t help but laugh before you stand. You yawn again as you stretch, and Ukai finally fights the urge to look over your body again. 

“Are you sure it’s okay if I sleep in your room? I can sleep on the couch, I don’t mind.”

“Yes, it’s fine. You look more tired than me right now. I’ll be fine,” he says, and you give him a sleepy smile that only strengthens his words. 

“Well, thanks. Goodnight, Keishin.”

“Goodnight,” he echoes, and there’s a part of him that’s ecstatic that he gets to say it to you in person, and he ignores the pang in his chest that he can’t be laying next to you as he says it. You walk to his room, and he watches until you softly close the door. He already grabbed a pillow from his bed before he walked out, so he throws that onto the couch.

He has a blanket on the couch, so he lays down, throwing it over himself and he tries to get comfortable. This couch isn’t the most comfortable, and he’s fallen asleep on it before, but there was no way he was going to ask you if you wanted to share a bed with him. He finds himself thinking about what would’ve happened if you had said yes.

His thoughts start to derail right after that, and he groans before deciding to turn on the TV. It’s the only way he’ll be able to keep his thoughts at bay. He turns the volume down, and he puts on a show that he can fall asleep to. Of course, it only works for so long. He hasn’t heard you say his first name at all. Today was the first time, and he can’t help but smile widely at the thought. 

He always wanted to say something to you in high school, but you never gave him the time of day. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t blame you at all. His friends weren’t kind to you at all, and he doesn’t even think he would call them friends. His real friends were in different classes with him, and he really only hung with them after school or on the weekends.

There were times that he told them to stop messing with you, and they took it as him having a crush on you, which was very much true, but he didn’t want that getting out, so he kept his mouth shut. Seeing you again and spending so much time with you has made him realize how stupid he was. He was more worried about himself than you, someone that he really liked, and he hates himself every time he thinks about it.

He hopes one day he’ll get the courage to tell you everything. Right now, he’s more than content with having what he has with you, and he doesn’t want to say anything to ruin that. He definitely wants to come clean about high school, there’s no doubt about it. But there is doubt if you’ll even talk to him after he reveals everything.

He plays back your first interaction in his head every night before he goes to sleep. At first, it kept him up at night. You had every right to act as you did towards him, and he tried to play it cool while he was with you, but after you left, he felt like total shit. He put his number in your phone to see how you would react, and he was more than relieved when you kept talking to him.

As he starts to fall asleep, he thinks about what he’s going to say to you. He hopes that when he finally gets the confidence and the chance, he won’t mess it up. He tries to rehearse it in his head, but he falls asleep as soon as he starts.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, but as he starts to wake up, he hears a familiar voice. “Dude, why are you sleeping on the couch? Get in your bed.” He recognizes that it’s his roommate, but that’s about all he can register. He was a lot more tired than he thought. 

He groggily makes his way to his room, and even in the dark, he can easily locate his bed, like it’s calling to him. He sheds his shirt and nearly sighs in comfort at the relief he feels when his body hits the bedsheets. He notices that he can’t stretch out like he wants to, but he’s starting to fall asleep, so he doesn’t worry about it that much. His bed also isn’t cold like it should be, but he gladly accepts the warmth, wrapping his arm around the pillow, and it takes no time for him to fall back asleep.

Ukai notices that the sun is peeking through the blinds as he starts to wake up. He takes a deep breath in, and he swears his nostrils fill with your scent, but this time he’s getting something different. Mango, maybe? He leans further into it, taking another deep breath, and whatever the source may be is soft against his face. He could stay here forever.

He tightens his arm around his pillow, settling in again as the smell starts to put him back to sleep. But he frowns when he faintly notices that his pillow is moving. He slowly opens his eyes, and his heart drops when he realizes that it hasn’t been a pillow all along. His eyes widen when he sees you laying in his arm, and his heart begins to race. 

You’re looking right at him, but there’s nothing that can come out of his mouth. You’re just waking up too, and you blink a bit, but there’s no hint of surprise on your face. “Keishin?” you whisper, and he never thought his name could sound so good coming from you.

“Y-Yeah,” he mumbles, and he can feel his face warm at his stuttering, but he gives himself a break because he’s just waking up. You roll over so that your back is fully against the bed, and you rub over your eyes. 

“What time is it?”

“It’s only nine-thirty,” he says after he looks at his clock, and you groan softly.

“God, that is too early for a weekend.” He smiles at your sleepy state, and he can’t take his eyes off of you. You raise your arm over your head to stretch, and he notices that your shirt rises, and he can’t help but let his eyes trail down your body. His breath catches in his throat when he sees how high your shorts have ridden up, and there’s only one thing on his mind.

His eyes cut towards you when you call his name again, and he’ll blame his tired brain later, but he leans down closer to you. “Am I dreaming?” he questions, and his hand is itching to touch you, so he carefully puts his hand on your face.

“I don’t think so,” you whisper, and he can barely hear it over the blood pumping in his ears. He glances down at your lips when you lick over them, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to stop himself now.

“Good.” When you don’t make any move to pull away, he takes the opportunity to press his lips to yours. He sighs at how soft your lips are, and he only gets more eager when you kiss him back. You said he wasn’t dreaming, but this sure feels like he is. He pulls away only for a second, missing the feeling of your lips almost the instant he does.

He goes in for another, and you let your arm loosely loop around his neck as you meet him halfway. He groans when you deepen the kiss as you roll over onto your side, and he grabs your leg, putting it over his body. He’s borderline frantic to feel every part of you, and he lets his hand run up your leg, his fingers just barely getting under your shorts.

You move in closer to him, so he allows himself to let his hands drift up further, and your shorts have moved up so high, that they barely get in the way of him feeling even more of your ass. You moan when he pulls back with your lip in between his teeth, and he’s never felt so hot. He stops for a second to look at you, and your heavy breathing is the only thing that can be heard in the room.

Your lips are swollen from his kisses, and your pupils are blown wide as you look up at him, and he thought there was no way you could get any prettier, but right now, you’re proving him wrong again. “Fuck,” he breathes before he leans back in, rolling the both of you over while keeping your leg in his hand.

Your hands rub all over his chest, and you run your hands up his back, and he shudders at the motions, goosebumps rising all over as blood rushes straight to his dick. Your arms find their place around his neck, and he abandons his hold on your leg in favor of letting his weight press into you.

He pulls away to quickly pull your shirt off, and you easily let your upper half lift off the bed so he can do so. His movements slow when his eyes land on your chest, your boobs are basically falling out of the bralette you’re wearing, and his brain short circuits. He can’t think about anything else, and he swallows heavily when you pull the straps down, fully exposing yourself to him.

He lets your shirt fall next to you, and like he’s in a trance, his hands reach up to squeeze at the underside of the fat, and he wants to pinch himself. There’s no way he’s really doing this with you, but he’ll worry about this being a dream later. He kisses you again, feeling like that’s the only way he can regulate his breathing right now as he continues to fondle your tits. 

He kisses down your neck, feeling like he might go crazy as he kisses over your chest before he slips one of your nipples in his mouth. He moans when you do, his name slipping from your lips as your hands slip into his hair. He ruts against you, and he’s definitely drooling as he sucks at your chest, but he doesn’t even care.

You pull him back to your face, and he kisses you sloppily, your legs wrapping around his torso when he grinds even harder against you. “K-Kei,” you keen, and he rests his forehead against yours, his pleasure becoming too much for him to continue to kiss you. You arch into him, and he swears when your chest pushes into his. He’s definitely close to cumming, feeling his pleasure start to mount in his spine, and he digs into his teeth into whatever part of your skin he can reach to try and hold himself back as he pulls at your shorts.

Right as he does though, his burst open, scaring the both of you. Ukai quickly falls on his side to hide you, and he looks over his shoulder to see his roommate standing in the doorway. “What?!” he barks, and the guy holds his hands up.

“Sorry, dude,” he laughs before quickly walking back out, slamming the door when he leaves. Ukai doesn’t even want to look at you, the air now becoming awkward in the silence. He slowly turns his head towards you, and when he makes eye contact, you can’t help but laugh. He internally sighs in relief as he laughs with you, and yours dies down when your phone starts ringing.

He hands it to you, and you give him a small smile as you answer it. He doesn’t listen to the conversation because he’s too busy looking at you. His eyes stay on your lips while you talk before they trail down to your chest, and he can see the marks he left on you which causes him to twitch in his shorts.

“Sorry, I totally forgot. I’m leaving right now.” That makes him look up at you, and you hang up the phone, taking a while to meet his eyes. “I forgot I had plans with my roommate today. That was her,” you tell him, and he pushes down the disappointment that he feels, and he thinks that he hears it in your voice; at least he hopes so.

“No, that’s okay. I should probably see what my friend wanted,” he responds, and you quietly grab your clothes and put them back on. He moves over so that you can get out of bed to get to the bathroom, and he releases a heavy breath through his mouth when the door closes.

He runs a hand through his hair as he tries to think about what in the fuck got into him, and he wills his hard-on to go away. He gets off his bed, sliding his shirt on right as you open the door, and he goes in after you. He doesn’t even try to look at himself in the mirror while he brushes his teeth, and when he walks back out, you’re standing by his bed, looking at your phone.

You look up at him when he walks into the room, and he pulls his shirt down to cover himself. “Sorry, I have to leave so suddenly,” you say, and he waves you off.

“It’s okay. We got a lot of work done yesterday, so it’s all good.” You give him a little nod, and he quickly decides to walk towards the door so things don’t get awkward. You follow him out of his room, and his roommate is sitting on the couch when you walk out. He looks over his shoulder just as your grabbing your backpack.

“Sorry for interrupting earlier,” he laughs. “I’m Takinoue.”

Ukai glares at him as you feel your face warm. “Nice to meet you. I’m y/n,” you say softly, and Ukai’s eyes widen when Takinoue’s does.

“Wait, you’re y/n? The girl that–”

“She really has to go, so end of the introduction,” Keishin rushes out, and he pushes you towards the door. While you’re slipping your shoes on, Ukai smacks his friend on the back of the head, but before he can turn around, he’s already slipping his shoes on and walking with you out the door. 

Neither of you speaks as he walks you to your car, and he doesn’t know what to say when you finally get there. “Uh, thanks again for the help last night. I really appreciate it,” he eventually says.

“You’re welcome. Just let me know if you need any more help,” you tell him, and that reassures him a bit that maybe you didn’t hate what you both did earlier. But now, he doesn’t whether to wave, hug you, or kiss you. He definitely wants to do the last one; his hands are itching to touch you again, but he doesn’t know if you’d be okay with that.

You break him out of his thoughts when you take a step closer to him and kiss his cheek. His world seems to stop when you do, and you pull away, having a hard time holding his gaze. “See you on Monday, Keishin.”

He’s too dazed to respond, barely remembering you getting in the car, and the next thing he knows, you’re driving away. He doesn’t jump out of it until your car is long out of his sight, and when he finally does, he smiles widely against his will. He softly touches his cheek, and he doesn’t lose the smile on his face as he walks back to his apartment.

But it drops the moment he opens the door and sees his friend’s smug smile. “You weren’t gonna tell me that you’re sleeping with the girl that you’ve been pining over since high school?” he questions, and you Ukai shakes his head as he rolls his eyes.

“We’re not sleeping together, okay? We were just working on a project last night.”

“For what class? Anatomy?” he jokes, and it actually makes him laugh.

“Ha! Good one,” he muses. “But we finished really late, so I let her take the bed. That’s why I was on the couch.” He rubs his hand down his face as he sighs, but it doesn’t take long for him to smile again.

“Well, it looks like you should’ve just taken the bed anyway. You look like a lovesick puppy.”

“Fuck you,” he retorts with no heat behind it, but it’s not like he can deny it. He’s still not sure if he’s dreaming or not, and in the back of his head, he’s waiting for himself to wake up. 

“So, what happens now? Are you actually gonna confess to her? You’ve only been waiting for this moment for like, five years.” He hates how he still can’t answer that question. With the way everything is going, he’s thinking that it’ll be better to not tell you the truth, but on the other hand, he wants to come clean to you and tell you everything. And Takinoue’s right, he’s been waiting for a miracle, and it’s finally here.

He thought he would jump at the opportunity, but with the first interaction he had with you, he held back. “I don’t know,” he eventually says.

“Don’t stress it too much, man. As far as I’m concerned, it looks like she feels the same way,” he says, with a hard clap on his back that makes him stumble forward a bit, and it definitely feels intentional. At least now he knows he’s not dreaming. “And that also explains why the apartment was spotless when I got home. Now where’d you put my shit?” he asks, and Ukai lets himself drop his dilemma for now.

~

When you get home, you close the door behind you and let your back fall against the door. Even if what happened with Ukai was long ago, your heart is still racing just thinking about it. You don’t know what came over either of you, but there’s not a single bone in your body that hated it. You rub your fingers over your lips as your mind starts to replay the events in your head.

You jump when your roommate opens her door, and you quickly stand up. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” you say. “It was really late, so I just slept over at his place since I was so tired.” You try to school your expression so that she doesn’t pick up on anything, and you hope the look on your face is convincing enough.

“So, did anything happen?”

“Ah, no. We just worked on our presentation, it was pretty uneventful,” you say, and to be honest, you’re a little bit embarrassed to admit to her what happened. Maybe it’s because you’re still reeling from it. “Just let me hope in the shower, and I’ll be ready to go.”

Surprisingly, she lets you walk past her without saying anything else, and when you get to your room after closing the door, the events of this morning start to hit you. You go from sitting in shock to flailing in one spot just to get it out of you. You take a deep breath, composing yourself before you get in the shower.

Your shower takes a little longer than you anticipated because your thoughts keep running from you in all the wrong ways. You throw some cold water on your face when you get out, telling yourself to get it together. You get dressed, and your friend is waiting at the dining table for you when you walk out.

She looks up from her from, and her words die in her throat when she looks at you. You frown when her smile disappears, and she points an accusing finger at you. “You bitch! You lied to me!” she yells, and you’re still very much confused until you look down at your chest where she’s pointing. Your eyes widen and you feel your face warm when you see hickeys all over your chest. 

You don’t know how you didn’t notice until now, but thanks to the low-cut shirt you’re wearing, you almost showed everyone what you were up to this morning. “Um…” you say weakly, covering your chest with your hands. “I’ll go change and we can get out of here,” you try, but you don’t even get to take a step back before she speaks.

“Absolutely not, missy. You sit your ass right here and tell me everything.” You sigh, knowing that she’s going to get it out of you sooner or later, and you sit down across from her. She looks so invested, resting her hands on her face as she leans forward. “So, did you guys sleep together?”

“No,” you start with a shake of your head before you shrug. “Well, kinda. It was really late, and I was tired, so he said I could sleep in his bed. When I woke up, he was there, and…stuff happened.”

“What happened?! Tell me everything!” she presses, and your face gets even hotter just thinking about it.

“We just made out,” you eventually say. “His roommate walked in, so it didn’t go much further than that.” Honestly, you don’t know what you would’ve done if his roommate hadn’t interrupted. You probably would’ve done anything with him at that moment.

“So, how was it?” she presses.

“It was really good,” you gush, a laugh rushing out of your chest. “It was the hottest thing I’ve ever done,” you add, feeling how hot your face is when you put your hands on it.

“I bet,” your roommate laughs. “I can see that you’re flustered from here.” You can’t help but laugh again, putting your hands over your face and sighing. “So, what’s your relationship now?”

“I don’t know. We really didn’t talk about it. Like I said, it was just a kinda spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Well, I’m getting that it means you’re admitting your feelings for him,” she responds, and move your hands to look at her.

“I’m scared too,” you answer honestly. “I don’t wanna say that, and then he pulls a complete one-eighty on me.”

“That’s understandable, but truthfully, I don’t think he’s the same guy he was in high school. From what you’ve been telling me, it doesn’t sound like he’s going to do that to you.” You let her words bounce around in your head, both of you going silent as you think.

“Maybe,” you say after a while.

“Have some faith, girl. I bet he likes you a lot more than you like him.” Her words make you smile, and then she stands up. “Alright, we need to get a move-on if we want to make it to this thrifting event on time.”

“You were the one who wanted me to tell you about what happened,” you say after you scoff. 

“Well, it was only natural. You tell me it was uneventful, but you have hickeys on your chest? I’d be crazy not to ask,” she counters, and she has a point because you would do the same thing if the tables were turned.

You go back into your room to change your shirt, and then you’re walking out the door with your roommate, putting your situation with Ukai to the side for a while.

Monday rolls around faster than you’d like, and you spend all morning thinking about how the conversation with Ukai will go. You’re not dreading it, you’re just more worried about if your conversation will be awkward or not. You get to class pretty early since you woke up early, and you listen to your music as you wait for Ukai to get here.

You pull up the paper that you have to present while you wait, and you read over it just in case. There’s no point in making any changes since you had to submit it to your professor before class, but you still want to go over it anyway. You freeze for a split second when you see Ukai sit down next to you in your peripheral, and you slide your headphone off your head, but you don’t look his way.

“Morning,” you hear him say, and you turn to him, having a hard time keeping your smile small.

“M-Morning.” You pick at the corner of your laptop as you internally roll your eyes at how nervous you are.

“Listen,” he starts, leaning towards you and lowering his voice. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable yesterday–”

“No, it’s okay,” you say, cutting him off. “It was–I, um…I liked it,” you whisper, and there’s no way you can look him in the eyes after saying that. Both of you jump when the professor announces for you to start your presentation. 

Thankfully, it goes off without a hitch, the only thing is, you started to notice about halfway through your paper that someone’s glaring at you. You couldn’t figure out who it was while you were reading, but when you start to ask the class questions, you realize it was the girl that tried to talk to Ukai a while ago.

You try not to let it affect you, but you have no idea why she’s staring you down. You don’t know if Ukai notices her too, but before you know it, it’s all over. You sigh quietly in relief when the professor says that class is over, and you both pack up your stuff. You notice that Ukai is walking way closer to you when you walk out of class, and you feel sparks go up your arm every time his hand brushes against yours.

“I’d say we did pretty good,” he says while you both walk.

“Yeah. She seemed really happy with our questions. I have you to thank for that, though. You did most of the work,” you respond.

“I’d say it was pretty even,” he jokes, and you can’t help but laugh. “Our usual spot?” he asks, and you nod even though the both of you are already walking that way. 

The area you usually sit in is pretty empty when you get there, and you and Ukai both sit where you usually do. You sit next to him, but there’s no way you can get any work done. Even though it’s quiet, the air between you is stiflingly filled with attraction. 

Since you’re not going to get any work done, you carefully lay your head on his shoulder, and you bite your lip to hide your smile when he wraps his arm around you. “You gonna nap?” he asks, you nod as you press further into him.

“Yeah, I’m gonna try.” You turn your face to press it into his shoulder, and you close your eyes as you breathe him in. He smells so good, and it’s nearly too late when you start to realize that you’re getting warm all over. You will yourself to calm down, but there’s no way you’re going to be able to go to sleep, so you keep your eyes open, focusing on what work he’s doing every now and then.

When you feel yourself starting to go to sleep, it’s too late because you feel him shaking you gently to let you know that you have to get to class. He gets up after you do, and you wait for him to put his stuff in his backpack before you leave. When he stands, he’s nearly in your space, but you make no move to step back. You actually want to step closer to him, but you have to remind yourself that you’re not alone.

You look around, and you see that you are, but there’s no way you’d be bold enough to do anything in public anyway. You both look at each other for a second before you move to kiss him on the cheek again. It’s the only thing you bring yourself to do right now. “I’ll see you later,” you whisper when you step back, but you don’t even get a chance to turn around.

He grabs your wrist softly, pulling you into him with his hand on the back of your neck. His lips meet yours for a hungry kiss, and you can’t help but melt into him, and suddenly you’re forgetting about being in public. You’re dazed when you pull away, your breathing ragged as you let your fingers softly touch your lips.

You look around again, and when the coast is clear, you move towards him again, and he holds you closer to him as he deepens the kiss. Fuck, he’s such a good kisser. Every single one makes you feel like you’re floating, but he pulls away the moment you moan. “You should go,” he breathes, his hands resting on your hips. “Cause if you don’t, I won’t be able to let you go.”

You give him a shaky nod, and it seems like it takes forever for you to step back from him, and you nearly don’t, deciding that class isn’t so important anymore. But you really should go. His hands slip from your hips when you move, and it takes everything in you to walk away from him. You give him a small wave, hightailing out of there before you can change your mind.

Turns out, you should’ve just stayed with him because you reply the kiss over and over in your head the whole class period.

~

“Hey, are you doing anything Friday?” your friend asks, and you look up from your homework.

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Cause my team’s having a mixer, and I can bring a plus-one, and you need to get out. You’ve been studying all week,” she says, and you roll your eyes.

“I don’t know. I don’t really know any of your teammates,” you tell her, and she waves you off.

“Just bring your boyfriend. It’ll be fun.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” you yell, but she’s already walking to her room. 

She has a point though. You’ve been nothing but working all week, and the only time you’ve seen Keishin is during class, which always leads to a heated kiss that has you wanting more. Even when you look back down at your work, you don’t want to think about it anymore, so you decide to take the offer.

You text Ukai about it, and he instantly agrees. You start to feel nervous just thinking about it, especially since you don’t attend things like this very often. You’ve been to a few due to your friend’s outgoing nature, but sometimes you just like to be at home watching your favorite show. But, maybe it won’t be so bad since Ukai will be with you.

When Friday rolls around, you’re waiting on your friend to finish getting ready, so you’re sitting on the couch. You offered to drive since you won’t be drinking that much anyway, and you stand when you hear her heels clicking on the floor behind you. “Why are you wearing that?” she asks, and you look down at your outfit.

“What’s wrong with it? I thought you’d like that I’m wearing a dress,” you muse, even though you’re going to be tugging on it all night. It hugs your body way more than you’d like, but you bought it on a whim and you’ve barely worn it. 

“I’m talking about the jacket.”

“What’s wrong with the jacket? It’s gonna get cold tonight,” you tell her, genuinely not understanding what she’s getting at.

She rolls her eyes before she plants her hands on her hips. “You can’t show up with a jacket. Now, he can’t give you one.” You instantly understand what she means, and you can’t help but scoff.

“Are you seriously telling me to ditch the jacket just so Ukai will give me his?”

“Uh, duh. Why else would I be telling you this?” You don’t have much of a choice because she pulls it off of you, throwing it on the couch. You don’t have time to protest because even in heels, she’s moving out of the door quickly. 

You must be here early because parking isn’t absolute shit yet, and you can feel your nerves start to hit you as you walk up to the house. When you get inside, you quickly realize that this is nowhere near a mixer; it’s a full blown party. Your friend guides you to the kitchen, handing you a drink once she gets there, and her friends find her almost instantly.

They talk to you for a while, and you check your phone to see that Ukai just texted you. Your friend waits for him to get there before she leaves with her friends, and you both find a corner to occupy as the music pounds in your head. “This isn’t really your thing, is it?” He has to lean down to ask you, and you shake your head as you move your hand side-to-side.

“Not really, but my friend thought I should get out since I’ve been studying all week.” 

“She sounds like a good friend,” he yells back, and that makes you laugh.

“When she wants to be, yeah.” The room’s starting to fill up, so you grab his hand to find somewhere else to go. You decide to just step outside since they’re playing music that you don’t really listen to. “Did you drive here?” you ask, finally relieved that you can hear yourself think.

“Yeah. I have a friend that’s on the team, so I’m the designated driver tonight.”

“So am I,” you say, taking a sip of the seltzer, and you offer it to him. He takes a swig before he puts the drink down on the half-brick wall that you’re sitting on.

“Are you not cold?” he asks, gesturing to your body, and you nod your head quickly.

“Oh, I definitely am. My friend told me to ditch the jacket though.” He gives you a questioning look, and you chuckle a bit before you explain. “She said if I ditch the jacket, you would give me yours,” you explain. “You don’t have to though,” you add, but he’s already sliding it off, and your eyes land on his arms which look like they might rip the sleeves of his shirt.

He puts it on you, and it’s so warm that you can’t help but curl into the warmth. You stick your arms in the sleeves, and he moves closer to you. You stand so that you can make your way in between his legs, and his hands land on your hips. 

“You look good tonight,” he comments, and you hum as you put your hands on his shoulders.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Especially in my jacket,” he adds, wrapping his arms around you to pull you closer to him.

“And what are you gonna do about it?” you question, and he grabs both sides of his jacket in one hand to pull you down to him. 

“I’ll show you,” he whispers against your lips before he kisses you firmly, and you gladly let your weight fall on him. He easily catches you as you move your arms to hang over his shoulders. He keeps one of his arms wrapped around you while the other falls so that he can trail his hand up your leg. You know the goosebumps that rise on your skin aren’t from the cold because your body starting to heat up and he’s barely started kissing you.

His fingers start to reach under the hem of your dress, and it feels so teasing to you that it makes you leak onto your panties. You’re glad you’re in the backyard because you would be embarrassed otherwise at how easily he’s pulling all kinds of sounds from you. He sucks on your tongue, and you’re pretty sure you would let him do anything to you right now.

He groans when you pull at his hair, and his fingers dig into the fat of your ass as his fingers start to inch further up your dress. You jump away from him quickly when someone yells your name, and you look up to see a girl walking up to you. You recognize her as one of your friend’s teammates, and she carefully steps outside, but Ukai doesn’t let you go.

That’s also when you realize that people could see you from inside since the curtains to the backdoor are wide open, but you don’t have time to think about that because she starts talking to you. “We’re playing seven minutes in heaven. You have to play!”

“O-Oh, I don’t know about that–” She cuts you off with a rough yank of your hand that nearly tips you over, and you grab Ukai’s hand also since there’s no way you’re stopping her. She pulls you upstairs, and you all walk into a room that’s filled with people but not as many downstairs. There’s music playing in here, and when she closes the door, the music blasting downstairs is severely muffled.

She pulls you into the circle, and you quickly fix your dress when you sit down to make sure you don’t flash anybody. “God, it’s like she didn’t stop,” you breathe, turning to Ukai when he sits down next to you.

“Yeah, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sure we can just sneak out of here in like, five minutes,” you say, but it’s too late because someone stands up and starts talking. You look around the room, and you start to feel uneasy when you see the same guy that Ukai nearly beat up. He barely spares either of you a glance, and you definitely feel uneasy when you see the girl that shares the same class with the both of you.

