#this is taking longer than I thought………

[premise29]

#SON OF A BITCH#IF IT WERE ANYONE ELSE BUT ODA I'D SAY THAT WAS BULL#BUT HE'S ALWAYS DOING SHIT LIKE THAT

really good tags by @the-thought-emporium-imperial

crying session at my house tonight pull up at 8

[snail-day]

Satoru doesn't do well with the idea of leaving you. Never has. Probably never will.

Even the short missions are enough to make him sulky, but the long ones? The ones where he’ll be away for days, maybe weeks? He turns into a whining mess. You wonder if he's always been like this, just never voiced it aloud to anyone before.

Packing takes three times longer than it should. Every time he tries to fold a shirt or zip his carry on, he ends up abandoning the task halfway through just to wrap his arms around you from behind, pressing his face into the crook of your neck with a pitiful little whine.

"I don't wanna go," he mumbles, voice muffled against your skin, maybe saying it enough times might make the whole thing mission disappear. "You’re my little Pokémon, y'know? I should be able to just catch you in a ball and bring you with me."

You laugh, warm and breathless, reaching up behind you to card your fingers through his snowy hair. "You could try," you tease, and he groans dramatically, squeezing you tighter.

It’s not just joking, though. When you offer to come with him, he always gets a little quiet. A little stuck in his mind. Turning you around and pulling back just enough to look at you, and the way his bright blue eyes shimmer... God, it breaks your heart a little. He wants to say yes. You can see it in the way his hand trembles against your side. The way his pretty eyes scan your face. It's on the tip of his tongue.

But instead, he just shakes his head slowly, a wobbly little smile on his lips.

Because the thought of something happening to you, curse or no curse, makes his heart ache. Makes his mind wander a little too far for his liking.

What if he’s in the middle of a fight and someone targets you?

What if he’s too far away to reach you in time?

What if...?

"Can’t risk it," he finally says softly, thumb brushing back and forth against your hip, memorizing the feel of your soft skin. Maybe your scent will eventually be engrained in his mind. "You're... you’re everything, baby."

Already pulling you against his lean chest again, holding you so tightly you can barely breathe, mumbling "I love you" over and over against the crown of your head. His palm rubbing up and down your back in loose patterns. You almost think he's tearing up.

"I love you. I love you so much. Don’t forget, okay?" he murmurs between kisses to the top of your head. "Be safe. Call me if you even think something’s weird, kay? I’ll come running, promise."

You have to physically pry him off you just to get him to finish packing. And even then, he keeps glancing back at you every five seconds. Begging for one more hug. One more kiss. One more chance to touch you before he has to drag himself to the door.

By the time he actually gets to the door, he’s somehow hugging you again, despite your giggling protests, rocking you gently side to side in his arms, mumbling about how he’s going to miss you so bad he might just quit being a sorcerer and become your full-time house husband. (He’s only half joking.)

Finally, after a hundred kisses and whispered I love yous, he leans down one last time, nose brushing against yours, voice soft and almost trembling: "Be here when I get back, 'kay? I don’t wanna come home to a world without you."

But then, quieter, so quiet you nearly miss it he adds: "...And don’t... don’t forget about me either, yeah? Don’t find someone normal while I'm gone. Someone who doesn't leave. Someone who can give you the kind of life you deserve."

It’s said with a half-laugh, light and teasing, like he’s trying to play it off, but you can feel it in the way his arms tighten around you, the way his voice wavers. That tiny, hidden crack in the foundation of Satoru Gojo: The fear that being the strongest might mean ending up the loneliest too.

And even as he finally forces himself to step away, flashing you that big, blinding smile. You catch the flicker of sadness he tries so desperately to hide. Because no matter how strong he is, when it comes to you, Satoru’s always afraid that someday you’ll realize you deserve more than a man who keeps having to leave.

[quarterlifekitty]

Had this thought… Simon who starts dating reader but her son 14-18 (older teen) is hella protective of her. Simon sees himself in the kid and is incredibly proud of the boy, caring for his mum and being all “You have to get through me to get to her.” So Simon’s gotta win the kid over first THEN the reader? 👀

I love this idea because like

Regardless of her own shortcomings as a parent, Simon’s mom still tried. She wanted his life to be good. And he definitely saw her, on more than one occasion, bawling even though she tried so hard to never let him see. Because she wanted him to be a baby boy for just a little longer— she wasn’t ready to see the weight of the world tearing him down by the shoulders. She cried because there was never enough. Not of anything. Food to put on the table, money in the bank, his father’s patience, time to keep the house and raise her boys, the energy to do the simplest things in the world. Not enough of herself left to give away to those she always put first.

So yeah, if you badmouthed Simon’s mom when he was in school? You’d be lucky getting away with a black eye.

And if there’s anything Simon loves, it’s instinct. He likes your son. He really does like that your son sees him as a potential threat, as a point of caution. Simon probably barely got out a “Not tryna replace your da-“ before your son was like “I don’t give a fuck about that. You stay away from my mom.”

He doesn’t like that you’ve been hurt before. That you have a son that thinks he needs to protect you— that he’s had to live a life on edge because he’s seen so much happen to you. But he can relate. And he’s happy you had someone to depend on. That your son doesn’t lack the courage to stand up to people for you.

And honestly? Loyalty goes both ways. I’ve always found that trope in movies, where a parent is going to remarry someone their kid doesn’t like, to be strange. I think for most single parents, if the kid doesn’t like you, it’s a non-starter. Do you know your son is probably a little overly defensive? Yes. But you also love him before anyone else. If there’s a man he really can’t abide? That’s not gonna be the man for you.

I think Simon wins your son through the mundane. Doing things that are just plain not fun, but necessary parts of life. Just taking things off of your plate. Filling your forms, making appointments, picking up groceries, fixing things around the house— the very ordinary and unromantic parts of cohabitation and long term relationships.

It starts chipping when Simon drives to pick up your son from a friend’s house after a sleepover.

“Why’re you here?”

“So your mum could sleep in today.”

That shuts him up right quick.

He’s gone through life seeing people take from you until barely anything was left for yourself. Spoonfuls of honey taken from your soul until you were empty. So he starts to soften when there seems to be a man ready to give you some of himself without greedily taking more of you.

[prythianpages]

Take Me Home | Azriel x Reader

Azriel x Reader | When Azriel gets drunk, he forgets he has a wife.

warning: drinking, drunk & fluffy Az

a/n: You can thank tiktok for this one. It inspired me to take a little break from all the angst. I literally have never written a fic so fast before, this took me a little more than an hour. Just something short & sweet (1K words.)

Azriel liked to drink every now and then. Rarely, would he get drunk. He preferred maintaining control, always mindful of his surroundings and alert to his ever-listening shadows. 

But when he did get drunk, he'd sometimes forget he had a wife.

Normally, it was Azriel who stayed at your side. He was the hand that always found yours under the table when your words began to slur or the gentle pressure at the small of your back keeping you upright as you stumbled through the crowd. But tonight at Rita’s, something in his shoulders told you he needed to let go.

So when Cassian ordered shots for the table, you passed yours to Azriel with a playful grin, silently telling him, “your turn.”

He hesitated but after a few teasing remarks and a chorus of encouragement from the rest of the Inner Circle, he tipped the glass back and knocked it down in one go. Then another. And another. 

You watched the shift in him slowly unfold. His shoulders began to ease from their earlier tense posture. Though it was dark, you could see the inky tendrils of his shadows twitching and rippling less against his skin. Almost as if, they too, were content. 

You knew he was tipsy the moment he let Cassian drag him onto the dance floor without so much as a protest. And you knew he was drunk when he nearly tripped over nothing and just laughed before catching himself.

Across the table, you met Rhysand’s gaze. He was lounging back with a smirk, swirling his drink lazily in his hand as he watched the scene unfold.

“Should I stop him?” you asked, though your voice lacked any real concern. 

Rhysand raised his glass in salute toward Feyre, who had joined Cassian and Azriel on the dance floor.  ��No. Let him. This is the most relaxed I’ve seen him in weeks.”

Sensing your mate’s gaze on you, you turned your head back to the dance floor only to see Azriel shying away from your gaze. Oh yeah, he’s definitely drunk. Rhysand chuckled, mirroring your thoughts.

Rhysand was right, though. This was the most relaxed you’d seen your mate in weeks and your heart ached a little with how much he had needed a night out like this.

Azriel continued to sneak glances at you when he thought you weren’t looking. He didn’t last much longer on the dance floor. Cassian’s spinning and swaying became too much, and eventually, he slipped away from his friend. His steps were a little uncoordinated.

Then, his eyes found yours. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at you like you were the only steady thing in the room. The grin that spread across his face was boyish and a little lopsided as he approached the table.

“Hey,” he said, swaying slightly.

“Hey.” You grinned back up at him, a hand reaching out to push back his hair. The stool you sat on gave you just enough advantage in height to do so. His wings shuddered in response, making your grin widen at how easily flustered he got when drunk. You adored it, reveling in being able to make him feel that way.

Azriel’s shadows danced lazily around his shoulders like they, too, were drunk. He leaned down, one of his wings casting a small shadow over you, offering some privacy in the midst of the noise.

“My friend over there,” he whisper-yelled, breath warm against your ear and his scent washing over you, “thinks you’re cute.”

You blinked, pulling back to look at him. “Friend?”

Before you could even process, he pointed to the side. You followed his hand, confused, just as a soft whoosh sounded beside you.

And there he was.

Standing a few feet away with the same grin on his face, exactly in the spot he had pointed to you. You pointed your hand at him and silently beckoned him back to you. With a dark glimmer of shadows, he vanished from across the room and stumbled right back in front of you. You hopped off the stool, catching him with both hands on his chest and helping in steadying him.

“Tell your friend I’m really flattered but I’m taking my husband home.”

You showed him your ring, lifting your hand in front of his glazed eyes. He blinked at it, brows pulling together. Something like disappointment flashed across his face, his wings drooping slightly behind him.

 “Oh.”

You bit your lip to keep from laughing, your heart melting as you gently reached for his hand. You lifted it, bringing it up the same level of the hand flashing your wedding ring. The matching silver band to yours gleamed on his finger, and you gave your finger a little wiggle for emphasis.

His eyes widened. “Oh.” A pause. “Me?”

You nodded, your fingers lacing with his. His whole face lit up, that grin of his brighter than ever and reaching all the way to those hazel eyes you loved so much. He turned to the person closest to you both, Rhysand, “I have a wife!”

Rhysand raised his brow in mock surprise. “Just wait until you find out you have a mate, buddy,” you heard him mutter.

But Azriel didn’t hear. Or maybe he did, and chose to ignore it. Either way, he turned back to you, stepping a little closer. You released his hand and Azriel was quick to place both his hands on your waist.

“Well then, my wife,” he said, pulling you flush to him, his tone and touch possessive in a way that made your stomach flutter.

He dipped his head, his forehead resting against yours, nose brushing yours in a gentle nuzzle. His eyes flicked to your lips, lingering for a beat too long, before lifting back to yours.

“Take me home.”

You laughed softly, cupping his cheeks and placing a chaste kiss to his lips. “Okay, my husband.”

He looked at you like he was falling for you all over again and then, his lips were chasing yours for another taste. Warmth bloomed in your chest, the bond between you thrumming with love and adoration.

Because even if Azriel forgot he had a wife when he was drunk, his heart always knew.

At the end of the night, in every life and every state of mind, he always chose you.

a/n: Hope you enjoyed this silly little fic! & kudos to you if you recognized the tiktok that inspired this.

General tag list: @scooobies, @kennedy-brooke, @sillysillygoose444 @lilah-asteria @the-sweet-psycho

@daycourtofficial, @milswrites, @stormhearty, @pit-and-the-pen, @mybestfriendmademe

@loving-and-dreaming @azriels-human @mrsjna, @adventure-awaits13, @lorosette

@alwayshave-faith, @xadenswhore, @kodafics

[inknopewetrust]

Soak

Summary: Jack knows how to cure the remnants of a difficult day.

[Jack Abbot x Doc!Fem!Reader] [WC: 3.8k]

Warnings: 18+!, themes of The Pitt and ED happenings, established relationship (married), non-sexual bathing, heavy angst, Jack is a romantic through and through and a total wife guy, mentions of therapy and trauma related to work.

You thought you’d long forgotten what it felt like to be loved—to be in love.

That intangible feeling of knowing that the nervousness of devotion meant something further omitted itself, taking residence in catacombs of empty recollections. It was amassing eons of ashes without realizing how quickly time had passed because sorrow strikes with a heavy hand.

The simplistic goodness of love became harder to grasp when the abandonment grief stole from it. Love. To be loved, or love, sounded so… childish. Or the need for it, rather, that boiled inside of you like the most warranted reward you could not catch in the palm of your hand. It slipped through, time and again, at the sake of someone or something else you’d never saddle up to. Perhaps love was of importance and priority rather than devotion and emotion. It all hung the same way in the end.

It’s the ghosts that manifest when the whiplash fades away who spur periodic devastation.

When you met with ghosts, it was hard to recall what they had looked like before. Time was a cruel fiend. It masked the memories that had once been placed upon pedestals and marred them with a grisly sheen. Yet when moments of great pain cement themselves to torture you for years, it’s far too easy to remember the lasts compared to the firsts.

But time struck you with a thunderous arrow.

Cracking across the sky for your ears only, it lodged itself in your chest and forced laborious breaths to steady a foundation unearthed by fate. Today had just been “one of those days.”

The kind where you forget that love cocooned around you. Where against devastation, a healer sat in the mist.

The department riddled itself with the calling of a executioner. Perhaps at your hands, according to some of the distraught families that passed through the halls of the ED. But you knew deep down it wasn’t any fault of your own. You tried. You tried so hard to save them. However, when a MVA comes crashing through with three carloads of victims and little hope for recovery, the grim reaper sits in the shadows waiting for the right time of emergence.

And then his scythe cuts the sound of a monitor going flat. The sound never escapes you.

The sound, and the words of the families consumed by grief, also linger far longer when the shift doesn’t seem to end. One turns into two, then three, and so forth until the relief of the day shift greets desolation with a kind smile and knowing statement of “rough night?”

But it’s not enough to make the horror disappear completely. You hear it when you transfer your charts to Collins, in the turn of your lock against your locker. You see their empty eyes behind your lids as they closed at the first sight of sun after twelve long hours. And you feel their hand going lax in yours when Jack’s crosses the center console to try and say “I’m here.”

Yet it doesn’t ground you in the way he had hoped it would. The silence calcifies at a stop light seven blocks from home.

If the radio hadn’t been lowly playing a pop tune, you would have heard the sounds of your blood pumping through your veins. The shallow breathing of chaos; a tense worry growing in your chest that the world was unraveling too quickly.

Jack’s thumb grazed the back of your hand.

“What are you thinking for breakfast?”

You didn’t hear him. Lost in that endless swirl. His voice was gone into an abyss.

“Hey.” Jack moved your hand gently. He said your name as you blinked, clearing away the fog.

“Sorry,” you said sheepishly. “I was… what did you say?”

Jack dismissed your apology. “It was bad day. You don’t need to apologize.”

His hand in yours filled an empty cavern. It filled up like liquid in a jar and made your heart ache at your ignorance. Jack didn’t do anything. He was here. He was trying to comfort you. The bad days didn’t cancel out the good ones and Jack too carried with him the scars of a past he would much rather forget.

But the sun rose again on another day and no matter what, you just had to keep going.

“Do you want to talk about it?” The light still hadn’t changed.

“Not really,” you admitted. “But I’ll probably make an appointment to talk to someone about it.”

Jack nodded knowingly, thumb drawing comforting lines along the back of your hand. The light changed to green and for a moment, you were appreciative that his focus transitioned back to the road.

“That’s good.” Was all he said.

You wet your lips in anticipation of speaking more but the words halted in your throat. Breathing in shakily, your free hand ran fingers over your forehead. Jack squeezed the one he held.

“It’s ok,” he said so softly you could barely hear him over the spin of the tires against asphalt.

It’s ok. Not “you’re going to be ok” or the “situation that is completely not normal is ok” but the “it’s ok” not to be whole. That the cracks under your skin were natural after trauma. Your chin trembled as you became overwhelmed by the agony stored inside of you.

Jack hated that he couldn’t do anything more to soothe the hurt. Because when you loved someone with every fiber of your existence, the pain they carried fused with your own.

Love encompassed something larger, abstruse. It was a feeling buried deep inside of you that only awakened at the moment of greatest necessity and Jack always seemed to let that emotion bloom. It unfurled in the palm of his hand and he held tight on to it knowing what time could do if he was not careful. Jack was cautious. He walked a fine line between giving too much and never giving enough but he tried—and that’s all he was asking of you now. Try. Breathe. Breathe.

And when the tears fell four blocks from home, he let you cry in the car. He forgot about breakfast, about how nice sleep would be in a few hours.

Jack didn’t shush you. He didn’t push you to wrap up your emotional plea for the sake of the car parking in the garage. He turned off the engine and pressed the garage door closed with the remote which further shut away the world beyond.

It was just you and him and your sorrow.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed. Five minutes, ten… but the tears did end like they always did. They dried up and left you empty again.

“I just don’t know,” you started when you felt sturdy enough to talk, “how many more kids I can see die on my table.”

Suddenly, you hated being a pediatric physician. You hated that all of the kids that came into the ED found themselves in a room with painted animals and some of them saw their joyous faces and others never had the chance. You hated that parents blamed you for ending a life that had barely begun and you couldn’t fathom understanding an ounce of why they always seemed to place the blame on you.

You tried. You tried and wasn’t that enough?

“It’s their little fucking hands. Their little fingers and toes and eyes that have the life sucked out of them and I’m the last one they see.”

Jack listened. He didn’t push.

“And the parents today,” you groaned at the thought; sucking in a wet, unattractive noise to clear your senses. He loved you enough not to care.

“God… I’ve never wanted to quit until today.”

“Today was a bad day,” he repeated.

“Today was an awful day,” you corrected.

“You’re going to carry it with you forever.” You knew his intrusive stare was targeting your face but ignored it. “You’ll never forget the ones who don’t get to see tomorrow.”

“I keep thinking,” you shook your head a little with a self-deprecating laugh, “about how I, we, get to go home after a family’s world is changed so drastically. And I pretend that nothing happened and that it’s normal to see this every other day and pretend that when I close my eyes, I don’t see them every time.”

“No one’s asking you to pretend,” Jack reminded you. He didn’t. He just coped differently.

“But I don’t know how to function otherwise, Jack. I can’t separate them anymore and I don’t know how to get back on track.”

“You said you were going to talk to someone, yeah?” He moved his head to catch your attention and those dark, hazel eyes bore into you deeply. He needed that confirmation—that you were listening and understanding him.

“Yeah,” you nodded.

“Then it’s not your job yet. Okay?” He looked at you expectantly. “It’s not your job yet. It’s not going to change without help but until you get that help, talk to someone who knows how to help you, then what more can you do than breathe? I am here, baby. I will always be here.”

You had stacked the tasks. Heal, heal, heal. Find a solution, be “normal”, and find something else to hide your time with while the struggle remained.

Jack brought you back to earth. Back from the endless orbit and to the ground where he could be the one to help for what little hours of peace you were granted.

He brought your hand to his lips and kissed your knuckles, then the dorsal and your wrist before turning it over and pressing into your palm repeatedly. Back and forth, back and fort, soothingly.

“Just breathe for me, alright?” He mimicked a slow intake of air before exhaling. Jack nodded at you to copy and you did. Once, then twice, and another.

“That’s it,” he encouraged.