She makes eye contact with you, and she gives you a smile that’s all too friendly. There’s no way you can leave now because there’s no point in explaining the rules since everyone knows how to play. You and Ukai are definitely the only sober ones in the room, and you feel anxious as the girl from your class picks you to spin the bottle first.

You do it just to do it so you can get out of here faster because you’d rather be anywhere with Ukai but here. You chew on your lip nervously as the conversation gets quiet while people wait to see who’s going in the closet with you. You nearly slump in relief when it lands on Ukai, and when you look at him, he has a look in his eyes that gets both of your heartbeats racing.

He gets up before you do, pulling you to the closet faster than you can even process what’s going on. When he closes the door, you try to find a light to turn on, but he’s pushing you against the nearest wall before you can. As he pushes you, you feel something cold run across your forehead, and you assume it’s the string to the light, so you try to pull it while he kisses you frantically. 

You manage to turn it on, but the moment it happens, you soon forget about it when his lips find your neck. He pulls the jacket off of you, letting it fall to the floor as his hands rub at your thighs. “Keishin,” you whisper, trying to keep your voice down since you don’t know how soundproof the door is.

“I’m so glad it landed on me. I don’t know if I would be able to handle you coming in here with someone else,” he breathes against your skin, and you’re glad it landed on him too, but there’s no way you’re able to tell him that when he pushes your dress up so that it’s bunched at your waist. 

He hikes your leg up so that it’s on his waist, and his other hand runs under the side of your panties. You jump when he finally touches you down there, and you hide your face in his hair to try and muffle your moans. He uses his other hand to pull your dress further up your body so until your tits fall out. The straps of the dress were designed where wearing a bra would’ve looked weird, and you don’t regret not wearing one at all right now.

You can’t even begin to try and get a word in when he starts to suck at your tits at the same time he pulls your underwear to the side. You ball his shirt in your fist when he rubs at your clit, and you dig your teeth into the other side of his shirt. You’re glad he has you up against the wall because you definitely would’ve fallen otherwise. 

You wanna try and make him feel good too, but he’s got you trapped between him and the wall, and there’s no way you could, so you just let the pleasure overtake you. You feel tears start to form at the corner of your eyes when he slides his fingers into you, and you’re confident the groan he releases is loud enough for everyone outside to hear.

“Oh, God,” you whine. “Oh, God, Kei–” You stand on your toes to the best of your ability when he presses against your walls, and your fingers hurt from how hard you’re gripping his shirt. He finally abandons your chest in favor of watching your face as he fingers you, nudging your head up with his shoulder, and you bite into your lip as your pleasure builds.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so hot,” he moans as he looks at you, and he pulls your lip out from between your teeth.

“T-They’ll hear–me,” you try to whisper.

“I don’t care. Let ‘em hear how good I’m making you feel, baby.” You can’t fight the urge to bite your lip, and you let your head fall back against the wall. You’re definitely starting to get too loud, so he crashes your lips onto his. He swallows every sound you make, pressing up against you even more when he presses on that spot that has you keening into his mouth.

The knock on the door should startle you but it doesn’t. The only thing you care about now is how good you’re feeling. The second round of knocks are harder, and this time you hear a voice, but you don’t know what they’re saying. He kisses you soundly as he slides his fingers out of you, and you don’t hide your disappointment.

He slides his fingers into his mouth, his breathing just as ragged as yours when he pulls them out. “I���m nowhere near done with you,” he whispers, and he fixes your dress right as the door opens. He picks up his jacket off of the floor, and he grabs your hand, making a bee-line for the exit. 

He’s suddenly stopped by a familiar face with another familiar face on his arm. “I knew you could do it,” he says, and he hands Ukai some money. You both frown at him, and the girl laughs.

“You won the bet, Ukai,” she says, and you can feel your heart start to race in the wrong way as your hand starts to slip from his. “It only took what? Like two months?”

“You don’t remember the bet we made before school started?” the guy asks, and you start to feel sick, looking over your shoulder to see everyone looking at you. You feel like you might puke as you wretch your hand from him and run out of the room. You hear Ukai call after you but you don’t stop, running down the stairs and pushing past people, ignoring their comments.

You can’t help but let the tears fall when you get outside once the music starts to fade. Your ears are ringing so badly, and your feet are moving you to your car. You let out a sob as you run, and you don’t even hear your name being called behind you. A hand grabs your arm, and you try to shake it off, but it tightens its grip.

“Let me go!” you scream, turning around to see Ukai, and the only thing you see is the guy that let you get bullied in high school. “You’re a piece of shit!”

“Just listen to me,” he tries, but you continue to fight him. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t see him until that day!” he says, but you’re not listening.

You stop moving, and he doesn’t let you go. “You’re still that same guy. Nothing fucking changed and I fell for it!” You take the chance to slip out of his grip, and you succeed, making a run for your car. You unlock it, but right as you try to open it, his hand lands on yours. 

“Just listen to me, please.”

“No! I don’t want to talk to you.” He turns you around so fast that it almost scares you, and he pushes you against your car door.

“Are you really going to listen to some people that you barely know instead of me?” he questions. Your lip is still wobbling, and you can’t stop the tears that are running down your face.

“It’s not like I have anything else to go off of,” you bite back, and he presses you against the car a little harder when he thinks you might move.

“Yes, you do. And you know it,” he declares. “I have no idea what the fuck they were talking about. I didn’t even know he was going here until I saw him that day. And I haven’t talked to her since that day in class.” You start to calm down, but your heart is still racing a mile a minute. “I really like you, okay?” he starts. “I have since I laid my eyes on you in high school, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell them to stop messing with you. I was more worried about myself.”

His words hang in the air between the two of you, and when you start to relax, he lets you go. “Nothing that I have said or done with you has been a part of some bet. Everything I did was my choice.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” you ask, and you hate how your voice trembles.

“You think I threaten to beat him up all for some bet? I’m better than that, and you know it.” He lets his hands fall into your hands, grabbing them soft but his grip is firm. “I would never do something like that to you. I’ve been thinking about telling you the truth ever since I saw you that day, but I thought if I did, you would hate me. I couldn’t live with that, so I stayed quiet.”

You don’t respond, sniffling heavily. “And now I’m realizing that that was the dumbest decision I could’ve ever made. Spending this time with you has been the best moment of my life,” he breathes. “Don’t tell me that you don’t feel the same.”

You can’t even tell yourself that you don’t feel the same. You know from the start that your feelings for him never left, and there was a part of you that just accepted it. But you were so scared to let your guard down, to be vulnerable with him like you are now. 

“I really like you. I mean that. And I’m sorry for letting you be hurt all this time.” You let go of his hand so that you can wipe your face.

“It’s not your fault,” you eventually say. “I do feel the same way, but I was scared. Back then and now, I blamed you for the bullying, but it was never your fault.”

“Yes, it was,” he presses, but you stop him.

“No. It wasn’t.” You sniffle again, taking a deep, shaky breath. “I was letting the past dictate my feelings. I shouldnt’ve let their words get to me. But I was scared that you would hurt me if I let you back in.”

“I won’t hurt you again. I promise. I’ll never make you feel like that again.” He lets his head fall on yours as he speaks. “I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you, but I won’t let it happen again.” You pull away, looking in his eyes, and you lean forward to kiss him softly. He lets his hands move to your neck, kissing you back just as softly. 

“I believe you,” you whisper when you pull away. “I’m sorry I didn’t before. I really like you, too.” He can’t help but smile, and he kisses you again just because he can.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” you ask, frowning a bit.

“For letting me say what I’ve always wanted to say. I thought I lost my chance forever.” You shake your head, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing him again.

“No,” you say. “Now you have me forever.”

[bloody-bee-tea]

We have to match

This fic was entirely inspired by by this amazing art by @jjks-dodo

The first time it happens, Suguru doesn't know what to do with the present Satoru shoves into his hands.

“It’s not my birthday,” is the first thing out of his mouth, because it’s the first of December, so it’s actually closer to Satoru’s birthday than his own.

“I know that,” Satoru gives back, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if he’s vibrating out of his skin with excitement.

It’s kind of his default state whenever he does something, though, so it doesn’t really clue Suguru in on what’s going on here.

“What is this, then?” Suguru asks, lifting the present slightly. It’s wrapped, though haphazardly so, and Suguru knows that Satoru must have done it himself.

“If you’d unpack it, you’d know,” he snaps out, slightly on edge so this must be important to him.

Still, Suguru can’t help but to want to know more before he unwraps it.

“I’d like to know the occasion first, if you don’t mind.”

He’s wrecking his brain, trying to figure out if he missed some important date, some anniversary he wasn’t aware of–he wouldn’t put it past Satoru to remember the first time they shared a popsicle or something and then make a big deal out of it–but nothing comes to mind.

“It’s Christmas,” Satoru informs him, and it only serves to make Suguru frown harder.

“It’s really not,” he gives back, because it’s December 1st. Christmas is still far away, and it’s not even as if Suguru celebrates it anyway.

He didn’t think Satoru would, either, what with his family and all but clearly he’d been wrong about that.

“But it’s the Advent Season,” Satoru almost whines out, clearly bothered by the fact that Suguru didn’t open his present yet. “Will you just open it already, goddamit.”

Suguru hesitates for a moment longer, mostly just to annoy the hell out of Satoru, but he sees how the bouncing slows down, sees how Satoru worries the hem of his sleeves with his fingers and Suguru just knows that this is important to him, no matter what is in the present.

It’s important enough to Satoru to make him nervous about this and Suguru doesn’t have it in him to let him wait longer.

“Fine, fine, relax, would you,” he mutters, even as he rips the paper wrapping apart and he momentarily goes still when he finds a sweater.

A Christmas sweater to be precise.

It’s red and green with little reindeers all over and it’s kind of hideous if Suguru were to be honest, but he can’t be. Not when Satoru looks at him with so much expectation written on his face.

“Thanks?” Suguru finally manages to say, still unsure what he’s supposed to do with this, when Satoru suddenly whips out a matching sweater.

“The time leading up to Christmas is the best time and we’ll have to match, so I got you that one to match mine,” he excitedly says, clearly reassured by the fact that Suguru didn’t immediately throw the sweater in his face.

“We have to match,” Suguru repeats slowly, and the corners of his mouth twitch when Satoru nods vigorously, making his hair flop around.

When a strand gets stuck in Satoru’s eyelashes, Suguru reaches out without thought to push it away. He briefly feels panic lick up his throat when Satoru goes still under his fingers, but Suguru pretends as if nothing happens and takes his hand back as if it didn’t mean anything.

“You sure you got my size right?” he asks to break the weird tension between them and it’s enough to jolt Satoru back into action, though he can’t quite hide the faint blush on his face.

“A size  bigger than me, because of your stupidly huge shoulders,” he huffs out and Suguru laughs.

“I keep telling you, if you’d actually train like at least once a weak you wouldn’t be all noodle-limbed.”

“I’m not noodle-limbed!” Satoru huffs and puffs with outrage and Suguru laughs even louder. 

They both know it’s not true anyway; Satoru is good enough at hand-to-hand combat to best just about everyone they know, except, of course, Suguru.

“If you and your stupidly jacked arms rip this sweater apart, I’m not getting you a new one,” Satoru hisses at him when Suguru takes of the shirt he’s currently wearing to try the sweater on.

It’s a nice thought, not having to wear this hideous thing, but Suguru just knows that for all his faked outrage Satoru would be devastated and Suguru couldn’t stand it. So he slips into the sweater and lets out a relieved little sigh when it actually fits him.

He only feels slightly stupid when he turns around and he gives a pointed look at Satoru’s own shirt.

“Where’s yours then,” he wants to know and Satoru lights up like a Christmas tree.

“I have it right here, wait,” he rushes out, magicking out a second sweater from god-knows-where and he slips it on without hesitation. “Now we match,” he laughs out, bright and happy and for that alone Suguru would wear much worse things than a stupid, cute, matching Christmas sweater.

~*~*~

The second time it happens, Suguru is kind of expecting it. He knows Satoru too well to think he’d let something like this go, would only do it for one year and so when Satoru hands him a slightly better wrapped present, he accepts it without complaint.

“Cutting it a little bit close, huh?” he asks, because it’s already late in the night of the first of December and it’s not like Satoru to miss out on even a day of this.

Last year he made Suguru wear the sweater almost constantly, only allowing him to take it off to get it washed and for missions and so for him to almost miss an entire day is uncharacteristic.

“Yeah, well–” Satoru trails off, clutching his jacket more tightly around himself and Suguru narrows his eyes at him.

“What did you do?” he wants to know because it’s clear as day that Satoru is up to something.

“Nothing,” Satoru easily gives back, too fast and too smooth and Suguru’s fingers still on the paper. 

“I don’t think I want this anymore,” he says, shoving the parcel into Satoru’s chest who shoves it right back.

“You have to, though Suguru, we have to match, remember?” 

“I’m not so sure I want to match with you anymore,” Suguru lies straight through his teeth and a painful stab of regret is all he gets for his trouble when hurt briefly flashes over Satoru’s face.

“But–it’s tradition, right?” Satoru asks and Suguru shakes his head.

“One year doesn’t make a tradition, Satoru,” he tells him, though he does get back to unwrapping the sweater.

This one is thankfully only red as far as Suguru can see so far, and so that already makes it better than the last one, at least in Suguru’s opinion.

That thought only holds for as long as he needs to fully unfold the sweater though, because of course it wouldn’t be that easy, not when it comes to Satoru.

The words ‘I’m the naughty one’ are stitched into the front in white and Suguru lowers it just enough to be able to glare at Satoru.

“What the hell is this?” he demands to know only for Satoru to grin brightly at him as he takes off his jacket, revealing a matching red sweater underneath it.

Except his says ‘I’m the nice one’.

“Absolutely not,” Suguru whispers under his breath, even as Satoru laughs right in his face in his glee but he gets the wind knocked out of him when Suguru throws his own sweater in Satoru’s face and then uses that moment of distraction to tackle him to the bed.

“Absolutely not!” Suguru repeats louder this time and starts to wrestle Satoru out of the sweater.

“Hey, hey, what are you doing, Suguru,” Satoru shrieks out, laughing so hard he can barely breathe when Suguru tries to distract him by tickling him but even like this it takes him a long time to finally, finally get Satoru out of the sweater.

“If one of us is the naughty one, it’s you,” Suguru pants out, sitting across Satoru’s legs and looking down at him, his hair falling around his face, bun having come undone somewhere in their tousle.

“But everyone expects that,” Satoru pouts at him, still breathing hard from screaming and laughing and his face is flushed red.

He’s absolutely beautiful.

“And besides, don’t act as if you don’t encourage me at every turn,” he adds and it’s not as if Suguru can even deny that.

Enabling Satoru is a bit of a bad habit of his but not everyone needs to know that.

“Do not,” he says, just to be contrary, and pulls the ‘I’m the nice one’ sweater over his head, so that there’s no chance of Satoru taking it back.

He stills when it settles around him.

“That’s my size,” he says, fixing Satoru with his eyes and Satoru blinks up at him.

“We have the same size?” he tries, even though they both know that’s bullshit and Suguru proves it to him by reaching for the naughty sweater and checking the size there.

“This one is one size smaller, though,” Suguru says and shoves the sweater almost into Satoru’s face.

“My mistake,” Satoru says, still not able to admit that he did this on purpose it seems and there’s only one possible punishment for that.

Suguru flops down on top of him.

“Uff, you oaf, don’t you know you’re heavy as fuck?” Satoru breathes out but his attempts at pushing Suguru off are half-hearted at best.

“I’m also tired as hell,” Suguru easily gives back and dares to nuzzle his face into the crook of Satoru’s neck. “I think I might sleep right here.”

“Hey, hey, Suguru!” Satoru squeaks out, though of course he’d never admit to that and Suguru huffs out a laugh.

Satoru is warm under him and kind of poky with his sharp edges but it’s the single most comfortable position Suguru has been in, simply because it’s Satoru, and soon enough he really gets sleepy.

“‘m gonna sleep now,” he whispers out and the last thing he knows is how Satoru scratches at his scalp as he breathes out a soft “Okay”.

~*~*~

Suguru is already holding his hands out when Satoru steps into the room.

“Let’s see what horrible thing you brought this time,” he says, making grabby hands at Satoru, who seems to have frozen right in the doorway.

“Uhm,” Satoru says, looking down at the present in his hands before he looks back up at Suguru.

He’s more nervous than he was even the first time he did this and it instantly puts Suguru on edge.

“Is it that hideous?” he wants to know, simply snatching the present out of Satoru’s hand, who tries to get it back but ultimately fails because he still can’t best Suguru when it comes to anything even resembling close combat.

“I just–” Satoru cuts himself off, clearly unsure of himself and Suguru fights the urge to soothe his nerves.

He fails miserably, because he always does when it comes to Satoru.

“You want me to give it back?” he asks, offering the present to Satoru, who doesn’t reach out for it. “If you don’t want to, we can skip this year,” Suguru goes on, even though it’s clear that some part of Satoru at least must want because he did get the sweater after all.

“No, it’s just–you might hate it.”

Satoru hasn’t been that unsure since the very first week of them knowing each other and Suguru hates it with a passion.

“Why would I?” he carefully asks but Satoru only shrugs. “Can I unwrap it?”

“Sure. Just remember that it doesn’t–you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”

Of course I want to sits at the tip of his tongue, but Suguru bites it back. It’s not going to help if he reassures Satoru with meaningless words right now, so instead of saying that he busies himself with unwrapping this year's sweater.

This one is green for a change but by now Suguru knows to wait until he sees the front before he forms his decision on this, so he quickly unfolds it, holding it out in front of him.

In stark white it says ‘Family Christmas’ on the front and Suguru is glad that the sweater is hiding his face for the moment because to think that Satoru was nervous about this hurts him acutely.

“You hate it,” Satoru grumbles when Suguru takes a moment too long to say something. “I knew you’d hate it, that was such a dumb idea,” he goes on, his voice barely above a whisper and Suguru lowers the sweater so fast, Satoru flinches.

“Of course you’re my family, you idiot,” Suguru breathes out, instantly honing in on what made Satoru so nervous because he knows him after all. “It’s a great sweater.”

“It–is?” Satoru wants to know, clearly still not convinced and Suguru doesn’t hesitate to slide it over his shirt. 

“Of course it is,” he vehemently says, because it is. 

Satoru doesn’t quite seem convinced though, so Suguru pulls him into a hug. 

“You are my family, idiot,” he says, more fondly than maybe necessary, but Satoru doesn’t call him out on it and instead slings his arms around him.

“You sure?”

“I’ve been wearing stupid matching Christmas sweaters with you for the past two years, you really think I would do that for just anybody?”

Satoru doesn’t need to know that that really has nothing to do with being family and all with Suguru being stupidly in love with him. At least not yet.

Though a plan is slowly starting to take form in Suguru’s mind.

“I should hope not, actually,” Satoru gives back and Suguru rests his head on top of Satoru’s.

He doesn’t move away, and he doesn’t protest about the hug as much as he normally does–however feigned his protest usually is–and so Suguru knows that this really means a lot to him.

It means a lot to him, too, and so he’s more than content to stay right where he is.

~*~*~

Suguru barges into Satoru’s room at the tail end of the last day of November.

“I’ve got a present for you!” he calls out, throwing the wrapped gift right into Satoru’s face when he’s not quick enough to sit up and catch it.

Nerves are licking up Suguru’s spine but like this he can’t talk himself out of it. Not again. He talked himself out of it so often during the last year–years, really–and he thinks it’s time that one of them man’s up. He thinks he knows what Satoru’s answer is going to be, has seen it in the lingering stares, has felt it in the prolonged touches but there’s still that small chance that it’s all just because Satoru sees him as family.

As just family, and nothing more.

“What’s this?” Satoru wants to know, turning the present in his hands and Suguru rolls his eyes at him.

“If you’d open it, you’d know,” he shoots back, not sitting down next to Satoru because he needs to be able to read Suguru’s own sweater once he unpacked his.

It doesn’t help with the nerves, when Satoru has to look up at him like that, though.

“Is this–a sweater?” Satoru asks, squeezing the package in his hands. “Did you get me a Christmas sweater?” He almost sounds accusing and Suguru raises an eyebrow at him.

“What? You can do it, but I can’t?”

“But I have ours picked out already!”

“Yeah, well, shucks. It’s my turn, this year,” Suguru decides and he closes Satoru’s mouth when it drops open.

“Wow, didn’t know you could be so rude,” he mutters, Suguru’s hand still under his chin and Suguru gives him his best grin.

“I learned from the best. Now, if you would?”

“Now, if you would,” Satoru repeats mockingly under his breath, but he does rip into the paper, quickly unveiling the sweater.

At first glance it’s simply red, but of course there’s something written on the front and Suguru’s heart beats in his chest.

“I have everything I want for Christmas,” Satoru reads out loud and Suguru can see the frown on his face. “That’s not even funny, Suguru,” he then whines out, turning his gaze back to Suguru, who feels as if he could die on the spot.

His mouth his dry, his heart is beating so fast he’s afraid it might jump right out of his chest and the butterflies in his stomach make him a little bit sick.

“It’s not supposed to be funny,” he still somehow gets out as he opens his jacket and shows Satoru the matching sweater he’s wearing.

It’s green and the words “It’s me, I’m everything” are written on the front.

Suguru watches how Satoru’s eyes go wide as he slowly takes in the words and he knows it’s all going to be fine when Satoru blushes a furious red.

“What does that mean? Suguru, what does that mean?” he demands to know, almost shouting out the words in his urgency and Suguru smiles at him.

“Take an educated guess,” he replies, though he doesn’t torture Satoru–or himself–any longer.

He bends down, briefly pressing his lips to Satoru’s to make it abundantly clear just what this all means and he knows Satoru finally goes with the program when his hands fly up to tangle in Suguru’s sweater, keeping him right where he is, keeping him close.

“Does that mean I don’t get any other Christmas presents this year?” Satoru pouts out, though Suguru can see how his eyes shine with happiness. 

He leans in to taste that smile once more.

“Maybe if you’re being good, I have one or two for you,” he breathes out, and this time it’s Satoru who leans in for a kiss.

“But everyone knows I’m the naughty one,” Satoru mutters against his lips and Suguru laughs.

Satoru steals the sound right from his lips.

“Maybe I’ll part with that sweater just this once,” Suguru muses but Satoru shakes his head. 

“Not a chance in hell, we’re never going to take these ones off. I love you.”

Trust Satoru to still be the first one to say it, Suguru fondly thinks as he’s almost drowning in his love. 

“I love you,” he quickly gives back, peppering Satoru’s face with kisses until he’s laughing with happiness.

“I want everyone to know,” Satoru eventually says, once they are cuddled close on the bed and Suguru snorts out a laugh.

“Kind of inevitable if you don’t want to take that sweater off ever again,” he gives back and Satoru beams at him.

“Best way to tell everyone. Best way to tell me, actually, “he adds after a moment and Suguru simply has to kiss him again.

“Thought you might like it,” Suguru nods, pulling Satoru closer. “Glad you like it.”

“Love it,” Satoru immediately corrects him. “Just like I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Suguru mutters, getting sleepy now that all the adrenaline is out of his system and he’s warm and cozy in bed, with the love of his life safely in his arms.

He nuzzles his face against Satoru’s shoulder and breathes one more kiss on his skin before sleep slowly drags him under.

The last thing he hears his a muttered “You think there are sweaters for proposing?” and Suguru falls asleep with a smile on his face.

He really wouldn’t mind a sweater like that.

[theemporium]

Could I possibly request a number 46 smutty fic with Charles leclerc 👉👈 loved your Daniel fic!!!

thank you, darling!🖤this was meant to be a blurb and became 1.3k but enjoy!!

46. "leave the heels on"

.

It was funny how quickly you could go from hating a person to fucking them. 

Or maybe when it came to Charles Leclerc, it was really fucking realistic. 

Securing a position as a team member in the infamous Scuderia Ferrari quickly out of university wasn’t something you expected to happen, and yet it was just how your life seemed to go. A handful of interviews and silent prayer of thanks for your supervisor pushing you to take up Italian classes to improve your resume, you found yourself working with one of the biggest and most historical teams in motorsport history. 

And eighteen months after joining the team, you finally got upgraded to join the team as they travelled from city to city with each and every race. 

That was how you came to learn that you and Ferrari’s golden boy did not get along. 

At all. 

The team found it endearing: the quarrels and arguments, the scoffs and eye rolling, the fact neither of you could stand to be alone with each other for longer than two minutes but always found your way next to each other. 

You found it to be the biggest pain in your ass. 

But being a part of the Scuderia Ferrari team meant more than late meetings and travelling the world. It also meant fancy events and over-the-top galas you were constantly having to show your face at. 

Deep down, you hated them. The dressing up in pretty dresses and glam makeup was fun the first few times, but now it just felt like a chore—all for you to stand around the bar abusing the no-limit drinks and get through a handful of awkward conversations when most people at these events just wanted to talk to the drivers themselves.

“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t look so sad.” 

The accent was thick and very Italian, the smile was something quite like charm and mischief and you were pretty sure he was just a guest. But hey, the gorgeous man in the three piece suit seemed like a far better way to kill your time than sitting at the bar alone. 

“What are you gonna do about it, handsome?”

But what you didn’t seem to notice was the piercing eyes of Ferrari’s number one trophy glaring at you from across the room. 

Now, Charles wasn’t stupid. 

Did you irritate him beyond measure? Yes. 

Did you make him want to rip his own hair out? Also yes. 

But were you also one of the most beautiful people he had ever seen in his life? Unfortunately, yes. 

Maybe that was why it pissed him off so much, why you pissed him off so much, because half the time he wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell you to fuck off or to just fuck you. He was left in some weird internal battle that drove him crazy, and usually you were the person on the receiving end of his shitty moods and snide remarks. 

And whilst the driver knew you were in no way, shape or form his, it didn’t stop the burning bitter feeling bubbling in his stomach. It didn’t stop him from downing the rest of the overpaid champagne in his flute and slamming the glass down with little care. And it did nothing to stop him from striding across the room towards you and the mystery man who was all over you, giving you little chance to say anything before he was tugging at your hand and pulling you towards the valet. 

Hissed sneers and bitter words were passed between you, which quickly became hard, sloppy kisses and wandering hands underneath clothing. In some daze of lust, want and anger, you had made it to an apartment—undoubtedly his apartment—and despite your racing heart and the voice in your head screaming this was a bad idea, you didn’t want to stop. 

“Leave them,” his voice was rough and a little husky, matching the darkened look in his eyes as he watched you from the end of the bed. Your dress was pooled at his feet, your hair was sprawled out around you from where you laid on his bed and your hand fell back to your side when he spoke. 

“Leave what?” you asked because you were a little shit, because you wanted to hear him say it. Your body hummed and sang to reach out, to touch him and undo the buttons and see the skin you caught glimpses of during race weekends. But your ego was winning out. 

“Leave the heels on, cherie,” he muttered as he shrugged off his jacket, tugging at the stupid bowtie he was forced to wear and shedding off his shirt as effortlessly as a drunk man trying to restrain himself could. 

“This some weird kink of yours, Leclerc?” you commented teasingly, watching with your painted lips tucked between your teeth as his shirt fell to the floor, his belt following and the unbuttoned trousers he had yet to take off tempting you. 

“Acting like you don’t like it?” he retorted, grinning a little at the way you fell silent as his fingers glided over your heels, along your calves and up your thighs until you were spread for him. 

“Are you going to do anything or just stare?” you muttered, your voice a little breathier than you would have liked. “I had a willing partner before you dragged me off, Leclerc, it would be a shame for this night to be a disappointing performance from you.” 

His eyes gleamed with the challenge. “Pick a number.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“Pick a number,” he repeated, hooded eyes falling to the apex of your thighs as his hand reached out towards you, his thumb pressing against your clothed clit. 

Your breath shuddered. “Four.” 

“Four,” he hummed with a low chuckle, one that felt mocking and twisted but still made the coil in your lower stomach tighten. “Such a low number, not very ambitious.” 

Four. 

Fucking four. 

As it came to be, that would be the number that haunted you for the rest of the night in the best way possible. Whatever snarky remarks or digs you took at Charles, they would quickly fall flat when the boy had you shaking and moaning and begging, when he had you so fucked out that you couldn’t even bring yourself to care about stupid rivalries or the teasing comments. You just wanted him. 

“Please, please, please,” your cries muffled against the pillows, your hands clutching the sheets of the bed and your body jerking with every thrust of hips. “I-I can’t—”

“Can’t what?” Charles hissed between clenched teeth, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips so hard that you knew there would be bruises in the morning but you didn’t care. Not when his cock was hitting spots inside you that you didn’t even realised made you feel this good. “Can’t give me one more, baby? You’ve already been so greedy, already came five times.” 

You choked out a sob, one hand reaching back for him. “Charles–”

“Shhh,” he cooed mockingly as he reached towards you, your body pressed against his chest and his hands on your hips guiding you back onto his cock. “You sound much less annoying when you’re moaning my name, cherie.” 

“Fuck,” you hissed, eyes clenched shut as your head lulled back to rest on his shoulder as his fingers brushed against your swollen clit. “Charles, I can’t anymore, I-I can’t—”

“One more for me, baby, one more,” his lustful words slurring together as you clenched around him, a sound deep and guttural escaping his mouth as he nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck. “Shit, so good for me.” 

Maybe fucking someone you hated was easier than either of you thought.

And maybe it was going to become a more recurring incident than either of you ever considered.

.

[comphy-and-cozy]

can you please do something with “I’m going to ruin you” with the big boy, andrei svechnikov?

bestie, I knew this one had to be extra special for you - so it’s no question why this quickly turned into a mini fic bc what is a blurb anyway? I kind of combined this with a different request I got to make a sequel to sundress szn 😈

enjoy, my love!

Prompt: “I’m going to ruin you.”

Pairing: Andrei Svechnikov x teammate’s sister!Reader (f)

Word Count: 2.2K

Warnings: Smut (18+ ONLY). Language, brief alcohol use/mention, oral sex (m + f receiving), brief choking, unprotected sex, creampie.

The white tablecloth is thick, almost stiff against your legs. Flickering candles and dimly-lit wall lamps provide most of the light in the room, aside from the glow of the city outside the large floor-to-ceiling windows. During the day, you’re sure it’s probably a beautiful view of the skyline, but at night it’s even prettier, a sea of glittering lights amongst the darkness.

The waiters aren’t wearing white gloves, but they might as well be, their suit vests and red ties adhering to the high standard their clientele demands. The menu is small, prices not even listed — a sign that the bill will be exorbitant.

It’s far more extravagant than you would’ve wanted for a first date, but Andrei was insistent that if he was going to risk his life taking his Captain’s sister on a date, he was going to do it right.

And he did, pulling out all the right stops: arriving 5 minutes early, flowers in hand, opening your car door, offering his arm as you walked into the restaurant. He’s polite, a perfect gentleman, when he orders an expensive bottle of wine for the two of you, his eyes hardly leaving yours the entire time.

“Trying to get me liquored up?” you ask once the waiter leaves, a flirtatious smile on your face.

The glint in his eye that you love so much is back when he glances toward you, dimple exposed as his smile matches yours. It’s hard to miss the way his eyes dip down toward the shadow of your cleavage before quickly darting back up to your own. “Why? You need a little liquid confidence?”

“Why would I need confidence to do something I’ve already done?” you smirk, following his lead and letting your eyes slide slowly and blatantly over the buttons of his crisp dress shirt, already imagining the satisfying sound of them hitting the floor when you rip it open later this evening.

“There’s a few things you haven’t done.” He licks his lips, a subtle hint at what he’s referencing, and you feel a throb between your legs, debating if waiting for your food is even worth it. But, then a waiter walks by with a plate of hot, prime cut steaks sizzling in butter, the scent almost as intoxicating as the man across from you, and you think to yourself that you can wait for a little while longer.

“And you’re going to enjoy every one of them, aren’t you?” you ask with a teasing smile, gently running a hand across your collarbone.

“Oh, baby,” he hums, his gaze purely predatory despite the charming smile he puts on. To anyone around you, you’d look like a happy couple on a nice dinner date, the mounting sexual tension invisible to passersby. “I’m going to fucking ruin you.”

The waiter interrupts what is about to come out of your mouth, a secret that you’ll keep forever, but his words already have the desired effect. Your legs squeeze together, a desperate throb between them as your heart ticks quicker in your chest, and in some ways, you’re thankful for the interruption, unwilling to let your date know just how much impact he has on you.

Dinner is pleasant, but excruciating, watching the flex of his hands as he cuts through his expensive steak, his large fingers wrapped around the thin stem of his wine glass. It’s terribly sexy, his strength compared to the delicate fragility of the glass, surely some kind of parallel for what you’re anticipating as soon as he gets you home and the front door is locked.

Sure enough, he does, though you admit you aren’t expecting him to immediately pin you to the door you’re in the middle of locking, skirt hiked up over your hips before he’s on his knees behind you with a growl.

“No panties?”

“I’m wearing…” you trail off, your sentence punctured by a gasp when he rips the flimsy fabric in question from your frame.

“You call these panties?” he asks, though your terminology is hardly a concern now that there’s something far more tempting in his sight.

There isn’t much room for any retort, not with Andrei roughly tugging your hips backward in order to press his face against your center. He groans at the contact, the vibration traveling straight through your clit and into every single nerve ending in your body, heightened when his tongue begins to stimulate your dripping folds.

His voice is muffled by your ass, but you can make out a distinct fuck as he tastes you, the way he’s been dying to from the moment you opened your front door looking sinfully beautiful. It’s your eyes he loves most, but your legs are a close second, the skirt you picked for the night teasing him just enough to drive him insane. He couldn’t deny that he’d spent half of dinner dreaming of pressing his head between your thighs underneath the table, remembering the all-too-brief taste he had of you, wondering if he could get away with it — ultimately he’d decided against it, but having you in your entryway is a pretty close second, he thinks.

Andrei doesn’t let up until you’re two orgasms deep, legs shaking as you clutch desperately at the door for support. Offering you some reprieve, he sits back on his knees and sucks your essence off of his fingers, the ones that brought you to your latest demise, a dark glint in his eyes.

“Taste extra sweet when you’ve got some wine in you,” he jokes.

“As good as that expensive steak you bought?”

“Better,” he hums. “It doesn’t even come close.”

It isn’t long before he’s got you in his arms, legs wrapped around his waist, your discarded panties long forgotten near the vase by your door. His lips are attached to yours, giving you a taste of yourself, and you’re so distracted that it takes a moment before you realize he’s walking blindly, no idea where your bedroom is located.

With a giggle, you detach yourself from his lips and give him instructions, down the hall and on the right, and his bashful smile has your heart melting. The butterflies whoosh away the second he plops you onto your bed, looking down at you with a look that’s hungrier than before. Something tells you that the sight of you on a mattress is something he’s been dying to see.

You move to tug your knee-high boots off, stilled with a quick hand and a dark glance. “Leave them. Been thinking about fucking you in nothing but these boots all night.”

His words, as always, make you shiver, the lustful promises from his lips something you’ll never grow tired of. Normally, you might make some kind of quip, a snarky comeback, but you’ve been dreaming of having him inside of you from the moment he slipped out weeks ago, leaving you leaking his cum in the middle of your brother’s half bathroom. It’s all you can do not to rip his clothes off along with your own, ready for him to fuck you into oblivion like he promised.

Andrei’s hand wraps around your throat, engulfing it with ease, pulling you up to kiss him again. Blindly, your hands fumble with his dress shirt, working it open until he’s taking matters into his own hands, tearing it down the middle and sending buttons flying across the room. You barely notice your prophecy come true, instead captivated by the cut, stark lines of his muscles, like he’s been carved out of fucking clay, sculpted like a piece of art that you’d find in the Met.

“Like what you see?” he teases, muscles flexing as he shrugs the tattered shirt off his form.

“Didn’t get to appreciate it in full last time,” you say, cheeks hot from the call out — but how can he blame you? — before your eyes drop a little lower, to the expensive-looking black slacks that hang on his hips. “Just like something else.”

The sight of you on your knees, your tits pulled haphazardly out of your top as you work on his zipper is a sight Andrei knows he’ll never forget. But the feeling of you taking him in your mouth, your eyes gazing up at him while brimming with tears, pressing further and further until he touches the back of your throat? A feeling he’ll spend chasing for the rest of his life.

With a curse in Russian, his hand threads through your hair to clear your way, not wanting anything to impede his view of his cock sliding between your wet, pretty lips, disappointed he can’t see the way your tongue works sinful magic on the vein that’s throbbing on the underside. But goddamn if he can’t feel it.

He waits until he’s twitching in your mouth, body thrumming with desire and desperate to spill into the back of your throat before he ends your experiment, unwilling to release the contents of his balls anywhere but inside your cunt. Because as good as your mouth feels, he also knows what it feels like to have your snug, warm walls milking him for all he’s worth, and it’s something he wants carnally.

As promised, he rids you of all of your clothing except for your boots, though he is tempted to leave your skirt bunched around the swell of your hips because of the way it makes you look so slutty, so needy for him you couldn’t wait a second longer. But, he thinks, there’ll be another time for that, instead wanting to see you bare, fully, since he didn’t get the pleasure the last time.

“Andrei,” you whine when his strong arms pin your hands over your head, settling himself between your legs. Your body arches into his, desperate. “Please.”

“Such gorgeous legs,” he groans, ignoring you, moving one hand to nudge your thigh up over this hip, then the other. “Perfect fucking body you have.”

“Didn’t you say you were gonna ruin me? Seems like all bark and no bite.”

His eyes, normally so warm and kind, darken at your sass, and he smirks. He’ll never admit it out loud, but he loves that you can match him step for step, challenging him with your attitude that intrigues him like no other girl ever has.

The sound you make when he presses into you is near enough to make him bust right then and there; similarly, the groan he emits once he’s buried to the hilt makes you gush, feeling yourself clench tightly around his length. He’s warm, and you swear he’s bigger than before, stretching you entirely around his delicious girth. Every movement he makes is perfect, starting slow and building his pace, different from before now that he has time and space to truly ravish you. You don’t have to ask him to keep going, to move faster, to go harder, because he knows exactly what you need before you do.

You’ve lost the ability to speak, though if you could, you’d only be able to moan out his name. His pace is brutal, hips slapping against the back of your thighs, and the rough movement of his body has the cross hanging around his neck brushing against your chest with his rhythm. It’s a filthy thing, the desire to have his chain hitting your face, an inexplicably sexy detail that somehow cranks the temperature up to scorching levels.

When he lets your hands go in favor of cupping your face, your hands slip around his muscular shoulders, clutching onto him as you hang on for dear life. He wants to kiss you, to get his mouth on you, but he can’t bring himself to stop looking at your face, in awe of the way your brows scrunch together and how your mouth falls open when he hits your g-spot just right.

“Feel so fucking good, baby,” he murmurs, his accent thicker now that he’s exuding more effort with his hips instead of his English, determined to stay on pace and bring you to your high. “So pretty.”

This time, when you come, you’re in the comfort of your own home and don’t have to stay quiet for fear of your brother walking in at any second, so you’re free to cry out his name when your legs shake as your climax hits you like a fucking train. A white hot blur of pleasure blinds you, taking over every single cell in your body with everything Andrei.

He’s not far behind you, shooting thick ropes into your eager and waiting center, greedily accepting everything he has to give you. His head falls in the juncture of your neck and your shoulder, hair tickling your jaw as he pants, breath hot against your already molten skin.

“I’m never gonna be able to look Staalsy in the eye ever again,” he says. He’s joking, of course, but there’s a part of him that knows everything is different now, and not just because of the pussy that he’s pretty sure was crafted in heaven specifically for him.

Andrei Svechnikov is falling in love with his captain’s little sister, and there’s not a damn thing he can do to stop it.

[the-flaming-nightmare]

Tagged the wonderful @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad and @anewkindofme! 🧡❤

Soooo, I may have started on yet another fic that isn't a part of any of my current series lmao. I've been rewatching The Originals, and I've wanted to write a Little!Klaus fic for literal years now, so I finally bit the bullet and started on a oneshot. Here's a bit of what I've got so far:

Klaus sat on the edge of his papa's bed, anxiously gnawing on the sleeve of his (papa's) jumper as he watched the older wolf get dressed.

"Would you like one of your teethers, little wolf?"

Klaus immediately ripped the piece of burgundy fabric out of his mouth, lips pursing into a pout.

"M'not a baby, papa."

Ansel made his way over to the hybrid and took a seat next to him, pulling him into his side. "You don't need to be a baby to use your teethers or any of your younger space things, pup."

Klaus just shrugged and nuzzled the side his face against the man's flannel covered shoulder, grabbing a piece of the dark blue and white fabric in his hand.

"Guess. Still don't want it, though."

"That's okay." Ansel pressed a kiss to Klaus' head. "But if you change your mind, just ask your brother and he'll get you one."

Klaus tightened his grip on his father's flannel. "Do you hafta go, papa?"

Ansel rubbed a hand up and down Klaus' arm. "I do, squirt. Papa has to discuss important grown-up business with Marcel to make sure things in the Quarter are running smoothly."

"Can't I go with you?" Klaus asked, turning his head to peer up at the man with the biggest puppy-dog eyes he could manage.

Ansel softly sighed and shook his head, giving the regressed hybrid an apologetic smile.

"I'm afraid not this time, little wolf."

Ansel would usually have no problem taking his son with him to meetings (given that all of their inner circle was aware and accepting of his regression), but he's noticed that Klaus has a much harder time staying in one spot for longer periods of time when he's in one of his older headspaces. When he's around a year or younger, the pup was content to sit quietly in his lap or sit on the floor next to him with a couple of toys. It wouldn't be fair to Klaus or Marcel to expect a hyperactive little boy to keep still and quiet for any time longer than five minutes. Despite knowing that leaving his son with a sitter was the best for everyone involved, but it still didn't make it any easier to leave him for any amount of time.

"I'll only be gone for an hour. Two, tops." Ansel slid his fingers through his boy's curls, lightly scratching at his scalp.

Klaus just emitted a wordless whine in response, leaning into the older wolf's touch.

"I know, pup, I know."

Ansel held his son for a few more minutes, until he glanced at his watch and saw the time. If he wanted to make it on time he needed to leave within the next ten minutes. So, with great reluctance, Ansel pushed Klaus back and forced himself to his feet.

"Alright, cuddlepup, I have to get going now." Ansel held out his hand for the pouting pup to grab. "Come on, let's go find your brother."

Klaus made a displeased sound in the back of his throat, but reluctantly grabbed his papa's hand.

Hand in hand, the two of them made their way downstairs. They quickly found the eldest Mikaelson brother in the kitchen, plating Klaus' favorite dinosaur divider plate with a few Ritz crackers, some cottage cheese and a few slices of salami.

Elijah looked up at them with a smile when they walked in.

"Good morning, Ansel, Niklaus." Elijah wiped his hands on a dishtowel before rounding the kitchen island towards the two of them. "I presume you're taking your leave now?" He asked, stopping in front of the older wolf.

Tagging (if you wanna): @angelique-of-the-volturi-guard, @tryan-a-bex, @si0writes, @autisticalastor, @nottapossum and anyone else who wants to join!

[eldritch-spouse]

HELLOOOOO (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

First of all, i love ur content so much holy shit, like just the world building is amazing but also the really well written characters AND THE LORE, so good, just *chef's kiss* and the fact English is not ur first language always takes me by surprise bc your writing is so good 🙏 like I love reading about ocs and the likes, but yours is definitely my favourite :')

Seconly, I'm here on my knees,asking, if perhaps you could write a small fic/more headcanons on how it'll be like to be in a poly relationship with Obie,Mervin, and Ludwig?

You wrote about it slightly before and since then i couldn't take it out of my brain😔

P.S- i wonder, how long did you have the idea about Krulu and Admin, and The Clergy, and the entire wrold-building before you decided to publish it on Tumblr?

Anyway, that is all, HAVE A GOOD NIGHT/MORNING AND A GREAT CHRISTMAS 🥰💜💜🥳🥳🥳😚😚

[AAAhjldc- Thenk, that genuinely makes me shriek with happiness, I'm glad you're enjoying the stuff! I can't really do ya a fic in a timely manner, so I'm going to ramble if you don't mind. :V]

It's already been discussed that Ludwig is the first one to meet you, and interacting with him on his own is nothing out of ordinary. You'd never expect that he has two other, utterly insane siblings, that he's in fact just as batshit mental, just better at hiding it. Truly, putting all three together is the key to seeing their true nature.

While Lud is the one to introduce you to his brothers, Mervin is actually the first one that'll declare this dynamic a relationship. There will be a lot of confusion for you initially, as you're getting swayed into romantic situations with each of the brothers seemingly behind the other's back. You're likely to reach a breaking point, and confront all three about it- Only to have the fork tell you something among the lines of "What do you mean, dipshit?! We've all been dating you for weeks now." And while it's far from a gentle nudge, if he hadn't told you that to the face, the other brothers would have taken much longer to make a statement.

The most affectionate of the bunch is Obie. Out of the trio, he's got the less hangups about physical touch and will often drape himself over you like a blanket. Lud and Merv definitely think he overdoes it and will make efforts to either join or rip you away from the glutton. This is easier said than done.

Ludwig and Mervin will be investing in your self-defense skill, as you'll eventually be brought into the Common Ring of Hell to meet Katia. Mervin teaches you directly how to fight with or without weapons, and your opponent is almost always Ludwig, because it kind of gets him off to fight you. By the end of this, you'll be able to hopefully buy yourself some time if a more powerful demon attempts to make a victim out of you.

Katia is a very nice lady who's just happy to see her boys found love, you'll be accepted into her heart without issue and you'll definitely get to see the ever elusive baby demon pictures. There's nothing cuter than seeing a picture of baby Ludwig putting Mervin in a chokehold while Obie's standing by their side, casually eating a pillow. That album is a bit cursed... But Katia does want a picture of you four together! Speaking of, she's here when you have trouble with any of them okay? If they start getting any funny ideas, she's just a call away. You're likely to be quickly escorted away by the three heathens when sloth mama starts mentioning grandkids.

Ludwig is the designated piggyback ride giver.

Obie is oftentimes oblivious to your flirts, Mervin has to hit him over the head and whisper the obvious.

It may seem like Mervin has more brain cells, but he does not, that's Ludwig's unwanted privilege. Nonetheless, the prideful demon often spearheads most outings.

Mervin is somehow more easily flustered than Obie by your antics. The hardest to fluster is Ludwig, but when it does happen, he gets quiet and extremely blushy, so pat yourself in the back.

As mentioned before, fighting between them over the smallest thing is common, and even healthy for demons, but some fights will be started purely because they want you to wedge in-between and give them attention.

Obie is the one that lends you clothes the most, although Mervin disagrees with this because the glutton is a "slob" and "has no taste".

The three are trying to decipher how to propose to you and can't reach an agreement. Ludwig argues they should polish the skulls of their enemies and put the wedding ring on one of the horns. Mervin can't afford the ring he wants so he's just going to steal it. With a lot of effort. Obie wants to do it with a massive feast that'll put even Vorticia to shame. Needless to say, it's going to be a very bizarre proposal.

I can't think of more right now, but you can always ask. <:1

[preoccupied-educator]

Ooh, Juke podcasters AU?

Alright, I went back and forth on this for literal ages, but it is high time I actually post something so, I hope you like it! Happy Juke Jeudi! Also lol RIP me trying to write a summary, failing spectacularly and instead ending up with over 700 words of a relatively solid outline for a fic I'll probably never find time to write 🙃

A kinda-sorta-enemies-to-lovers with a classic misunderstanding and of course a HEA (that isn't really well thought out, but couldn't sit in my drafts any longer!)

Julie Molina doesn't really play music anymore since her mom died, but she does listen to it and talk about it at great length on her very popular podcast she started back in her junior year of college after a very interesting elective on the topic

Now, she's a bit of a celebrity in her own right, as episodes of her show, "The Studio" (where she reviews listener-submitted songs from up-and-coming bands in college towns all across America) reach thousands of listeners every week

Luke Patterson listens to music, talks about music and, of course, plays music in his band, Sunset Curve, with his two best friends Alex Mercer and Reggie Peters (they did have a fourth band member, Bobby Shaw, but that ended rather abruptly when Bobby decided he'd rather have a solo career with Sunset Curve's most popular songs)

Now, Sunset Curve is on the edge of celebrity - a rather stressful recon mission ensured Bobby no longer had access to their music (and no, they won't be telling that story anytime soon) - and they're calling in all of their favours to get a showcase slot at the famed venue, The Orpheum

(click to continue reading my rambling below the cut)

Luke has been working on the booking manager, Caleb, for weeks and he's finally agreed to book them a slot in two week's time...assuming they can sell half of the tickets for the show themselves by the time the doors open the night of the show [Alex has anxiously done the math on that and it works out to about 1300 tickets if Caleb expects them to sell the place out (he immediately had to do his breathing exercises after having that realization)]

Luckily, the two optimists in the band have a plan - submit their best song (along with a little plug about their show) to "The Studio", get a rave review, profit (read: sell a thousand tickets in less than 14 days)

Unbeknownst to the current members of the band, there is a reason why Sunset Curve has never been featured on "The Studio" before, despite being submitted a handful of times by local listeners

Back in freshman year, Julie went on an ill-fated blind date set up by her well-meaning but ultimately misguided roommate, with her cousin, one Bobby Shaw (it wasn't that Bobby wasn't a nice guy, but he talked mostly about his music with his band and when they passed a street piano on the way to the theatre, she accidentally let slip that she used to play music and he was like a dog with a bone and when she refused to show him what she could do, he got a little too bold - she had stormed away soon after, walking the 12 blocks back to campus blinking back tears) - hence her distaste towards the band

Now, Luke is nothing if not determined, so here we insert a chapter or two of him weaselling his way into "accidental" run-ins with Julie (maybe he figures out a mutual connection? - Willie knows Flynn knows Julie) who doesn't realize immediately who he is, but they obviously vibe

Once Julie figures out the connection there is a smidgen of hurt feelings and explanations and apologies, but eventually she is persuaded to feature them on her next episode (and even goes so far as to have the band in the studio to plead their case)

Lo' and behold! They sell the allotted tickets and the show goes off without a hitch - Julie is in attendance, only slightly begrudgingly having been dragged along by Flynn and Willie

She is obviously immediately smitten (more than she already was) by Luke's stage presence and also the way he winks at her during the bridge to Now or Never (listen, she's only human okay??)

Their set wraps up and there are congratulations all around and an invitation for post-show pizza and there are more vibes and some not-so-subtle suggestions from both Flynn and Reggie about chemistry and oozing that Julie and Luke are both trying very hard to ignore while they enjoy their pizza

Luke volunteers to walk Julie home since she lives a couple blocks over (there is jeering and a few not-so-subtle nudges from Reggie, a very serious stare-down along with a threatening "text me as soon as you're home safe" from Flynn)

The walk home is relatively quiet, when they get to her door Luke confesses he hopes he didn't mess this whole thing up by trying to get the band on her show, he'd really like to see her again, etc.. Julie assures him that he didn't..and he can see her again. There is a cute Juke kiss and ta da! The End.

[k1nky-fool]

Least Sane Moments

Part 7/7

Masterlist

Vander x OC Minute

Pairing: M/F

Rating for part: Mature

Warnings: Violence, medical exploitation, morally gray decisions, several people and most don't deserve it.

Author's note: Thank all of you who enjoy this fic for bearing with me this long. It's definitely taken a long time to finish any fic, and I'm honestly just happy that I actually managed to complete at least one writing project.

Taglist: @gaybybirth @gatnalien @seas1mping

-Minute-

Back at the Last Drop, Vander and Devoan were the only two at the closed bar. “Back so soon? I thought she'd need a lot more convincing.” Vander chuckled. 

“What? Who?” Devoan asked. 

“After we finish this, you have an untraceable ticket topside if you want it.” Mita told her.  

“After we finish this.” Devoan agreed, but Mita could see the way her shoulders relaxed. 

“Is Sevika ready?” Mita asked Vander, and he didn’t look all too excited about it. 

“She’s not exactly the conversing type, but I’ve got a feeling she’ll be ready.”  