You breathed in, then out. Over and over until that tremble of your hands ceased enough that it wasn’t the only thing he felt. Jack pressed the pressure points until your hand was pliable and unfurled with tension.

Focusing your attention, you looked out into the garage through the windshield and looked at the streaking wet remnants of water lingering behind. You hadn’t even noticed it on the way home.

“It rained?”

“Snowed,” Jack said.

“Badly?”

“Don’t worry,” Jack’s voice gained levity. You saw a flicker of a twinkle pass by his gaze when you looked toward him now. “You have the precipitation levels beat today.”

“I’m basically a prune at this point, I suppose.”

“Eh.” He let go of your hand and unbuckled his seat. “You’re a pretty prune then. The most beautiful prune I’ve ever seen.”

You shook your head at him, letting your seatbelt come undone too. “You don’t have to flatter me because you feel bad.”

“I will flatter as I please,” Jack scoffed. “You’re mine and I will compliment even if you’ve pruned the most prune-y you’ve ever pruned.”

Like routine and an attempt to lessen the burden of grief, both of you exited the vehicle and opened the doors to the back seats where your bags stored themselves on the way home. As you met Jack’s eyes across the space, he had both bags gripped in his hands.

“Jack,” you lamented.

“Go inside,” he nearly ordered. “Go change and I’ll meet you in a second.”

You sighed, holding onto the door as if it supported all of your weight.

“I can carry my own bag.”

“I know.”

“Then let me?”

He pondered it for a brief second before disagreeing. “I’ve got it.”

“J—“

“Are we really going to argue over a bag?” He asked. “Go,” he motioned to the entrance to the house via the garage. “I’ll put these away and then I’ll come find you.”

Jack wasn’t going to take the objections stored like ammunition. His stubbornness had faults but good intentions in the moment.

“Fine,” you faltered. “Alright.”

“Good.”

As you lingered a moment longer, the tiredness of it all washed over you quickly. You shut the door and felt a relief take hold upon crossing the threshold into your house. It smelled like the two of you, it felt like the both of you. It calmed when endless cycle of catatonic winters brought forth a dome of doom.

The car door closed with a beep not long after. Jack deposited the bags in the mud room along with his badge that lay in a tray beside the door. He place it atop yours and paused at the pink tint that faded into the white letters of your “doctor” plate.

It carried home. It always did.

The echos of home held sounds of you. And while his hearing wasn’t what it was twenty years ago because of the lingering legacy of service, he still knew what was you and what the ringing was. The sound of the lights going on in the bathroom that left a small hum burn through the room—you. The sounds of shoes clattering to the floor and a drawer opening in the dresser of the bedroom—you.

His life was filled with the symphony of you and even on the darkest of days, he listened to nothing but.

You felt the water run over your fingertips from the faucet. Warm and greeting, it was a luxury of the morning.

The house you had learned to love was a concession made of you both. A sanctuary of space; somewhere to heal and to love and to rest that met the untraditional needs of a unconventional household. The bathroom was one of those places. The vanity stretched across one wall with a golden, warm lighting cascading across its speckled white marble and a Spanish cedar wood beneath it.

It was spacious and accommodating. But as you looked up into the mirror and at your reflection marred from the day, your eyes caught the tub, seldom used, in the background. The porcelain often sat dry—an inconvenience because of its deep edges and lack of grip. Even in your own pampering you avoided it as habit from Jack’s own difficulties using it.

But he had insisted on it years ago. He said that you’d use it one day and yet, still, the days were far and few between.

It caught your eye now, however.

You thought about what it would be like to fill it up and see the steam roll off the top of the water in swirls. The tendrils reaching and floating to the ceiling quietly while your back would rest upon the smooth, cold ceramic.

“The pipes might be rusty.”

Jack’s voice bit through the stream of water coming from the faucet and your eyes darted to the doorway.

He stood leaning against the frame with his arms crossed at his chest. Peering at you with knowing eyes, you half-figured he knew every thought that passed through your mind at any given moment. You turned off the sink.

“I’ll just take a shower.”

“Why?” His brow furrowed. “We have a tub for a reason.”

“Yeah but it’s—“

“A really nice, expensive, tub.”

“And really excessively tall.”

“It’s a soaker.” Jack walked into the bathroom and pulled a towel from a cabinet adjacent to the shower. “They’re supposed to be big.”

You watched him moved about. “If this was another day, I would have made a joke about that.”

“I can’t wait to hear it when a better day comes.”

It was his turn to turn on a faucet—the tub. He knew you liked the water “boiling” so he turned it hot enough to warrant a longer bath. He opened up the shower door and pulled out the stool from inside of it and place it beside the tub and sat down.

“What are you doing?” You pivoted to rest against the vanity while he sat there in his dirty scrubs.

“I’m waiting for you,” he said frankly. “Come on, take off your clothes.”

He saw the way your shoulder’s sagged as your body began to take the brunt of mental pain. You challenged him to change his mind with one look but he wasn’t going to budge. The stubbornness of Abbot men ran deep within his blood.

This is what love was.

He held out his hand from his place on the stool and beckoned. You breathed in, and then out, just as you had in the car. And his hand enveloped yours once more.

“You know,” Jack started lowly, “it’s not a bad thing when someone wants to take care of you.”

His hands traveled to your hips and lifted your scrub top slowly. His touch melted warmly into the skin of your stomach and around the sides of your waist while his legs parted and brought you to stand closer. You loved the feel of his hands on your body. Not now for pleasure, but to know that he was there. He’d always be there if you let him.

“And somedays, all I want to do is make sure you’re ok. So when you’re not, I want to take care of you.”

Therapy was doing wonders for his communication.

“It’s a pity this doesn’t have a door,” you motioned down to the tub as it began to fill near the halfway line.

“Like those old fuckers have?” He looked at you with a joking offense. “I’m gray, not a hundred.”

“You know what I mean.” You knocked his shoulder with your fist. He rocked back then toward you in return. His hands pulled at your top and you helped usher it over your head.

“I would rather not be alone.”

“I’ll be right here,” his eyes laid heavy into yours.

“What if I help you?” You proposition as his grip moved to your pants. He slid them down slowly. “I can help you too. We’ve never tried it.”

“Because I’d rather not end up a patient with a description of ‘one-footed man who ate shit trying to get into a tub not made for him.’ It just doesn’t seem… right.”

You unclipped your bra and handed it to him. He put it on top the pile growing in his lap of your clothes. Instead of ogling you further, as you removed your panties and then your socks, he turned to the edge of the tub and poured soap in. Jack stirred it with his hand as the warm water radiated up his arm and the bubbles began to form around it.

Your hand found his shoulder as you tried to carefully maneuver into the tub without incident. Jack’s other hand shot out, guiding the small of your back into the water.

“Are you sure?”

The softness in your sad eyes poured into his heart. He sighed, admiring the way the bubbles hid you from view as you pulled your knees to your chest and rested your head on them.

“It’s kind of lonely in here.”

“Baby,” he let out a small chuckle. “You really want me in there?”

You nodded. The hand he had left in the water retreated and crumpled your clothes into a ball. While he was still preparing his protest, he caught the back of his shirts behind his neck and slipped them off gracefully.

“I might die for real this time.” Only people who faced actual death could joke about that.

“Well then I really don’t know what I’d do with myself,” you turned and watched as he stood to remove his pants.

“Waiting for a show?” His hands paused at the scrub ties.

“I like looking at my husband. Can’t a woman admire a handsome man?”

His lips curved into a smirk. There was a way you always distracted yourself from the flood and it was through him. Jack knew it, because he had been guilty of it too. But there was nothing telling him that when he reached the edge of the tub and you rose with your body dripping with soapy water and helping him the best you could into it, that you were trying to have sex to forget about it all.

It wasn’t healthy, for either of you, to fall into that habit.

Without incident, he slipped into the position behind you and you settled back down between his legs and for the first time, Jack was appreciative of the purchase. It was relaxing and it was peaceful.

You moved the soap bubbles between your hands in front of you as his arms rested on the sides. As he relaxed, he knew that if his eyes were to close for an extended period of time, he’d be out like a light. But you kept the water moving. Mildly lapping with every listless sway of your hand and the cupping of bubbles to be brought back down to the water.

After a few minutes the sounds ceased and though he had closed his eyes, he sensed the way you shuffled back against him and carefully, as if not to spook him, leaned backwards against his chest.

And suddenly, you were at peace.

Love floated into the spaces left cracked from the day. It caressed your arms and folded over your shoulders to hold you tightly together and feel each other in a moment of quiet reflection. A tidal wave breeched your shores again. Jack felt your body trying to ignore it. Tears slipping through your closed eyes as he nudged his head to an angle that now rested against yours.

“Just because we can’t save everyone doesn’t mean we are any less deserving of a good life,” he whispered into your ear.

Your hand cleared itself of soap underneath the water and drew back up to the side of his face, gliding across his features to leave a trail of wet and back to his hair where the strands were still damp.

“I love you so much.”

A beat.

“I love you,” you breathed.

“You are a good doctor, a great doctor,” Jack affirmed. “One day or twenty of them don’t decide you’re not.”

You thought you’d long forgotten what it felt like to be loved—to be in love.

Yet that thought was easily forgettable now.

A/N: jack abbot has been eating at my brain for weeks like a parasite and i needed to write for him so badly - also not proofed yet so don’t assassinate me

[asxgard]

Any Excuse | one shot

Dr. Jack Abbot x f!Hospitalist!reader

Requested

Summary: A snapshot of your interactions with the ruggedly handsome ER doctor, and several of the excuses he uses to see you.

[ Masterlist ]

Anon Request: I have a request! Jack Abbot x reader where the reader is a new night-shift hospitalist (the doctor that is responsible for taking care of patients admitted to the hospital from the ER) at PTMC. She and Jack hit it off after meeting and he keeps trying to come up with any excuse at all to admit patients just to have to contact her. And maybe he goes and visits his admitted patients “just to check up on them” even though he never has before and probably barely remembers their names just to see her. And the night shift ER crew just smirk at each other whenever she goes to their department to see a patient and interacts with Abbot.

Note: so I read a bunch of articles about hospitalists and I still feel like I might have misunderstood, so this took a bit longer than intended lol but here it is! I hope you enjoy💜

Word Count: 1.4k

All of my works are 18+ due to general adult content.

Warnings: hospital setting, medical inaccuracies, foul language, pining, slowburn? (can I say that in a one shot? lol), so much sass & flirting

not beta read

Jack thought that the first time he saw you, he had to be dreaming. A cliched savior in a white lab coat, moving through the Pitt with a purpose and a smile. He had heard about the new hospitalist floating around, having started several weeks prior, but he had never seen you down in the Pitt before.

You had come down for an admitted patient, and when you stopped in front of him to go over the case, it took him a second to speak.

“Finally come to see how the other half lives?”

“More like finally hitting rock bottom.” You supplied effortlessly with a smirk.

One side of Jack’s lips tilted upwards, “Patient’s been waiting nearly two hours on a bed upstairs.”

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” You said, eyes flickering across the busy ED, “You’re lucky he wasn’t waiting for surgery. You’d wait all night.”

Jack handed over the tablet showing the patient’s chart. You skimmed through it quickly, humming as you did.

“Great, I’ll go get him to radiology. Thank you, Dr. Abbot.” You said, smiling at him.

He watched you go with an uncapped fascination. With the tiniest hint of a smile, Jack got back to work.

—

The next time he saw you, you were in one of the ED rooms, talking to a mother and daughter. You were going over some results, before explaining that you would be bringing the mother upstairs shortly for inpatient care. Your demeanor was kind, but refined, shoulders set with an easy smile.

“Good evening, Dr. Abbot.” You said as you approached him.

He greeted you after a beat, subtly taking in your figure. “Would be better without all these boarders.”

You glanced at the board, “Truly, if this is how the other half lives, I’m good where I’m at.”

A wry grin formed, “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

You chuckled, “I think the dose I got on my med school rotation is good enough for a lifetime. I’m content just drifting through, on occasion.”

Me too, Jack thought before shaking it off, steeling his expression.

“You get used to it.” Jack said, tone light, “At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.”

Jack ignored the way Ellis looked over at him.

“Duly noted.” You said with a smile. “Can we go over my patient quickly? I’d like to get her upstairs.”

Jack nodded, moving closer to you to rattle off several things about your patient.

It was around that time Jack started taking sugar in his coffee. Just one packet, but it did not go unnoticed.

—

“Ah, Dr. Abbot, just the man I was looking for.” You said, walking over to the charge desk where he stood.

He looked from the board to you, eyebrow raised, “Don’t hear that often.”

You raised a challenging eyebrow in return, “Why’s that, do you think? Certainly would have nothing to do with your bedside manner, or that rugged charm? Perhaps the dry humor? No, certainly not.”

Shen barked a laugh beside him, before quickly covering it with an awkward cough.

Jack blinked, momentarily speechless. “I think it has something to do with…what did Dana’s daughter call it? My resting bitch face?”

You laughed, and the sound carried, making Jack’s heart squeeze.

“Maybe that’s it. I’d just call it ‘stoic and mysterious’. It works, for you.” You said, clearing your throat and glancing away from him as your cheeks heated. “Anyways, I was just coming to ask why you were admitting the patient in Central-5? EKG was clean, troponin test confirmed no heart attack, and you can monitor overnight down here.”

“Need the bed.” He supplied. “8/10 chest pain that comes and goes, shortness of breath, several risk factors like high cholesterol and triglycerides. CCU should take him.”

You hummed, looking over the chart again. “Alright, yeah, I’ll take him. I’ll follow up with his PCP in the morning to get more of a history. Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”

Jack nodded.

“Can you let Ms. Kelly know I’ll be back down shortly to bring her to gastro?”

He nodded again, “Course.”

You smiled brightly at him, “Thank you!”

—

Hours later, Jack had moved up to CCU to check on a patient. Something he never did. It was less so to check up on the patient, and more so to see you. He didn’t even remember the patient’s name, only their list of symptoms, their test results.

You had begun to occupy most of his thoughts, and he found himself looking for any excuse to talk with you. The bad breakroom coffee felt hot in his hands, two cups holding more weight than just liquid. He had no idea how you took your coffee — if you drank coffee — but he guessed you preferred it slightly sweet. He really hoped he was right.

Sat in a reserved corner of the seventh floor, you were charting — hands moving quickly over the keys, eyes focused.

“Hey,” Jack said softly, as to not startle you.

You turned your head, taking him in before you smiled.

“Wanted to check up on Mr…uh, and figured you might need this.” He offered you one of the cups.

You blinked, “Mr. Olsen? You wanted to check up on a patient?” You accepted the coffee, “Thank you, this was really nice of you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Was hoping I was being overly cautious and he didn’t actually have a heart attack.”

“It’s good you wanted to admit him, actually. I think he has GERD.” You said, taking a careful sip of the hot liquid, and a smile lit up your features when you swallowed, eyes flickering from the liquid and back to Jack.

Jack took a sip of his black coffee, nodding. “That makes sense, actually. Heartburn could���ve been what he was feeling.”

“I asked him about his diet, high-fat mostly. He had a spicy burrito for dinner, so yeah. GERD. Waiting for a consult, but he’s doing fine. I’ll have him follow up with a nutritionist and his PCP.”

“Good, that’s good.” He shifted his weight. “Looks like you’ll have all the glory, then.”

You laughed, “Hardly. You wanted to admit him…but we can share. 70/30?”

Jack smirked, “Closer to 60/40. I did order all those tests.”

You scoffed playfully, “I will go no lower than 65/45.”

“Deal.”

—

You came down into the Pitt with coffees in hand, eyes searching for a particular doctor — the one with hard, caring hazel eyes, salt and pepper curls, and a smile that made your heart race.

“He’s in Trauma-1,” said Ellis, hiding her smirk well. “I can let him know you stopped by?”

Your cheeks heated, “I can wait, I have two patients to check up on down here. They should have beds within the hour.”

Ellis nodded, “Look at you getting stuff done.”

“Heavy is the head…”

She chuckled.

Jack said your name in surprise, closing in on you. He took in the coffees and your smile.

You handed him one without ceremony, “Returning the favor.”

He accepted it graciously, ignoring how Shen and Ellis were smirking at him, taking a sip.

“Damn, they hide the good shit upstairs, huh?”

You cracked a grin, “It’s as if they play favorites.”

Jack put a hand over his heart and mocked offense, “You wound me. Are you saying I’m not your favorite?”

“I brought you the good shit, didn’t I?” You smirked, not missing a beat.

—

Jack called your work cell, glancing up at the board with one hand in his pocket. His shift was nearly over, but he had decided to call you after he had failed to see you for most of his shift.

“Thinking about admitting a patient to the cardiology,” he supplied lamely. “I know you can work magic with admissions.”

“You’re calling to ask for advice or for a favor?” You asked, “Or just so the Pitt can be graced with my wondrous presence right before shift change?”

“Can’t one doctor just call another?” A pause, “But can’t it be a bit of all of that?”

Your laugh was light and airy, “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

True to your word, you arrived in under ten minutes.

“You could just page me next time.”

He shrugged, “Ruins the mystique.”

A sharp laugh escaped your throat that you covered with your hand. “I feel like it would add mystique, even though I hardly think you leave any for the rest of us.”

“You think I’ve got mystique?”

“Totally. I dig the whole ‘gritty ER doc bathed in mystery’ thing you’ve got going on.”

“Yeah?” He raised a challenging eyebrow. “So I shouldn’t ask you to dinner then?”

“No, no,” Your cheeks flamed. “I think you totally should. But only if you don’t think it’ll ruin your rough-edge reputation.”

“We should test it. You know, for science.”

You agreed easily, “For scientific purposes only.”

He matched your smirk.

[ more stuff with Jack Abbot ]

want to join any of my taglists? shoot me a message!

Dr. Abbot taglist: @flyinglama @valhallavalkyrie9 @melancholyy-hill @travelingmypassion @yournerdmodziata @dark-twisted-and-mechanical-mind @sarah-the-bird-nerd @artsymaddie @partofthelouniverse @woodxtock @rachel2494

The Pitt taglist: @cannonindeez @spoiledflor @kittenhawkk @nessamc @thatchickwiththecamera @sharkluver @loud-mouph @ksyn-faith @sunfairyy @dragonsondragons @mischiefsemimanaged @pastelbunnelby @jetjuliette @that-one-fangirl69 @moonlightmvrvel @andabuttonnose @boldlyherdream

All: @nixandtonic

I really enjoyed this one, so I hope you did too!

[thepencilnerd]

Anatomy of Want

summary: Jack Abbot never thought he'd be this undone over a resident. But you were unlike anyone he'd met—brilliant under pressure, quick on your feet, and impossible to ignore. What begins as admiration quickly becomes something deeper, something that simmers beneath every shared shift, until it threatens to boil over. warnings/notes: 18+ MDNI, age gap, slow burn, mutual pining, jealousy, praise kink, shameless smut, oral sex (f&m receiving), body worship, depictions of war scars, literally just an excuse to write jack abbot smut & you kissing his scars bc that man lives in my head rent free wc: 5.4k a/n: forgot i posted this on ao3 but not here :}

You joined the night shift in a flurry of quiet confidence and dazzling competence, and Jack noticed you immediately. It wasn’t just the way you handled patient load like clockwork, or how you navigated the trauma bay with a calm assurance usually reserved for seasoned attendings. It was the way you asked questions, the way you looked at problems sideways, the way you never folded, even when things got messy.

He told himself he was just impressed. That it was his responsibility, as your mentor, to push you. And he did—assigned you the trickiest cases, brought you into every complicated intubation, every crashing patient. You rose to each occasion like you'd been waiting for it, and Jack couldn't stop himself from watching.

"Nice call on that bleed in bay three," he said one night, as you stripped off your gloves, blood spattered on your gown. "You didn’t hesitate."

You shrugged, a wry smile on your lips. "Wasn't much time to, I could've acted faster."

He looked at you a beat longer than necessary. "Take the win, Dr. L/N."

That was how it went for months. Shifts passed in a rhythm he hadn’t felt in years. He trusted you. Relied on you. Admired you, yes, but more than that. There were moments—lingering looks across trauma bays, soft laughs shared over half-spilled coffee at 3 a.m., casual brushes of your hands when passing charts that lingered a beat too long.

Once, when you struggled with a stubborn intubation, he’d leaned in close, murmuring, "You've got this," low enough that it was meant just for you. His hand steadied your elbow, brief but grounding. You’d nailed the tube placement. He’d smiled the whole rest of the shift.

After the harder nights, he started climbing to the roof again. The first time he found you there—legs dangling off the ledge, coffee in hand, still in scrubs—he thought it was coincidence.

It wasn’t.

"Couldn't sleep either?" you'd said without looking at him, voice soft with exhaustion.

He didn’t answer right away. Just sat beside you, shoulder brushing yours.

You didn’t say much after that. Neither did he. Just silence, and the hum of the city below, and a sense of belonging he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

Some nights, you’d pass a bag of vending machine pretzels back and forth in companionable quiet. Other nights, you'd trade war stories—the worst consults, the craziest saves—your voices low, private, confessions to the stars.

It was easy. Natural. Dangerous.

Jack tried to tell himself it didn’t mean anything. That it was just friendship. Just exhaustion.

But then there were the nights he caught himself watching you laugh at something small, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, and his chest tightened with something he couldn’t name.

The tension built slowly, like pressure behind a dam.

Then came the morning you were signing out charts at the nurse’s station, still in your scrubs and rubbing at a bruise forming on your shoulder. Samira Mohan breezed in, bright-eyed, coffee in hand.

"Don’t forget," she said, pulling up beside you. "8pm tonight. David from anesthesia."

"Shit." You'd totally blanked. "I almost forgot, I'm sorry."

"You’re gonna be great," she assured. "He’s nice. And hot. Like... surgery hot."

You couldn't help the snort that escaped you. "What do I even wear? It’s been so long. I bought that one thing..."

Samira's eyes lit up. "Oh, the black lace set?"

"Samira!" Your hands flew up to cover her mouth, cheeks pink and lips pressed tight. "Keep your voice down!" The words came out tight.

"It’s classy!" she laughed, prying your hands off her mouth. "I stand by it. Black is always a good call."

Neither of you noticed Jack at the far end of the nurses' station, flipping through charts but not actually reading them.

He stood there longer than he needed to. Long enough to hear about the date. Long enough to hear about the lingerie. Long enough for his mind to start betraying him—already picturing you in it, delicate black lace against your skin, curves he'd only admired from a respectful distance until now. He wasn't sure whether he'd be more desperate to tear it off you with his hands or his teeth.

And something in him shifted. Just a little. But enough to curl his fingers tighter around the chart in his hands, to clench his jaw until it ached. You sounded hesitant, unsure, nervous in a way that didn’t track with the woman who could crack a diagnosis under pressure without breaking a sweat.

He heard the waver in your voice when you said, "I’m just… worried," and it rang in his head like bolded text. Jack knew you too well not to read between the lines. You weren’t worried about the guy—you were worried because someone else already occupied your mind.

And damn it, he wanted nothing more than for it to be him.

He didn’t want anyone else to be close to you like that. Not because he thought you needed protecting, but because he’d never met someone whose mind, whose hands, whose presence made him feel like maybe—just maybe—he could let someone in again.

Samira nudged you with her elbow, oblivious to the ripple effect her words had left in their wake. "Go home, take a nap, put on something that makes you feel good, and just... have fun, okay? It's your first night off in weeks—you deserve to enjoy it."

You hesitated, biting your lip. "I don't know... it's been a while. What if it's awkward? What if I forgot how to do this?"

She grinned like the devil herself. "You don't forget. It's like muscle memory. Besides, you’re hot. And smart. And wearing black lace. You'll be fine."

You laughed weakly, dropping your voice. "It's just... first date sex? After a dry spell? I feel like I'll crash and burn."

Samira waggled her eyebrows. "Best way to crash. Trust me."

A snap echoed through the room—the sharp, unmistakable crack of plastic breaking.

You and Samira both glanced up.

Jack bent calmly, retrieved the shattered halves of a pen from the floor, and tucked them into his pocket like nothing had happened.

You blinked. Samira blinked. Then shrugged and kept talking.

"Go have fun," she repeated, nudging you again. "Tonight's about you. No pressure, no expectations. Just... have a good time."

You nodded, though your heart wasn't in it. The twist in your stomach wasn't nerves about the date.

It was the thought of someone else entirely.

You smiled weakly and nodded, though your stomach twisted in ways that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with someone else entirely.

On your way out, you passed Jack by the charting station, offered him a quiet, "See you on Monday, Dr. Abbot." He gave you a tight-lipped smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Eight o’clock rolled around faster than you expected.

You stood outside the restaurant, already regretting your decision. The lace set beneath your outfit felt less like a confidence boost and more like a secret that didn’t belong to this version of the night. Still, you squared your shoulders and walked in, searching the tables until you saw a man wave—clean cut, kind smile, textbook charming.

David was, by all accounts, exactly what Samira had described. Funny, intelligent, a bit pretentious, but typical for your average resident. He complimented your dress. Asked about your shift schedule. Talked about scuba diving in Belize, his past summer at his parent's beach house.

But your smile stopped at your cheeks. You laughed at the right moments. You answered questions politely. And every so often, your mind wandered back to a different voice—rougher, lower, more familiar.

You thought of Jack’s dry wit. The way he tucked his hands into his scrub pockets when he was thinking. The sound of his laugh, more of a chuckle, rare but always sincere. The heat in his gaze when he really looked at you, like he was trying to hear what colors tinted your thoughts.

You forced yourself back to the conversation with rapid blinks, nodding at whatever David was saying about residency rotations and placements. He was nice. He really was.

So why did you feel like you were somewhere you didn’t belong?

Maybe it was the way David's hand reached for yours across the table, smooth and tentative, and how you instinctively pulled back before you could stop yourself. It wasn’t rude—just reflex. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel familiar.

Not like Jack’s hands—callused and warm—when they’d guided your wrist during your first real incision, steadying your nerves with his quiet presence. His grip had been firm, reassuring. You could still remember the way his fingers curled gently but purposefully around yours, the scent of antiseptic and adrenaline in the air.

David’s hand was too small. Too soft. Too unsure. There was no strength in it. No certainty. No experience.

God you were going insane.

"Sorry," you exhaled, offering him a polite smile. But your attention was already drifting, your eyes drawn to a familiar silhouette across the room.

Salt and pepper curls caught the neon light just right. Jack Abbot stood at the far end of the bar, one hand wrapped around a beer, the other resting on the wood tabletop, eyes cast toward the floor—until he looked up.

And found you.

Your breath caught. The background noise dulled to static. For a suspended moment, the two of you just stared. Time slowed. Jack didn’t blink. He didn’t look away.

He didn’t have to.

You felt it in your gut—the electric pull of something intangible.

David started talking again, but it was white noise. The clink of a glass, the hum of conversation, all drowned out by the weight of that look, of Jack watching you like you were the only person in the room.

And suddenly, you were.

You raised your wine glass slowly, holding his gaze as you took a sip. Jack mirrored you, bringing his beer to his lips with a quiet intensity that made your chest tighten. The silence stretched between you like a live wire.

Fingers tightening around the stem, you set your glass down with a little too much force, feigning a glance at your phone as if a sudden messaged had triggered a vibration. "Shit, it's an emergency," you lied, offering a rushed, apologetic smile. "Something came up at the hospital. I have to go. I'm so sorry."

David looked disappointed, but nodded, ever the gentleman. "Of course! Rain check?"

A small, apologetic smile tugged at your lips as you rose, shrugging into your coat. Pulse pounding in your ears, you threaded your way through the maze of tables, slipping out the door with a tight exhale.

Behind you, the scrape of a barstool echoed a second later—quick, deliberate.

Out in the cool night air, you rounded the corner into the alley beside the building, your breath misting as you leaned against the brick wall. The adrenaline had only just begun to settle in your bloodstream when you heard the trailing of familiar footsteps.

Jack Abbot appeared a moment later, turning the corner with his hands outstretched, his brow furrowed like he wasn’t sure what he was doing there until his eyes found yours.

"You okay?" he asked, his voice low. He shifted closer to you, arms now crossed.

You nodded. "Yeah. I just... needed air."

A pause. Eyes dipped, then lifted again, something unspoken skating between you.

You cleared your throat. "How was your evening?"

Jack blinked at the pivot, letting it settle between you. "Uneventful."

"What were you doing at that bar?" you asked, an arch to your brow that softened the tension.

He allowed himself a grin, shoulders relaxing just slightly. "It’s my usual spot. Popular with the old folks."

"Samira did say it had a vintage charm to it when she picked it out," you replied with a smirk.

Jack scoffed at the poke at his age, making both of you laugh.

"Alright then," he countered, eyes narrowing with a spark of mischief. "What were you doing there?"

You hesitated, then exhaled a slow breath. "Ruining my chances of settling down."

His expression flickered.

"What?" You gave a half-laugh, smile twisted with self-deprecation. "Isn't that the whole point of dating as a doctor? Just a long game of figuring out how emotionally unavailable I still am and forever will be?"

Abbot sighed, long and quiet, like it came from somewhere deeper than just the moment.

You tilted your head slightly, watching him, curiosity tugging at your features. "Were you… waiting on someone?"

That gave him pause.

Jack stilled. The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a frown, not quite a smile. His gaze didn’t meet yours at first. He looked past you, to the mouth of the alley, like the answer might be written in the shadows or the neon lights beyond. Like if he stalled long enough, you might forget you asked.

"Not exactly," he started, voice rougher than usual.

You lifted a brow.

He exhaled again, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "I didn’t come here for that. But when I saw you…" He trailed off, eyes finally locking onto yours. "Guess I started waiting."

Your breath caught. The weight of his words settled in your chest—slow and warm and heavy. Something about the way he said it made it feel less like a confession and more like an inevitability.

He’d been waiting. Watching. Wanting. The same way you’d been tiptoeing around the truth since you'd stepped foot into that ER—since the very first time your fingers brushed as he passed you a chart, since the first time your eyes met across the trauma bay, since that first quiet moment together on the roof.

With the dim alley light casting soft gold between you, something gave. Tension melted into gravity, and gravity into pull, pull into a quiet explosion. You stepped forward just as he did, meeting in the middle, neither of you saying a word. The kiss hit like floodgates bursting—urgent, aching, years of held-back desire finally snapping loose.

His mouth was warm, tasting of beer and something deeply Jack. His cologne clung to the collar of his coat, smoky and crisp, and you inhaled it like oxygen. Hands found your waist, large and steady, trailing down to your hips and cupping your curves like he'd memorized them long before ever touching. Your fingers curled around the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer, needing more.

It felt like one of those messy makeouts from college—reckless, hungry, impossibly heady. But this wasn't some clumsy hookup. This was the culmination of every stolen glance, every almost-touch, every moment spent not saying the thing that burned between you.

You were both sober enough to know what this was—what it meant. When Jack pulled away, just slightly, his breath brushing your lips, his voice dropped into something gravel-soft. "You're not drunk?"

You shook your head, words catching in your throat. "One glass of wine. I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

That was all he needed.

You surged forward, capturing his mouth again with a need that bordered on desperate. Jack backed into the wall with a soft grunt, pulling you in like the space between you had always belonged to him. His hands roamed—one sliding up to cup your jaw, the other finding your lower back, anchoring you like he was terrified you'd disappear.

The kiss deepened, his tongue brushing yours, tasting of mint and longing and everything unspoken between you. You whimpered into his mouth, fingers threading through the curls at the nape of his neck, feeling him shiver at the contact. He devoured you like a man starved, and when he pulled back, just enough to look at you, lips swollen and voice rough, he rasped, "Let me take you home." 

You nodded, breathless, pulse thundering in your throat. The walk back to your apartment was quiet, the tension between you humming like electricity under your skin. Jack simply held your hand the entire way. The air crackled, your hand brushing his once, twice, before he finally laced your fingers together.

Arriving at your front door, your hands trembled slightly as you unlocked it. The weight of what was about to happen anchored itself deep in your stomach. You stepped inside, the warm light of your living room spilling over the hardwood floors. Jack hovered in the doorway, hesitant, until you reached for his hand again.

"Come in," you said softly.

He followed.

You led him to the couch, asking quietly if he wanted anything to drink. Jack shook his head, stepping closer until your bodies were barely apart.

"I don’t need anything," he murmured. "Except you."

You inhaled sharply, but before you could speak, his lips were on yours again—slower this time, reverent, like he was memorizing every contour of your mouth. His hands cupped your face as he pulled you closer, until you felt the full heat of him against you.

You reached for the hem of his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, then your fingers found the buttons of his shirt, fumbling slightly. Jack took over, shrugging out of it with ease. Beneath, his skin was warm and firm beneath your wandering hands, the light dusting of chest hair catching the soft glow of your floor lamp.

Jack’s hands slid under the hem of your top, brushing up your sides, warm palms skating over bare skin. When he pulled it over your head and saw the black lace lingerie beneath—filigree against your skin, delicate and dark—his breath caught in his throat.

"That kid," he spat, "wouldn’t know how to take care you."

You managed a breathless laugh, the tension and heat between you turning reckless. "And what exactly does taking care of me imply, Dr. Abbot?" you teased, voice low and daring.

Jack's eyes darkened immediately, his fingers tightening slightly where they gripped your waist. "Everything you need," he rasped. "And more."

You smiled, bold with adrenaline, tipping your chin up toward him. "And you think you can handle me?"

He leaned in, mouth grazing your ear, voice wrecked and certain. "Sweetheart," Jack said, "I'm counting on it."

He unclasped your bra with one hand, letting it fall away before sliding his palms across your breasts, his thumbs brushing over your nipples in slow, deliberate strokes. "You’re perfect."

You arched into him with a quiet gasp, his touch both soothing and incendiary. He kissed your neck, down your collarbone, until he was lowering you gently onto the couch.

"Let me take care of you," he said, voice hoarse with restraint.

Your only answer was a nod, a whispered, "Please."

Jack kneeled between your thighs, kissing his way down your stomach, murmuring soft nothings against your skin. He slipped your underwear down slowly, eyes locked with yours. He paused only briefly, kissing the inside of your thigh before taking two fingers and teasing them along your entrance.

You gasped, hips bucking as he gently eased a finger inside, curling it expertly. "So wet for me," he murmured, awed. "God, you’re dripping."

And then he was lowering his mouth to you, tongue parting you gently. When he sucked your clit into his mouth, your back arched and your fingers dove into his hair, holding tight.

Jack groaned against you, the sound vibrating through your core. "I could live here," he muttered. "Die happy between your thighs."

You whimpered, tugging harder at his hair. "Jack—please—"

He didn’t stop. His tongue moved in rhythm with his fingers, slow at first and then faster, guided by your every gasp and shudder. The sound of him—soft groans muffled against your slick, the wet sounds of his mouth working you over—had your skin tingling. The taste of you seemed to drive him wild, his chin slick with your arousal as he murmured, "Fucking incredible," into your core.

His fingers curled just right, finding that perfect spot with unerring precision. Your moans spilled out freely, hands clutching at his hair, holding him there. He groaned again, a sound of pure pleasure. "That’s it, sweetheart. Let go for me."

When it broke—when you shattered with a breathless, keening cry—Jack held you through it, grounding you with his strong hands bracketing your hips. His lips never left you, drawing out every tremble, every ripple of your climax until it became too much. Your thighs twitched, pleasure tipping toward the edge of pain, and with trembling fingers, you tapped gently at his shoulder. A silent plea for mercy.

He stilled instantly, pulling back with his mouth slick and eyes dark, but gentle.

You could only scoff, breath shaky and a smile of bliss coloring your face. Jack leaned forward to press a kiss to your thigh, tender and unhurried. "You’re unbelievable," he whispered, voice rough with awe and restraint.

He pulled back slowly, face glistening, licking his fingers clean before sucking them into his mouth, savoring every bit of your taste. Then he looked up at you like you were the only thing that existed. Like he'd just touched heaven.

As he kissed up your body, his breath fanned across your damp skin—each kiss a pause, a confession. His facial hair scraped lightly in contrast to the softness of his lips, leaving trails of heat along your ribs, then your collarbone. When he reached your neck, he lingered there, nuzzling the hollow beneath your jaw before pressing a kiss to it, like he couldn't get enough of the way you tasted, the way you felt, the way you breathed beneath him.

"Can I undress you?" you whisper, running your fingers through his hair. He looks up at you like the morning sky, warmth, admiration, and affection—but there's hesitation there too.

He swallows, jaw flexing slightly, before nodding. "Yeah," he says quietly. "Just... heads up."

You pause, thumb brushing the edge of his cheek. "Jack?"

His voice is rough. "You’ll see scars. From before. It’s not a big deal, just... some of them are pretty bad." He tries to laugh it off, but his eyes flicker away and his shoulders tense. Your heart cracks open at the vulnerability he rarely lets anyone see.

"Hey," you murmur, tilting his face back toward yours. "Whatever you’ve been through, whatever you carry—I want to see all of you. Every piece."

Jack's throat bobbed with a swallow, eyes glassy as he searched your face for doubt—and found none. His fingers brushed lightly along your jaw. 

You undressed him slowly, fingers trembling as you tugged his belt open, then popped the button of his slacks. His cock strained against the fabric, an eager outline that made your mouth water. When you pushed his pants down, the sight made you pause—he was perfect. Not too much, not too little—cut, well-groomed, thick and just the right length. A light trail of hair led up to a stomach carved with muscle, the kind earned by years of hard work, not vanity.

You wrapped your fingers around him, gave him a few slow pumps, marveling at the weight of him in your hand. When you ducked your head and pressed a kiss to the flushed tip, he hissed softly, hand threading into your hair. You licked him experimentally, kitten licks at first, savoring the velvet softness of his skin, the way he twitched at every flick of your tongue.

You took him into your mouth, slowly, a few shallow bobs that had him groaning low in his throat. His other hand gripped the back of the couch behind you as his hips twitched forward, but just when you began to settle into a rhythm, he gently but firmly pulled you back.

Jack crushed his mouth to yours, desperate and breathless, his hands cradling your face. "Not like that," he murmured, voice trembling against your lips. "I’m not coming anywhere but inside you. I want to feel you, every inch, every heartbeat." He drew back just enough to look at you, something raw and uncertain flickering in his eyes.

"If you're sure," he whispered, thumb stroking your cheek, "I want to take care of you. Let you shut everything else out—just feel me."

You nodded, breath catching. "I need you."

His breath shuddered out, the last thread of restraint snapping in his chest. With worship and heat in his eyes, Jack kissed you again—slower this time, deeper, as if trying to memorize the very shape of your mouth. Reaching over to the end table, you pulled out a condom wrapper and tore it open, your fingers trembling with anticipation.

With a breathless murmur of his name, you rolled it onto his length—slowly, deliberately—giving him a few teasing strokes first. His cock twitched in your hand, heavy and perfect, and your thumb brushed over the slick tip, spreading the pre-cum like a promise. Jack's breath caught, eyes dark as he watched you, jaw clenched with restraint, like you’d just lit a match in a room full of gasoline. 