The three of them scurried through the Undercity with Devoan’s direction. Mita was certain the plan would work, but she wasn’t sure to what extent it would be successful. She could die fighting the five-eyed. Devoan could be caught by some goon that Sevika missed. Vander could be attacked by someone while he collected the prisoners. But anything was better than letting this go on for any longer. 

“There it is.” Devoan alerted, pointing to a tall building that was exactly how she described it. It was a run down factory dorm building. The factory next door was falling apart at the seams, only a hare’s breath away from total collapse, and the dorm building was only standing tall because of the reinforcements that looked to be put there by prior occupants. 

“Wait for Sevika’s signal.” Vander reminded them. 

They didn’t have to wait long before they saw a man get thrown out of a window from the eighth floor. “Go!” Mita commanded, slipping her mask on, and climbing up to the roof where she knew the five-eyed would be expecting her. He would know that Sevika’s assault was a distraction. 

Once she’d gotten to the roof, she took in as many of her surroundings as she could. Glass skylights dotted the roof, and the water tanks were on opposite corners. The access door flew open. “You thought that would work?” Five-eyed laughed as he stepped out into view. 

“No.” Mita said plainly, pulling her swords off her belt. “I needed some way to get you alone for our rematch.”

I owe him nothing but my survival.  

“All the same to me.” He pulled his staff off his back and sprinted toward her. Mita knew she had to save strength. They were trained to give their all, but Mita had learned better. 

She dodged his first swing and caught his blade with her sword, throwing her weight into kicking in his knee, but five pivoted just in time to swing at her again. 

She kept dodging and catching, doing no damage to him other than an occasional scratch on his skin. She was kept at a staff's length, and her swords couldn't reach too far without overextending herself which had always been the problem. 

He'll catch on that I'm his distraction if I don't try to kill him.

She had to take a riskier move. Just then she saw her opportunity when he held his staff with both hands. One up and one down, so she swung her swords the same way, ripping the staff from his grip and flinging it far above them. He was left with only his knives, but Mita wasn't dumb enough to assume they weren't poisoned. 

Mita had him on the defensive with shorter weapons, so she started crowding him toward the skylight. 

When she managed to hook his wrist, she quickly realized the mistake, but even quickly was not fast enough. 

Five threw himself back, forcing Mita down through the glass first. The pipe below it hit her helmet and spun her, landing on her stomach on the floor beneath the light. Her vision was blurry, but she didn't have long to get up. 

When she looked up, the nature of the situation changed drastically. She'd landed directly in front of Devoan who was working her way down from the top floor. She was almost finished with the doors on the top floor. 

The light boots of the creature landed right between her and Devoan, and suddenly he wasn't interested in killing Mita anymore. 

“Keep moving, Devoan!”

She didn't think before she jumped up and hooked her swords on the pipe that knocked her head and she swung her inertia into his ribs and shoving him over the balcony railing. But he wasn't going down alone. 

Five caught her ankle and pulled her with him. She was lucky and hooked onto the scaffolding before she fell too far, but his weight with hers was painful to hold for too long. 

She forced his arm into the pipes below to hopefully injure him enough that he would let go. At least Devoan had gotten to the next level. Five got his wits back too fast, and he still had one dagger. 

I promise I will not die here.

Mita had no choice but to pull up and drop from the railing. 

He only had to bend one flimsy floor grate with his shoulder to realize that keeping hold of her would kill him. He caught the next railing enough to smack him far enough to hit the incomplete wall by the scaffolding. 

Mita channeled her speed into swinging a high speed kick to five's stomach. The wind was knocked out of him and he hit the floor on his back. 

And when the chance came, Minute didn't hesitate. Her sword fell swiftly. 

The slice on his neck gave him only seconds to think before all life left his form. 

It was over. 

I beat him. 

Mita had always thought that she wouldn't know when the final time she sheathed her swords would be. But the peace that came from the last time she ever made the movement settled deep in her heart in the same place Vander had taken home in. 

Only one more passage remained. She unlocked the mechanism on his bloodstained mask, and removed it from his face. 

She made her way down slowly as Devoan continued through the prison, unlocking doors one after the other. 

Mita pulled herself over the railing to take the stairs, but she suddenly realized why Devoan had started from the top of the building. Every container in the chemical storage had been punctured and was pouring down the stairs. 

She did want to burn the place down, so this really shouldn't have surprised her. As she passed doors, she realized that some were still locked and were muffling some kind of mechanical whirring. 

Mita peeked inside and was struck cold by what she saw. There was another girl in the cell, but she was bound to a bed with several machines hooked up to her veins, back, and face, with something expanding and shrinking with her chest, breathing for her. And she wasn't the only one. 

“Devoan!” Mita called out, but there was no answer. 

She moved faster than she had fighting to get to Devoan before the place went up in flames. Her speed sent her nearly flying past the girl in the office on the floor level. 

Mita barged in, cornering her in the office, but she didn't look particularly disturbed by it. “There are still prisoners here!”

“They're already dead.” 

“That girl was breathing!” 

“The machine was breathing. They're used to keep our organs fresh for dissection.” She stated crassly as she kept loading papers into a bag. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mita demanded. 

“I might have a ticket topside, but without money, I’ll end up back here too soon for my liking.” Devoan shrugged, finishing up and gathering what she wanted and slinging the bag on her shoulder. 

“You wouldn't even try to save the girls up there.” It might have been a question, but Mita was beginning to realize that it wasn't. 

“There's no saving them.” She said, now more defeated. 

“You wouldn’t even try?” 

“What should I try, Minute?” Devoan erupted, now glaring at her with something between anger and despair. “Should I try taking them off the machines and watch them suffocate while they can’t breathe on their own? Or maybe I should try to take them with us and risk breaking the fragile mechanics after ripping them out of the floorboards? And even if I could get the machines and the girls out of here in one piece, how do you expect to take care of them? Most of them are less than a day away from death anyway.” 

Devoan was right. As cruel and heartless as it may seem, it was worse to bring them along. Either just let Devoan burn the place down now, or watch as seven young women died in her care. 

Then there was nothing else they could do. “Let's get out of here.” Mita let the girl pass, and she followed her out. 

Vander would be waiting at the Last Drop for Mita to come back, but Devoan was late for a meeting. Nobody would dare to stare at a creature as they walked past. Mita took in that this may be the last time she had no eyes on her. 

Devoan all but jumped onto the bridge, and her strides were fast enough to put her slightly ahead of Mita, and how could she blame her. Anything to get further away from the place that held her captive, even if the smoke rose all the way up through the Undercity, announcing to everyone that it’s time had ended.

“Where are we going?” Devoan asked without looking back. 

“Somewhere safe.” Mita answered. 

The looks in Piltover were different. There were stares, whispers, and side-eyes everywhere until they eventually came to the street that Grayson had written down for her. “Follow me.” Both of them climbed up a fire escape to reach a window. 

With a soft knock on the glass, it didn’t take long for Grayson to find them. “Minute, are you allergic to doors?” 

“Would you rather everyone in your nosy town know we’re working together?” Mita asked back. 

“Fair enough.” Grayson stepped aside to let them in through the window. “You must be Devoan. I’m Sheriff Grayson.” 

“Sheriff?” Devoan deadpanned, glaring at Mita. 

“Can you think of someone better to keep you off the Enforcers’ list?” Mita asked her, and Devoan shifted her uneasy gaze to Grayson. 

“My Enforcers don’t need to know anything.” Grayson offered. 

“Even if I’m planning to exploit all this illegal medical research in my bag to line my pockets?” Neither Mita nor Grayson were expecting anything like that to come from Devoan. 

“Depends on how you’re planning to do it.” Grayson said. 

“The guy has a student, right?” Devoan asked. “From the way he spoke, she didn’t know shit about anything, so I’ll take the research to her to get the rest of this drug fully developed in exchange for half of the profits. I just don’t want anyone to know that’s what’s lining my pockets.” 

Mita also looked at Grayson, waiting for her answer just as eagerly as Devoan was. “I can do better than look the other way.” She said. “So long as you don’t kill anyone or rob someone, I can help you get on your feet. What would you do with all this money?” 

Devoan didn’t hesitate. “I’m going to the academy.” 

“Then I’ll help you.” Grayson agreed. “You can stay here as long as you need, Devoan.” 

“Won’t your nosy neighbors wonder why you suddenly have a teenager living with you?” Mita asked Grayson. 

“I didn’t know what she looked like before, but looking at her now, it would be easy to mistake her for a family member of mine. I’ll tell them I had to take custody of my niece or cousin, and they’re too polite to ask for details on something like that. They’ll know she’s from the Undercity, but so long as she has me, they won’t go digging deeper.” 

Devoan was cautiously walking around the living room, slowly taking in her surroundings. 

"Did you get that Devoan?" Mita asked.

"As far as the council will be concerned, you're related to me somehow. It's not a secret to them that I'm from the Undercity, but they won't be told unless they ask. And nobody will know where your money is coming from." Grayson explained. "If attending the academy is really what you want, then I can help you get on your feet if you don't want to stay here." 

"I'll stay here for a bit." Devo said, "If you're alright with it." 

Grayson smiled, "The offer is always there. Even far into the future." 

"And, you're sure nobody survived? Nobody will come for me?" Devo asked. 

Mita sighed, "If anybody survived, they're too scared of you to come looking. You made sure of that with the fire." 

Mita could tell that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Grayson came to her rescue rather quickly. "Regardless of who survived, there's nothing I won't do to keep you safe, Devoan." 

“And you know where to find me if you need me.” Mita said. 

“Oh, Minute?” Devoan asked before she left. “Can you thank Vander for me?” 

“Of course.” Mita smiled beneath her mask and bid them both farewell. It had been a long time since she could just walk through the Undercity. She took her time, for once. It was late, but the brothels were always open. 

The woman at the front recognized her immediately and pointed her to the office near the back of the building. When Mita entered, Mystique jumped slightly, clearly not expecting her, but her eyes went to the five-eyed mask on her belt. 

“You owe me some money.” Mita said. 

“Both are dead, then?” 

“The five eyed is. The abductor has a fate worse than death in front of him.” She answered. 

“Given to the Enforcers. Cold blooded.” Mystique had a heavy sack in her drawer that she placed on the desk. “I added a little extra on top in honor of this being your last bounty.” 

“I appreciate it.” Mita moved to take the bag, but Mystique stopped her.

“Are my girls safe?” She asked. 

“As many as I could save. If any of the survivors want to come back, I’ll let them know there’s still a job here for them.” Mita answered, taking the bag as her hand moved back to her pen. 

“I appreciate it.” Mystique echoed, sending Mita on her way, but she was already leaving, eager to finally get home. 

And when she did, it was a bustle of relief as Vander and the kids shuffled around, getting the girls food, water, and any spare blankets they could find. 

“Mita!” Powder was the first to notice her entrance and she happily launched herself into her arms which caught Vander’s attention. 

“Hey, Powder.” Mita hugged her back as Vander approached. 

Mita, much like Powder, couldn’t hold herself back and wrapped her arms around his shoulders without saying a word. Vander held her like he knew they had all the time in the world. “Welcome home, Mita.” 

The words said by anyone would have felt like healing, but hearing them from Vander drained all the tension out of her. And she had something she couldn’t go without saying any longer. “I love you, Vander.”

Vander’s hold on her tightened. “I love you too, Mita.”  

[castershellwrites]

Ghost of Tsushima CYOA Part 7

Jin/Tenzo Rated Teen

Link to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6.

This is the longest part yet I think. And we've got angst. So much glorious angst. I tried to have them talk, but I just don't think Shimura is ready for it, and now Tenzo has derailed Jin's plans. What will Jin do?

Part 7 of the fic and the poll for what happens next are below the cut.

“Ride with me.” Jin demanded.

Shinura scoffed but maintained the illusion. He waved his hand to his retainers, telling them to fall back. They’d tried to rush the gates when Jin spoke.

Jin swallowed his emotions, but they stuck in his throat. His uncle was going to ride with him, and trust him to remain honorable and not lead him into an ambush. Shimura would do all this despite knowing Jin was deliberately using those fateful words that had led him to their last duel, when Shimura had tried to kill him and they’d parted. He—Jin nodded, remained silent, and turned Kaze away from the encampment. He glanced at Tenzo as he rode past, careful not to move his head and give away his friend’s position. Tenzo would be able to sneak away now that he wasn’t needed for cover.

They rode at a relaxed ambling walk, just like what Jin had promised Kaze in those weary days before the Khan’s defeat. Except now it was with his uncle towards an uncertain future. Insects buzzed in the night. Not a human soul stirred aside from the two of them, all Iki’s inhabitants hiding from or otherwise preparing for the second samurai invasion.

Finally, Shimura spoke, “I know it’s you Jin.”

“I didn’t expect you to believe it was Kazumasa.” Jin deliberately said Kazumasa and not ‘my father’. He could feel his uncle’s glare boring into him. “I don’t think I can call him father now that I am no longer of Clan Sakai. Can I, Lord Shimura?” Jin stopped Kaze and waited for Shimur and his horse to come apace.

“Now you’re just being childish, Jin.” His uncle criticized.

“I am being honest. I’ve asked you to ride so we can talk. Just talk! This isn’t going to end with an announcement that this was all some ruse and a duel to the death!” Jin felt his voice rising and his chest shaking with effort. He ripped off his father’s helm to glare at his uncle.

Shimura didn’t have any armor, and his eyes seemed sad when he looked at Jin. “Do you think I had a choice?”

Jin wanted to scream. “There is always a choice,” He spat out in a low even tone. “My father’s killer knew I was there, and chose to spare me because enough blood had been shed.”

“You’re a fool Jin. That man would have killed you without a second thought. Pirates and raiders, they’re all vermin. Use them if you must, but know that they will turn on you give the first opportunity.”

“And what of samurai? Loyal dogs, obedient to their masters even after they’ve been kicked? I am a man uncle, not an animal. The same as any of the people on this island.” Jin turned Kaze to face his uncle head on. Despite being in full armor and physically larger, being here with Shimura made him feel oh so small again.

“You are—you should be better than them.” Shimura shook his head.

Jin sighed wearily. He dismounted and waited for his uncle to do the same. “This isn’t what I wanted to talk about. Come,” He pleaded, “come sit with me.” There were two woven cushions in the clearing nearby. Jin had stopped the horses far enough away they wouldn’t disturb the wildlife. He walked over and sat. He would see this through wether his uncle listened or not. And wasn’t that a running theme in his life now.

Save Tsushima, regardless of his uncle. Live, regardless of his uncle. Love Ryuzo, and Yuna, and Tenzo… oh, he loved Tenzo… regardless of his uncle. And now he’d play his flute, whether his uncle listened of not.

Shimura joined him, after scanning the surrounding underbrush and trees suspiciously, like he believed Jin would lead him into a trap. The distrust stung, but Jin allowed it. He didn’t trust his uncle either, after their last meeting.

Jin took his flute out, pursed his lips, and played. He made sure it was song he knew well, one he’d learned at his mother’s knee, when she’d been ill. He put his entire soul into it, thankful for all the practice he’d gotten here on Iki with Hachibee. The world vanished, for a long and peaceful moment it was just Jin and the sound of his flute. Something warm and small on his lap got his attention and Jin opened his eyes to a small wildcat about to step onto his lap. The made eye contact for a moment, then Jin closed his again and kept playing. By the time his song was done there was a wildcat asleep on his lap, with another curled at his side and a third playing with a loose piece of his armor.

“You’re so much like her,” Shimura sighed. At the sound of his voice the cats scattered.

“Would you have banished her? If she’d done what I did?” Jin couldn’t help but ask. He’d forgiven himself, he’d forgiven his father, but the pain of Shimura ending their relationship was too fresh.

Shimura remained silent.

Jin did as well. He deserved an answer, but knew he’d never receive on if he pushed.

“She wouldn’t,” Shimura finally stated.

“I don’t think you know how stubborn of a woman she could be.” Jin crossed his arms.

“I know exactly how stubborn. I see—I saw it every day with you. You’re so much like your mother, Jin.”

Jin frowned; this wasn’t the conversation he wanted to have either. “I wanted to talk with you.”

“We are talking, Jin.”

“Not about what matters. Not about—” Jin stopped himself. He was raising his voice and if he continued to do so Shimura wouldn’t take a word he said seriously. Jin took a deep steadying breath, he tried to be like Norio and use some of the meditation techniques he’d learned with the monk while recovering in the temple. “I want to know why.”

Shimura quirked an eyebrow smugly. Jin knew he was silently being chastised for not being specific.

“Why did you try to kill me?”

Shimura snorted, like the answer was the most obvious thing. “I did not want to. It was the will of the Shogun.”

“Why did you listen?”

“I am the Jito! It is my duty to obey, as it was yours.”

“What honor is there in killing your only relative?” Jin did raise his voice. The underbrush rustled as cats fled and a larger animal moved through it.

“You know nothing of honor. Ever since Komoda beach you have been different. Willing to break our code as samurai and use whatever tactics necessary.”

“I—”

Say it, Jin. Demand it of me,” Shimura spat bitterly.

“Uncle, I…” Jin was currently confused.

“You’ve said every other word from that damned day. Ask me if I’m ready and we shall fight again. You mock me with my brother in law’s armor, you bring up old painful memories. I was willing to let you die that day but you refuse to remain a ghost. Just end my suffering, Jin.”

Jin reeled like he’d been physically slapped once more. Maybe… maybe this had all been a mistake. Instead of finding healing and closure, his presence was just hurting his uncle.

“This was a mistake,” Jin sighed, “let’s just go back.”

“No,” A familiar voice declared.

“Tenzo?” Jin hastily stood and put himself between his uncle and his friend. “Tenzo don’t do this.”

“The samurai need to leave the island Jin. I can’t just let him go.” Tenzo held his sword at the ready, in a perfect stone stance. Damn Tenzo for being a quick study.

“Jin,” Shimura scolded, “Who is this raider scum?”

“Tell him Jin,” Tenzo smirked, “or I will.”

Jin walked over to Tenzo, heedless of the sword leveled at him, to whisper too quietly for Shimura to hear, “Don’t tell him Tenzo, he will kill you.”

“Jin,” Shimmura demanded, “What is going on. Is this an ambush?”

Tenzo grinned bitterly, “No, I’m—”

[tyrannuspitch]

enough time has passed that i no longer feel weird talking about this, so here's some complaining i've been sitting on for six years: in like the 2018-2020 c*rry on fandom there was a PROLIFIC fanfic writer who absolutely everyone seemed to love, practically spawning her own subfandom, and i had the weirdest fucking relationship to her work because like. she WAS, on a technical level, one of the best.* so i did read the vast majority of her work, and i often got something out of it. but i also HATED it. it was so frustrating. every single fic was just-a-little-to-the-left, so-close-but-so-far, this-is-not-my-beautiful-house. it sounded right, or at least plausible, and yet i knew in my heart it just wasn't. i'd come away from every fic with an itemised list of 8-20 instances of mischaracterisation just to try and pin down what precisely made this feel so subtly but completely dissonant with canon for me**, and i'd swear up and down that she just did not get some core component of the themes of the book, and then next time she published something i'd read it anyway. and she seemed like a really nice person too, so i felt kind of bad for holding this silent grudge! but my god you have not known suffering until you have seen an entire fandom's worth of fan misconceptions(tm) summarised in one person's body of work, EXECUTED WELL, and then accepted as "practically canon" with a light dose of hero worship. in the most respectful and sportsmanlike way, this woman was my parasocial nemesis. and i didn't have any friends in the fandom, just an acquaintance or two who also happened to be her acquaintances, so there was literally no-one i could tell. and THEN when the godawful sequel came out, she was one of the ONLY people who came down on my side of the controversy*** and suddenly we were united in haterism. never thought i'd die fighting side by side with a [redacted pair-the-spare] shipper. but i did. anyway she abandoned her blog and i drifted away from the fandom so that was that. rip to a real one. art should make people angry, and i may never have told you this, but yours absolutely did

*(in a small fandom mostly populated by teenagers. not bad by any means! much better than me! but not, like, a genius. just to manage expectations.)

**(not unique to her - something i did with many fics at the time, as kind of an exercise in characterisation/general storytelling. she just wrote sooo much.)

***much less combatively. she was quietly disappointed; i foamed at the mouth for a year.

[phsychobanana]

"I wish you would write a fic where…" Remus and Sirius are having a 'Jack and Rose in the car with the handprints on the window on the Titanic Ship moment' and they get caught by Lily out on a nighttime walk after she puts Harry down

kinda comedic but also kind of sweet...if it could be from Remus' POV that'd be great but I always think his internal dialogue about how much he loves Sirius is the BEST

Pairing: Remus x Sirius (Wolfstar my love <3), Lily x Bleach

Kind of modern au?

Summary: When Lily is out for her usual nighttime walk, she stumbles across something unexpected.

Word count: 919

A/n~ Thank you so much for this Anon, I love you! My first ask and it's this masterpiece. I just rewatched Titanic so I'm very excited about this request. I hope it lives up to your expectations!

What started as an innocent ice cream run with my boyfriend, ended up with the both of us in a sticky situation. Not in the way you may think, though. Sirius had suggested we go get ice cream at around midnight, and I, being the amazing boyfriend I am, agreed.

He hopped around excitedly when I said yes and I smiled at my beautiful boy. Mine. How long I've waited to be able to call him that.

We got into the car and went to his favorite ice cream shop, just around the corner from our shared flat. I had never seen him as happy as the day we moved in. He not only got to live right next door to his best mate, he also got to have a lot of alone time with yours truly.

He told me that himself.

Sirius ran out of the shop, hopping into the car with a childish grin on his pretty face. How I love his smile. The way his lips curl, the way his teeth shine, the way it can light up an entire room. It was absolutely extraordinary.

"Here is your butterscotch ice cream, Remmy my love." Sirius says as he hands it over to me, my face heating up realizing I had been staring for longer than what is considered normal.

"Thank you, beautiful boy." I say as I put the car in drive and take us back home.

He finishes his ice cream by the time I park, eyeing mine like a hawk ready to swoop down on it's prey. I chuckle softly at this, always the same story.

"No. You can't have mine." I say, looking him up and down, not noticing the dark look in his eyes.

"Not what I was going to ask, love." Sirius looks at me, eyes focusing in on my lips. He leans in slowly, almost shyly, as I look at him with widened eyes. "May I?"

I nod softly and not even a second later Sirius' lips are on mine in a soft kiss. I smile into it, not being able to help it when I'm with him.

He begins to move to the backseat, my lips chasing after his in a pathetic attempt to not lose the closeness. He pats the seat next to him and I rip my seatbelt off, practically jumping into the back.

My ice cream sits in the cup holder, long forgotten as I sit in the back with Sirius. His lips find mine once again in a far more passionate kiss. A soft moan leaves my lips unintentionally as Sirius bites down on my bottom lip.

His lips trail down my face to my jaw, then to my neck. Every bit of exposed skin he touches burning like a fire that can never be extinguished. His lips linger on my neck as I fist his old band t-shirt.

"Let's get rid of this." Sirius says as he reaches out for my sweater. I take it off almost immediately, my insecurities have never been a problem with Sirius. He never treated me like the monster that deep down I knew I was. And I loved him even more for it if that's even possible.

He traces his lips along my chest, his tongue going over every scar on my body.

The windows begin to fog from the heavy breaths we're both taking, but I don't mind. The only thing on my mind is Sirius and his beautiful, beautiful smile.

He looks up at me with shining eyes, he looks at me as if I created the very earth we live on and I can't help but groan at his pretty puppy dog-like eyes.

He leans back over me, lips attaching to mine in a far more heated kiss than the others. I lift my hand to grasp onto something, my hand just hitting the window as I sink further into the seat as Sirius' tongue swipes over my bottom lip.

The both of us are so consumed with the other that we don't notice the open and close of a front door. Or the knock on the car door. Or the opening of said car door.

"Oh my lord!" The voice of Lily Motherfucking Evans brings me back from cloud nine to my car. My car that I am half naked in. My car that I am half naked in whilst Sirius is practically swallowing my face. While Lily, my best friend, stands there.

"You two can't go two seconds, can you? Merlin, I finally get Harry to sleep for the night and you two are out here fucking. I'm too tired for this. Good night..."

I sit there frozen, like a deer in headlights with Sirius next to me, wide eyed. I look over to him as he does the same. The moment our eyes lock, we burst into a fit of laughter.

"I love you, Sirius Orion Black, but you have got to stop initiating things before we get to the privacy of our bedroom." I say as I put my sweater back on.

~Bonus~

"Yeah, they were just in the car going at it." Lily says to James with a laugh.

James smiles, "Not as bad as when I would walk in on them in the dorm." James shudders at the memory, then turns to Lily with a smirk. "Why haven't we done it in a car yet?"

Lily shoves James's shoulder with a scoff.

"Not a chance in hell, Potter."

"Worth a try...Mrs. Potter."

[twilighteve-writes]

Of Seas, of Streams, of Falling Rain, of Naval Hurricane

Summary: “I should tell the others,” he whispered to himself, like he did every morning since he got the ability, despite knowing that this day-cycle would probably end the way other day-cycles did. Namely, with him not saying anything about this. The timing was just never right. Lance gets water/ice powers. He wants to tell the others, but either he has the worst timing in the universe ever, or Fate just likes to fuck with him. To be completely honest, he's leaning to the latter.

Inspired by this post by @lovelylangst.

My first Voltron fic, I hope I did okay. This got far longer than I first intended, so reading it from AO3 or FF.net may be easier for the eyes. If you choose to read this in tumblr, it’s under the cut.

He held his hand out, staring at the astral glow that shone gently like dancing fireflies. Without having to look at the mirror, he knew that his eyes shone the same glow – which he found out when he tested this out in front of a mirror, to be completely honest – blue, soft, otherworldly and yet not.

A tug from deep within him, and water appeared, flowing upwards and snaking along his arm in a stream. It was odd, how he could control this so easily by now, but considering he’d been practicing pretty much nonstop for about two months he probably shouldn’t be too surprised. Like always, he idly wondered where the water came from, as it seemed a bit of a stretch to assume it appeared out of nowhere. As usual, he pushed the thought aside to marvel at the ability.

With a sigh, Lance let go of the control he held over the stream, and it dropped for a fraction of a tick before vanishing without trace.

“I should tell the others,” he whispered to himself, like he did every morning since he got the ability, despite knowing that this day-cycle would probably end the way other day-cycles did. Namely, with him not saying anything about this.