He guided you down gently, his body pressing into yours, firm and certain, a grounding weight that promised not just desire, but devotion.

You moved first, hips sliding up and down in slow, deliberate strokes, and Jack almost exploded at how good you felt. Every part of him molded to you, surrounding you like safety and fire all at once. His hands cradled your face like something sacred, and the press of his chest against yours ignited sparks beneath your skin. You couldn't remember sex ever feeling like this—like your very soul was unraveling. It was almost a religious experience, divine and consuming, the way he fit with you, moved with you. It felt like surrender.

"Fuck." It punched out of Jack Abbot like a confession, like he’d been holding it in for months. You felt like pure velvet around him—tight, warm, impossibly soft, dragging him to the edge with every glide of your hips. His head tipped back for a moment, jaw clenched, trying to hold on. The sounds spilling from your lips—soft gasps, high whimpers, breathy moans—were branded into his memory already. God, he thought, if he could bottle them, he’d keep them forever. Hoard them. Pray to them for forgiveness. 

Your hands were grasping onto whatever they could—his shoulders, the cushions, the curve of his neck—anything to anchor yourself. When your nails dug into his back, Jack groaned low and deep, the sound vibrating against your skin like a warning and a reward. He definitely had a thing for rough, and that knowledge thrilled you.

You leaned in, breathless, and whispered praises against his ear—how good he felt, how perfect he was, how he filled you like no one else ever had.

"Please," you begged, voice shaking.

Jack groaned, the sound catching in his throat. "You’re everything I've ever dreamed of," he rasped, pressing his forehead to yours. "You feel like heaven."

Your nails raked down his back, and he hissed through clenched teeth, clearly loving it. "You take me so well," he murmured, lips brushing your temple, his hand smoothing along your spine. "So fucking good—perfect, you’re made for me."

"Jack—God, please—don’t stop," you whimpered, arching into him. His rhythm faltered for a heartbeat at your words, his grip on your waist tightening like a man barely holding on.

"Never," he whispered. "Gonna keep you like this. You're mine."

Each word wrapped around you like silk, the praise as intoxicating as the rhythm of his hips. You drank him in like water in a desert, letting it fill every hollow part of you until you were burning with it—consumed, adored, alive.

Jack shifted, pulling you with him, guiding you until your hands were braced against the couch and your body arched for him. The air thickened as he pressed behind you, one hand splaying over your lower back, the other skimming down to grip your hip firmly.

He slid back inside slowly, a groan torn from his throat at the new angle. "Fuck, look at you—" he breathed, eyes roaming over the arch of your spine, the flush of your skin.

Your breath caught at the intensity. He moved with purpose now, hips snapping against yours, the sound of skin on skin echoing in the dim light. His grip bruised in the best way, grounding you, guiding you, adoring you with every thrust.

Every movement lit you up, sending shocks through your body until you were keening, meeting him stroke for stroke. Jack leaned over you, one hand splaying across your lower back while the other slipped beneath to rub tight, teasing circles over your clit. The added pressure was too much, the timing of his thrusts too perfect. You were a whining mess, trembling and begging for release, the pleasure cresting like a tidal wave.

"That's it, baby," he groaned, his voice wrecked. "Let go for me. Give it to me."

You clawed at the cushions, barely able to hold yourself upright, your body burning at every point of contact. And when his teeth sank gently into your shoulder, scraping over sensitive skin and biting down with a growled praise, everything inside you shattered.

You came with a strangled cry, ears ringing, vision going white around the edges, the force of your orgasm crashing over you like fire and light. Jack held you steady, worshipful even now, as you pulsed around him—his voice in your ear, a low whisper of your name like a prayer he’d never stop saying. He pressed kisses down your shoulder blades, pausing to give you a break, his breath shaky with restraint.

Then, without a word, he gathered you into his arms, shifting you with care. He carried you up effortlessly, propping your legs over the edge of the couch so you were just hanging off, perfectly open for him. Nestled into the crook of your neck, Jack rocked into you with purpose, his thrusts slow but relentless, chasing his own release. Your hands wrapped protectively around his head, fingers stroking through his hair, grounding him.

"Are you going to fill me up?" you edged, voice breathless, lips brushing the shell of his ear. "Have me dripping for days so everyone knows who I belong to?"

"Jesus Christ, Y/N," he gasped.

That was it.

Jack shuddered, a low, desperate groan escaping him as he pressed himself deeper into you. He trembled, a broken moan tearing from his throat. His fingers clutched your thighs as he buried himself to the hilt, the sound of your voice—the permission, the trust—pushing him over the edge. His release surged through him, hips stuttering as he spilled into you, heart hammering as he held you close, breathless and undone. He collapsed gently against you, all tension melting as he pressed a kiss into your neck, lost in the aftershocks of something that felt like more than just pleasure.

A long moment passed before he pulled back just enough to look at you. His pupils were blown wide, the edges of his eyes glistening with overwhelmed want, cheeks flushed with effort and awe.

"What did I do to deserve you?" he murmured, cracking with disbelief. His gaze searched yours—earnest, sincere, undone. 

He leaned in again, kissing the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, as if he couldn't stop reassuring himself you were real. "You okay?" he asked softly, still breathing hard. "Was that too much?"

You smiled through the afterglow, brushing your fingertips over his jaw. "I've never felt anything like that. It was perfect."

Jack exhaled a shuddering breath of relief, then smiled too—soft and disbelieving, like he’d just found something sacred.

Later, after the two of you had cleaned up and slipped beneath the covers, the world slowed to a hush. Jack lay beside you, one arm tucked beneath your shoulders, the other lazily tracing shapes across your skin. Hearts, spirals, question marks—he wasn’t thinking, just moving, touching, grounding himself in your presence.

The silence between you was full—not empty—with comfort and understanding, the kind only found in someone who sees every scar and stays anyway.

Your body ached in the sweetest way, muscles languid and sated. You felt Jack’s chest rise and fall with slow, steady breaths against your back, the heat of his body a constant balm. You turned slightly to glance at him, catching the way his eyes fluttered closed, then opened again to meet yours.

"Stay with me?" you whispered, though it wasn’t really a question.

He leaned in, pressed a kiss to your temple. "Always."

Every quiet morning after that was a sort of miracle—waking tangled in his warmth, with the sun filtering through the curtains and the scent of coffee already brewing. Even the hardest days felt lighter, the sharp edges dulled by his steady presence, by the simple truth that he was yours, and you were his.

And in that stillness, that shared understanding, you knew: this was only the beginning.

[weaselle]

i just want to add that community and locality can often be the best solution if you can manage it.

my brother's wife started keeping chickens and we are getting eggs from her.

My sister and i have begun looking into going in together on buying a whole cow from a local school ag program.

The cows are sold to slaughter anyway, and there are many bonuses to doing this

For one thing, the money goes back into the education system. For another thing you can get details about how the cow is raised, what it was fed, what hormones or medicines were administered etc etc. The AG program people will probably be excited to tell you every detail.

Sourcing our meat from our local school ag programs means we would not be participating in the cattle industry deforestation of the Amazon and similar practices, and we would no longer be getting our meat shipped half way around the globe using fossil fuels.

the cow itself is only part of the cost, you have to pay separate for someone to butcher it and that can be hundreds of dollars, but it does mean you get to personally go look for a butcher who employs safe practices and runs a clean facility, instead of blindly trusting wherever the grocery store is currently getting their beef.

A whole cow plus the butchering is going to cost us like $2.5k, but if my brother's family and my sister's family and i all split it, it's reasonable and gets us like 500lbs of beef, which will go into three freezers (one at each household). The breakdown on price means that we get every part of the cow for the same price per pound as average hamburger meat (that means our steaks etc are much cheaper than at the store).

If every one of us for those three households eats a quarter pound of beef every single day of the year, that beef will last us almost a whole year - but since we don't eat beef every day, it will probably last us more like a year and a half or even two years. That means we will be definitely be spending less per year on beef than we do currently. If we find a butcher we trust enough for the beef and my sister in law starts keeping chickens for meat as well as eggs, our three households will be spending less money and have much more control over our food quality.

And they can't grow stuff at their houses (chickens take up a surprisingly small amount of space - plus they are pretty cheap to keep too!) but where i live right now we have a decent sized yard and we're on a well (so no water bill) and we grow lemons, oranges, plums, kiwis, guavas, grapes, cherries, strawberries, almonds, walnuts, peaches, apples, and persimmons. Plus the herb garden and we're thinking about getting the vegetable garden going again too. It's not enough to supply all of our fruits and veggies of course, but, it is enough to provide, for example all the lemons our three households need with enough left over to trade to our neighbors for some tomatoes and squash.

And, after all, if you directly control, say, about 50% of your produce this way, then you've lowered your chances of being poisoned by the anti-food-safety bullshit by quite a bit

Anyway, i know not everyone can access these exact solutions, but the local AG program thing might be doable for a lot of people out there, and there are other solutions i haven't thought of yet. Get with your friends or extended family about it and see what you can accomplish together.

My husband and I were discussing how the first felon is defending the FDA and how the quality control of our food is gonna basically disappear and I proceeded to have so much anxiety about it that I didn't sleep last night. How do we prepare for this? Is there a way to make food safe at home? How can we avoid getting poisoned from the grocery store? Sorry for bringing this anxiety to your inbox but I'm exhausted and scared and I'm hoping you've come up with food safety tips what with your general food complications.

I’m afraid I don’t have a solution for something of this scale and am just as equally terrified, but that said:

Check your local state regulations. Some states actually have strict testing that the FDA when it comes to certain things like milk. See if they are listing any recalls.

Stop eating things raw for the foreseeable future. Wash and cook everything thoroughly, even if the bag claims it’s pre-washed, wash it again. Cooking will also help eliminate any remaining pathogens. It means no more salads for a while but that’s okay.

For things like fruit, try to go with things that have an outer skin that can be taken off. If it requires you to cut into it with a knife, give the outer skin a scrub and rinse to reduce the chances of your knife being contaminated by anything like e-coli and then contaminating the insides by cutting it up.

For fruit that can’t be peeled, make sure to inspect and wash them thoroughly. If you are immunocompromised like me, consider cooking it down into a jam or pie filling to reduce further risk. Not as fun as eating it fresh for some people, but it’s a valid way of still getting the flavor and nutrients.

For things like milk, only drink pasteurized and ultra pasteurized. Try to get pasteurized eggs if you can too.

If you don’t have a meat thermometer, now is the time to get one. Make sore everything is cooked to its required internal temperature. For poultry, the recommended temperature is 165°F (74°C), while for beef and pork, the recommended temperature is 145°F (63°C) with a 3-minute rest time. Ground meats should be cooked to 160°F (71°C). Eggs should be cooked until the yolk is set. No more runny egg yolks for a bit until we get a competent source of information back about bird flu.

For things like flour, try to go for reputable brands that have their own independent testing facilities for things like gluten. They also usually test for other things and clean their facilities thoroughly. My go to is King Arthur atm.

Also, stop eating raw cookie dough if you’re not going to toast the flour in the oven first. That’s how a lot of people get sick, not necessarily from the raw egg, though stop eating raw egg right now if you do. Again, bird flu. [Addendum] I learned the flour trick in a job I used to work, but apparently, the pre-defunded FDA didn't think toasting the flour made it safe, so maybe just don't eat raw cookie dough. And I know someone's going to be a cunt in the notes like "I don't care I do what I want" good for you, hope saying that made you feel better.]

This is a dwindling possibility with the tariffs but try to buy food imported from other countries that still have food quality control. I get my masa harina from a small company that imports directly from Colombia. They can’t afford the gluten free label required to be classified as such in the USA, but considering Cheerios in the USA can afford to buy that label and the celiac foundation certification logo and still routinely sells contaminated produce due to not using gluten free oats and a mechanical sorting system that can’t be certified gluten free (1) (2) (3), I’m more inclined to go with other countries labeling right now.

With clean water under threat, use a filter for your drinking water. We currently use the ones by Life Straw. They don’t fit into your faucet but the LS filters are better than most of the ones that can be attached that way and the housing of the jugs and countertop filters are easy to clean. Make sure you do so once a week and change the filters as directed.

Most of this is just basic food hygiene stuff combined with what it’s like to be immunocompromised, but it’s always worth repeating in case someone didn’t know, but especially worth repeating right now with all our rules and regulating bodies going out the window 😞

[manicpixiedreamkira]

halfway home

megumi x reader, college!au, no curses!au, roommates to friends to lovers, aged up, drinking, reader is described as small/smaller than megumi (i also imagine him taller here, since he’s older—like 6’1/6’2), mentions of family trauma, smut, size kink if you squint, hair pulling kink (megumi), unprotected piv, oral (f receiving), use of pet names, tattooed!megumi, pierced!megumi—he has a dick piercing (amongst others), dirty talking, aftercare, not beta'd

w.c: 11,973

The apartment wasn’t perfect. It was a third-floor walk-up in an aging building that creaked in winter and trapped heat in summer, the kind of place where the shower knobs had to be turned just right or they screamed like a dying kettle. But the rent was doable, the location close to campus, and it had a living room with enough space for a couch and a secondhand TV. In Tokyo? That was gold.

You didn’t meet Megumi Fushiguro until move-in day.

He was leaning in the doorway of his bedroom—tall, lean, arms crossed over a plain black hoodie, quiet and unreadable as he watched you struggle with your suitcase. His hair was spiked in a wild way, eyes dark and watchful. 

Piercings caught the soft hallway light: one on his lip, another through his nostril, and a small silver barbell through the arch of his brow. The glint was striking against his otherwise quiet demeanor. He didn’t say much, but his presence was loud. Subtle tattoos peeked out from the cuffs of his sleeves: dark ink winding down his forearms, curling all the way up to his wrists, geometric and elegant and sharp like him.

You thought, he looks like he broods for fun.

"You're Y/N?" he asked. His voice was low, calm. Like someone used to listening more than speaking.

You adjusted your backpack and offered a small smile trying not to sound winded from dragging your suitcase up three flights. “That’s me. You must be Megumi.”

His nod was a half-inhale of air, barely perceptible.

“Or can I call you Megs?”

That got a reaction—barely. The tiniest twitch of one brow, a flicker of something behind his eyes. Not annoyed, exactly. Just surprised. He looked at you a moment longer, then said, “You can try.”

Then—barely, but there—it was: the corner of his lip twitched, a breath of a smirk.

That was how it began.

—

Megumi wasn’t what you expected in a roommate.

You figured you’d be living with someone a little messy, maybe overly talkative, maybe glued to their desk and headphones. Instead, you got him—quiet, precise, hard to read but oddly present. He moved through the space like he didn’t want to disturb it, always barefoot, always hoodie-clad, always with a subtle awareness of his surroundings.

He didn’t offer much at first—just glances, half-smiles, low murmurs when you crossed paths. But the silences weren’t uncomfortable. He was the kind of quiet that filled a room without trying. The kind that noticed. If you left dishes in the sink, they were washed and drying the next day. He also never said anything when you forgot to take your laundry out—but you always found your things quietly moved, never scolded, just handled.

When you fell asleep on the couch during finals week, you woke up with a blanket over your legs. He kept to himself, but you never felt like he was avoiding you. If anything, it felt like he was learning you—quietly, carefully.

You didn’t see much of his body—he lived in layers, in oversized hoodies and dark clothes—but sometimes you’d catch flashes. Ink just barely peeking from the cuff of his sleeve when he reached up to grab something from a cabinet. A whisper of a tattoo above his collarbone when he leaned forward over the sink, hair damp from a late shower. 

He never mentioned them. You never asked.

The only reason you knew the extent of them was because you saw it one day by accident, when he walked out of the bathroom with a towel slung low on his hips after a past midnight shower at the same time you were on your way back to your room from the kitchen, glass of water in hand. His chest and back were covered in ink, intricate and striking, with one long line of script that curved over his ribs. It was all you were able to glimpse in the dark.

There was an unspoken rhythm to your cohabitation. You weren’t friends, not yet, but something about him made it feel like you could be. He listened. He looked at you like he was actually seeing you—not scanning or assessing, but seeing. The kind of quiet that doesn’t demand attention, but makes you want to give it anyway.

Shared coffee in the morning. Brief conversations in the hallway. Laughs here and there when you teased him about how his hair looked post-shower. You started calling him Megs more often, just to see that subtle eye roll he gave you.

Over time, it became normal.

One night, you got home late, exhausted, and found him sitting on the couch, long legs stretched out, scrolling on his phone. You plopped down next to him with a groan, your arm brushing his.

"You good?" he asked without looking up.

"Dead. But alive."

"That makes no sense."

You cracked a smile. “Neither does living with a guy who only wears black and never makes noise. You're like a ghost.”

That got him. He let out a quiet laugh—just a breath, but it made your heart stutter.

Then there was the night you couldn’t sleep.

It was past one in the morning when it happened.

You’d been tossing in bed for nearly an hour, mind buzzing with thoughts you couldn’t pin down. Too much homework, too little rest, the vague sense of loneliness that clung to the early hours of the morning. So you gave in, padded into the kitchen in your oversized sleep shirt and socks, and went for a glass of water.

The light was already on.

Megumi sat at the kitchen table, a mug in one hand, the other resting against his temple as he stared down at a notebook filled with scribbled notes and highlighted lines. His black hair was tousled, softer without product, and his hoodie was nowhere in sight—just a dark tank top that revealed the sweep of tattoos down both arms, inked patterns wrapping like smoke and feathers from shoulder to wrist.

You froze for half a second.

Not because of the tattoos—though they were undeniably beautiful—but because this was the most open he’d looked since you moved in. Bare. Human.

He glanced up when he heard you.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, voice quieter than usual.

You shook your head and crossed the kitchen to grab a glass. “Brain’s too loud.”

He hummed in agreement, a small sound deep in his throat. “Yeah. I get that.” That was the most personal thing he’d ever said to you.

You hesitated, then slid into the seat across from him, curling your fingers around your glass. He didn’t seem surprised. If anything, he looked like he expected it.

“What’re you studying?” you asked, tilting your head toward his notes.

He hesitated, then pushed them a little closer so you could read. “Social psychology. It’s a gen ed, but… not terrible.”

You smiled faintly. “It suits you.”

He quirked a brow.

“You’re always observing. Like some quiet, mysterious people-watcher.”

One corner of his lips twitched—the one with the silver ring. “You think I’m mysterious?”

“I think you like people more than you admit,” you said, surprising even yourself. “You just don’t trust them easily.”

His eyes flicked up to yours, and for a moment, something passed between you—soft, fleeting. A current you didn’t know how to name yet.

He leaned back in his chair, letting the silence stretch.

“You’re… different,” he said finally. “Not in a bad way.”

“Thanks?” you laughed, a little unsure.

“You don’t hide. Most people do.”

The honesty in his voice made you look away, a strange warmth blooming in your chest. You took a slow sip of water, then whispered, “I try not to. Hiding never really helped me.”

His gaze lingered on you—curious, almost gentle.

“I notice that about you,” he murmured. “It’s rare.”

You didn’t say anything after that. You didn’t need to. The silence between you wasn’t uncomfortable. It was something else—something easy.

You sat there for a while, just drinking water and listening to the hum of the fridge, Megumi’s notes open between you, the scent of his tea filling the kitchen. You were tired, but you didn’t want to go back to bed just yet.

It felt like a beginning.

Not of something explosive or sudden.

But of something quiet and steady, like a new current under the surface.

Something you both felt, even if you didn’t have the words for it yet.

After that night in the kitchen, things shifted—just a little. Nothing obvious, nothing anyone else would have picked up on. But you felt it.

He started leaving the kitchen light on when he stayed up late, like he expected you to wander in again.

And you did.

Some nights, you found him reading or scribbling in a worn journal with ink stains on his fingers. Other nights, he was doing absolutely nothing—just sitting in the dark, hoodie draped over the back of the chair, tattoos visible in the low light, the ring on his lip catching the glow from the streetlamp outside.

He didn’t say much. Neither did you. But he made space for you in the quiet.

You learned things about him in fragments.

That he liked his coffee bitter, almost punishingly so.

That he hated loud music but loved the sound of thunderstorms.

That he had an older sister he didn’t talk about much—but when he did, his voice changed. Softer. Guarded.

That the tattoo over his ribs was a quote from a book he read at sixteen, one that stuck with him even when everything else didn’t.

He wasn’t easy to get close to, but he wasn’t cold either. Just careful. Like someone who’d had to build his own walls brick by brick, and wasn’t sure what would happen if they came down.

But with you, cracks started to show.

It began in the small, almost invisible ways.

Like when he made too much miso soup and slid a bowl toward you without a word.

Or when you were late for class and likely to leave without eating breakfast, only to find a neatly wrapped sandwich waiting for you next to your bag. No notes, just the sandwich.

Or when you were curled up on the couch after a long day, and he sat beside you, close enough that your shoulders touched. He didn’t pull away. Neither did you.

One evening, you passed by his door and heard music—something low and melancholy, plucked guitar strings and a haunting voice.

You stood there for a second, listening.

He opened the door before you could knock.

“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” you said softly, already backing up.

He didn’t look annoyed. Just blinked slowly. “You can come in.”

His room was… him. Sparse but warm. Textbooks stacked on the desk, a small record player in the corner, a half-finished charcoal sketch on the wall above his bed—black lines trailing the shape of a figure, mid-movement. You recognized the patterns in the drawing: the same ones inked into his arms and back.

“You drew that?”

He nodded. “It’s… old. I haven’t had time to finish it.”

“It’s beautiful,” you said, without thinking.

He didn’t respond right away. Just looked at you. Really looked at you. Like he was searching for something under your skin.

“You ever let anyone in like this?” you asked, gently.

His voice was quiet. “Not really.”

And that was it. Not a confession, not a declaration. Just a truth, placed in your hands like something breakable.

—

You started studying together sometimes, though neither of you ever officially suggested it.

Megumi would pull up a chair beside you at the dining table, flipping through his textbooks, his hoodie sleeves pushed up past his elbows. You sat cross-legged beside him, highlighting too much and chewing pens, your laptop blinking lazily between tabs.

Once, during midterms, you passed out right there at the table.

You woke up under a blanket, your notes stacked neatly beside you, and an unopened bottle of water set where your head had been. His handwriting was on a sticky note.

You drooled on your chem notes. I didn’t judge. – M

You kept the note.

—

Sometimes, you wondered how he saw you.

You were short next to him, almost comically so, your frame curvy yet small, half-drowning in the hoodies you stole from where he forgot them in the kitchen. You were louder, more expressive, and—let’s be honest—more chaotic. Your side of the living room was a mess of throw blankets and mismatched socks, while his was neatly kept, symmetrical.

But he didn’t seem to mind your presence. If anything, he gravitated toward it.

He started lingering in the living room longer when you were there.

Started offering to pick up food when you were too tired to cook.

Started asking quiet things like, “Did you eat today?” or ��You okay?” with a kind of earnestness that made your heart ache.

One rainy Saturday, you both ended up on the couch watching a movie neither of you cared about. The storm rolled outside, wind howling against the glass. You were wrapped in a thick blanket, tucked into the corner of the couch, and Megumi was stretched out beside you, socked feet barely touching yours under the covers.

You didn’t talk much. Just sat in the hush between thunderclaps, the kind of silence that felt like trust.

At one point, you felt him shift.

Then—hesitantly—he let his head rest against the back of the couch, tilted slightly in your direction.

Not on your shoulder. Not quite.

But close.

Close enough that you felt his warmth, his calm, his quiet hum of presence.

You didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe too loud.

And in that moment, something inside you softened.

Not because it was romantic. Not yet.

But because it was safe.

Because it was him.

—

You started noticing it in the quiet.

How his presence changed the shape of your space. How the silence that used to make your apartment feel cold now felt alive when he was there—like the two of you were filling it together, without ever needing to speak.

He’d begun doing this thing.

When he walked past the couch and you were there, curled up reading or scrolling on your phone, he’d rest his hand lightly on the back of it. Not for long. Just a second, fingers ghosting over the fabric. It was casual—almost thoughtless—but you felt it every time. The warmth of him. The comfort.

And when he sat down next to you now, he sat close. Shoulder to shoulder. Knee to thigh. He never said anything about it, and neither did you. It was just… natural.

But you both knew it hadn’t always been like that.

One afternoon, you came home to find him asleep on the couch, textbooks open on his chest, one arm draped across his face. You hesitated for a second—then walked over quietly, knelt beside him, and gently closed his book.

He didn’t wake. Just murmured something half-dreamed and rolled onto his side.

You noticed it again then, half-exposed under the hem of his shirt.

The ink that covered his ribs.

You didn’t stare, but you couldn’t look away either. You wanted to know what it said. Why he chose it. What it meant to him.

You wanted to ask. Not because you were curious.

Because you were starting to care.

—

You cooked together more often now.

At first it was practical—splitting groceries, saving time—but it became something else. A soft ritual. A kind of choreography you both eased into without thinking. You’d play music low from your phone, swaying around each other in the kitchen like two orbiting stars, never colliding, always just close enough. He always took over the knife work—his movements clean and practiced—while you handled seasoning and taste testing. You started wearing one of his hoodies half the time—because you were always cold, and he never seemed to mind.

One night, you were baking—well, trying to—and you accidentally knocked over the bag of flour. A whole puff of white exploded into the air and rained down across the counter like a soft, slow-motion snowstorm.

“Shit,” you gasped, hands halfway out like that could somehow stop it.

Megumi blinked at the mess, then at you, brushing his fingers across his now powdery hoodie. “Seriously?”

“I’ll clean it up, I swear—”

Before you could move, he reached down, scooped a small handful of flour, and gently patted it to the side of your cheek.

You froze. “Megs.”

He tilted his head. “You’re in the splash zone.”

“That’s not a thing—!”

But you were already laughing, lobbing a pinch of flour toward him. It hit his hoodie and left a ghost-white smudge. His mouth curled into a smirk—crooked and rare.

“You’re gonna regret that.”

“I regret nothing.”

Soon, flour was everywhere. On the counter. On your–his–sweatshirt. In your hair, even smeared across your cheekbones. He had it streaked across one of his eyebrows and down the side of his neck. You both leaned over the counter, breathless and trying to catch your breath, cheeks flushed from laughter.

“Kitchen’s a crime scene,” he muttered, surveying the mess.

“All your fault,” you shot back, grinning. “You look like a failed pastry,” you wheezed, looking him up and down.

He gave you one of those rare, unguarded smiles—the kind that curved more on one side than the other and softened the hard edges of his face. “And you look like you lost a fight with a Pillsbury can,” he shot back, brushing a bit of powder from your temple.

His fingers lingered for a second. Not long.

But long enough.

You looked at him. And in that beat, something softened. The kitchen was dim. The apartment quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the wind tapping at the window. His face was so close.

Still amused, still light-hearted—but there was a shift underneath.

He broke the quiet first.

“I used to hate shared spaces,” he said, voice low.

“Why?”

He hesitated. “Everything felt temporary. Like I was just… passing through.”

You leaned a little on the counter, matching his softness but your chest tightened. “I get that.”

He glanced at you. “Not just physical spaces. People too.”

That hit somewhere deep. You knew the feeling.

“Like you never really belonged to any of it,” you murmured. “Not fully.”

He gave the smallest nod.

And then, after a long pause his gaze flicked to yours. “But this—” he gestured vaguely to the kitchen, the chaos, you “—doesn’t feel like I’m passing through.”

You watched him, heart suddenly loud in your chest.

There was a pause.

Then—his voice, softer than ever—“I’m not sure if this is home,” he said. “But it’s… closer than I’ve ever been. Maybe… halfway there.”

Your breath caught. Your voice was barely a whisper when you said, “Halfway home.”

He looked at you then—really looked. Not surprised. Just steady.

Like he’d been thinking it too.

And he nodded.

Like that meant something.

Like you meant something.

—

Later that week, it happened.

The kind of night where it all cracked open.

You’d gotten into it with your mom again. One of those calls where every word felt like a scratch. The kind where the conversation starts with “How are you?” and ends with you curled up at the kitchen table, staring at your untouched tea.

You weren’t crying.

But your eyes were glassy and your hands were trembling, and that was worse somehow.

You didn’t hear him come in. Just felt his presence. He said your name softly.

You looked up, trying to laugh it off. “It’s stupid.”

He crouched beside you. “It’s not.”

And just like that, something inside you cracked.

He didn’t ask for details. Didn’t push. He just opened his arms, and you leaned into him like it was instinct.

He held you for a long time. One hand on your back, the other cupping the back of your head, slow and grounding. You could feel the warmth of him, the steady rise and fall of his chest. The low hum in his throat when he murmured, “I’ve got you.”

And you believed it.

Not because he said it like a promise.

But because he said it like a fact.

And that was what scared you most.

Because maybe you’d never had that before.

Maybe this wasn’t home yet.

But god, it felt like the map.

—

The shift came quietly.

Like a door slowly swinging open, not creaking. Like the breath before a kiss—not the kiss itself. You couldn’t name the moment it happened, but suddenly, everything meant more.

Every glance. Every brush of fingers. Every silence.

He started standing closer. His hand would rest on your lower back as he passed behind you. When you handed him something, your fingers would touch, and neither of you would pull away right away.

Not anymore.

One night, he walked in while you were on the couch reading, legs tucked under you in a pair of old gym shorts and one of his hoodies. You didn’t realize you’d stolen that one, too. It still smelled faintly like him—like cedar and fresh laundry and something you couldn’t name but always noticed.

His eyes landed on you, lingering just a beat too long.

“You’re always stealing my clothes,” he said.

You shrugged, not looking up from your book. “You’re always leaving them on the kitchen chair. Finders keepers.”

A pause. Then: “That one’s my favorite.”

You looked up. “Yeah?”

He scratched at his eyebrow ring, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “It’s the softest.” 

You held his gaze a moment longer than you should have. “I’ll give it back.”

His voice was low. “I didn’t say I wanted it back.”

Something buzzed under your skin.

You looked down at the page and didn’t read a single word.

But you didn’t give back the hoodie either.

—

The next time you were both home on a rainy Saturday, you found yourselves in the same place again—doing nothing. Not even pretending to be productive. Just existing, in parallel, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You were sitting on the floor against the couch with your laptop, browsing through Pinterest, earbuds in. He was stretched out on the cushions behind you, hood up, sketchbook balanced on his stomach.

He did that sometimes—drew when he thought you weren’t looking. He never let you see the pages, but you’d catch glimpses of bold ink lines and intricate forms. Once, when he fell asleep with the book open, you saw the edge of a figure. Shoulders. The curve of a hip. The shape of someone sleeping, maybe.

You’d wanted to ask if it was you.

You didn’t.

But the idea stayed in your chest like a warm stone.

You’d both been quieter that day. Not uncomfortable—just still. The kind of still that sinks into your bones. You didn’t realize how much time had passed until your stomach growled, embarrassingly loud.

Megumi looked up from his sketchbook. “Was that you?”

You groaned, stretching your arms. “I think I’m dying. Feed me or I’ll haunt this apartment forever.”

He closed the book and stood. “Cursed with your ghost sounds about right.”

You stuck your tongue out at him. “You’d miss me.”

He looked at you like he wanted to say something—but didn’t. Instead, he held out a hand.

You blinked at it.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll cook.”

He made ramen.

Not the instant kind. Actual noodles in a pot, soft-boiled egg, scallions, seasoned broth. The whole thing. He didn’t talk much while he cooked—he rarely did—but you liked watching him. His hands were precise. His movements efficient. He tasted the broth with a spoon, made a face, added more chili oil.

You leaned back against the counter, arms folded, watching steam rise from the pot.

“You’ve done this before,” you said.

He nodded. “My sister taught me.” He stirred the broth slowly. “She liked her ramen so spicy it’d make your eyes water.”

You smiled a little at that. “Is that what you’re going for?”

“Kind of a tribute.” He glanced over at you. “Haven’t made it like this in a while.”

He said it like he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.

He stirred a bit more, then lowered the heat. “I used to make it like this for her when she had rough days. Just… figured I’d try it again.”

There was something careful in the way he said it. Like the memory was fragile, even now.

You hesitated. “Are you two close?”

A pause.

“We were,” he said. “She’s… not around much anymore.”

You nodded, not pushing. The air between you had settled, softened.

When you sat down at the table and he handed you the bowl, it was with quieter hands.

“You’re a domestic goddess, Megs,” you said, voice lighter.

He smirked. “Eat before I take it back.”

Halfway through the bowl, you found yourself glancing at him again. The curve of his brow, the line of his jaw. Something soft had gathered behind his eyes since that moment by the stove.

And maybe it was the warmth of the soup, or the weight of the story he hadn’t told—but you braved the question.

“Do you…” You paused, lowering your spoon.

His chopsticks stilled in the bowl.

You hesitated. “Do you miss it? Home?”

He didn’t answer right away.

You added quickly, “Sorry, that was—kind of personal. You don’t have to—”

“It’s okay,” he said. Then: “Not really.”

You nodded, gently. Let him go on.

“Never felt like a real place to miss,” he said, quietly. “Just somewhere I waited to grow out of.”

Your chest ached at that. You both chewed in silence for a few moments.

“I think that’s why I like it here,” he added, softer now. “Not just this place.” he clarified.

He looked at you.

“The way you let me take up space. Without asking.”

Your breath caught.

You wanted to say something. Me too. Or You do the same for me. Or I notice every time you leave a hoodie on the chair just so I’ll steal it.

But you didn’t say anything.

Instead, you reached for your drink. Your hand brushed his on the table.

And this time, neither of you moved.

—

It was later that night—closer to midnight—when you caught each other in the hallway. Both of you on the way to the kitchen. You paused at the same time, facing each other across the short stretch of hardwood.

He looked… soft. Sleepy. His hoodie had slipped halfway off one shoulder, revealing the edge of a tattoo, curling down from his collarbone. You couldn’t see the whole thing, but it was intricate. Sharp lines and dark shading, disappearing beneath the fabric.

You tilted your head. “What’s that one?”

He glanced down at where your eyes had landed, then shrugged the hoodie back into place. “Just something I drew once. Got it done last year.”

“You draw your own ink?”

He nodded.

You stepped closer. “Can I see?”

He hesitated, eyes catching yours.

Then, slowly, he pulled the hoodie down again, off his shoulder this time.

The tattoo started on his chest and curled up across his collarbone, snaking toward his shoulder. Sharp black lines softened with curves—some kind of wolf motif, maybe—but abstract, not literal.

You lifted a hand before you even thought about it. “Can I…?”

He nodded.

You ran your fingers lightly along the ink, careful not to press too hard. His skin was warm. The tattoo was beautiful. Intimate in a way that made your breath go shallow.

You didn’t say anything.

Neither did he.

But something changed in that silence.

You felt it in the air. Thick. Tense. Waiting.

He caught your wrist gently, not to stop you—just to hold it. His thumb brushed your pulse point.

You looked up.

And he looked down.

And for the first time, neither of you looked away.

—

It was Friday night. Cold, damp, and strangely quiet. The kind of night where campus emptied out and everyone either went home or drank their way through the ache of the week.

You didn’t feel like going anywhere. Megumi hadn’t planned to either.

So you both stayed in.

It started, like most of your nights lately, in the kitchen.

He was standing at the stove, stirring something with minimal enthusiasm—a boxed mac and cheese situation that smelled better than it probably should’ve. He had the hood of his dark sweatshirt pulled down, sleeves shoved halfway to his elbows, exposing the black ink winding up one arm. You still hadn’t seen all of it, just pieces. An arrow across his bicep, a wolf’s skull peeking out above his elbow. Sharp lines and precise shading. It suited him.

He caught you looking. Didn’t say anything—just arched one brow.

You rolled your eyes and reached for the fridge. “Don’t flatter yourself, Megs.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face said it.”

“I was born with this face,” he said, deadpan.

“Tragic.”

He snorted.

It started with the wine.

You found it in the back of the fridge on a night that didn’t seem to want anything except quiet—behind some sad lettuce and an expired packet of tofu. Plum wine, half-forgotten since the start of the semester and slightly sticky at the neck. 

You held up the bottle like it was a prize. “Look what I found.”

The cork crumbled a little when you opened it, which made Megumi raise an eyebrow. His piercing catching the light. 

He squinted at it. “That’s definitely off.”

“It’s wine, Megs. It doesn’t go off.”

“That’s not how chemistry works.”

“I don’t see mold.” You shrugged, pouring it into two mismatched mugs. “Then we’re good.”

He accepted his cup with only a small shake of his head that said if we die, it’s your fault and leaned against the opposite counter. Hoodie sleeves still shoved to his elbows, collar stretched a little too wide. You could see the black edge of a tattoo on his chest where the fabric fell just off-center. Just a glimpse—no more than that—but you couldn’t help looking.

It wouldn't be the first time.

The ink curled like smoke over his collarbone, disappearing down where you didn’t dare let your thoughts follow.

He caught your eyes and didn’t look away.

You took a too-fast sip of wine.

Dinner was low-effort comfort. The kind of meal you made when the day had taken too much out of you to pretend to care. You ate side by side at the little kitchen table, laughing over half-drunken stories you probably wouldn’t have shared otherwise, bare feet brushing accidentally (and then not-so-accidentally) under the bench. The hum of the overhead light filled the silence between conversation. Soft things. Easy. Familiar. It had started to feel like that a lot lately.

After the food was gone and the bottle was mostly empty, you lingered with your chins propped on your hands across the table from each other, your legs stretched lazily under his.

“So,” he said, voice low, “what’s your terrible movie pick tonight?”

“Bold of you to assume I’m the one with bad taste.”

“You think The Mummy is high art.”

“It is.”

“I rest my case.”

By the time the bottle was gone, you were both buzzed.

Lightheaded. Warm.

But not enough.

“Hey,” you said, nudging him with your socked foot under the table. “Let’s go to Lawson.”

He didn’t look up from his phone. “No.”

“Come on. We need beer. Or chu-hi. Or… whatever looks the worst.”

“We have classes Monday.” 

“It’s Friday.” 

“And it’s raining.”

You tilted your head at him with exaggerated innocence. “Are you scared of getting wet?”

He gave you a flat look.

You kept going. “You, a grown man, covered in tattoos, pierced like a delinquent, scared of a drizzle?”

He sighed. “You’re annoying.”

“You love it.”

Another long pause.

Then, deadpan: “Get your shoes.”

—

You came back with two bags.

You bought cans based solely on the labels—one with a polar bear in a Hawaiian shirt, one bright pink with hearts, and one that claimed to taste like salted plum and regret.

Megumi made fun of your choices the entire walk home.

He carried both bags anyway.

You were already laughing as you pushed yourself up the stairs and into to your shared apartment, padding barefoot toward the living room. The rain had turned your hair damp, your sleeves cold at the cuffs. You both peeled off the soggy layers and he followed you suit behind, hoodie left behind on the chair. His t-shirt clung to his chest in a way that made it difficult not to stare. The fabric stretched slightly around his arms, where more tattoos snaked up from the elbow, curling in black ink over pale skin.