The timing was just never right.

The Paladins had been trying hard, so hard, but things had been difficult. Everything was hard. Shiro had been missing for some time and there was no sign of him ever returning, no matter how hard the rest of the team had been trying.

But the universe didn’t wait for certain individuals. Chaos reigned still, as ten thousand years of oppression and destruction laughed in their faces for their feeble attempt to fix it all.

There was no way those ten thousand years could be undone in so little time.

Two weeks into Shiro’s disappearance, the team received a distress signal from a planet not too far away from where they were. Naturally, they rushed to help. It was a small planet, inhabited by humanoid aliens that looked solid yet liquid at the same time.

(Lance was trying to hard not to call them slime people. It was accurate, yes, but it made him feel as though they were low-tier monsters in a fantasy game. They were not low-tier monster in a fantasy game.)

They were lucky, to be completely honest. The Galra fleet that attacked the planet was a small one, and they would be able to defeat it without having to form Voltron. However, a few ships had managed to land on the planet, so Lance quickly announced that he was landing, too, to prevent disaster. Keith barely got to give him the go-ahead before he shot away.

The planet, as it turned out, was an… interesting one. It was equal parts land and water, the two elements working in tandem and creating water canals both on and under ground that Lance immediately used as his personal highway, making use of Blue’s increased power and agility in water to spring attacks at the Galra soldiers and drones, easily laying waste on the enemies without damaging the city.

But then the decidedly small fleet whipped out a decidedly humongous laser cannon and aimed it to the shiny, sparkly earth-and-ice castle at the epicenter of the city. With no time to counter the shot the cannon sent, Lance was forced to take the brunt of the attack using Blue’s body. Fortunately, it worked, and the damage on the city was decidedly minimal, and Blue managed to fire a shot into the cannon’s muzzle and damaged it instantly. Unfortunately, the attack put Blue out of commission, so Lance had to go out and fought the Galra soldiers on his own, without Blue’s comforting support buzzing at the back of his head and empowering his moves.

The battle passed in a blur of cries, screams, whizzing shots, laser blasts finding home on the Galra’s temples, foreheads, chests, necks,… And suddenly he was keenly aware that there was no longer any Galra around, that his whole body was shaking with exhaustion and adrenaline crash, that the natives of the planet were approaching him carefully, showing placating gestures and coaxing him to lower his bayard.

“It’s alright,” one of them said, their voice an interesting mix between popping bubbles and soft whispers. “All the Galra are gone. It’s alright.”

Lance wasn’t ashamed to say that he fell flat on his face as relief flooded through his veins.

The rest of the team then landed on the planet, and the aliens brought them to the castle, where Allura both berated and commended Lance on his actions in the whole operations. “To immediately notice how the Galra had gone to the planet on a moment’s notice and immediately take action to counter it is something I’d feel very proud in,” she had said, tone pleased yet exasperated at the same time. “However, Lance, please do remember to take your own safety into account as well.”

Lance had nodded and hummed along, though most of the lecture went over his head. The exhaustion was hard to plow through. The aliens – the Neranese – provided them with food, water, and helped heal their relatively minor injuries. It was only hours later, after a period of rest, that Lance felt enough like himself again to actually pay attention to the Neranese and began flirting. He didn’t see any features that really distinguished the male and female Neranese, so he went screw it and just flirted with absolutely everyone.

Including the prince. Oops?

But then said prince pulled him aside, wishing to speak with him privately. So… score?

The whole thing had a serious and heavy vibes permeating the atmosphere though, so Lance wasn’t entirely sure if this was truly a good thing or not.

“I want to thank you personally,” said the prince once they were alone. “You risked your Lion and your life to protect my people. It means a lot to us.” His voice was the same bubble-popping-and-whispers that the Neranese sounded like, but his was a little smoother, less of bubbles popping and more of ocean foam subsiding, like the soft caress of the softest baby bird’s feather.

Lance laughed softly and shook his head. “It’s nothing, Your Highness. I’d hate to see you and the rest of the planet hurt. Besides, it isn’t just me. All of my friends fought the battle too.”

The prince hummed. “Nevertheless, it was you who personally fought down here, abandoning the safety your Lion provides to protect us, and made your last stand to defend the castle. Let me present you a gift in the name of my people, Paladin.”

“I, ah. It’s very generous of you, but really…” Lance squirmed, not wholly sure how to refuse.

“Please, Paladin. I insist.” The prince gave what must have been a form of Neranese smile, and Lance crumbled. How could a race that was pretty much a human-shaped semi-translucent blob look so adorable?

The prince extended his hands and gestured for Lance’s, so he put his hands in the prince’s, silently marveling at how Neranese body felt like cool water yet solid enough to hold and left no wet trail behind.

“We would give the same gifts to the other Paladins, but only your quintessence is compatible to ours,” the prince began as soft bluish glow began to envelope their hands. “We have heard of the stories of old, of Voltron the warrior that defended the universe, and the five lions and formed it. We have heard how each lion holds the quintessence of certain elements and how their paladins’ mirrored theirs. We have heard of the Blue Lion, the Guardian of Water, and know that us Neranese share an affinity with the Blue Lion and its paladin, even long before we’ve seen them.”

Lance stared at the prince quizzically, noticing that his eyes were a shade of blue-green that reminded him of the Earth’s ocean, gleaming and sparkling brilliantly under the shine of the summer sun. “Um…”

The prince continued as though Lance never said anything. “With time, a paladin’s bond with their Lion strengthens, and along with that the paladin would be able to reach deep into their quintessence and used the elements they are closest with as they wish. You, Blue Paladin… you are of water and ice, and you are very close to being able to use them. However, it would be difficult. I wish to give you a push – a boost, if you will – so you will be able to wield your powers safely and efficiently, and so you could be granted access of it a bit more quickly.”

“Wait, hold on, time out!” Lance winced back, though he didn’t pull his hands away. “What do you mean, safely and efficiently? Granted access? I don’t understand, like, seventy percent of what you’re telling me.”

“You will be able to hold elemental powers, but for someone who does not know how to control it or is not familiar with it, it could be dangerous,” the prince explained. “You will be able to wield it, but without knowledge over water and ice it could endanger you and the people around you. I am merely giving you the instinctual information my people has over water and ice so the danger would be minimalized.” He gave that smile again. “It is a safety measure, if you will.”

Lance wanted to ask more, but a sudden sharpness in the glow on their hands stopped him, as the words died and was replaced by a surprised gasp. The flow of light climbed up in abstract patterns, swirling and waving in a manner that reminded Lance of ocean waves, of river streams in meadows, of falling rain in hills, of whirlpools in a naval hurricane. The glow wrapped around him in a cocoon, filling his mind with the secrets of the sea and infusing his skin with the knowledge of how to wield it. Around him, it felt as though the flow had turned into the true Earthen ocean, swirling around him in a current that both made him feel safe and wary, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the view. He wanted to imprint the luminescent illusory sea into his mind, as he knew its beauty wasn’t eternal, and it could be gone in a blink. It was ethereal, yes. Yet it was also ephemeral.

As quickly as it appeared, the light receded into itself, clinging to Lance’s skin and seemingly sunk into him before vanishing completely. As it did, waves of exhaustion suddenly crashed into him, and Lance swayed a little before catching himself, blinking rapidly and shaking his head. “Whoa.”

“I should have warned you of that. The transferal could result in extreme fatigue on the receiver’s end,” the prince said apologetically, staring at him in concern. When he spoke again, his voice held more pop, laced with worry. “Do you feel alright, Paladin?”

“I think I’m okay,” Lance answered with a nod and immediately contradicted himself when he stumbled, feeling as though everything was suddenly upside-down. “Okay, I take that back.”

“Perhaps it is best if you rest,” the prince advised, gently leading him back to the room that had somehow transformed into the Paladins’ and the Alteans’ communal bedroom, as they dropped before they could be escorted into their private quarters.

“Probably, yeah,” Lance’s words were already slurring, and part of him was already halfway to the dreamland. If he had been more awake, he’d feel embarrassed that the prince of a planet he’d just helped save was pretty much carrying him to bed, but he was more interested in actually being asleep to care.

The next morning, he was the last to wake, and Allura was already speaking with the king and queen of the planet to work on possible alliance. The prince didn’t talk to Lance again, too preoccupied by his own duties to spend time with the Paladins. At times, Lance would feel a tug deep within him, or a tingle on his fingertips. Nothing happened.

What the Neranese prince had given him slipped his mind.

When Lance realized that he really could control water and ice, his first reaction was to smile wide, wide, because maybe with this he could be more helpful in combat, maybe he wouldn’t have to rely on long-ranged weapon so much, maybe he could actually do well in hand-to-hand combat.

The second reaction was, more or less, Holy Quiznak I need to tell the others but how.

He wanted to tell the others, very much so. Something like this could help so much in their battles, it could change the way they create plans since the advantages and disadvantages of the power could be game changing.

But should he really? Everyone was so focused on other things, and he wouldn’t want to break their focus. There was so much they were doing. Liberating planets, making diplomatic connections, maintaining the connections, generally protecting the universe. Being on alert to look for Shiro and the Holts, jumping to action with each new hints and clues of their whereabouts were and coming back deflated when they couldn’t find them yet. Him telling something like this could very easily break that focus, creating ripples in the calm routine and they’d have to seek a new pattern that fit his new variable into account.

It could take too long. It could put someone in danger.

He couldn’t take that risk.

He should, though. The risk could be worth the results. He knew how powerful water and ice could be when used properly. It could potentially save so many, but only after he could use it properly.

With that in mind, Lance started to train. It was hard to control, at first. He tended to let loose too much energy that a snowflake ended up being a huge icicle, or too little that a flood ended up a measly trickle. But Lance was patient. He trained, again and again, over and over, until he could manipulate his quintessence as easily as he could breathe, until he could summon a tiny little drop of water or the angriest of blizzards as easily as he could smirk. A part of him knew immediately that without the Neranese prince’s gift he wouldn’t be able to do all this so easily, so quickly, and he mentally sent his thanks to the Neranese.

Then, and only then, did he feel comfortable enough to try telling the others.

His chance came in a strategic meeting as they planned their moves to free another colonized planet. It was yet another planet rich with water quintessence, its surface littered with marshes, puddles, and seas. The Galra had built a sort of base above the water level and had the natives of the planet work for them, mining minerals deep under the mud. The inhabitants’ eel-like slick bodies could easily dig deep to mine the minerals, which was apparently one of the most important materials to build ion cannons.

“We need to sneak in, go to the control room, and make sure all the drones are incapacitated before we could proceed to the next phase,” Allura had said. “This Galra base is a little outdated, given that the drones are still controlled from the control room, unlike the newer drones that work on autopilot. If we could put the drones out of the equation, we’d save so much trouble and energy freeing this planet.”

Lance’s eyes swept through the holographic maps that showed them the planet’s surface. He could sense his eyes lighting up when he realized how much water was on the surface and how he could use it to his advantage. “Princess, if I may?” he cut in excitedly. “What about we just draw all drones out to the open instead, near the mud plains? It’s closer to where we’d be landing, and it looks like it provides enough cover for us all to dart around. I mean, it’ll save us the trouble of sneaking into the control room, considering the amount of security cameras it has, and there’s only one officer in charge, so we could probably wipe them all out easily.”

Allura sighed tiredly. “We have considered this, Lance. While it is a nice plan, it is not sound. There are too many Galra drones in the area, and you four fighting them all by yourselves would tire you out before the actual fight.”

“No, no, the thing is I can probably wipe them all out by myself,” Lance bounced on his heels excitedly. “So if the drones are out of commission – “

“Wait, hold on,” Allura cut him off. “Are you saying that you would fight the Galra in the planet? All by yourself?” It was easy to catch the disbelief in Allura’s voice.

Lance drew back a little. “Um, I know it sounds really far-fetched, but seriously, I can deal with all of them at once. Probably. Do you remember the Neranese? Well, the prince gave me – “

Allura held up a hand. “Lance, this is an important mission, and while I appreciate your bravery and confidence I cannot rely on probabilities to run it. And please, do try to be more serious. I understand that you like to play the hero and have your moment of glory, but at your current abilities facing off so many drones at once would be suicide.”

Lance winced, but he wasn’t willing to let this go just yet. “But Princess, really. I can face them all! I can now control – “

“Lance,” Allura huffed in annoyance, and Lance stopped talking at once. “I don’t want to lose another Paladin. We need a solid plan for this mission to be successful. Have I made myself clear?”

With a frown, Lance stepped back and nodded. It was easy to see that his input wasn’t wanted. “Crystal, Princess,” he said, even though he still wanted to argue with the plan.

“Good,” Allura nodded and casted her gaze on the holographic maps once again. “Now, perhaps it would be best if Keith and Pidge could check the perimeter for us…”

Okay, so Allura didn’t listen to him. That was fine, it was his own fault that he said something like that in the middle of important strategic meeting anyway. He’d be skeptical too if someone suddenly said they could wipe out a fleet of Galra drones. He should have picked a better time for it.

So he turned to his main man, Hunk. Hunk was an amazing listener. He could count on Hunk to hear him out and maybe help him relay the information to the rest of the team.

“Hunk, can I talk to you for just a second?” Lance had asked the Yellow Paladin a few days after the last mission with the eel-like aliens.

“Huh?” Hunk looked up from the batch of cookies that he was pulling out of the oven and met his eyes. “Yeah, sure, buddy. What’s up?” he asked as he continued his motions to get the cookies out and started to cool them, looking like he was just half-listening. He’d been baking more of them lately – probably a coping mechanism from the stress they were all under.

It was a good thing that he did, though. These days, it was one of the only things that actually brought the rest of the team together, other than training, combat, and after training or after combat wind down, unlike the times when they all just hung out together in the lounge with Shiro.

“Well, you remember the strategic meeting a few days ago, right? When I said I could probably wipe out all the Galra drones?” Lance began nervously, fidgeting a little.

“Yeah?”

“Well, the thing is… the reason I said that was because I can kinda sorta control water and ice, and – “

His words were cut off when Pidge stumbled into the kitchen, glasses askew and a wild look in her eyes. No doubt she’d been messing around with more Altean tech, as was her usual activity which doubled in intensity since Shiro’s disappearance. “I smell peanut butter cookies!” she declared, casting her gaze around, looking like a hungry animal. “Dibs!”

“Pidge, you can’t eat them just yet,” Hunk huffed, the importance of Lance’s words swept over by the enthusiasm Pidge showed. “They’re still too hot.”

“Who’s just called dibs on Hunk’s cookies?” Keith’s voice suddenly rang out as he dashed into the kitchen, all sweaty and messy, probably stopping his training because heard Pidge running about and wanted to know what was happening. “No one can call dibs on Hunk’s cookies. First comes first served!”

Lance had long since realized that with all this commotion about cookies, he wouldn’t be able to tell Hunk anything, so instead he decided to join the fray about the food. “Well, Mullet, if we go by that logic then I have the rights to eat Hunk’s cookies, like, right now!” He reached for the cookies and was immediately slapped with Hunk’s spatula, while the Red and Green Paladins rushed forward with shrieks of protest, practically fighting for the cookies. Not surprising, given Hunk’s cookies were to die for.

It was only later, after the whole cookie fiasco was over and everything had been eaten that Lance remembered he didn’t get to tell Hunk anything. He glanced over at his friend, but seeing that Hunk was tiredly tidying up the kitchen, Lance decided it wasn’t the time to push his problems on his friend and opted to help him clean up so Hunk could rest soon. He could always tell him another time.

He never got to tell him, though.

The third time he tried to tell the team was when they were all lounging together after a gruesome practice session, resting. Keith had looked particularly worse off, with black circling his eyes, indicating his lack of sleep and mounting stress.

“Dude, you need to rest more,” Hunk told Keith in distressed voice. “Your body can’t hold it any longer. How much sleep do you get a day?”

“Enough,” Keith replied, a little too quickly. At Hunk’s glare, he sighed and admitted, “Not enough.”

“You can’t just go on without rest, Keith!” Hunk protested, the same distress in his voice. “Just… rest, will you?”

“I can’t just go and rest when we still haven’t gotten Shiro back yet,” Keith shook his head, even though his voice went quieter with each word as exhaustion bled into his tone.

“We can’t have you falling over from fatigue either, Keith,” Pidge returned.

“I’m just trying to be better, okay?” Keith sighed. “Besides, Allura and I were talking a while ago, and she mentioned something about our bonds to our Lions not being strong enough to unlock the ability to manipulate the elemental quintessence we should be able to control.”

Other times, Lance would have zeroed in on the Allura and I were talking part, but the elemental quintessence part piqued his interest. “Controlling quintessence?”

“Yeah, basically she said that if our bond with our Lions is strong enough we’ll be able to use the elements they’re associated with without having to be piloting them,” Keith explained. “That could be useful. I really want to grill people’s faces off. It’s faster than hacking them with a sword.”

“Yeah, that kind of ability sure would come in handy,” Lance grinned. “Let’s see how fast you’ll be able to use yours, Keithy Boy.”

Keith snorted. “I’m sure I’ll master it before you do, Lance,” he said almost playfully, a teasing edge in his voice, and a little… underestimating? Which was kind of insulting, to be completely honest, but it was an improvement from his previous fatigue-laden speech.

But he didn’t let it get to him, because he knew he had the edge in this. The giddy excitement from victory filled Lance’s lungs, and his grin grew wider. “Ha, joke’s on you! I can do it really well already!“

“Yeah, right,” Keith scoffed good-naturedly, and Lance knew he didn’t mean to offend him because Keith literally didn’t know, but it stung.

“No, seriously. I can – “

Maybe Lance just wasn’t destined to tell the team. The first time, Allura cut him off because he was stupid enough to try to drop the info in the middle of a strategic meeting. The second time, it was it because of cookies. He was hoping for a third time’s a charm kind of thing going on, but when was Lance ever that lucky? No, instead of being able to let the words out, he was cut off by the alarm suddenly blaring violently, indicating that a battle was up ahead. That fight was easily won, and when the other Paladins chose to go to their rooms to rest, Lance went to the training room to vent.

Training to vent. Ugh, Lance felt like Keith, and they were supposed to be, like, opposite of each other.

Nevertheless, Lance was frustrated that he was interrupted every time he wanted to say something that could be important to his friends, and he wanted to vent. So he did.

After he set so that twenty drones would attack him at once, Lance put a stance and readied himself. Quickly, one by one, the white Altean battle drones dropped and made their way towards him. He took a deep breath and concentrated, feeling that now-familiar tug deep within him. Soft blue glow immediately enveloped his hands, and he slashed at the air. Ice immediately formed, trapping several drones in its freezing clutch.

More came, and Lance stomped powerfully. More ice formed, starting from the point where his foot connected to the floor and quickly grew in size and sharpness to pierce the oncoming drones. He knew more were coming, and he snarled wordlessly, extending his hands and lifting it up like a puppeteer. Water appeared out of nowhere, filling the room in a swirling current much like a whirlpool with Lance standing perfectly dry in the middle of all of it. Mentally, he pushed, and all the drones hit the wall with enough force for him to hear them crack despite the dampening quality of water. Now convinced that he had defeated them all, Lance let his hands drop to his sides. The water sloshed, almost touching and drowning him before vanishing to thin air.

He stood there alone, surrounded by piles of dripping wet drones, staring at the water thinly layering the floor. He sighed, still feeling restless and wondering if he should have another go at this when a voice reached his ears.

“…Lance?”

Lance suck in a sharp breath, going rigid in record time. After a moment, he licked his lips and turned around, forcing a stiff smile on his face. “…Hi, Coran.”

The Altean gazed around the room, mouth hanging open in surprise. “You… can manipulate the elemental quintessence already?”

Lance winced. “Um. Yes?”

Coran’s eyes found his. “Do the others know about this?”

Lance felt his shoulders sag and shook his head. “Not yet.”

Coran frowned. “Lance, my boy… you need to tell them.”

“I’m going to!” Lance assured him instantly. “I’ve been wanting to. But things always come up, and the others are always focused on so many more important things. I don’t want to bother them.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t bother them, Lance,” Coran assured. “In fact, what do you humans say? No time like the present? Let’s tell them now!”

“Wait, Coran, don’t!” Lance immediately latched to Coran’s arm to keep him from dashing off. “They’re all resting! Don’t disturb them!” He let go of Coran and stepped back a little. “I’ll tell them myself. In the morning, probably. Maybe. I dunno.” Seeds of doubt suddenly sprung within him, and he was suddenly unsure of his decision. “I mean, I still don’t want to make them all unfocused because of this announcement… and, you know, the whole unlocking new powers the closer you are to your Lion thing. I don’t want to make the others feel like their bond is weak.”

“But Lance, to be close enough to your Lion to be able to do this is could motivate the others to get to your level,” Coran argued. “A little bit of competition could be what we need for this team to be better. You should know that. You declare Keith as your rival all the time!”

Lance laughed. “This isn’t all me, Coran. I’m not… I didn’t unlock this ability myself. It’s more like it was given to me.”

Confusion and curiosity immediately shone in Coran’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

Lance blinked, considered, and ended up spilling everything to Coran even though he initially didn’t want to. He was easily his second most trusted person in the ship, the first being Hunk, so he wasn’t surprised to hear his words flowing easily, starting with the Neranese prince giving his the knowledge over water and ice thing, to how he trained as well as he could to the point that he could use water and ice as easily as summoning his bayard, to his frustration that the universe seemed to be against him telling the team.

Coran listened intently, nodding and humming in response but never once disrupting Lance’s flow. At one point, he had moved to envelope Lance’s hands in his, and the younger man nearly cried. When was the last time he even got comforted? When was the last time touches were a way to relay a message, something along the lines of I care for you and I want to help you however I can? Sure, he shared casual bumps and claps and nudges with the other Paladins, but never like this, and never as much as he hoped he could get. Ever since Shiro was gone, it all decreased to the point that Lance longed for it.

“Lance…” Coran began softly after Lance had finished talking, squeezing the Paladin’s hands gently, “From what I understand, the ability is solely yours. It’s not something the Neranese gave to you. The only thing they gave you was knowledge over water, and that helped, but this control? This ability to use the elements as you please? It’s your own.”

Lance gave a noncommittal noise, not agreeing yet not disagreeing, either.

Coran sighed. “Should I tell them in your place? It’s best to tell them as quickly as possible, my boy. Maybe this could help.”

Lance shook his head. “I appreciate it, Coran, but I have to tell them myself,” he explained. “I hope tomorrow I’ll be able to do it, but seriously, I need to tell them myself.”

“I wouldn’t mind helping a little,” Coran offered. “I can herd them into the lounge and keep them from running away.”

A small laugh escaped Lance’s lips before he could stop it. “Coran, they’re not sheep.”

Confusion made its way into Coran’s eyes. “Sheep?” he repeated.

“A kind of farm animal humans keep around,” Lance explained vaguely. “Thanks a lot for the offer, Coran, but I’d rather tell them without having to lock them up in a room so they’d stay around and listen to me. I’m sure things will work out, one way or another.”

Coran offered another smile, gave another squeeze, and finally left after he made sure Lance would rest. Apparently, he had checked on him after realizing he hadn’t returned to his quarters to sleep like the rest of the team and was in the training room instead of his more usual spots, like the observation deck.

Lance had grinned as he watched the Altean go. Ah, Coran, the kind, understanding, generally pretty much awesome guy, rivaled only by his ridiculously pure bro Hunk. What did he do to deserve people like them in his life?

Lance had seriously considered telling the team the next morning, he really did. But again, fate seemed to choose that specific time to fuck with his life decisions, for just as he opened his mouth to announce what he could do, Pidge barged into the dining room.

“Pidge? What’s wrong?” Hunk asked in confusion.

Pidge was panting, apparently having ran from wherever she had been bunkering in – she’d been harder and harder to find lately. She repositioned her askew glasses and took a deep breath, announcing urgently, “I know where Shiro is.”

Chaos reigned immediately.

The Galra ship was large, larger than most ships they’d have to fight or infiltrate before. It wasn’t particularly strange, since this ship was one of the prison ships, combined with the Druids’ kind-of-laboratory-but-not-really.

And Shiro was there, no doubt being experimented on by creepy Druids. In fact, Lance wouldn’t be surprised if Haggar herself was the one spearheading the experiment, given how she had declared the Champion as hers. Her little experiment, her best creation, her Champion. Which only emphasized the creepiness of the whole thing, and totally drove home how completely batshit insane and also incredibly, absolutely terrifying she could be. The nope nope factor she exuded from every orifice of her body was enough to drive a whole city running around like headless chickens, in Lance’s opinion.

Before going into the prison, the team had discussed their plan of action and decided that the best way to find out where Shiro was kept was to bang a drone upside the head, drag it into some corner, and had Pidge hack into it to retrieve info. If that plan was a no-go, their plan B was to sneak into the control room, also to retrieve info. With intel successfully gathered, they’d have easier time busting Shiro out, as well as the other prisoners. If that was impossible to do, their plan was to, essentially, let all hell break loose. And by hell, Lance meant prisoners. But that plan was unfavorable because the idea of letting all hell break loose was to have absolute chaos everywhere, and if they couldn’t find Shiro anywhere then chaos wouldn’t have helped them.

But apparently fate didn’t want to just fuck with Lance but all of the Voltron team, because that was exactly what happened. The best part was that they didn’t even have Shiro yet when all hell broke loose.

“What the hell happened?” Keith’s voice crackled through the comm, filled to the brim with confusion and maybe a touch of annoyance.

“Nooo idea,” Hunk sounded helpless, and Lance could feel his trepidation from the Paladin bond shared by the team. “What do we do? The Galra is beginning to shoot things. I don’t want to be shot!”

“From the security footage, it looks like someone decided they’re through being a prisoner and kind of just attacked while being transported to the experimentation wing,” Pidge’s voice sounded calm, but Lance could detect a hint of nervousness and admiration underneath it. “You go, four-armed muscle man of an alien dude.”

“Keith, what do we do?” Hunk asked again, and this time the pushing urgency in his voice spiked higher.

“Uhhh.” As usual, Keith’s initial answer was as eloquent as a fish gasping on land. “Try to direct as many of them as possible to an escape pod and have them go to the Castle? Is that alright, Allura?”

“That is absolutely fine,” Allura answered.

“What about Shiro?” Lance interjected. “Shouldn’t we try to find him?”

“I’ve been trying to hack into the database for a while, so I should find out where – got it!” Pidge yelled in triumph. “I know where he is. I’ll send the data to you guys.”

Immediately, the ship’s blueprint data showed itself in the protective glass of Lance’s helmet. He scanned the blueprint and sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m close to where he is. I should be able to get him.”

“I’m close to him too,” Keith announced. “I’ll go with Lance to make sure we can all get back safely… and just in case Shiro can’t really move around. Pidge and Hunk, try to get the prisoners to the pods.”

“On it,” Pidge answered at the same time as Hunk shouted, “Gotcha.”

“Looks like we’re doing this together, then, Mullet Man,” Lance remarked as he flitted through the throng of prisoners to where Shiro was, absently noting Keith’s position. “How’s the traffic on your end?”

“If you mean the prisoners, it’s kind of bad,” Keith answered. “Lots of people running about aimlessly. Hey, you guys! I’m the Red Paladin of Voltron! I need you to go to the pods and head to the white spaceship you’ll see outside. Go, now!”

Oh yeah, Lance was supposed to tell the prisoners too. He cleared his throat to grab the attention of several prisoners around him and bellowed, “Attention, ladies and gentlemen! Blue Paladin of Voltron speaking. If it’s not too much trouble for you, I need you all to go to the pods and head to the white space castle-ship thing outside. We can help you out.”

“How do we know if we could trust you?” a pink-skinned alien with three eyes and no nose asked warily.

Lance gasped dramatically. “Why, excuse you. Is the cool white and blue armor and the cool looking rifle-bayard not proof enough to you?” At the alien’s glare, he shrugged. “Eh, alright, I know I don’t have much of a proof aside from my words. But I assume people would want to get away from the Druids’ experiments, and I can assure you that we in the castle can help you guys.”

The alien’s gaze on him lingered for a moment before they called out to the rest, “Escape pod, people. Now.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Lance grinned cheerily before continuing his trek to Shiro’s cell.

Or. Not a cell. More like the Druid’s experimentation wing, to be completely honest. When Lance walked past the door leading to it, he had to freeze in his steps for a moment, staring at the sight in front of him with awe and dread mixing into one.

The hall was lit with the purplish light that seemed to be a constant theme with all the Galra ships. Tubes about the same size as the healing pods, reaching to the ceiling, lined the walls like pillars in a castle. Each of the tubes was filled to the brim with clear liquid, and some of them had specimens in them – humanoid aliens, weird little things that could probably count as space insects, pieces of gems, reddish in color. Lance gulped as he glanced at them and walked past, unsure if he could rescue the people in the tubes, or even if he should.

The hall as well as the map he was following led him to another room, circular in shape, where another tube stood in the middle. It was bigger than the other tubes lining the wall of the room, and within it was a familiar face. Shiro.

Lance’s breath caught. For a moment, he found himself unable to speak before he found his voice again and announced over the comm, “I found Shiro.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll get there in just a bit,” Keith’s voice carried over from the comm.

“Roger that. He’s inside some kind of weird giant test tube. I’ll look for a way to get him out.”

When the comm link fell silent, Lance pursed his lips and stared at Shiro. The Black Paladin curled into himself like a fetus in the test tube, looking almost like he was peacefully asleep if not for the cables and wires that poked into his skin in various places. The cables and wires extended into the floor and the ceiling, going to who knew where. A frown made its way into Lance’s face as he wondered if those would be hard to get rid of later.

In front of the test tube was a big table full of buttons, switches, and other things Lance wasn’t sure what to call. The table reminded Lance of some kind of sound system control table, or that table in the old Disney movie – Inside Out? Lance didn’t even know. At the very center of the table was a handprint reading machine, not unlike the ones needed to open the doors in the Galra ships, and Lance knew his best chance to get Shiro to safety was to wait until Keith came and had him open the tube for them.

It didn’t take long until Keith came barging into the room, bayard gripped at the ready, staring at Shiro with horror in his eyes. Lance, who had long since deactivated his bayard, immediately waved Keith over. “I saw this fingerprint machine thingy here, so I figured the tube could open up if you put your hand on it.”

Keith shook himself out of his shock and came over to Lance. “I… yeah. Yeah, sorry. Where is it again?”

“There,” Lance pointed at the screen with clawed Galra hand on it.

Keith immediately went over and put his hand on the pad. The hopes that the tube would open up for them was lost when nothing happened.

Keith pursed his lips. “We need Pidge,” he declared, and Lance nodded.

“Hey, Pidge? You there?” Lance asked over the comm link, hoping that the little tech gremlin was available to help them.

“Yeah, what is it?” Pidge’s voice came over immediately.

“We found Shiro, but he’s put in this weird testing tube machine thing, and we can’t do anything to open it up. Can you do it from your end?” Keith’s voice was thick with anxious need to get Shiro. He seemed seconds away from taking his sword to hack up the tube until it broke, but he reined himself back. They didn’t know what was in the tube, what was the liquid that held Shiro afloat. They didn’t know what it would do to them, and what it would do to Shiro.

“I need you to plug into the machine so I can work my magic, and then we’ll see what I can do.”

“Right,” Keith nodded and started looking for a way in. Lance joined immediately, finding a way to plug in, as Pidge put it, the way she did when they infiltrated that hidden Galra base right before Allura was taken.

“Alright, I’m going to need some time on this because it turns out to be a pretty complex system,” Pidge announced, “but I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“That’s all I ask, Pidge,” Keith nodded.

A few ticks passed, and Lance started tapping his foot on the floor to help with the jittery nervousness. As the constant tap-tap-tap became increasingly louder, Keith threw him annoyed look and hissed, “Would you stop that and be silent?”

“I can’t help it, I’m too tense!” Lance hissed back.

“Try not to make too much noise, someone might hear – “

As if on cue, the door to the far left of them whizzed open. They both turned, bayard at the ready and high on alert, and both froze for a moment when they realized who was standing at the door.

It was Haggar. It was the head witch herself.

“This day keeps getting better and better,” Lance muttered to himself.

“Shut up, don’t jinx us all,” Keith hissed once more.

“I see you are here to take my Champion,” Haggar spoke aloud, and the two Paladins tensed up again. “You should know by now that I will not let anyone take what is mine.”

Lance scrunched up his nose. Haggar was like, five percent Altean, five percent magic, ten percent evil, and eighty percent NOPE, and it was moments like this that drove that fact home. Saying Shiro was hers? Just nope.

“Shiro isn’t yours,” Keith denied heatedly at once, and Lance nodded approvingly by his side. Yes, yes, Keith, tell her. You go, man.

“I gave him everything that made him strong. He is as good as mine.” And there was that nope again.

“He’s still going to be strong even without you,” Lance declared. “He’s already strong even without that Galra arm. Stop saying he’s yours, because he’s not. Shiro belongs to no one but himself.”

Haggar gave a bark of laughter that made Lance jolt despite himself. “He is marked. That arm is proof that he belongs to the Galra empire. Nothing you can do to take him will change that fact.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll just have to see about that.”

“I’ve got it!” Pidge’s voice rang in the comm link, and Lance had never felt so much relief at hearing her voice. On cue, the mysterious liquid in the tube Shiro was in started to drain down, and then he was dangling by all the cables that stuck into his skin. Then they, too, one by one in quick succession detached, and all of a sudden Shiro was a crumpled heap at the floor of the tube. With a hiss, the tube opened, and both Keith and Lance were immediately at Shiro’s sides, pulling him out of the offending machinery. They both frowned at the blood that oozed from each and every spot the cables had poked Shiro’s body. Looked like he had to spend more time in the healing pod after this.

“So you would take my Champion after all?” Haggar’s voice rang quietly in the room, and Lance could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand. There was something in Haggar’s voice that hand changed, shifted somehow.

“He wasn’t yours to begin with,” Keith challenged the witch immediately.

“He is mine!” Purple lighting gathered in Haggar’s fingers and struck everywhere as she threw her arms up before slashing them down. The other tubes started cracking and breaking with loud shattering noise, and the liquid inside flooded the room immediately. The aliens inside pulled at the cables before standing upright, eyes glowing ominous Galra yellow, growl hammering in their throats.

“Get me my Champion back,” Haggar hissed, and each and every alien in the room growled in obedience.

Lance looked around to assess the situation. The aliens were at least eight feet tall each, all muscular and all bent to Haggar’s will. He glanced at Keith, and they seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Both shared a quick nod, turned, and dashed away from the room as fast as they could.

The controlled aliens quickly roared and chased. Panic and instinct immediately took over, and both Lance and Keith dashed faster, dragging Shiro as fast as they could away from there. As they ran through the corridor lined by more test tubes, they burst much like the other tubes in the circular room as soon as the Paladins passed them, leaving a mess of flooding clear liquid and pieces of crystalline glass as well as crawling and fidgeting creatures that immediately tried to grab the three of them. Nope, just nope.

Not only that, Lance was acutely aware of how Shiro remained unresponsive even through the general chaos, and he was sure Keith was as well. It added more to the urgency of their situation, and Lance didn’t like that.

“Guys!” a familiar voice called from ahead, and a smile bloomed in Lance’s face.

“Hunk, Pidge!” he called back. “You little pieces of Earthling miracles!”

Hunk took out his bayard and shot, barely even aiming at the aliens chasing Lance, Keith, and Shiro and managing to take out a large number of them. He quickly turned to Shiro, froze for a moment, and clenched his jaws. “Let me carry him,” he offered, deactivating his bayard. “I’m stronger than you, and we both need frontline fighters here.”

Keith let Hunk take Shiro into his gentle hands and activated his own bayard. “Our first priority now would be getting back. Let’s get back to our Lions.”

“It’s this way,” Pidge pointed to a direction.

“I’ll lead and slash away oncoming enemies, so direct me, Pidge,” Keith ordered. “Lance, guard our backs?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Lance asked back, already sending shots after shots to disable the aliens that tried to get to them still, having already set his bayard’s power level to hover somewhere above stun but definitely below kill.

“Uhhh, guys, I think we should do something before we move,” Hunk spoke up, suddenly sounding nervous, “cause I don’t think Shiro’s breathing.”

There was a pause for a split second before the four moved together, Hunk laying Shiro down on the floor and Pidge kneeling by them to offer assistance if needed and Lance and Keith providing cover for them by shooting and slashing at oncoming attacks. Lance stole glances at Hunk and Pidge trying to bring Shiro back, with Hunk pumping Shiro’s chest desperately and Pidge trying to breathe life back into his lungs. So far, the two-person CPR didn’t seem to help much.

Except it did. After a while, Shiro began frowning and coughing, hacking up the same clear liquid to the floor. But then he flopped back, gasping and rasping, eyes fluttering in a daze and looking half dead already. He kept losing blood, and his complexion looked more and more like white tissue paper than actual human skin.

Well, Shiro wasn’t the only one in a bad shape. Both Lance and Keith were starting to feel overwhelmed by all the oncoming aliens. Under Haggar’s control, they moved more like programmed robots that it was easy for the Paladins to disable them, but in their sheer numbers it was too exhausting to plow through everything.

“I will not let you take my Champion.”

Lance groaned aloud and Keith cursed.

“See, you were totally jinxing us back then,” Keith grumbled to Lance.

“Well I apologize profusely, Your Majesty the Mullet Man, but I don’t think this is the time to discuss that,” Lance retorted quickly.

Haggar walked to them, eyes glinting under the shadow of her hood, and Lance was reminded of the horror-thriller movies his younger sister seemed to love so much. He shuddered and aimed, setting his bayard to kill and shot. Haggar easily deflected the shot and narrowed her eyes.

“Give me back my Champion,” she demanded. The aliens in the room stopped attacking, backing away.

“He’s not yours!” Pidge snapped back without missing a beat. “Try to take him yourself!”

Haggar narrowed her eyes even further, and struck the air with more speed than it should be possible. Purple lighting shot up from her fingertips and struck Pidge, who screamed in both pain and surprise as the force pushed her to the side and slammed her to the wall. She coughed and tried to stand, but she was trembling, and even though Lance could see her fire was far from being snuffed he could also see that Haggar’s attack did more damage than they’d like.

“He is going to be the most powerful weapon the Galra Empire has ever seen,” Haggar hissed. “I will not have you steal away what is our property.”

Anger surged through Lance’s veins. How many times had Haggar said that Shiro was a property? A thing to be owned instead of a sentient being, a person, with wants and needs and desires of his own? His gaze flicked to Pidge for a moment, seeing her struggling to stand while clenching her bayard tightly that Lance was sure her fingers had turned white under the gloves. Haggar hurt her, and there was no doubt that she would hurt the rest of them, just like she already did Shiro.

Unforgivable.

“You told me to take him myself, and so I will,” Haggar glared at Pidge, purple electricity crackling to life on her fingertips. “I shall take back what is rightfully mine!”

That did it.

As Haggar lifted her hands, both cloaked in power and ready to strike, the aliens around them roared in unison and rushed forward. Lance opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and screamed.

The now-familiar blue glow enveloped him in an instant. Water materialized into being from out of nowhere, rising in height and rushing into an angry whirlpool, splashing and raining on every Paladin who remained safe in the centerpiece of the flood, safe around the eye of the storm that was Lance. The Blue Paladin was still glowing the same color as his title as he controlled the water to push and bang the aliens to the wall. He retracted the water around them and they fell, already unconscious, to the floor. The water vanished, just like usual.

Lance turned his attention to Haggar, who he still held captive inside a separate portion of swirling water. He glared at her before walking over, reaching out, tapping the surface of the water with his index finger. Ice immediately formed as the water froze, and Lance could see Haggar’s eyes widening within the prison. When it looked like she was trying to do something with her magic to break herself free, Lance willed the ice to spread faster. Not even five ticks later, Haggar was already completely encased in ice, like some sort of caveman preserved in a frozen display. Lance stepped back from her.

“Shiro!”

Lance whipped around and immediately saw his companions crowding Shiro, who was by now lying in his own pool of blood. Coldness that had nothing to do with the ice or his new powers spread through Lance like stubborn winter frost, and he rushed to them.

“What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?” Hunk blabbed in panic. “We need a healing pod now, but there isn’t any around, what do we do?”

“He won’t be able to survive to the ship,” Pidge’s voice was cracked, broken, despairing already.

“Shiro!” was all Keith could say, through the tears that was already streaming down his face. “Shiro! Shiro!”

Lance stared, unmoving, suddenly finding himself unable to breathe. They had tried so hard to get Shiro back, and they still lost him anyway? He stared at Shiro, lying still – too still – on the floor, with blood still oozing from his wounds and breathing too weak that Lance might just be imagining it. Pidge was right, he wouldn’t survive all the way to the ship. Was there really nothing they could do? Was it all just for nothing?

My Paladin…

He jolted in surprise. Blue?

Yes, she answered, and Lance found himself momentarily stunned. He had known that he could communicate with Blue, but never this clear from this far away.

Blue, what can I do? Lance asked hopelessly, deciding to focus on the apparent strengthening of their bond later. Shiro’s… is he gone?

I would not know, came Blue’s answer, but it is true that his light is nothing more but a flicker by now. However, my Paladin… you can change that.

I can? Lance asked, stunned. How?

Water does more than attack, Blue answered. Water heals. Water washes away wounds and closes them. Water embraces and nurtures and nurses. Water strengthens. Heal him, my Paladin. You will know what to do.

Are you saying I’m a healer? Like Katara in The Last Airbender?

I know not of the human entertainment, my Paladin, but yes, essentially.

Lance looked at his hands for a moment and clenched them in determination. As Blue’s voice retreated back to the dark corners of his mind, he let the power of his quintessence bubble up once more, summoning water into his hands. “Step back,” he told his teammates, and they looked up at him in surprise before complying.

Lance took a deep breath. He put his hands on Shiro’s chest while exhaling slowly. The water he had summoned immediately spread and blanketed Shiro’s entire body, leaving only his face dry. It immediately changed color, crystal clear stained with blood red.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Lance closed his eyes and pressed lightly at Shiro’s chest, not wholly sure what to do and letting the power surge up and do its work. The water immediately glowed ethereal blue.

He could hear Keith, Pidge, and Hunk gasp in surprise. He ignored them, instead wondering what to do, when he suddenly felt as though the water was a part of him, like extra limbs he didn’t know he had. He immediately felt through the water, probing Shiro’s wounds, feeling the blood sloshing into the glowing water.

Inhale, exhale. Blue was right. He knew what to do.

He took another deep breath and concentrated, willing the wounds to close. Slowly, the water coaxed Shiro’s body to heal, feeding the energy it needed to survive in a slow but constant stream. Lance could feel Shiro’s wounds closing, slowly, could feel his heart thumping with anxious and desperate will to live, could feel his breath deepening as his lungs struggled to take more air. Shiro’s body worked to heal and live, each organ working in tandem with one another in an orchestra to bring Shiro back to life.

“You’re healing him.” Distantly, Lance could hear Keith speak, but his attention was absorbed in Shiro too much to realize those words were directed at him. Right then, there was only himself, Shiro, and the ocean and the streams and dripping dew for Lance.

And then, a gasp, prompting Lance to open his eyes and stare at Shiro expectantly. Shiro’s eyes fluttered open and he blinked a few times, staring dazedly into Lance’s eyes before he gazed around in the same daze, seemingly unable to understand what was going on and where he was. Then his eyes fluttered closed again and his head lolled to the side, losing consciousness once more.

But that was fine. This was a good kind of unconscious. It was a healing sleep instead of a desperate battle for life. When he realized that, Lance sighed in relief, letting his hold over the water lessen at last. The water immediately sloshed away from Shiro, washing the pool of blood underneath him that somehow was intact, before vanishing into thin air once more. The buzz of energy from fighting and healing hadn’t left Lance’s fingertips, however… maybe because this was the first time he had used his quintessence in such manner?

“Lance… what…?”

Lance turned, suddenly aware that Keith, Pidge, and Hunk were still there, still staring at him in something he couldn’t quite identify. He gulped, wondering how to explain everything, when the small but unmistakable sound of ice slowly chipping and breaking reached his ears.

He turned to check. The ice that encased Haggar was starting to break, slowly but surely, cracks as fine as silk threads slowly spiderwebbing out from the innermost part of the ice. Alarm rose in Lance’s stomach and adrenaline pumped into his bloodstream once more as he jumped to his feet. “No time to explain. Haggar’s breaking out; we need to go now.”

Moving out was far easier than sneaking in, considering that the soldiers and drones they had to avoid when infiltrating were not functional anymore. They still found some stray prisoners that thankfully were not under Haggar’s control and immediately had them follow the Paladins so they could escape the ship. After directing the prisoners to the pods, the Paladins rushed to the Green Lion, which they boarded to infiltrate the ship.

The tension inside the lion was thick. Keith, for the most part, paid more attention to Shiro, but both Pidge and Hunk kept stealing glances at Lance. Lance, however, was too focused on trying to keep Haggar imprisoned from afar, but maintaining the ice from such distance while Haggar was fighting back wasn’t easy. Soon, he could feel the ice prison crumbling away.

“Haggar just broke out,” he announced. “Might be best to get back quickly.”

“On it,” Pidge responded almost automatically. Soon, Green was safely docked in the hangar and the Paladins stumbled out of the lion’s mouth, Hunk and Keith supporting Shiro while Pidge hovered between them and Lance, seemingly unable to decide where exactly she wanted to stand. They were quickly greeted by Coran and Allura, who both rushed to them.

“Paladins! What happened back there?” Allura demanded instantly.

“Get Shiro in the healing pod, please,” Lance muttered instead as he felt his strength ebbing away. Strangely, the energy from controlling water rose instead, buzzing in his ears and filling him up.

“Lance?” Allura called, suddenly sounding wary and a little nervous. “What’s going on with you?”

“Go take care of Shiro first, he still needs the healing pod,” Lance panted desperately. He opened his mouth to say more, but his quitessence spiked suddenly, painfully, and he muffled a groan as it dropped as soon as it came. The contrast surprised him, and his knees buckled in shock. Before he fell flat on the floor, though, Pidge rushed in and caught him, grunting in effort to keep him upright as Hunk and Keith both called out in alarm and Coran and Allura ran to his side.

“Lance, your quintessence level is critical!” Allura nearly screamed in distress. “How does this happen? I couldn’t make sense of anything all of you said while fighting Haggar. Did you master the elemental quintessence already?”

Lance wanted to answer, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it coherently, not like this. He moaned instead and called, “Coran?”

“What is it, Lance?” Coran responded immediately, taking his weight over from Pidge.

“You can tell them if you want to,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. His vision was swimming already, and darkness had begun to ebb from the edges of his vision. Was it supposed to do that?

“Tell us what?” Pidge demanded. “What exactly was that? How was Lance waterbending? What just happened?!”

Lance would have laughed, but he was just too tired to do anything. His eyes fluttered close.

He didn’t hear his teammates crying out for him in distress. Didn’t hear or feel the castle being rocked when the Galran ship began shooting them as Haggar finally regained control. Didn’t feel it when Allura lifted his chin for a moment to check before dashing to the control room to open a wormhole to ensure their safe escape. He was already gone.

When Lance finally came to, it was as he came out of a healing pod and straight into the waiting arms of Shiro’s. He blinked blearily and looked up to meet Shiro’s eyes, confused, before memory caught up with him and a smile bloomed in his face.

“We got you back!” he exclaimed, gesturing to Shiro as the older man chuckled and released him.

Shiro chuckled. “Yeah, I heard it was all thanks to you. So thank you.”

Lance shrugged despite their awkward position. “Eh, it was as much me as it was everyone else. Besides, you’d do the same too.”

“Like hell? You basically saved all our lives!”

Lance blinked and looked around, finally realizing that the others were there too. “Good to see you too, Pidge,” he gave her his patented finger guns. “And also Hunk and Keith and Coran and,” he wiggled a brow, “the princess. Pretty as ever, I see.”

Allura rolled her eyes with a shake of her head, but there was something akin of suppressed smile playing at her lips. “At least we know you’re feeling better now,” she sighed.

Hunk pried him off Shiro and put a blanket around his shoulders before pulling him into a hug. “Right now I don’t even care about the flirting or the jokes. I’m just so so glad you’re back. I’m gonna make you a lot of burritos as soon as we get the ingredients, just you wait.”

“That’s great, buddy, I can’t wait,” Lance grinned as he nuzzled into the embrace. Hunk’s hugs were the best.

“You’ll have to settle for food goo for now though,” Keith said with a shrug.

“But before that!” Pidge shot to him, jumping up and basically dangling on Hunk’s shoulder to meet Lance’s eyes. “What was that on that ship? How did you do all those things? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I, uh,” Lance drew back a little. “Coran didn’t tell you guys?” He glanced at Coran questioningly as Pidge slid off Hunk’s shoulder.

“I decided to let you tell them yourself,” Coran explained. “I did tell about how I found out, but other than that, nothing.”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” Keith interjected, “since when were you able to deal with twenty level ten drones all by yourself? I mean, that new power is handy for that, but holy shit, Lance.”

“Wait, those were level ten?” Lance repeated in disbelief.

“You didn’t even realize?!”

“No!”

“Paladins!” Allura’s voice rang above theirs, and they fell silent immediately. When she was satisfied with it, she gave a nod and focused on Lance. “Lance. I’d like to know why you didn’t tell anyone before. This is big news! Elemental quitessence mastering is a proof that you’re maturing as a paladin and that your bond with your Lion is even stronger than before.”

Lance’s face fell. “But… I did try to tell you.”

Allura seemed entirely taken aback. “What?”

“I tried to tell you,” Lance repeated. “I admit my timing was bad, but I did try. During that strategy meeting.” There was a beat of silence. “I should have picked a better time, though. And I should’ve tried to tell you again. I’m sorry.”

Allura frowned, still confused. She opened her mouth to speak and stopped herself suddenly, eyes widening. “Oh. Oh. Quiznak, you were trying to… oh.”

A bitter smile made its way to Lance’s face before he could control himself. “Yeah, that summed it up pretty nicely.” There was a beat of tense silence, and Lance popped it immediately. “I mean, that’s partly on me, since we were all tense for a mission that could potentially require Voltron, and Shiro was still gone, and who am I to just up and yell that I can deal with an entire region of Galra drones? Of course you didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either.”

“Lance – “ Allura interjected.

Lance didn’t let her. “I know I sounded unreasonable, Princess, and I said it all just out of nowhere. Like you said, you couldn’t let probabilities control the mission. You needed certainty. And I didn’t sound certain back then, so that’s just to be expected that you didn’t believe me.”

“Alright, I see your point,” Keith chimed, “but what about the rest of us?”

“I tried to tell you too,” Lance shrunk deeper into Hunk’s hug. “I think you didn’t realize I was serious.”

Keith frowned, then his face went slack. “Ah.”

“I kind of get it,” Lance mumbled into Hunk’s shirt. “I’m not particularly strong. I’m, like, average in everything. I joke around a lot. I flirt with anything that breathes. So, I kind of see why you didn’t think I was serious. Besides, the alarm sounded right while I was talking, so it just got… brushed off.”

“Wait, how many times in total have you tried to tell us?” Hunk asked seriously.

“Uh, three?” Lance answered reluctantly. “The other time everyone got distracted by your cookies, and I kind of just dropped it too because Hunk, my man, your cookies are awesome.”

The look Hunk gave him clued Lance that it wasn’t okay, none of it was okay. He licked his lips and sighed. “It’s not your fault, guys, not really. My timing sucked.”

“No,” Keith shook his head. “We were wrong not to listen too.”

“Yes, we shouldn’t have treated you like that,” Allura added. “I’m sorry, Lance. We’re sorry. I hope you could forgive us.”

Lance blinked. “Of course I forgive you guys,” he answered without hesitation. “You weren’t exactly wrong, either.”

Allura stared, a stunned look in her eyes, before she broke into a smile. “How could you be so immature at times and suddenly speak like that? You forgive so easily, Lance.”

Lance grinned. “I dunno. It’s part of my charm, I guess.”

“Oh, hey, Lance! Can you do that waterbending thing again?” Pidge spoke up as she jumped to dangle on Hunk’s shoulder again, eyes sparkling. “I want to see how you do it!”