After dumping everything onto the coffee table, you put on a hoodie that was draped over the armrest—his favorite one—and collapsed onto the couch with a blanket, letting it drape over both of you. He sat close—closer than necessary, and yet you didn’t move away.

He smelled like clean cotton and soap and something warmer beneath. Maybe the wine. Maybe just him.

The first can was awful.

So was the second.

By the third, you were both half-laying down, legs tangled, and laughing at a stupid movie you didn’t even recognize. Some terrible action comedy with bad dialogue and worse CGI. You didn’t remember the name. You didn’t care. You were warm from the booze and warmer from his knee resting next to yours.

By the time you opened the fourth can, your head was buzzing. Somewhere in the middle, he shifted slightly and slouched deeper into the couch, resting one arm behind you. Not around you. Not touching. Just there.

The distance between you disappeared in degrees.

First, when your shoulders bumped and didn’t pull away.

Then, when your leg rested fully against his beneath the blanket.

Now your legs were draped over his now, his hand resting absently on your shin.

The warmth between you wasn’t new.

But tonight it felt… uncontained.

You watched him as he tilted his can back, the curve of his throat, the glint of his lip ring under the flicker of the TV.

You’d always known he was attractive. But being this close—this comfortable—was starting to feel dangerous.

“You always watch movies like this?” you asked, voice small, eyes back on the screen.

“Like what?”

“Quiet. Tense. Judgy.”

“I’m not judging.”

“No?” you chuckled, then, when you looked up at him—and found he was already watching you.

You held the gaze longer than you meant to.

His mouth parted just slightly. His lip piercing glinted.

You dropped your eyes.

“I’m watching.” he said. 

He wasn’t talking about the movie. You knew that. He knew you knew.

The air between you felt different now—thicker. Not uncomfortable. Not bad. Just tight. Like something was waiting to break open.

“You know you’re hard to read, right?” you said softly, gaze determined to focus on the movie once more.

His head turned slightly. “You’ve told me.”

“I mean it.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

“I know.” You paused. “You just… you never say what you’re thinking.”

There was a long moment before he replied. “Neither do you.”

You glanced at him. Your skin felt too tight.

Your voice dropped. “If I did… would you listen?”

He looked at you then. Really looked.

“I always listen to you,” he said.

You shifted a little to face him better. He didn’t move.

Your voices stayed low. Muted. Like you were both afraid to disturb something too fragile to name.

“Why do you look at me like that?” you asked.

He studied you for a beat too long.

Then: “I think you know.”

The moment swelled, heat under your ribs. Your chest tightened. You licked your lips. His eyes followed the motion.

He was looking at your mouth now.

You didn’t look away. It wasn’t intentional at first.

Until it was.

Until you shifted a little and his fingers slid higher up your shin. Not high enough to be obvious, but enough that you felt it. Enough that your breath caught.

“You’re drunk,” you whispered.

He gave the smallest shake of his head. “No.”

“Tipsy, then.”

He didn’t answer. Just leaned in, slow and careful.

And then, softly—too softly to brace yourself for it—his lips touched yours.

It was barely a kiss.

Barely pressure.

Just warmth.

Just a breath.

But then it deepened—his hand on the side of your neck, the plush drag of his lower lip catching yours. You felt the cool flick of his lip ring before his tongue brushed yours, and that made your breath catch.

There was metal there, too—a piercing. You could feel it. Smooth, hard, unexpected. The weight of it against your tongue sent a flicker of heat down your spine. You let out a sound you didn’t mean to, soft and startled against his mouth.

The kiss became deeper. Your hands found his shirt, fisting the fabric. You whimpered softly against his mouth. He groaned—quiet, rough.

And then—

He froze.

Pulled back.

You blinked up at him, dazed.

His breath was heavy, lips kiss-bitten, pupils wide.

His hand was still on your neck, thumb ghosting over your jaw like he hadn’t meant to stop.

You were stunned. Dazed. Wanting.

But then—

He pulled his hand back, dragging it down over his face.

“No,” he said, voice rough now. “Shit. We shouldn’t.”

You blinked at him, breath shaking. “Why?”

“You had wine.”

“So did you.”

“That’s the point,” he said, shaking his head.

He closed his eyes for a second, like he was trying to center himself.

 “I don’t want it to be… I don’t want this to happen because we’re tipsy and bored.”

You swallowed.

You were still staring at him. Still thinking about the way he’d kissed you. About the weight of his mouth and the heat of his body.

But then—he exhaled, slower this time.

“I want you,” he said. “But I want it to be real. Not like this.”

The room was spinning slowly.

You didn’t argue.

Because even in your tipsy haze, you knew he was right.

Your chest was a tangle of nerves and something softer—something that twisted beneath your ribs in a way that was almost painful.

You nodded.

Quietly. Gently.

And he nodded, too.

He exhaled and leaned his forehead against yours for a moment before he pulled back completely, gently tugging the blanket higher between you.

Still close.

Still touching.

But not crossing that line again.

Not yet.

The air was suddenly tighter. Not hostile. Not uncertain. Just pressurized. Like one wrong breath would push you into the next thing—and maybe that scared you more than you expected.

You looked down at your lap. “This is stupid, right?”

“What is?”

“This…” You gestured vaguely between you. “Us.”

A pause.

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”

You glanced back at him.

And this time, you saw it clearly. The want.

Not loud. Not burning. Just real.

Settled there in the blue of his eyes like it had always been.

Your voice was barely a whisper. “Then what is it?”

His hand moved—slowly—toward your knee. A light touch. Just his fingers resting there, warm and steady.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I’m not in a rush to name it.”

Your throat went tight.

You could’ve kissed him.

Right there, in the flickering glow of the shitty movie and the soft scratch of his calloused fingers brushing circles on your skin.

But you didn’t.

Not yet.

Because for the first time, you understood what this was.

It wasn’t a moment waiting to break open.

It was one waiting to settle.

You turned back to the screen. The movie was still playing, somewhere behind all of it. Some explosion. A line of terrible dialogue.

Neither of you were watching.

And still—

He stayed beside you.

Still close.

Still warm.

Still waiting.

Eventually, you fell asleep there—legs tangled, cheeks flushed, his hand still resting lightly on your knee like a promise he wasn’t ready to break.

Not until it mattered.

Not until it was real.

And somewhere deep down, you knew—

Whatever this was…

It had already changed.

You weren’t just roommates.

You weren’t just friends.

You were something else now.

Maybe you’d always been on the way here.

Maybe you’d always been halfway home.

—

The next morning wasn’t awkward.

It should’ve been, probably. You’d fallen asleep on the couch tangled around each other after making out like two teenagers with bad impulse control, and yet—

When you woke up, his arm was still around your waist, your cheek pressed to his chest, and neither of you moved right away.

His heart beat under your ear, steady and slow.

You didn’t speak. Just breathed in the quiet.

Eventually, he shifted a little and looked down at you, hair a soft mess, voice rasped from sleep.

“You drooled on me.”

You rolled your eyes, but smiled.

“You kissed me,” you whispered, as if to counter.

He blinked at that, unreadable for a beat, then:

“Yeah. I did.”

And for the first with this new glint in your eyes, you let yourself fully smile at him.

—

Nothing broke after that.

That was the strange part.

You thought the tension might shatter into something awkward or forced. You thought he might avoid you, or pretend it didn’t happen.

But Megumi didn’t run.

He made pancakes instead.

Real ones, too—from scratch. With eggs and milk and a drizzle of vanilla that you knew he didn’t own until that very morning.

You didn’t ask where he went to get it. Just sat on the counter watching him whisk, the sleeves of his hoodie pushed back, tattoos ink-dark across his arms. There was one on his inner wrist you hadn’t seen before—clean lines, a small lotus. You stared longer than you meant to.

He caught your gaze, but didn’t comment.

Instead, he asked, “You want coffee?”

You nodded. “With milk and sugar.”

“Figures.”

“Judgy.”

“Just accurate.”

You didn’t talk about the kiss.

But it hovered.

In the way he moved around you in the kitchen. In the way his eyes lingered on your mouth longer than before. In the way his hand brushed your lower back when he passed behind you.

It didn’t feel like it wasn’t being talked about.

It felt like it was still happening.

Slowly.

Carefully.

You had to go to work that afternoon, and so did he, but you lingered too long before leaving. Your backpack half-zipped. Your shoes still untied.

“I’ll see you later,” you said, standing near the door.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice was quiet again. Thoughtful.

Then, softer: “Be safe, princess.”

You didn’t answer.

Just looked back at him once before closing the door behind you, heart skittering like a secret you weren’t ready to say out loud.

—

You didn’t kiss again for three days.

But the days felt different.

He texted more.

Sent you dumb memes during lectures and followed up with “you better be paying attention” when you took too long to reply.

He cooked twice. Once with too much salt, and once with enough effort that it felt like more than just a favor.

On the fourth night, it rained again.

This time you didn’t even ask—you both just ended up on the couch, the blanket between you again, knees pressed close, a movie you weren’t watching on in the background.

This time, it was you who turned to him first.

“Do you ever think about it?” you asked.

He glanced down at you. “About what?”

“This. Us.”

He didn’t look away.

“Yeah,” he said.

You nodded.

Your throat was tight.

“I’ve never had this before,” you admitted, voice small. “Whatever this is. With someone.”

His brows pulled together a little. “Something safe?”

You hesitated.

“Something that feels like… home,” you said. “But not the kind you leave.”

His mouth parted slightly, surprised. And maybe—

Maybe a little bit moved.

“That’s what I was trying to say,” he murmured. “When I said that before. Halfway home.”

You looked up at him.

“You’re the first place that felt like one.”

Silence stretched.

Warm. Solid. Real.

And then, slowly, he leaned down, and this time—this time when his mouth met yours, you weren’t drunk. You weren’t trying to avoid the edge.

You stepped into it.

The kiss was different.

Not rushed. Not frantic.

Just full of everything you hadn’t said yet.

He kissed you like he meant to stay. Like he’d wanted to for longer than he’d admit. Like it was the start of something new, not the ruin of something comfortable.

You broke it first, breath shaky, and looked up at him.

“You still sure?”

His thumb traced your cheek. “Yeah.”

You nodded once, then leaned back in—and this time, the kiss didn’t stop.

Not when your hands found the back of his neck.

Not when his settled at your hips.

And not when the blanket slipped off your shoulders and the rest of the world went quiet except for the sound of two people finally letting go of the tension they’d carried for months.

His mouth was warm. Open. Slow.

You weren’t drunk this time. Not even tipsy. You could feel everything—his breath, the pressure of his hands, the flicker of his tongue ring sliding against yours, cool at first, then hot, wet, dizzying.

You moaned into him without meaning to.

The kiss became deeper, languid and unhurried, like neither of you wanted it to end. His hand slid up your side, not groping, not urgent—just there, deliberate, like he was mapping the shape of you, reminding himself it was real.

You tugged at his hoodie, fists curled in the fabric, and when your fingers slipped up into his hair, he groaned. Low, throaty, unexpectedly desperate.

You froze.

Pulled back just enough to look at him, breath shallow.

“What—”

His eyes were heavy-lidded, dark and shining, his lip ring catching the light as he swallowed.

“Do that again,” he murmured.

You blinked. “Your hair?”

He nodded once. Barely.

So you did.

Fingers buried deep, nails scraping lightly at his scalp.

He moaned, jaw going slack, and something in your chest fluttered.

You grinned. “Holy shit. That’s your thing, huh?”

“Don’t start,” he muttered, flushing slightly, though his hips had pressed forward like a tell. “You’ll abuse it.”

You tugged again, a little firmer.

He cursed softly. “Fuck. Princess.”

It hit low. Tight. A pulse between your legs you hadn’t fully acknowledged until then.

“You like that?” you whispered, mouth brushing his.

His lips curved—barely.

“You have no idea.”

You kissed him again.

Hungrier this time. Messier. The kind of kiss you felt all the way to your spine.

Somewhere in the middle of it, he pulled you onto his lap. His hands found your thighs and dragged you closer, legs parting over his hips like it was the most natural thing in the world. You were in loose shorts and an old cotton sleep top, and he was still in that damn hoodie—black, oversized, hiding everything but the heat of his body under your hands.

You broke the kiss just long enough to gasp, head tilting back, the fabric of his hoodie catching on your fingertips as you gripped the hem.

“Take it off,” you whispered.

He didn’t answer. Just stared at you as he pulled it over his head.

And then—

Fuck.

You’d seen bits and glimpses of his tattoos before. Knew they were there. A flicker when sleeves rolled up, the shadow along his back when he walked past shirtless after a shower.

But this close? With your hands on him?

They were everywhere.

Ink swept over his chest, his shoulders, down his arms—clean black linework, fine and sharp, a contrast to the way his skin felt. Warm. Soft, where it wasn’t hard muscle.

And on his ribs—just under the curve of his left pectoral—a line in black script:

you don’t have to be whole to be loved.

You reached for it before you could stop yourself, fingers brushing the edge of the lettering.

He flinched—barely, but enough.

“I like this one,” you said softly. “It’s true.”

He didn’t speak. Just looked at you like you’d stripped him naked with that single sentence.

Maybe you had.

Your hands slid down, brushing the line of his waist, and you felt the way his breath hitched.

“Take me to bed, Megs.”

He exhaled slowly. “You sure?”

You nodded.

He stood without hesitation.

You were light in his arms, legs locked around his waist. Not princess-style—cradled, close and tight, your center pressed to the thick, hard line of him beneath his sweats.

Your heartbeat was a storm in your throat.

His mouth found your neck as he pushed the door to his room open with his shoulder, and you gasped when his teeth grazed your skin.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured.

“I want you,” you said. “That’s all.”

His voice dropped lower. “You’ll have me, pretty girl.”

And then he laid you down—slowly, like you were something to be unwrapped.

The room was quiet except for breathing. Your shirt was the first to go—peeled up and over, leaving you bare. No bra. No modesty. Just flushed skin and peaked nipples, chest rising and falling fast under his gaze.

He froze.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathed. “You’re so fucking pretty.”

You couldn’t help it—you arched into him.

He kissed down your throat. Over your collarbone. Took his time getting to your chest, his mouth hot and wet when it wrapped around a nipple. Tongue ring dragging just enough to make you gasp.

“Megs—”

His hand slid down your stomach, rougher now, and then under your waistband.

“You’re soaked,” he growled. “All this from just kissing?”

“Hair pulling,” you teased, gasping when he pressed two fingers against you, slow circles. “You’ve got a thing for it.”

“Princess,” he warned, then—smirked.

He tugged your shorts and panties down with too much ease. And for a moment, he just looked at you.

Eyes dark. Face flushed. Breathing shallow.

“You sure?” he asked again, quieter now. “Because once I go down on you, I’m not stopping.”

Your heart stuttered.

“I’m sure.”

His mouth curved. Wicked.

“Good girl.”

Megumi slid to his knees at the edge of the bed, dragging your legs over his shoulders like he had every intention of devouring you.

He looked up from between them—eyes dark, mouth already wet from kissing you stupid.

“You gonna keep looking at me like that?” he murmured, voice thick.

Your throat was dry. “Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to memorize me.” his thumbs pressed into your inner thighs, spreading you wider. “You don’t need to. I’m not going anywhere.”

And then—

He kissed you.

There.

Warm, slow, filthy.

Tongue soft at first, just a wet glide over your clit, before he added pressure. His barbell on his tongue rolled against you—a new texture, a new spark—and your hips bucked in surprise.

“Oh my God—”

He laughed into you. That tongue piercing? It wasn’t just a decoration. It was a fucking weapon.

He took his time. All of it. Flattening his tongue, then curling it up, then circling—soft, then firm, then teasing. Every motion was practiced, patient, like he liked this, like he was learning you by feel and sound alone—to the way you whined and breathed and fisted the sheets.

And when you buried your fingers in his hair, tugging instinctively—

He groaned.

Low and rough, deep in his chest.

So you did it again. A little harder.

He moaned.

Then he pulled back just enough to speak, mouth glistening, voice wrecked.

“You trying to kill me, pretty girl?”

“I didn’t think you’d like it that much,” you breathed.

“Now you know.”

His mouth slammed back down.

Sloppier now, his mouth messier, wetter. Your thighs started to tremble. Your breath hitched with every suck, every pass the pink muscle. It was too much and still not enough, and when you clenched on his tongue, he growled—a real sound, needy, low in his throat.

His hands gripped your thighs tighter, fingertips pressing into the soft part of you. He sucked your clit into his mouth and rolled the barbell across it—and your hips snapped, needy, desperate.

He gave you one last, deliberate lick, then kissed your thigh—open-mouthed, tongue dragging.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Look at you.”

You were dripping. Ruined.

But he wasn't done.

“You taste fucking amazing, pretty girl.”

His name slipped out of your mouth like a prayer. “Megs—”

“Could stay down here all night,” he rasped. “You’d let me, wouldn’t you?”

You were panting. “Megumi—please—”

He didn’t answer. He was already moving again.

Faster. Deeper. Rougher.

The wet glide of his tongue, the flick of the piercing. The suction. The rhythm. You were unraveling, fast and helpless, no thoughts except more, more, more.

And then he slid two fingers inside—crooked just right—and sucked hard at the same time, tongue flicking and curling and sucking until your back arched off the bed, until you gasped his name and shattered into his mouth, thighs clamped around his head, shaking, soaked, ruined.

He loved it.

You came with a sharp cry, back arching off the bed, thighs trembling. His name on your lips, broken. Your fingers tightened in his hair, hips grinding against his mouth.

He didn’t stop. Just slowed, licking you through it, moaning quietly like he couldn’t get enough.

You felt him groan into your cunt, like he was trying to memorize your taste, like he couldn’t help it.

Your hand stayed tangled in his hair, but weaker now, your muscles gone soft and boneless and slick with sweat. When he finally pulled back, his chin was wet, his pupils blown wide. He kissed your thigh, then your hip, then up your belly, slow and reverent, until he hovered over you again.

“You okay?” he asked, quieter now.

You nodded, dazed. “Yeah.”

He kissed your cheek, then your jaw. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you repeated, breathless. “That was—holy shit.”

He smirked.

“Come here,” you murmured, tugging him down, your legs around his waist again.

He leaned down slowly, settling over you, weight braced on one forearm as the other slid behind your head. His hoodie was already off, forgotten somewhere between the couch cushions. The ink across his chest and arms glowed dark in the low light—sweeping blackwork, linework down his ribs.

And below, he was already naked.

He must’ve kicked off his sweats when you weren’t looking—silent and practiced. His cock hung heavy between you, thick and flushed and so pretty it knocked the breath out of your chest.

You reached between you, slow, curious—fingers wrapping around him.

And you felt it.

Not just the heat, the weight—but something… hard. Not just him—though he was hard, thick and heavy and pressed against your thigh—but something else. Something smooth and firm under the ridge, something…metal.

Your brows twitched, just slightly.

His breath hitched. You looked up at him, question rising.

“You—?” you started.

His jaw tightened. He looked almost…shy.

“…Megs?”

He hesitated.

You palmed him curiously and he twitched.

“There’s—” You looked up at him. “Are you pierced?”

His breath caught.

You stared at him, lips parted. “You have a dick piercing?”

“…Yeah.”

You blinked.

You glanced down again to get a better look, thumb brushing over the spot carefully. Holy fuck.

Thick. Long. Pierced.

The barbell of the piercing gleamed, curved through the head, metal catching the light.

You swallowed. “What kind?”

He looked like he was seriously debating lying, but finally said, low:

“Apadravya.”

Your mouth dropped open.

“Jesus Christ.”

He groaned. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to make a life-altering decision.”