“Yeah, that was a wonder to look at!” Hunk agreed immediately. He shifted so he could support both Lance and Pidge better. “It was all glowey and beautiful.”

“And if we can get how you do it, maybe we can try to do our own brand of bending too,” Pidge added.

“Pidge, buddy, there’s no fancy studying here,” Lance shook his head in mock disappointment. “I can do this because I’m tight with my best girl. You just need to deepen your bond with the Green Lion!”

“Shut up and do it, Lance.”

Lance laughed and complied. The familiar blue light wrapped around his fingers as he felt that tug deep within him. Water appeared immediately, flowing in the air like a long Chinese dragon dancing through the clouds, before shooting up and split into a rain that immediately froze over and fell as soft powdery snow. He glanced around and smiled proudly when he saw the rest of the team staring at the indoor snow in awe. There was a hint of smugness he felt at Keith’s speechless, wonderstruck face.

“Oh, wow,” Shiro breathed. “I was told that it was beautiful, but… wow.” He turned to look directly at Lance. “How exactly did you get this power again? I think Coran mentioned something about you feeling like it was given to you?”

Lance returned his gaze and grinned, feeling warm and accepted for the first time in a long while. It finally felt like things were going to be okay, that everything would go back to normal.

The others stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to talk and tell his tale. His grin widened. He opened his mouth and began to speak.

[sweetestlamb]

Another Bad Idea

Summary: Cha-young tries to get over Vincenzo by getting under someone else. It goes as well as you would expect.

Author's note: What am I even doing here honestly😩😭 someone liked my fic "Bad Idea" today and I started reading it again myself because I missed chayenzo and then I suddenly got this urge to write this....smutty filth instead of doing anything remotely reproductive. I loved how sweet this couple was in the show but honestly low key I kinda wanted them to be psychos in love and rip each other apart (romantically) so I wrote this.

Ultimately she's the one to ruin their arrangement. She's never been able to resist temptation and at first she tries to convince herself that once was enough, she'd gotten it out of her system.

Except when he loosens his tie in the office and it's just them- another late night trying to find dirt on Babel's corruption- she can't help but watch the motion and think about how much she wishes that she was the one taking off his tie. She wanted to remove his tie with her teeth and then swallow him whole.

"See something you want?"

His voice had been mocking, teasing just like the little shit he had proved to be.

But he wasn't wrong, although she knew that any kind of real feelings just weren't allowed between them, fucking was different. Why did it need to be a one night stand when they both knew what they'd signed up for? They could fuck without crossing the line.

So in lieu of a verbal reply she walked over to the office door closed the door with an emphatic click before turning to face him.

"I have some thoughts I wouldn't mind you knocking out real good and hard."

His eyes glinted dangerously in the awful yellow lighting and as soon as he moved she was moving too, racing around a table to meet him half way. He tugged her roughly into his arms and she went willingly, gasping as he palmed her ass and pulled her into a bruising kiss that made her head spin.

He took her from behind right there on the table, his tie stuffed in her mouth barely smothering her moans the wet sound of them fucking loud in the quiet of the room.

She limped home with a satisfied grin on her face.

It's easy, having sex with Vincenzo. Usually she's the one to initiate but there are times when he stares at her so hard it feels like he's willing her clothes off her body.

It's easy because it means nothing.

Until that's not true any longer.

She's never been able to leave well enough alone. So of course she starts to see meaning in his little actions.

Holding her purse.

Bringing her coffee.

Sitting beside her on the couch because she struggles to fall asleep alone after the break in.

Sharing stories about her late father.

Sharing stories about his lost mother.

Coffee dates in the morning and drinks in the evening.

Soon they're hanging out, simply enjoying each other's company far more than they are doing the horizontal tango and she should have stopped it before things flew out of her control.

Before she ruined everything.

She groans loudly uncaring of the neighbors-they should be used to this by now- as he rocks into her slowly, they're face to face her legs wrapped around his waist and his hands tangled in her own. Tonight is different, neither are frantic or crazed each movement of his hips makes her exhale as she's drawn closer to her climax. Her third one tonight, he was such an overachiever in bed.

There's ringing in her ears as she succumbs to him and they've done this enough for her to know that he wasn't far behind her, gripping her thighs too tightly and thrusting just a bit too hard.

And as he's panting deep swallows of jagged breath into her neck she says, "Are you still leaving after we're done taking down Babel?"

She doesn't mean to. Definitely not here and not now but it's been on her mind. Each second that they spend in each other's company, she starts to.... imagine a world where they could be together.

Not just for sex. But really together.

His eyes widen as he stares at her, for the first time she sees fear in those cold eyes. He looks like he's staring at the barrel of a gun instead of his casual sex buddy.

He pulls out of her too quickly, she winces at the discomfort but remains perfectly still waiting for his reaction.

Watches him turn away, now sitting on the edge of his bed and she can see his answer in the rigid line of his shoulder before he ever speaks a word but nonetheless he answers her question, her real question.

"I don't think we should do this anymore." And then he tugs on his boxers and leaves her to her thoughts.

She doesn't cry. That would be too pathetic but the crack that formed when her mother passed and then her father grows larger, deeper and aches painfully.

It hurts to stay in the bed where they've been intimate so often but leaving and seeing him would hurt even more so she stays, blinking at the ceiling forcing red hot tears not to fall.

----------

He's never been good at sharing, too possessive of everything that he holds dear to share that with another. That included his clothes, his cars, his position in life and then he started to realize that it was extending to one particular person in his life.

She was an enigma to him, seemingly heartless and money hungry at first and while he cursed her for it secretly he admired it because it was real and authentic, the world was a cut throat piece of shit and good people hardly stayed that way for long.

But her father's dead seemed to melt away the facade she'd been cultivating. And he could see the scared little girl underneath the quirky too loud too attractive too everything lawyer.

It's too easy being around her. He doesn't realize that they've traversed passed colleagues and people who occasionally fuck each other's brains out until it's too late and he's wiping her tears as she cries drunkenly over drinks and fried meats.

His dick is still wet as he tells her they need to stop doing this and means it. This is not what he had came here to accomplish and he was the last thing she needed in this fucked up world, he couldn't make her happy didn't even know if he could be happy so it was right to let her go before things became even worst.

She was confusing carnal and emotional desires. He wasn't boyfriend material, it was laughable to even consider. He was nothing but an orphan and a murderer. She should aim for higher than someone like him.

But he still expects a battle. For her to give him the icy glares and scathing comments.

He's left waiting.

Cha-young is the picture of professionalism, easily moving back into their relationship before either of them knew what the other tasted like. He never catches her staring even though he can barely keep his eyes off of her, it's as if he dreamt the entire thing and there was nothing unusual between them to begin with.

This continues for weeks and he accepts that he was right, there were never any feelings involved and she had just been confused and time was the only thing necessary for her to realize her mistake.

They continue to fight Babel, suffering unimaginable losses and wins.

Everything is has it should be.

Then she starts showing up with makeup, nothing too noticeable but he notices because he's always looking at her.

Dark liner ringing those eyes.

Deep wine lipstick coating that mouth. A mouth that has devastated him until he was quaking in her arms.

He doesn't question her, has no right to even he knows that.

He hears the scrape of her chair, one wobbly wheel on the floor and tries to discreetly watch her walk away. Fights the urge to groan as she tosses her head back and scoops her thick hair up into a messy bun, her soft nape now on full display.

She leaves the room in a pantsuit, much like he's used to seeing her wear but returns in a dress that makes his mouth dry and his hands twitch.

It's short and tight, fitting around her slim body perfectly hugging the dip of her thin waist and the light curve out of her hip. And while the dress is sexy in an unassuming way, mostly because she's a gorgeous woman who would look good in anything, there is no skin showing she's completely covered up and he thanks all deities for that. But then she strides over to her desk and turns her back retrieving her jacket and phone and that's when almost forgets to breathe.

Her naked back stares him in the eyes.

A split that starts from the top of her spine and stops just above her tailbone.

He wants to bound across the room and lick a line down her spine, watch the goose pimples raise on that delicious delicate skin and hear those breathy broken gasps as he tugs the offending dress off her body and lets his tongue travel down, down further.

Then it disappears behind her coat. And he slams back to reality and her assessing eye, she stares at him for a moment too long before that placid smile he's tired of seeing thrown his way returns to her face.

"I'm going to head out first. Good work today. Oh and I won't be in tomorrow."

She never takes any days off. He had thought he was a workaholic until he met her. He tries his hardest to keep his voice level, "Did something happen? Are you okay?"

What was she doing and why hadn't she told him about her plans? He almost feels betrayed that something could be happening in her life that he doesn't know about. They were always the other's confidant.

"Oh it's nothing serious. I just need a personal day to sort some things out."

He should just leave it alone, she's being vague and it's frustrating but she doesn't owe him anything he knows that but he still hears himself say, "What things, tell me!" He hears the anger and command in his voice and unlike everyone else he's encountered who cower in the face of his ire, she gets ignited too instead her own rage burning in her eyes.

"Do I have to answer to you now?" She bites out, snatching her purse and rushing to the door her hair cascading from the precarious bun she placed it in.

"Stop being stubborn. I'm just worried about you." He calls it to her retreating back.

She scoffs at him, too many emotions washing over her face nearly impossible for him to pinpoint them all.

"Well don't. I'll be someone else's problem tonight."

And then she's gone and he almost wishes that she had slammed the door instead of quietly shutting it.

He goes home.

Because it's not his business, she is not his business. He should happily let her be someone else's problem.

But it doesn't take much to pull up her social media and see her posts, she's bright eyed in all her videos dancing chaotically with a drink in her hand and then he almost drops his voice when he hears an unfamiliar voice in the background.

"Damn babe. You look so hot tonight. Come home with me."

And then the video cuts off and he's left sitting alone in his living room with only murderous rage to keep him company.

He's dressed- all black head to toe- and out the door before he can think about what he's doing.

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

She has no idea where her date went and honestly she doesn't even care. It was clear that he wanted to fuck her and that was all she needed, to reclaim her body and stop the dreams about a certain Italian that she shouldn't be thinking about.

They were done and his little fit in the office today meant nothing. He was a control freak, and she knew that her suddenly disappearing would try him wild merely because he liked knowing what she was doing. It was pathetic but it made her feel for a second that he actually cared about her. It was fake but she didn't care.

She dances harder as the music switches to something she's never heard before, a soulful voice crooning in English and while she doesn't understand the words the rhythm speaks clearly.

And it feels so good (and that's what takes me highhhhh...) your love it keeps me aliveeeee.....

The energy in the room is hypnotizing and as she feels a large hand wrapping around her waist she doesn't fight the embrace, allowing herself to be pulled until her back is pressed firmly against a solid chest.

"You're the sexiest woman in this room. I couldn't stay away, I hope you don't mind."

His voice is nice, she ignores the voice in her head that says it's not deep enough or stilted enough.

She tosses her hair over her shoulder to get a good look at her new companion's face and she's content with him, he has a square jaw and thin lips but more importantly he doesn't remind her of anyone and she only feels a mild attraction to him.

He's safe. And she needs that more than ever now.

"No. I don't mind at all. Dance with me?"

He nods eagerly and she loses herself in the music, grinding her ass into the mild sway of his hips and when he grips her waist she has to force out the face that flashes in her mind.

No. I won't think about him. I don't care about him.

Thankfully her partner doesn't notice her mind wandering and he's gasping behind her, pulling her tighter against his body and she can feel his cock suddenly right there on her ass cheek, can feel how riled up she's making him and how utterly unaffected she is by him in return.

But she had no plans of stopping, she still had an itch and surely he could scratch it even if he couldn't completely sate it. She had to do it to prove to herself that she was fine. Even if she didn't enjoy it, just being able to do it was enough. She needed to be in control.

Alcohol would make it easier, she just needed more alcohol so she could let this stranger screw her brains out and forget about the one who wanted nothing to do with her.

"Get me a drink." She commands, dipping her body low before teasingly dragging her ass back up his body in a clear promise.

He immediately gets the message, fondling her before rushing away to obey her in the hopes that she'll make good on her promise.

She feels hot and sweaty, so she reaches behind herself to grip her hair a second time today pulling the wet tresses away from her overheated neck sighing as the cool air hits her skin.

She's lost in her own world, so she misses the sudden chatter around her. Women and men parting around her as a new predator enters the fray, she's dancing with her arms still holding her hair above her head when she feels a little touch on her neck, just a gentle brush but it sparks like static and makes her jump, spinning around to face her intruder.

---------

He spots her right away, dancing alone in the middle of the floor completely unencumbered by the eyes watching her with lust, envy and jealousy.

He's never seen her like this. Never knew that she could be so intentionally sexy. So seductive.

Her movements are fluid, more sensual than he expects from her on the dance floor. Her hands are in constant motion, smoothing over her breasts, hugging her hips, lifting and dropping her hair and it's pure torture to watch her touch herself when the hands on her body should be his.

And then his vision flares red when someone approaches her and to his disgust she welcomes the interruption. Allows someone else touch her and rub their body against her, he growls as she thrusts her pert little ass against a stranger's crotch and lets him hump her like a fucking dog in heat.

He starts moving, pushing people who get in his way and others start to take notice of him, jumping out of his war path. Women reach out to touch him but he swats their hands away, too focused to be deterred for even a minute.

By the time he gets there she's alone again but the image of someone else touching what's his is still burned in his mind.

He reaches out to touch her, scared of the unbridled rush of jealousy and anger that are warring inside of him.

Instantly she jolts at his touch, as if his touch is unwelcomed but that bastard's wasn't. He wants to knock all the other man's teeth out and make him regret ever touching his woman.

"What? What are you doing here?" She has to shout to be heard above the music.

He stares her down instead of replying, annoyed with her drunk stagger and how red her cheeks are. Secretly he doesn't want to admit that he's terrified about what would have happened if he didn't follow her here tonight.

"Who the fuck was that?" He ignores her question, instead firing off one of his own.

She bristles at his tone, glaring right back into his eyes before turning on her heel and walking away.

He is too flabbergasted to move but then she starts to disappear into the crowd and he refuses to let her out of his sight. He takes huge strides, closing the distance between them in four large steps. He decides against grabbing her wrist and intercepts her escape, stepping in front of her.

"You!" She points right in his face, "Shouldn't be here. I don't need a babysitter so just leave me alone."

He doesn't back down, squaring his shoulders and stepping into her space until he can feel her breath and the heat radiating from her body.

"You are the one who shouldn't be here. Who the hell were you letting touch you? I'll kill him."

It's scary how badly he means every word, he wants to kill anyone who has ever looked at her with ill intention, yearns to gauge their eyes out with a rusty spoon.

"That's the guy I'm going to let fuck me tonight! You won't do anything to him, just mind your business!"

He stares at her in full wonder. And then it fades to indescribable rage. He could burn this club to the ground right here and now and it still wouldn't be enough.

"What the fuck did you just say to me? I dare you to say that again." He trembles from all the fury building up inside, hovering above her with a dark sneer twisting his lips.

She has no sense of self preservation. Grins at him.

Grins. Like they are having a nice chat.

"You heard me. I found your replacement. So you can go away. I don't need you anymore."

The words are like slaps in the face, she was discarding him for a nameless quick fuck.

It hurt. It's hard not to grab at his chest and see if his heart is even still beating.

And then the very asshole who couldn't keep his hands to himself returns, happy and eager with a drink in his hand and she shoots him this coy little smile his way as if they have a secret and he can't handle it. He decks the other man so hard that he collapses with a single blow, the drinks flying in the air before crashing to the floor in a sticky mess.

He hardly fights the bouncer as he's removed from the establishment, thrown out on his ass and banned from ever returning.

He stays on the ground. His knuckles bruised but not bleeding. He wants to make them bleed. He needs the pain.

"You had no right to punch him."

He lifts his head and her anger about this insignificant asshole reignites his own rage.

"Are you that hungry for a fuck? Are you that fucking thirsty for it?"

"Yes! I'm that hungry! I want to someone to fuck me blind so I won't think about my father or Babel or yo--!!"

She slams her hand over her mouth, shoving the words back into her throat but it's too late. He already knows what she was going to say.

"Me. You don't want to think about me."

"No I don't! You said we should stop this, you pushed me away. You did all that so why are you here pretending you give a shit about what I do or who I fuck? What does any of it have to do with you?"

The words explode from her chest, even the persistent thumping from the club isn't enough to block her exclamation.

He watches her in surprise, that only builds as she suddenly starts to cry before brutally swiping away the tears and shoving past him.

He watches her leave in disbelief.

Why was she crying? She shouldn't be crying over him. It didn't make any sense unless she..... unless this was more than sex. Unless her asking that question was more than her accidentally blurring the lines.

It wasn't the first time she asked him that. But it was the scariest time because he couldn't answer her. Knew exactly what he was supposed to say but looking at her sleepy sated face he forgot all the reasons why they shouldn't be together.

So he did push her away. It was what was best for both of them or so he convinced himself because he was just a criminal and she deserved more. So why was he here fighting her and attacking men for touching her?

What the fuck am I doing?

When he blinks back to reality she's already halfway across the parking lot, climbing into her car and he races after her she was in no condition to drive.

"Hey! You're too drunk to drive!"

He grabs the driver's door before she can close it and returns her glare.

"I'm fine. Just mind your busin--"

"You are my business."

She gapes at him and he stares back unflinching, who was he kidding? It was hardly too late. Putting distance between them did nothing but make him want her more.

"No. No, I'm not. Let go of my door." She pulls the handle but he's stronger and eventually she gives up with an annoyed sigh. He crouches down, needing to see her eyes when he says this.

"I was wrong."

She stills, staring out the windshield. Not daring to look at him.

"I'm.... sorry."

That makes her look at him. Her face scrunching up again and he can't bare to see it so he reaches out to cup her face and pull her closer to him, kissing the tears that fall down her cheeks.

Without warning he tugs her up out of her seat, sitting down himself before pulling her into his lap.

She tucks her face into his neck and he caresses the naked skin that peeks out the back of her dress, in broad rough strokes. He preens when she starts to melt into his hold but then she pushes away from him, bringing them face to face again.

"I didn't mean to. I tried to stop myself from....I thought if I did it with someone else I could free myself from my feelings for you."

"...... Would you have gone through with it?" It's a dumb question to ask because the fire is finally settling and her answer could possibly set him off again but he has to know, just how close had she come.

She stares him right in the eye with no shame.

"I would have done it."

He wants to go back and rip that bastard apart.

"Stop. I would have done it and thought of you the entire time and hated myself. It wouldn't have meant anything."

Logically he knows that she's right, he has had sex with countless women and not even remembered their name the next day but it still kills him that he almost pushed her to the edge, because he was too scared to admit his feelings.

But deeper beneath that self blame he's angry at her. For daring to look at anyone else, letting them touch her and even dream of fucking her. He's so angry he could.....

He picks her up unceremoniously and dumps her into the backseat, climbing out of the car feeling like a wild animal on the prowl even more so as she stares up at him, quivering in place.

He yanks the door open and pounces on her, biting at her neck with unforgiving teeth.

"You were going to let him do this? Touch what's mine?"

She moans loudly as he pinches her nipple through the thick material of her dress, rougher than he's ever been with her.

"I'm not you-"

He cuts her off with a hard bite, teeth sinking into her neck so hard that he knows that it'll leave a mark. It'll be a gentle reminder to others that she was off limits.

"Shhhhh don't piss me off." He whispers into her skin and she huffs but lifts up her ass when he sneaks a hand under her dress and tugs at the flimsy material.

"Fuck!" She cries, scrambling as he shoves a finger inside of her as far as it'll go and then pulls it out only to penetrate her again with a punishing force.

She claws and tries to get away from him but his other hand is firm on her hips, holding her in place as he pistons his fingers inside of her clenching pussy.

"Where are you going? We're just getting started."

She swallows hard at the devilish look on his face.

-------

She feels delirious from the pleasure rushing through her blood streams.

She'd never had anyone dismantle her the way he was doing right now, ignoring her argument that they would get caught he'd yanked her legs in the air and began hungrily feasting on her body, tonguing into her wet folds, biting at the junction between thigh and groin, and speaking filthy words right into her abused hole.

"Look at this wet pussy, all of this is mine. Every drop was made for my tongue. You were made for my fingers, my tongue, my cock."

This shouldn't turn her on this neanderthal like display but at least to herself she can admit that she loves it, loved seeing him jealous because she was looking at someone else. Shivers had run up her spine as she watched him punch someone for daring to touch her, she had no intention of fucking anyone else but this was payback for all the times he ignored her question and pretended that this wasn't more than sex. 

He's fucked up but so is she.

"Then fuck me already. Show me who I belong to."

He noses at her clit, groaning into her quivering center twisting the fingers that he has lodged deep inside of her before reappearing with a wolf like grin.

She lowers her legs to the side and raises to meet him. His face is wet because of her and she can't resist tugging him closer and licking her flavor from his lips.

"You're filthy." He says with an air of reverence that almost makes her laugh.

"You love it."

And then they're kissing, all tongue and teeth she pries his mouth open and sucks his tongue into her mouth.

It had been weeks since they last kissed, she was starved for him.

She distracts him with the kiss as she reaches down to his zipper, dragging the metal down and slipping her hand into his expensive boxers.

"If my pussy is yours, then this is mine."

She strokes him from root tip, using the precum that has collected there to smooth the way and he groans into her mouth, biting at her lip then soothing the pain with his tongue.

"I need to be inside you now. I've been thinking about this since I saw you in that dress earlier today."

She clamors into his lap in the tight space of the backseat, rearranging them until his cock is at her entrance and she's gazing down at him like he's the center of her universe.

"Vincenzo?"

She whispers his name, feeling his bulbous head pushing past her resistance as he sinks deeper into her body. She whimpers at the intrusion, he's bigger than she's used to but the burn is welcome, she wants to feel every inch of him penetrating her, breaking her.

"Shit!....yes?"

She holds his face as she sinks the rest of the way, her wet folds opening up around him before he bottoms out with a loud groan and a smack to her ass.

"Stay with me."

He freezes at her plea but she doesn't give him a chance to respond, planting her knees and lifting up before dropping back down onto his waiting cock that sinks even deeper than before, the loud smack bouncing off the car walls.

"Stay with me. Don't leave me. I need you. I need you . Stay. Stay."

He wraps his arms around her back pulling her ever closer, while thrusting up to meet her downward pushes. He pulls her in his tight embrace, warming her heart even as he fucks her so hard that her teeth grind.

"Not going anywhere. This pussy is mine, your heart is mine. You, are mine. I never leave mine behind."

She cries at out a particularly hard thrust that sends her flying up before he grips her hips and crashes them back together, she can feel the car shaking and hear voices outside wondering what's going on but she doesn't care.

She loses the ability to speak, dissolving into squeaks and loud pants as she feels her body tightening in anticipation.

"Fuck! You're too tight. I'm about to pass out. Your greedy little hole is eating me whole."

She nods eagerly in his lap, too fucked out to argue with anything he has to say.

She's limp in his arms, allowing him to thrusts into her and pull her down to meet him in hard pounds. She's so close.....just a little more.

"Yes! Right there! I'm so close!"

"Open your eyes. I want to see you when you come on my cock."

She can't and then his fingers are there prying her eyes open and she can't see anything because they're rolling into the back of her head and everything is bright, hazy and she's coming harder than she ever has in her life. She can barely hear him in the background.

"Shit! Fuck! You're squeezing me so tight, I can't hold on. Fuck! Ugh!"

-----------

"I can't believe you didn't wear a condom. I can't believe I didn't notice. Are we actually crazy?"

He can't focus not with his come leaking out of her and onto the poor seat. He knows that cleaning it is not going to be cheap but right now it's so worth it.

"Are you serious! Stop looking at it like some creep!" She slams his arm, hard and that gets his attention finally.

"I lost my head there a bit. I couldn't think straight."

She sighs, picking her panties up from the floor and grimacing as she slides them back on.

"Ugh, so cold. I need a shower, now."

He can't agree more, but at the same time he wants to keep her just like this, covered in his come and leaking his seed.

"Things are going to get worst before they get better." He knows that she's knows he's talking about Babel and this fight they've signed up for. "Are you sure you can handle me? Once you're mine I'm never going to let you go."

He's never been good at sharing and he doesn't want to get good, not with this. Not with her.

"Is that supposed to scare me away?"

Honestly. Yes, the drive to possess her was always there just under his skin. And it would make him crazier, if anyone ever hurt her they wouldn't live long enough to regret the day.

"I'm not scared of you Vincenzo. I'm yours because I chose to be so and now you're mine too. Everyone else should be scared."

There was a time that he feared that being with him would poison her, taint her goodness but watching that evil grin spread across her lips he realizes that her darkness was already there, just below the surface.

And it doesn't scare him either.

[silver-tongued-bby]

I know I'm late with submitting but I've been so busy this month, but I had an idea for your Halloween prompt!

I've got this one particular dynamic on my mind, inspired by how older poems and musicals personified death/the reaper. death becomes obsessed and slowly falls in love with the Mc from afar. He finally reaches out to her and she is terrified of death. She eventually gives in to him even though fucking death is against her instincts. It's a really rough concept. But I immediately thought of it while reading through the qutes.

"I know you've thought about it don't lie"

"Let me show you exactly how I feel"

Maybe rip my heart out at the end with "I'll always keep you safe" ?

What ever place and character you think would work bestsince quotes. Only know loki and geralt. Not excluding lady loki of course, death doesn't have to be a him.

As for kinks...some flavor of dom/sub and reading thoughts?...maybe a pet/plaything vibe? I really don't know 😩

I'm sorry this idea is so vague. 😅 I've loved everything you've written so far this month and I'm honored by the follow 🥺💕

-littlepupthoughts

Thank you so much for the interesting request and your kind words!! What a way to end this challenge.

This piece took me a lot longer than I'd liked (I re-wrote it a few times). I seriously love the subject matter here, and I really wanted to do it justice. I hope you enjoy it- thank you again!! 🖤

This fic is a part of A Dark Celebration.

Pairing: Death!Loki x fem!Reader

Words: ~3,500

Summary: Death has turned his eyes on you.

This is work of fiction is 18+!!!!, and contains graphic descriptions of sex, fingering, sex (m/f), dirty talk, a touch of somnophilia, and it mentions dead animals, gore, and (unsurprisingly) death. Please do not interact if you are a minor or are sensitive towards any of the themes mentioned above.