You bit your lip. “How long have you had it?”

“Since I was eighteen.”

Your brows shot up. “That’s early. Why?”

His cheeks actually turned a little pink.

“You ever do something stupid just to feel like your body was yours?”

You paused.

Then nodded. “Yeah. I have.”

His hand found your face, brushing your cheek with his thumb.

“I didn’t do it for anyone else. Didn’t think anyone would ever see it.” He laughed quietly. “Definitely didn’t think it’d make someone look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”

You stared up at him.

“You mean like I want to push onto the mattress and ride you until I forget my name?”

“Exactly like that,” he rasped.

He kissed you again—deep, tongue curling past your lips—you felt the tongue piercing once more—familiar now—as your mouths moved in tandem.

 “You okay?” he asked, quiet now. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m okay,” you whispered. “More than okay.”

You reached down, wrapping your hand around him and giving it a soft squeeze.

He hissed through his teeth.

“Princess—”

You leaned in and kissed his neck, just below his ear. “Let me look at you.”

He let you.

And you did. You traced every tattoo, every line of his body—ink across his shoulders, ribs, chest, a stretch of fine black lines and text that ended in the soft skin above his hips. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he said. “Anytime.”

You looked up at him, cheeks flushed, heart pounding.

“I don’t want you to stop.”

You wrapped your legs around him again, slower this time.

And he rocked into you, still outside, just the pressure of him against your slickness making your whole body pulse.

He groaned.

“You’re gonna take all of me, baby.”

You gasped. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, bending to kiss you again. “I’ll make it fit.”

Your brain melted.

But he didn’t rush it. He never rushed.

He ran his hands over your body like he was savoring it—inch by inch, breath by breath. Worshipping it. And when you were whiny and squirming beneath him, he took a step back, eyes full of dark heat.

“You’re perfect.”

You grinned, breathless. “Then come here and fuck me already.”

He groaned.

And then slapped your ass—just once.

You gasped.

He smirked.

“Get ready, pretty girl.”

You could feel the weight of him above you—his forearms braced on either side of your head, body flushed against yours, skin warm and buzzing. His cock pressed heavy against your stomach, thick and hard and aching.

You reached down again, wrapping your hand around him, and this time he groaned against your mouth, voice low and helpless.

“Fuck, baby…”

You rolled your thumb under the head, slow. Felt the bar again—the piercing. It shifted slightly under your grip, smooth and hard. You were soaked already, throbbing. The idea of how it would feel inside you—

“Need you to lie back for me,” he said roughly, nuzzling into your neck, kissing your jaw. “Just like that. Legs up—good girl.”

You didn’t correct the pet name. Couldn’t.

He moved back slightly, sitting on his heels between your thighs. His hands slid over your hips and up—slow and reverent—just warm skin and heavy breath and the sharp, hot sweep of his eyes as they roamed.

“Fucking hell,” he whispered.

You flushed, hands fidgeting at your sides. But then he leaned down—kissed your sternum, your breast, circled your nipple with his tongue, then sucked, sharp and wet—and you forgot how to think.

“You’re so goddamn beautiful, princess,” he murmured, voice gravel. “You drive me fucking crazy.”

He kissed down your ribs, slow and wandering. You felt his lips pause, then press again—right under your breast, where he sucked the skin a bit harder.

You ran your fingers through his hair, dragging them gently at the roots.

He groaned again. “You have to stop doing that.”

“Why?” you asked innocently.

“You’re gonna find out,” he said, and grinned. “Keep doing it and you’ll see.”

You did.

When he lowered himself again, kissed between your thighs, and licked—deep this time, slower, intentional—you curled your fingers in his hair, tugging, and he moaned so loud it vibrated through you.

He looked wrecked when he pulled up. Flushed, pupils blown, lips wet.

“You like that?” you asked, giggling breathlessly.

“I fucking love that,” he growled.

He kissed you again, slow and hungry.

Then he lifted your hips—just like that—hands under your thighs, hauling you into him, legs wrapping naturally around his waist. You gasped, fingers clinging to his shoulders.

“Megs—”

“You okay?”

You nodded, flushed and dizzy.

You reached down, guiding him, and paused.

“Wait,” you whispered, breath catching. “You—do you have—”

He reached toward the drawer, then hesitated. “You on the pill?”

“Yeah.”

His jaw ticked. “Clean?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

Still, he waited. “You sure?”

You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulled him down, and kissed him.

“Yes.”

He pushed in slowly—so slowly it made your breath hitch, your spine arch, your hands grasp for something to hold onto.

The stretch made you gasp—hot, overwhelming. You could feel the piercing slide in, the way it dragged against your walls, made your whole body twitch.

“Holy shit,” you whimpered.

Megumi groaned, deep in his chest. “Yeah, that’s it. Fuck—feels so good, baby.”

You tightened around him and he shuddered.

“You feel so tight, so warm—shit—this pussy’s perfect—”

His words sent a jolt through you, heat pooling low in your belly.

He rocked into you, slow and deep, and you felt everything.

Every vein, every inch, every press of steel and flesh and heat.

His hips ground into yours, angling just right. The piercing nudged something devastating inside you, and your whole body jerked.

“Megs—”

He kissed you hard, messy. His hands were everywhere—your thighs, your waist, your tits. And when you clawed at his back, he grinned.

“Go ahead,” he breathed, “mark me up. I don’t care.”

You dragged your nails down his spine, and he growled.

And then—crack—

His hand landed a slap to your ass.

Not rough. But firm. Possessive.

You gasped.

He kissed your cheek. “Too much?”

“No,” you whispered, dazed. “Not enough.”

He laughed—low and dangerous.

And he fucked you harder. He fucked you like he meant it—like he was unraveling, like the sound of your voice did something to him he couldn’t take back. His rhythm stayed steady, devastating, but there was an edge now. A roughness. Desperation behind every thrust, like he was chasing something just out of reach.

Every thrust felt deliberate—slow but powerful, like he needed you to feel all of him. Like he wanted to carve himself into your memory with each push of his hips. His forehead pressed against yours, breath ragged, eyes half-lidded as he watched every expression flicker across your face.

You felt everything. Every inch of him. The head of his cock, that piercing, kept catching right there—just inside—sending shocks through your whole body. You moaned, loud, unrestrained, and he groaned in response, burying his face in your neck like he needed to ground himself.

“God, baby, you feel—fuck, I can’t—” he gasped. “You’re gonna make me lose it.”

The room spun, heat thick around you, sweat-slicked skin sliding against his as he drove into you, harder, deeper. Your legs were locked around him, thighs trembling, and you couldn’t stop moaning—couldn’t stop saying his name like a prayer.

“Megumi—God—please—”

His breath hitched. “I know, baby, I know. You feel so good—fuck—you’re taking me so well.”

You whimpered—your whole body on fire, nerves lit up. You could feel the piercing with every roll of his hips, dragging along your walls, stroking something almost too much. Too sharp. Too good.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” he murmured, voice thick. “Taking me so fucking well.”

“F-Fuck, Megs—” your voice caught, high and trembling.

He kissed the corner of your mouth, sweet and messy, then pulled back just enough to look at you—really look at you.

“You okay, baby?”

You nodded, eyes wide, lips parted. “Yeah—God, yeah—just…”

He smiled, soft and wrecked. “I know. I know, baby. You’re doing so good.”

His thumb slipped between your bodies, found your clit with practiced ease—two fingers rubbing slow, deliberate circles as his cock dragged deep. Slow. Cruel. Perfect.

You cried out, hips jerking.

“Shh,” he whispered. “It’s okay. Just let it happen, princess. Let me take care of you.”

You clenched around him, helpless, and he groaned—deep in his chest, like he could feel it everywhere.

“You feel that?” he breathed, leaning in to kiss your throat. “That little flutter—fuck—you’re close, huh?”

And then, as his cock pushed in again, deeper than before, he shifted his weight and brought one hand down to your lower stomach.

He pressed gently—right there, just above your pelvis—and you gasped.

“Right here,” he said, voice dark with wonder. “You feel me, princess? That’s me. All the way inside.”

Your eyes fluttered shut, heat rushing through your veins like fire. The pressure of his hand paired with the drag of the piercing made your whole body twitch.

“Megs—”

He smirked against your neck, breath hot. “I know, baby. I know it’s a lot. You’re taking it so well.”

He kissed your jaw, slow and sweet. “I want you to cum for me,” he whispered. “Right here. While I’m inside you. Wanna feel this perfect pussy squeeze around me.”

Your breath caught in your throat, your body coiling tighter with every stroke.

“You can do it, baby,” he coaxed, voice low and soothing. “You’re already so close. Just let go.”

And you did.

The orgasm hit hard—white-hot, overwhelming. Your body locked up, then shattered all at once. You cried out, back arching, nails digging into his shoulders. The wave of it crashed over you again and again, endless, dizzying.

“Fuck, that’s it,” he groaned, thrusting deeper. “You’re so fucking tight when you cum—gonna make me—shit—”

His rhythm faltered, turned rougher, messier, as he lost control.

“Pretty girl—shit—gonna cum, baby, gonna—”

“Cum inside me,” you whispered, lips brushing his ear. “Please, Megs.”

He moaned—loud and wrecked—and buried himself to the hilt.

You felt everything. The heat, the pulse, the way his whole body locked down as he came. His mouth pressed to your throat, hands gripping your waist like he was afraid you’d slip away.

He stayed there, buried inside you, panting against your skin. You could feel his heart hammering in his chest, the sweat on his back, the way his fingers stayed tangled in your hair.

Then he lifted his head, kissed you—slow and raw, lips dragging over yours like he didn’t want the moment to end.

“You’re unreal,” he whispered. “You’re so fucking beautiful, baby. You don’t even know.”

You touched his face, thumb stroking under his eye, and he leaned into it—like it hurt not to. Like he needed it more than air.

The moment stretched—bodies tangled, breath shared, your walls still fluttering around his softening cock.

And he was still inside you.

Still holding you like a lifeline.

Like he didn’t know where he ended and you began.

None of you moved at all, really—just stayed there, his weight heavy but comforting, his breath fanning against your cheek. One arm curled around your waist, holding you close, like the aftershocks were still rolling through him too.

You exhaled slowly, boneless, your fingers still tangled in his hair.

“Megs…”

He hummed, low in his throat. Kissed your temple, your cheekbone, then your mouth—soft and slow, like he had all the time in the world.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded, flushed and hazy. “Yeah. Just… can’t feel my legs.”

He gave a breathless little laugh, nuzzling into your neck. “That might be the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

You smiled—tired and full.

After a moment, he eased back, still buried inside you, his hand brushing your cheek. His expression was unreadable—something caught between awe and disbelief and maybe something a little softer.

“You’re really something, you know that?” he said quietly.

You blinked up at him. “You make it sound like I just saved your life or something.”

His smile crooked. “Feels kind of like you did.”

That silenced you—for a beat too long.

He caught it, of course. Looked a little sheepish. “Sorry. That was probably too much.”

“No…” You reached up, fingers brushing his jaw. “I just didn’t expect you to say something like that.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Neither did I.”

He kissed you again before you could say anything else—gentle this time, like he needed the feel of you more than the words.

Then he pulled out carefully, slow and warm and messy, and you both winced a little.

“Shit—sorry,” he whispered, kissing your shoulder. “Let me get you cleaned up.”

He disappeared into the bathroom for a moment, returning with a warm, damp towel and one of his shirts. You stayed sprawled on the sheets, utterly wrecked, and let him tend to you.

His touch was careful. Reverent.

He cleaned you up with soft little apologies under his breath, then helped you into his shirt—big and worn and smelling like him—and tucked you back into bed before crawling in beside you.

You turned toward him automatically, curling into the warmth of his body. His arm wrapped around you like muscle memory, hand stroking slowly up and down your back.

Neither of you said anything for a while.

The room was quiet, save for the soft rustle of sheets and your breathing syncing up again.

Eventually, you mumbled, “We’re definitely gonna have to talk about this tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, brushing his lips over your forehead. “But not now.”

“No?”

“Mm-mm.” His fingers traced lazy patterns against your spine. “Right now, I just wanna hold my girl.”

You froze—just for a second.

Then smiled, into his chest.

He felt it, and pulled you closer.

—

When you woke up, the light was soft—barely morning.

You were warm.

Your limbs tangled with his under the sheets, skin to skin. Megumi was still asleep, mouth slack, lashes casting shadows on his cheeks, hair sticking up in every direction. 

His arm was heavy across your waist, hand curled against your stomach like it belonged there.

You could feel him breathing—slow and steady. Completely relaxed in a way you’d never seen before.

You blinked at him. Wondered, for a moment, if last night had actually happened.

But then you shifted, and your body answered for you—sore in places you hadn’t used in a while, hips aching, thighs a little raw.

And you could still feel the ghost of him inside you.

Heat crept across your cheeks.

You tried to move without waking him, carefully peeling the blanket back.

No such luck.

His eyes cracked open—barely.

“Where you goin’?” voice rough and sleep-heavy.

“Bathroom,” you whispered.

He hummed, eyes falling shut again. But his hand slid lower—resting just above your thigh, possessive even half-asleep.

You disappeared for a minute, returned to find him still sprawled across the bed, one arm flung over your side like a claim.

When you climbed back in, he rolled toward you, dragging you against him without hesitation.

You yelped—softly. “Jesus, Megs.”

“Mmm.” He buried his face in your neck. “You smell like me.”

You froze.

Then laughed—quiet, breathless. “You’re such a menace.”

He grinned against your skin. “You like it.”

You did.

You didn’t say it.

His hand skimmed under your borrowed shirt, fingers tracing lazy lines along your hip.

“Still good?” he asked softly.

“Yeah,” you said. “Sore, but good.”

He pulled back just enough to look at you.

His expression was unreadable again—sleepy, but serious beneath it. That focus of his, like he was seeing straight through you.

“You sure?”

You nodded, heart thudding. “Yeah.”

A beat of silence.

Then: “We should talk about it.”

“Yeah,” you said. “I know.”

Another pause. His thumb brushed the side of your thigh.

“But not yet?”

You smiled. “Not yet.”

He kissed you then—soft, like a promise.

And you let yourself melt into it, let the morning wrap around you like warmth, like quiet, like something new.

Something that didn’t feel temporary.

© MANICPIXIEDREAMKIRA - do not repost, translate, plagiarise or claim any of my works as your own.

[pakhnokh]

Update

Hello guys! What’s up? 😁❤️

My life has been a real roller coaster. On one hand, I think that I can handle it all and that it’s not that hard, on the other, I do have many breakdowns.

I’m dealing with 2 kids of the most challenging ages. My eldest daughter is a toddler who’s now entered her rebellious search of independence and limit-testing, and she can really drive us crazy!!

At the same time I’m still learning my newborn son and what his cries mean. He’s breastfed and can’t fall asleep without feeding or being held in the arms and rocked for a good amount of minutes. Then, he gets annoyed by half-soiled diapers so he constantly needs to be changed, and really I think all my life with him is change, feed, rock, change, feed, rock etc, and don’t even get me started on how frustrating it is when he falls asleep in my arms only to be woken up immediately as I put him in his crib. He refuses to take pacifiers 🫠

And just imagine dealing with all that when my daughter is still behind with the potty training and still can poop and pee in her underwear right in the middle of our living room 😫😫😫

We’re not getting any help either. It’s just my husband and me. I took a break this month but my husband is still working and he’s so stressed 🥲 but even with all he does, at least he isn’t attached to another being who must be fed using his own body. Arghhhh 😣

But I’m really getting the hang of it. I just need more time and confidence. AND MORE SLEEP.

I thought that I’d be able to draw, but I really wasn’t.

BUT I FINISHED WRITING THE ENTIRE PLOT AND DIALOGUES OF HOG ARC 3!!

And added a whole scene that wasn’t there in the first draft! I can’t wait to draw it all and share it with you 😍😍 it’s gonna be much longer than previous arcs, so please bear with me 🙏🏼❤️ the Wangxian mess is really around the corner!!

[sulkenswan]

♱ casual, part i

ellie fucking williams, the girl you've been in love with for years, she who only sees you as casual. no strings attached. but you're tired of pretending it's casual, and she's tired of the feelings.

cw: 2.4k words, inspired by chappell roans single 'casual' slight angst, smut! mdni, 18+, eating out no diner, fingering, semi-public sex? ellie's kinda a dick but she's needy so it's okay

note: hi it's me @taintedpearls but on a new account... thought you might've missed this fic so here it is slightly more edited hope you enjoy it more than before & part ii at 1k notes x

"you're such a loser!" your friend chuckles from beside you at the bar.

you had been staring at ellie, you knew that. she knew that. but she was simply just so... so pretty.

"pfft, no i'm not," you laugh it off, taking a sip from your far too strong drink. eyes lingering on the auburn haired girl a second longer before you hesitantly turn your head back to your friend, failing to notice ellie's eyes immediately looking back at you.

"you still hang around and talk to her? you should know better by now then to get involved with her. i've heard the rumors, you know. she only sees you as some girl to fuck on her couch"

"i'll be fine," you jump in with defense. "it's not like it's serious. it's casual. let me have my fun!" you play slap her, the alcohol in your system starting to take its effect.

"okay, okay," she laughs along with you, taking a sip from your own drink. "i won't get in your way. just.. be careful. you never know with girls like ellie williams."

"wowww, her government name-?"

"mind if i steal her for a second?" you could recognise that voice from a thousand miles away. turning your head ever so slightly, meeting eyes with her, before quickly looking away and giving apologetic eyes to your friend.

"of course," she glances to ellie before looking back to you "i'll see you at home, okay?" she smiles at you, ellie is quick to grab you by the waist and hurriedly push you towards the exit down the stairs.

"ellie? why're you being so pushy? you didn't even thank my friend-!" you begin to protest when she suddenly pushes you up against the stair wall, roughly placing her slightly chapped lips on yours.

you moan into the kiss, allowing your purse to fall by your side as you subconsciously put both your hands into her hair half up half down you thought, she's wanted to do this all night.

"i couldn't stand to see you in that fucking dress any longer without my hands on you," ellie moves down from your lips to your ears, to trailing down your neck. sucking on that one sweet spot, you know there's going to be a purple mark there later. "and you were laughing with her as if she was the funniest person alive." she has one hand around your head, another slowly trailing along the outline of your hips.

"ellie..." you sigh happily, your nails slightly scratching and pulling at her hair. "we... we're just friends." that sentence made you mad. you didnt want to be friends. friends dont do shit like this. friends dont fuck on the regular. friends dont get jealous. at that sentence, she roughly pulls away from your neck, removing her hands from your body, forcing your own hands to be pulled out of her hair. you whine at the loss of contact, chasing her lips.

she's quick to move away, dodging the kiss. "ellie c'mon, please dont be like that," you throw your head back against the stairwell, locking eyes with her.

"baby, no attachment." she reminds you.

"i know."

she looked... needy. she looked desperate. desperate for you.

"ellie?" you question for what felt like the millionth time that night.

"my car. now. please."

and thats where you were. in a more secluded parking spot, knee deep in the passenger seat, dress pulled up and panties pulled down with ellie's tongue working around your pussy as if she was starving. her fingers pushing in and out of your cunt at such a fast pace and it felt so fucking good.

you were a moaning mess. squeezing your eyes tightly shut with your head placed firmly against the headrest. when you began to feel your orgasm approaching, ellie knew it too. from the way your walls were squeezing her two fingers tightly and slowly adding a third one. "look at me baby, or i wont let you cum."

immediately you open your eyes, letting out a few panicked "no"'s, worried that your orgasm would be ripped away from you.