Thank you so freaking much to my followers for all of the amazing requests for this challenge! And thank you for being patient with me as I worked through each of these- I had a blast! Likes, reblogs and comments mean more than you know 🖤

~~~

He remembers the first time he saw you.

Snow fell in the early morning light, the city still asleep.

You must’ve been out running errands, the early morning not a deterrent to you in the slightest. He doubted much would deter you.

You turned just as it had happened, the whole thing playing out in your wide eyes. He loved your eyes since that very moment, the terror in them unsettling though impossible to hide your beauty.

He stood as you ran over to the young man, your bags on the dirty snow of the street behind you. You held the young man’s hand as he started to slip from this world, looking up frantically for some help in the empty street.

Then all too suddenly- “hey! Please, please go get someone! He’s not, he’s bleeding out,” you panted, looking right up at him.

He frowned curiously and turned, expecting to see someone behind himself. There was no one there.

Your frantic eyes were trained on his. You could see him. How interesting.

He wondered if you could touch him.

Just then the young man’s soul started to slip from his body, its form drifting upwards. He swore under his breath at the fates, and took the young man’s arm.

You were watching, your expression falling as you realised what you’d seen. He left you there in the street, shepherding the young man’s soul to the beyond.

~~~

The first time you saw death you hadn’t realised. There he stood, long black waves sharply contrasting against pale skin, his bright blue eyes unnerving you. He simply watched as you shouted at him, a slight curve to his lips. He’d slipped away before you could say anything more.

A fear had gripped your heart that day, it’s icy grip tightening each time you remembered how close you were to him. Death was always abstract to you, a concept you needn’t spend much time on. Something to mull over later, once you’d grown old and grey.

But seeing that young man’s soul slip from his body had roused that fear in you prematurely. You felt as if death were closing in on you, making himself known. Be it the mouse you found on the floor one morning, it’s little body frozen as if it died of shock, or the bird that flew into your window, the sound forcing a shriek from your lungs.

You saw him in crowds, glimmers of bright blue watching you then disappearing once you looked.

Then there were the dreams. Those eyes taunting you, long fingers grazing your skin, his laugh ringing loud in your ears. You’d wake breathless and with a chill despite your thick coverlet. You started to notice a depression in the bed when you woke, as if someone were laying with you. It left a confusing ache in your heart, as if you were disappointed to wake up.

After a month you found little gifts, the first a flat golden band engraved with flowers settled in a black box on the pillow of your bed. You frowned at it, running the ring between your fingers. It was cold, seemingly unable to be brought to temperature in your hands. Something brought you to slip it on, it fit perfectly to the ring finger of your left hand. You could slip it off, but you found yourself leaving it on, a smile coming to your lips when it caught the light.

You found books of poetry on your bookshelf, tied together with black ribbon, inscribed with your name. It unsettled you but you found yourself pouring over each little volume, the words inside making your heart race.

~~~

He couldn't stop himself from finding his way to you. Each time he had a moment to spare, even just a minute, he'd come near you- as near as he'd allow himself, watching you with a burning curiosity.

He grew to know you so well, his observations allowing him insight into what made you laugh, cry, or furrow your brows in disappointment or confusion. He watched as you read novels, spoke with others, so animated you easily lit up the room. He saw you alone at night, happy in your own company as you quietly brought out your truest self. He grew to know you by heart.

He watched from the street as you read the latest anthology he left you. He couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips as your eyes lightly closed, the book falling flat against your chest. The ring- his ring glinted in the low light of your apartment.

He slipped inside, his coat falling off his shoulders as he pulled the book from your fingertips and set it on the table, placing beside it a bouquet of dried lavender. He brushed his fingers along your cheekbone, marvelling at the warmth there.

He laid beside you, watching as you slept soundly, your breath even. He traced his fingers down the warm skin of your arm and you roused a little before settling back into your sheets, smiling as you released a content little hum as if you were pleased he was there. He held onto your fingers lightly, your dreams flashing before his eyes.

He couldn’t help but grin as he saw himself flash within your mind, your pulse elevated. “I’m here,” he whispered to you, his form materialising to hold you tight in your dream. You whimpered in your sleep, your thighs brushing together lightly.

In your mind he held you against him, peppering your neck with kisses, his hands tracing lazy circles over your bare skin. You whined and moved against him. “Shall I stop?” His phantom form whispered to yours, and you shook your head.

“Please,” you breathed in your sleep, shifting over the covers.

His dream self slid his hand lower, brushing over your folds and you whined, your hips moving to meet his fingers. He teased you, nipping at your neck as his fingers continued to lightly touch you, cooing gently in your ear. He watched as your mind and body came undone in your sleep, your moans catching in your throat.

Soon, he told himself. He wouldn’t allow you to slip from his fingers with the passing of time. He needed to take you for his own. Soon.

Letting go of your fingers, he bent forward to press a kiss against your forehead. “Until we meet again, love.”

He stood and slid on his coat, leaving you peacefully asleep.

~~~

The day had started the same as any other.

Spring had come, the rain unforgiving in the grey air. You made your way home from work, walking quickly under your umbrella.

You climbed the stairs of your apartment, and opened the door, the grim light outside illuminating it dully. You took off your coat and set your umbrella by the door, walking further inside when you gasped, the outline of a man dark against your window.

You were frozen in fear, your mind running a mile a minute.

“Darling,” he spoke, that low, deep voice so familiar. He stepped forward and you could see the glint of his bright blue eyes even in the dim room.

“You,” you took a step back, “what- what are you doing here?” Your voice shook as you spoke.

“I’ve come to present you with an opportunity,” he smiled, stepping forward once more. His thin lips curved upwards at the edges, his high cheekbones still pronounced.

You took two more steps back only to be met with the wall behind you. “Are you- am I dying?” You whispered, afraid of his answer.

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, pet.” He came closer to you, the chill emanating off of his body in waves. Every fibre of your being told you to get away, to run from him, but you couldn’t bring yourself to move. He watched you curiously, his fingertips brushing your jaw. He gave you a grin. “Do you want to cheat death?”

You held in a whimper at the feel of his fingers on your skin. They were cool but electric, eliciting heat from your body. You suddenly felt as if it were too warm, too stuffy in your small apartment. You did your best to push away the feeling, forcing yourself to focus on his question. “What do you mean?”

“Not many can see me as you do. And even fewer,” he grasped your hand, his fingers cold, “can touch me.” He tilted his head, “you’re a rarity, darling.” He rubbed his thumb over the ring on your finger, his eyes flickering back up to yours. “It looks lovely on you. I knew it would.”

You swallowed, your eyes falling on the little stack of novels he’d gifted you. You felt his hand come to slip around your waist and let out a shaky breath. You could feel your body responding to him, the damp warm heat growing between your legs.

“Come with me. I’ll show you things you’ve never imagined. All the secrets your scholars and religious zealots have debated for centuries. You’ll know everything and so much more.” His grip tightened around your waist.

Your brow furrowed. His proposal made you nervous, almost too good to be true.

“I’d never lie to you.” He spoke, his face serious.

Your brow furrowed. You wondered passively if he could hear your thoughts.

He kept silent, watching you intently.

“Would I die?” You asked timidly.

“Not until you’re meant to.”

“Would I have to…” you trailed off, hoping he’d understand.

“Nothing you wouldn’t want to, darling.”

You bit your lip, considering what was tying you here. You thought of your distant family and friends whom you hadn’t talked to in months. You looked around the tiny room that passed as your apartment, the busy street below and shouting neighbours forever intruding in your space. You looked back to the man- the entity before you and your heart raced. “I’ll go with you.”

He smiled wide at you. “Wonderful, darling.”

You gave him a small smile back.

“Now. I’m afraid to carry on I’ll need a little something from you.”

Your eyes widened, worried he may ask you for your literal beating heart.

You saw the corners of his mouth quirk upwards slightly before he spoke. “Do not fear. All I need is a kiss.”

“A kiss?” You asked, incredulous.

He nodded. “A kiss from death himself,” he smirked.

“I, I don’t know.” You felt suddenly unsure, nerves overtaking you.

“Breathe.” His hand slid into your own, his fingers touching the golden band you wore as if to remind you. He came forward to hold his lips against your ear, eliciting a shiver from you. “I know you’ve thought about it, don’t lie to me.” His lips brushed against the shell of your ear, his breath cool as he spoke.

You let out a shaky puff of air as he came back to face you. You bent closer, holding his gaze, your eyes falling closed as you felt your lips press against his. One touch of his lips and you lost yourself, pressing up against him eagerly, his tongue slipping against yours. It was so familiar, his touch, his kiss, exactly as he felt in your dreams. Even his scent was familiar, deep with a hint of a something sharp and cold.

He eventually pulled away, his eyes watching you, a dark fire burning behind his gaze.

The sound of your breath filled the room. “I’m sorry,” you said, breathless.

“Never apologise, not for that.” He tilted his head curiously, his eyes narrowing. “Do you not know how I feel for you, pet?”

You swallowed hard, shaking your head.

He lifted his chin, his eyes running down your form. “I see. In that case, let me show you exactly how I feel.” He said it with a bit of a growl, his voice low.

You let out a little yelp as he moved to pull you along with him before laying you down on your bed.

He pushed his long coat off his shoulders, the black fabric falling to the floor before he crawled over you, one leg settling between yours, his hair hanging down over his face as he held himself over you.

Emboldened, you reached up to tuck his hair behind his ear. His eyes closed lightly at your touch, dark eyelashes touching his pale cheek.

“What’s your name?” You asked, your eyes searching his features.

He smirked. “Death carries no name, pet.” He brought himself down, pressing his lips against yours, in a searing kiss.

He shifted the leg between your own so it pushed against you, the feeling too much and not enough at once. His hand came to grip your hip, guiding it to move up against him and you let out a whimper at the slow heat building between your legs.

He moved to kiss your throat, his cool lips pressing against your skin. You felt his hand drift lower, coming between you to pull up the hem of your skirt. He pushed your leg over a little, his fingers brushing against the material of your panties. You gasped, arching your chest up into his, so firm against you.

“Oh darling,” he spoke into your ear, his voice low. “You need it badly, don’t you?”

You whined, his fingers slipping under the fabric covering your heat. He delicately ran one finger between your folds and your hips shifted, your hands gripping the coverlet under you.

He chuckled, the wetness between your legs obvious. He came back to face you, holding his lips inches from yours, capturing your shaky breaths. He lightly teased your clit, his fingertip rubbing against it in slow, grazing circles. He licked against your bottom lip, capturing it between his teeth as his pressure built. You moaned into his mouth, your hand coming to grasp the bicep of the arm toying with you. He felt so cold, so hard under your hands, almost as if he were chiseled from stone.

He pulled away to watch you as he slowly inserted his finger into you, the slick around his skin easily allowing him entrance. His touch was quickly warmed by your heat.

“That’s it, pet.” He spoke, his lids heavy as he watched you. “Open for me, my lovely girl.” He added another finger, stretching you a little, your legs parting as you submit to his movements.

It felt almost too good, the sound of your breath filling the room. “Please,” you whispered, unsure of what you were pleading for.

He dipped to kiss your neck, his teeth marring your skin. He curled his fingers in the slightest and you moaned, the sensation causing you to hold still.

“Come on, darling,” he spoke against your ear, his thumb coming to lightly tap against your clit. Your grip on his arm had tightened, your breath caught in your lungs. He was stroking you more firmly, your hips rising off the bed. “Take what you need from me.” He sucked at the skin just under your ear and you cried out, the sensation causing that cord within you to snap, pleasure overtaking you in waves.

You eventually opened your eyes, finding death staring down at you, a grin pulling at his lips. His fingers were gone from you, now resting on your hip.

You gave him a lazy smile, your thoughts slow. You gently pushed your hips against him, watching his brow furrow, his expression falling. All you felt was a need for him, your earlier apprehension gone. “Please,” you spoke, your eyes lost in his. “I need you, please.”

“Are you certain?” He asked, his gaze searching yours.

“Yes,” it no longer mattered who, or what he was. You’d never felt such desire before, your heart warm, your body almost vibrating with it.

He sat back and pulled you up, helping you undress, his touch gentle against you. He laid you back against the bedding and his eyes ran along your form, taking you in. “Such a lovely creature,” he spoke, his hands coming to the buttons of his shirt, revealing a pale chest with corded muscle throughout.

You swallowed hard at the sight of him and he came back over you, pushing your legs apart to kneel between them. He bent to kiss your collarbone, moving lower to your breast, flicking his tongue against your nipple. You gasped and he repeated his actions on the other side, leaving your skin cool to the air as he sat back.

He undid his trousers, his length hard in his hand. He glanced up to you as he ran his length through your folds, causing you to inhale sharply.

He felt so soft against your heat, the cool of him quickly warming with your touch. “Are you ready?” He spoke with a hint of a rasp, the tone sending another wave of heat through you.

“Please,” you breathed, your hips angling out to push him further against you.

His brow furrowed and he remained still for a moment before slowly pushing himself in, carefully watching you. He stretched you slowly, eventually coming to rest once he was fully within you. You could feel the cool of his skin warm against you, your muscles relaxing to accommodate him. His eyes were dark, his jaw sharp as he looked down at you, his eyes closing briefly when you felt yourself flutter around him.

You moved your hips slightly, pleading silently for him to move.

He ran his hands from your hips down to your thighs then gave a slow thrust. The angle hit that spot he’d touched within you earlier, and as he built a steady rhythm your hands desperately grasped his, your breath unsteady.

He shook his head at you as he moved, “you’re going to burn me up, pet. You feel,” he let out a groan, “divine.”

He brought a hand above your sex, his thumb coming down to brush against your clit. You moaned, your back arching up off the bed, seemingly presenting him with a deeper angle that made your eyes roll back inside your head. “It’s too much, I can’t- I can’t take it,” you stuttered, the rising pleasure continuing to build. You felt exposed to him, vulnerable, as you took his thrusts, every part of him overwhelming you.

“Hush, pet. I’ve got you,” he spoke, moving to lay on top of you, his lips softly kissing your neck. “You can take it, darling. I’m right here with you,” he moved up to kiss that spot behind your ear and you let out a breathy whine. “Don’t overthink it, just feel.”

You closed your eyes, letting out a breath as you focused on him. You felt yourself melt a little into the mattress, the warmth between your legs spreading as it continued to build.

“That’s it,” he spoke against your ear, “good girl. Feel it,” he let out a hiss as you started to meet his thrusts, “oh, such a good little pet.”

You could feel the same tightening within you, the pleasure rising. “There you go darling,” he sounded pleased, “cum for me, my pretty girl.” He leant up to watch you, his thumb pushing a little harder into your clit.

It took three more thrusts before your hips held still, your cries ringing out in the silent room. He didn’t stop playing with you until he came, drawing out your pleasure to end with his. Your walls fluttered around him as his length twitched, spilling deep inside of you.

You swallowed, your lips dry as you looked to him, still holding himself above you. His eyes were so full of awe, you could almost mistake it as love.

He pressed a kiss to your lips, then your forehead before pulling out of you. You could feel his seed dribble down the inside of your thigh and you shivered, a smile coming to your lips. You felt happy, happier with your choice, a small knot of nerves in the pit of your stomach.

“Lovely girl,” he said as he pressed a warm washcloth between your legs, carefully cleaning your skin before his own.

You stood to dress, picking the various bits of your clothing up off of the floor. He slid his shirt on over his shoulders, his eyes glued to you, still burning with something behind the brilliant blue

“Are you ready?” He asked, holding his hand out for you, his long coat slung over the other.

You took a moment to look around, wondering if there was anything you wanted to take. Suddenly remembering, you walked over to the small stack of poetry and held it in one arm.

His eyes sparkled in the grey light as he stepped closer to hold you, his hand brushing lightly against the skin of your cheekbone.

“Loki.”

Your brow furrowed.

He smiled, “my name. One of them at least.”

You bit your lip and grinned. “Loki,” you repeated, testing the name on your tongue. “I’m think I’m ready to go, Loki.”

“Of course, darling.” He turned and slid his hand in yours, opening a glowing green oval before him. “Keep close to me. Don’t let go of my hand until we’re there.”

Your heart beat fast and you gripped his hand harder, suddenly afraid of the unknown facing you.

He kissed your cheek lightly. “Do not fear, darling. I have you now,” he nodded at you. “I’ll always keep you safe.”

With that the two of you stepped into the green light, quickly slipping head first into the unknown.

~~~

Author's Note: What do we think of death!Loki? I feel like the job would only ever be given to him as punishment...

In any case, that's a wrap on my first follower celebration!! I may post something for that sub!Loki fic in the near future, but otherwise this challenge is complete. Thank you all so much for submitting such fun requests, I love you all immensely! 🖤🖤🖤

[cantalouupe]

good boy

nsfw!!! sub!xiao x f!reader

edging, breeding, (very) mild possessive behavior, public sex, praise kink, blowjob, handjob, voyeurism (sort of??), kitty is used as a nickname i think, he’s wearing the collar from this fic

Xiao is a good boy.

Always listens and behaves himself, letting you play with him however you wish. Especially after the collar incident, he’s very pliant, allowing you to do more because you both know he loves it.

Speaking of the collar incident, he hasn’t taken it off since. Every time you see him now, that thick leather band is wrapped snuggly around his neck, with the four golden letters attached glinting whenever the light touches it. Purple splotches adorn the space all around the collar from time spent with you sucking on his skin while riding him until he cries.

His neck, you think, looks like a piece of art. You quite like it that way, and continue to darken the marks anytime they seem to fade.

Today is no different than any day. You go up to the top balcony at Wangshu Inn where he resides and expect to see him gazing out at the sky, looking as pretty as ever, and you’ll get to spend the day together.

Except that’s not where he is at all.

Walking out on him slumped back in a chair with that black collar around his neck and a hand pumping furiously at his cock was far from anything you thought you’d come across him doing, but there he is.

He notices you quick, eyes that are as wide as saucers staring up at you from his spot. You give him a small, teasing look and go to sit in the chair beside him.

It’s quiet for a few moments - his body completely rigid while you relax into your seat - until you break the silence.

“Aren’t you going to show me how to do it?” Of course, you already know, but you’d never miss an opportunity to see Xiao take himself apart.

He does, his hand wrapping back around himself to give a few shaky tugs. Seeing the way his hand shook, he must be nervous - he’s never had anyone watch him get off before.

Once he starts feeling it, though - lips parting for small whimpers to fit out, grip around himself tightening while he moves it faster up and down his length - he seems to calm back down.

You watch him quietly, letting him enjoy himself a little, bask in the feeling of his hand jacking himself off.

He’ll look up once in a while, as if wondering whether you’re still there and looking, but immediately whips his head back down to stare at his hard cock when you meet his eyes.

What a good boy. So sweet and shy despite being taken apart by you nearly every time you visit.

Once his hips start canting upwards and his breaths begin to speed up you stop him, gripping his wrist in order to cease his movements. He’s flushed and his chest rises and falls, hand falling down to his side.

You pat his thigh, “good kitty.”

It’s your turn now, both of your eyes glued to your own hand that turns into a fist and gives one single pull.

“A little dry, don’t you think?” You question, and he makes a noise of confusion when your hand releases his cock. “Need to get it wet.”

A look of realization flashes in his lidded eyes as he watches you lean down to spit onto the head of his length. It runs down the sides, all the way down to drip onto his balls. He shivers and whines at the sensation.

You take your job of getting him nice and slick a step further and lean the rest of the way down to take him into your mouth. Slowly, your head slides down, all the way until your lips touch the base.

“Oh god,” he practically sobs, moving lightning fast to grip at the back of your head. “Oh god oh god oh god oh god-“

You hold your head there as long as you can, his dick pushing against the back of your throat. It’s a lot for him, his hips would be kicking into your mouth if you hadn’t taken him all the way in already. A constant stream of moans leave him while you have your mouth around him.

After a quick decision to have a little fun, your head begins to bob up and down, tongue gliding wet along the side of his shaft. The hands that gripped at the back of your head pushed now, and his hips jumped to get himself further inside your warm mouth.

Again, you let him enjoy it for a while, his noises like music to your ears.

He must have been close from his first edge, and began to climb in volume, alerting you that he was getting close once more.

You indulge him, giving him sucks that had him crying out your name. He got really close this time, thighs and abdominals tensing with the oncoming orgasm.

The sensation of wet lips leave him right in that minute and he almost sobs. Your thumb and pointer go to squeeze the base of his cock, successfully cutting off his orgasm right before it came.

He falls back against his chair, eyes closed shut tight while he catches his breath and tries to go away from the edge. You rub comfortingly at the top of his thigh.

“You got really close there, huh?” He gulps in another big breath and nods in response.

A praise leaves you before you even though about it. “You held on so well. Good boy.”

His cock twitches at that and you grin, giving his thigh a pat.

Really, he is such a good boy. All for you, too - you love it.

When his heavy breathing finally devolves into lighter pants is when you choose to continue pleasuring him. With your hand in a circle shape, you hover right above his length.

“Ready?” You didn’t wait for a response, basking in the sound that rips from his throat when your fist slides down onto him.

This must feel much better than when he first jacked his cock, because the slide is smoother and allows you to create a fast rhythm that has his head falling backwards.

“‘S good, ‘s so good.” He moans so prettily with your hand around him, crying out pleas for more whilst his hands find purchase on the arms of the chair.

“Yeah?” You ask, closing your hold on him a little tighter. “It’s good? I bet you’re already close, huh?”

You didn’t need to ask that, already knew he could probably come any minute - but the way he reacts to your words, the way he answers your questions makes you speak often.

“Mnh-“ Any response he had dies quickly. Glancing up to him, you see his mouth open, moans and words getting caught in his heavy breaths and pants.

“Oh, look at you,” you coo, quickening your pace until his hips were fucking up into your fist and he was tensing with another oncoming orgasm.

Such a good boy, you think while your hand slips up the shaft of his wet cock.

“I can come this time? Please?”

He’s so sweet that you feel a bit bad making him hold back longer. Your hand slows and desperately he shakes his head at you.

“Not yet, kitty.” When he attempts to make your hand speed back up by covering it with his and pulling it up, you let go of him completely.

“So greedy today,” you tut, finger going to tap teasingly at his tip. “We haven’t even gotten to the main event.”

His head perks up a little at that.

Normally, you would straddle and ride him until the two of you were coming, but today you wanted to do things a little different.

Luckily you had brought a blanket along with you the last time you visited him. It had been night, a little chilly and so you had taken a soft fleece-y material blanket in your bag so you could relax on the balcony with Xiao without being cold.

It was folded atop the little table near where you sat, so you snatched it up and laid it out on the wooden balcony floor. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable but it would suffice - you’re sure your level of comfort won’t matter once the two of you finally start what you had planned.

You shed your clothes, fighting a smile when you catch him staring from the corner of your eye. Your head tilts slightly when you turn to face him. “Are you going to join me?”

His eyes were wide and he looked a little distant, but he followed suit, fumbling out of his clothes and joining you onto the blanket you had laid out.

“Kiss me,” you advise, pulling his head away from its spot against your neck, where he’d been sucking and biting at.

“I don’t want to kiss.”

The way his eyes follow your lips tell a different story than his words. He always does that - claims that he doesn’t want to kiss you, as if he’s playing hard to get. As if he doesn’t melt against you right when you place your lips on his.

Unconsciously, his lips chased yours after you pulled away. You laughed into another kiss, murmuring “you’re so needy,” against him.

He whines, not even denying what you told him.

“Kitty,” you call him to attention. “You’re going to do something for me, okay?”

He nods, enthusiastic to do whatever you needed. When you lean down onto your back and spread your legs, though, his brain malfunctions.

“You want to fuck me?”

Xiao hasn’t ever fucked you before. You were always atop him, grinding and riding his cock while he sat brainless and on the edge beneath you. It was somewhat of a reward to him for being such a good boy all the time - you were curious to see how he’d react.

A small shuffle forward, unsure of the new position that put him in some position of control. You widened the space between your legs more to accommodate him, having him slide forward all the way until his cock was resting on top of your cunt.

“Go ahead,” you encourage lightly.

You hear him take a small, steadying breath, before you feel the press of his head against your hole. You’re wet and ready for him so he slips in without a hitch.

As soon as he’s inside, he can’t seem to stop the noises he makes. “Wet, n’ tight, it’s so good- I-“

His hips slid back and bumped forward and he let out a long moan.

“I won’t last. I’ll come, I’ll come.”

A small coo, reaching out to wrap your hand lightly around his neck. “Not yet, kitty. Can you fuck me?”

You don’t need to ask him twice. The feel of your hot cunt around his cock is always so much for him, so once he starts thrusting you know he won’t last long.

“You know,” you murmur into his ear, “i was thinking. You should come inside me.”

Even though he always come inside, the thought still has him whimpering out a plea.

“You can breed me,” you add, “and make me all yours.”

That was new. He must like the idea of that, because he pistons in harder, faster, in a way that has your head falling back in pleasure.

“All mine,” he repeats, “all mine.”

“Mhm, all yours.” You regain your composure as best you can so you can continue speaking. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Breed and fill me up so much it’s leaking out. Do you want that?”

You wish there was a way you could record his reaction. He had paused half-thrust, whole body shuddering at the thought of doing what you suggested. It was so sweet, the minute he had to take so he didn’t come right on the spot.

Already, he was close, voice high and loud while he keeps fucking you. You assume he isn’t used to the work it takes to fuck into you repeatedly like this, but he’s doing so well that you give him some sweet praises that mix with your breathy moans.

He’s such a good boy.

“Can I come, c’n I come, please- oh fuck.”

“Aw, you want to fill me up?” He whines high at that, collapsing into you while his hips work hard against yours.

You don’t give him permission, letting him get desperate while you get closer to the edge yourself. For not being experienced in doing the fucking, he was hitting so good inside you, so good that you were clamping down onto his cock.

He was so loud you were surprised no one came up here worried and wondering what was going on - truthfully this has been going on long enough for them to have figured it out.

More please spew from him, and, a little out of it, you nod.

With a few harsh final pushes inside, he releases, and the feeling of his load inside you has you tipping over as well. The rhythmic pulses of your cunt around him, milking him of every last drop makes his hips kick and a pathetic little overstimulated sob leave him.

“Mine,” he says breathlessly to nobody in particular - just voicing it.

What a good boy.