"ellie..." you whimper "please, please can i cum?" you practically beg, falling apart on her fingers bit by bit. your wetness dripping down your own legs.

"how could i say no to a girl as pretty as you?" she briefly lifts her head up before diving back down, working at a much faster pace and showing more attention to your swollen bud, and its not long before you let her overtake your entire being as your orgasm rippled through you. pathetic "thank you's" spilling from your mouth at lightning speed, the girl below you helping you work through your orgasm. detaching her mouth from your puffy clit and reaching up to attach her pink lips to your own. to get you to shut up, of course. her tongue lapping up your liquids.

when you begin to calm down, she slowly starts speeding up her fingers again.

"think you got one more for me?"

it's just casual you remind yourself, looking down at her with your fluids dripping down her chin. casual.

11:02 pm ellie

hey

my dad was asking about u

he was wondering if u wanted to come over for dinner tmrw night

11:36 you

hi ellie!

sure i would love that, what time should i be there?

11:37 ellie

around 6

dont dress too fancy

his name is joel and he's chill, you dont have to bring anything

oh and here's the address ***********

11:40 you

okay! i'll see you there :)

11:40 ellie

see you

"hi mr. miller!" you cheerfully introduce yourself. you wanted to make a good impression on ellies father, taking off your coat and stepping into the house. not forgetting to hand him the surprisingly nice bottle of whisky you had purchased him on your way.

"hey kid! it's nice to finally put a face to the name after hearin' ellie talk my ear off about you." he hugs you quickly before thanking you for the bottle. the southern accent was the first thing you took into account the second he opened his mouth, the second was the words he actually said.

ellie talks about me to her dad? and we're casual?

"joel!" you hear ellie complain from behind the man, he moves out of the doors way, giving you a perfect view of ellie and ellie a perfect view of you.

you had taken her advice, opting to wear some simple low rise baggy jeans and a white shirt that had bows on the sleeves.

"hi baby," she makes her way towards you, abandoning her previous task of setting the table. giving you a kiss on the cheek before grabbing the small bunch of flowers you had also brought for dinner and grabbing your waist. gently leading you over to the table.

your cheeks heat up at this action. casual. its just casual, shes trying to be respectful. respectful around joel.

"how've you been kid? ellie tells me your volunteerin' at a local dog shelter eh?" he makes his way to the old wooden table. ellie nudges you towards him, insinuating you too are able to sit down while she finishes prepping dinner.

"um yeah i have been! honestly its been incredible even if a little hard..." ellie tunes out of whatever your talking about, simply staring at you as you had been to her at the bar only two nights prior.

you were so pretty. too pretty.

and she could already feel herself beginning to drip, she was so fucked tonight.

"foods ready!" ellie announces, pushing the feeling deep down. you stand up and make your way over to her to help bring the array of dishes to the table.

ellie uses this opportunity to whisper in your ear a simple, but desperate,

"i need you."

and you couldnt even think about focusing the rest of dinner.

your entire body was on high alert, ellies hand placed firmly on your thigh and her gaze unwavering whenever joel was asking you a question.

it felt like she was mentally undressing you, imagining all the things she would do to you when dinner was over.

but you werent having it.

it was supposed to be a nice dinner, one night where you two dont fuck and you're able to respectfully meet her adoptive father. but as always, ellie couldnt fathom to see you fully clothed for more than five minutes.

plates were empty and the conversation was starting to die down, this is when the auburn haired girl took the opportunity to stand up from her seat and start collecting plates, you (respectfully) following in suit.

"dinner was lovely mr miller and ellie, thank you so much." you compliment, trying your hardest to be slow and force ellie to wait even longer for your touch.

"of course, you're so kind. oh and please call me joel. it's so nice to see ellie's got herself such a... respectable partner."

you let out a small laugh at his comment, thanking him and starting to wash the dishes.

"oh no no no please let me, you've already done plenty." joel inturrupts, grabbing the sponge and dish from your hands

"oh no its okay really i dont mind-"

"no point in arguing with the old man, he's stubborn as fuck." ellie's voices creeps up from behind you while she loops her arms around your shoulders and rests her head on the top of your own.

"ellie, language!" joel scolds while laughing, making it clear he clearly curses more than he does -- especially based on the conversations the two of you had at the table.

"sure, joel" she huffs, discreetly trying to push you towards her room.

"thank you again joel! hopefully i'll see you before i leave!" ellie lets go of your shoulders and instead, grabs your hand, turning you around and making a run for her room.

"'course kiddo! see you later" the old man chuckles, leaving you and ellie to your own activities.

the minute the door to her bedroom was shut, your lips were already on hers. roughly pushing her up against the sticker filled wood. you remove your lips from her mouth and start kissing down her neck, simultaneously unbuttoning her jeans.

"hey," she says, almost like she's scared you'll stop "what're you tryna do?"

"did you think you were funny when you kept teasing me all dinner?" you ask mockingly, ellie stays silent. she's too lost in the mere thought of you to acknowledge her precious actions.

when she doesn't answer, you pull your hand out of her jeans. she opens her eyes at lightning speed.

"what the fuc-?!" her words are cut short when you drop to your knees, pulling her jeans about midway to her knees. you can see her slick seeping through her boxers.

"all for me ellie?" you giggle slightly, pulling down her boxers as well and allowing the cool air to hit her aching cunt.

"oh shut up... fuck" she moans as you started kitten licking her pussy, you did that for a couple seconds, basking in the moment before she grabbed your head, pushing you in further, indicating she wanted needed more.

so, you did exactly that. going rougher, harder. diving your tongue in and out of her pussy faster and faster. you could barley breathe as she had her hands on the top of your head, pushing you further into her. you copy exactly what she does with you, swirling your tongue around her clit before inserting it back into her clenching hole.

she was on the verge of coming, if her lewd moans and harsh grip on your head weren't sign enough, she started to curl her toes and you could feel her knees on the edge of bucking. she was so close.

"cmon baby you can come" you let her know, removing your mouth from her clit for a second before going straight back in.

tears are leaking from the corner of her eyes while she screams, you cover her mouth quickly, removing a hand from her thigh and shushing her. what are now muffled screams ring throughout your ears while you help her ride out her high.

casual. you just made this girl cum, don't forget your casual. don't fucking forget you're-!

"thanks for that," ellie says, looking down at you while you stand back up again, using the back of your hand to wipe her off your chin.

"um... yeah no worries?" you hesitantly reply.

"you can go now," she's buttoning up her jeans, and you look at her in shock. is she serious right now?

"are you serious?" you voice your thoughts.

"yeah? why wouldn't i be?" ellie's looking back up at you, as if she's done nothing wrong.

you scoff, wiping the rest of ellies fluids off your face and pushing her away from the door, she blocks it before you can leave. please, just let me go.

"hey hey hey what the hell is wrong with you?"

"you want me to leave? well i'm leaving." you bite back

"yeah but like- why're you actin' like your pissed at me?"

"ellie i-" you stop yourself as you can hear your voice raising, you want to be civil. and you know your voice will crack sooner or later. "ellie, i don't know if i want things to be causal anymore."

silence.

"wha-" she stammers "what? that's what we agreed on!"

you start to tear up, "i've heard the rumours, you know. you tell everyone how i come everytime you simply touch me, how im just another girl on your roster you bang on your couch," you point to the grey sofa just a few meters away.

ellie scoffs, running a sweaty hand through her hair in disbelief. how the fuck did you know?

"listen-"

"no. no ellie i can't. i just can't, you invite me over to meet your dad just to get a quick fuck? are you serious?"

ellie's silent again, this time she doesn't know what to say. because she knows the truth, and she knows how fucked up it was of her to do.

her silence, however, is everything to you.

fuck this casual shit.

with tears silently streaming down your face, you make a move towards the door. ellie moves away, and it solidifies your broken heart.

a hand on her doorknob, you say your final words to her "my favorite bra is still in your dresser, by the way. please give back when you can." your voice shakes, as are your hands, and with that you open the door and leave.

and as soon as you do, both you and ellie are broken messes on either sides.

[takes1]

i miss u

imagine: akaashi pining over you

details. sfw / fluff / unrequited crush / pathetic!akaashi / simp akaashi / unspoken feelings / study group / canon overthinker akaashi

just thinking about how akaashi would never make the first move.

akaashi would rather let his crush eat at him- rot him from the inside out- a confession just gnawing at the back of his throat- than make one wrong move with you.

you don't even have to be intimidating. you're probably the sweetest member of his study group. he loves how you include everyone in a group discussion, how you glance over to him every once in a while with a friendly(?) grin in the middle of your sentences, how you validate others -even when they're wrong, or not contributing.

the worst you could say is, "ohh, i'm sorry-- i'm just not interested."

but even the thought of such a feather-light no makes him want to claw his eyes out.

he watches, instead. he's quiet and he hopes that it makes him look cooler than he feels.

he sits with bated breath every time you choose to sit next to him. he consolidates his things slowly to make a little more room for you. a couple- no, several- glances to the side of your pretty face. your friendliness isn't some blinding blast of pure sunlight like he's used to, with bokuto. for that, he's unsure how to talk to you.

he takes the chance to stare while you speak. his cheek is smushed against his knuckles, lids low with deliberation. his thumb presses against his pencil, rubbing, absentmindedly.

no, your brightness is more of a soft light. of dawn. something that reminds him of time, of pressure, and that he should enjoy it while the opportunity is still there.

"what do you think, akaashi?" you turn to him, a flicker of surprise on your face when you catch him eyeing you like his next meal.

it embarrasses both of you.

he takes a deep breath in, flipping through the textbook, and tries his best to say something of any kind of relevance-- but it's only to fill the awful silence.

yeah, not this time. maybe never.

links. longer, sluttier haikyuu. my other imagines. my masterlist.

notes. i miss you too anon. ty :,) i've never written akaashi before but this was refreshing.

taglist. 🤍 @integers @paradoxicalwritings @yuchacco

[totemstones]

Burnout

(Giselle x Male Reader)

Tags : Bratty Gigi, Handjob, Sloppy Toppy, Sex, Dirty Talk, Mommy Kink, Recording

w/ plenty amount of music gimmicks

Length : 2.1K words

‘Nah, come on, you’ve never been like this. What happened?’

‘I just... have a little bit burnout’

You and Giselle are friends. You start getting closer to her since you have been doing songs with her, 24 songs that you and Giselle have done together, both finished and unfinished. Once you even think that you want to do a collab tape with her.

You were supposed to finish the verse on one song off Giselle's solo album. But at some point, you can’t even think of any lyrics, or words. 

‘Nah, keep your head up, man. You can do this. You can tell me what happened. We have been doin’ this things so many times. I’ll be your therapist’ - Giselle trying to cheers up yet concerns

‘I don’t know, i just-, feel like I can't think any words. But I don't have any problems for real. Don’t worry, nothin’ can stop me’

‘Cap. You look like a miserable guy right now, i can see. Let me do something’

Suddenly, Giselle starts to kneel in front of you while you sit on the sofa in the studio. She starts to put both of her hands and slide up from your shins, to your knees, and finish at your crotch. Then rubbing it at slow pace.

‘Woah woah, what you doin’?’

‘I just, you know-, give you a little heat. So, I decide to rub your wood. Based on the science, when the wood got rubbed, it creates fire. I heard that you’re burnout right? I want to lit your fire back again’

After that, she unbuckles your belt and takes off your pants down on the mat. The plump bulge that was caused by your friend got shown. When Giselle sees that, she does her mischievous smile after saw your wood.

‘Oh! I never knew that you have… such a big cock, a really really big one. Why you never show this to me? I guess this is your hidden talent, don’t hide it to me after this. OK?’ 

Your last cover was over, she takes off the underwear. Her face was too close to your cock that caused your cock flip up and hit her cheek.

‘Oh!, it slaps me. But what will hit me harder, your lyrics or your cock’

Giselle puts one hand to stroke your cock, and another hand to fondle your ball. Giselle pursing her lips while doing it. This action of hers can make you look at the ceiling and release a satisfying moan.

‘Have you ever thought- about… the fantasy about me?’

‘Nev- Never. Cuz you know- you’re my friend, it would be weird i-if I ever think about that. But since you’re doing this to me, i might looking forward about it- and thanks for this therapy’

Then, she pacing up the tempo and puts her both hands to pumping your cock, still seeing the glans even when she puts both hands on.

‘Your cock is so fucking big. Anyways. Do you love me-?’

‘Yes. I fucking love you’

‘I’m not even finished the fucking question, I just want to ask that if you love me when I'm doing this’

‘Fuck’

You thought that she was asking if you love her, you slipped out your real feeling of her.

‘So. Do you really love me?’ 

‘Definitely’ 

‘Alright. call me mommy then?’

‘What- Ah hell nah, you’re not my mommy’

At first, you feel offended. But then, Giselle start to playing with your cock, put her face closer to your cock and place it on her face, you can feel the breath from her nose that give you a goosebump.

‘Look at me! Your cock is longer than my face. I don’t know how many times I’ll say this, but you have such a big cock’

Giselle puts her nose and drags along from your balls to the cock. Then started to put it into her mouth.

‘Oh! I'm sorry. I just wanted to play with it for more minutes, but it ended up in my mouth. I'm sorry for the accident. But I think you want it to happen, right? So, since it happening, I’ll continue it’

Giselle starts to suck you cock, goes up and down, while keeping both eyes on you, wanting to see your relaxing face from this therapy section. Giselle keeps spitting on your cock, and oftenly switches to handjob that more slippery than before. Giselle getting more sloppy, her face full of her own saliva, her lips have lipstick color faded marks. She start to giving faster pace for you.

‘I've been doing this for a while now. Can you finally call me mommy?’

‘No. I didn’t see your full potential yet. Instead, Can you show me your hidden talent? Since i had already showed it to you. If it great, i might call it for you then’

‘Deal. And i’m not only do it for the calling, ‘cause i’ll make you scream it’ 

Giselle moving far away from you, standing in the middle of the room. Then, she starts to pull her jeans down, showing her pink panties. Then taking off her pink hoodie, showing the pink bra that she is wearing.

‘That’s a bar’

‘What? I’m not even rapping yet’

' I'm just saying that's a 'bra' '

‘Alright, enough. Fuck me then’

‘You want it now?’

‘Yeah, fuck that. I want it now’

Giselle starts to take off her bra, showing her pink titties. And take off her panties as well, showing her pink pussy. She’s throwing both of covers at you. You gotta wipe it to the side to see her full naked body. 

‘Damn. How many pinky things in you?’

‘All pink. But i’m thinking ‘bout dying my hair red. So, Can you paint the white for me before?’

‘As you want, Gigi’

Giselle moving closer to you, controlling your head up by her finger and kissing for a moment, you feel like you’ve fallen into a trance by her passionate kissing. While Giselle still not moving her mouth out of you, you can feel that your cock is starting to sense something had touched and its moving slowly.

‘You feeling it?’

‘A Little’

‘Wanna feel more?’

‘Yeah’

Giselle puts her body down like how gravity works. Both of you release the moans, feeling the same thing. She hugs your neck and slowly moves up and down, while you sucking at her tits.

‘Ah- it’s feeling so good, never have a big cock inside me like yours before. This satisfying me a lot’

You also move your hips to hit her pink kitty, the slapping sound has turned both of you on so much.

‘It’s getting too quiet in here. Can you come to the recording room to open some songs for me?’

‘Aight’

Before you take it out, Giselle hits your arm and pushes you back before you even stand up.

‘Wha- What?’

‘I forgot to tell you, I have a little challenge for you; Move to the room with me, but your cock have to still stuck in me, don’t take it out yet. Can you do it?’

‘Ah- fine’

‘Yah! Good boy’

You stand up and carrying her body to go to the inside of the room, one hand entwines her butt and the other hand hugs her from behind. Giselle starts to move again, but moving like she’s struggling. You can’t fully control your legs and it makes her back hitting the table at mixing panel. And then, she starts screaming.

‘AHHHHHHH Help meeeee’

‘I’m sorry. Where’s you hurting’

‘Just move and come into the room!’

‘Ok Ok’

You ran into the recording room, and put her on the table and checked what happened to her.

‘AHHHH HELP ME!’

‘WHERE DO YOU GET HURT- WHERE!’

You look at every spot of her body that if she’s hurting or anything. At that moment, Giselle starts to laughing at you.

‘Haha i didn’t say that i’m hurting, dumbo, don’t overreact. I mean ‘help me- to cum already’, i’m too horny for this, i can’t bare with it anymore. I want you to cum in me and cum with me together’

‘Bruh, bratty behavior’

You put her on the table and start pounding her again while Giselle grabs her phone and tries to select the song.

‘Can you fucking stay still? I can’t even clicking the song’

‘Guess it’s my challenge then’

‘Alright’

You continue pounding her without knowing what song she will put on the speakers. Once it got play, you can recognize your voice on it. 

‘Is that our song?’

‘Yea- Yeah. It’s our song, i always love thi-this song, ah- i love hearing your voice on the track, it makes me wet every time. Once i ever fingered myself while playing this song on repeat’

‘That’s romantic f-for me. But wait? This song isn’t finished yet right?’

‘Ye- Yeah?’

Giselle already knows that you might bring the mood back again, the feeling of unfinishing the work. Then, she starts to have an idea.

‘Ca- Can you bring that mic to me’

‘Huh? What you gon do?’

‘Bring that shit!’

You bring the microphone to her and put it beside you and Giselle.

‘Can you o-open the file of this song and record it?’

‘Al- alright What you gon do?’

‘Have you ever heard of ‘P Power’ by Gunna’

‘Oh. I understand it’

‘Yeah, do it like what they did’

You turn your back to the computer and look for the file of this song. When you find it, you prepare to start the special recording session.

‘You Ready?’

‘Let’s do it’

You press the record button, the 90’s R&B instrumental fulfills this sex scene, it makes you pound her harder than ever. All the sounds that happen in this room got recorded through a microphone.

‘Ah- Ah- Harder baby I'm nearly cum now. Ah- you’re pounding me so good baby. Make me cum please and we can cum together’

‘Ah- Your pussy is so good baby, wish i could pound this forever. No better pussy like yours baby, you sucked me so good lately’

The song was close to the outro and you feel like you are about to cum soon.

‘I’m about to cum baby, are you close yet?’

‘Ah- Yes Baby. I’m nearly cum now’

‘Let’s cum together’

‘Before you cum in me, ah- Can you call me mommy one time?’

‘Yes I can. Mommy. Milking me please, ‘til my breath runs out, ‘til i can’t cum anymore’

The part where the drums were cut off is the time that you and Giselle had cum together, only the sex scene sound and a few instruments. You both felt good feelings for each other, showing their relieved expression. You bend closer to her and whisper.

‘I love you baby’

‘Love you too’

Before you start to get tissue to wipe anything, you press the stop recording button on the screen and start to clean the booth for her.

‘You love this idea aren't you?’ 

‘Love it, you’re so fucking creative’

‘I’m creatively fucking, should add bed squeaking sound after’

‘You want to add it?’

‘Yes. It might add more tension for the song’

‘Let’s record it at my house then’

You have the fire again and recorded a few songs after that sex. And you went back home with Giselle to recorded the bed squeaking sound.

Next week, the appointment of the next recording session. You open the door and see the producer sitting in front of the computer.

‘Hey! What’s up man’

‘Hi Nice to meet you bro’

‘Nice to meet you too. How many beats you’ve produced this morning’

‘A couple, man’

‘That’s great. Show it to me then’

‘Before I show it to you. Can i ask you a question’

‘Yeah?’

‘I just went to see what you produced last week, and then I found this: What happened to this song?’

‘What song?’

The producer plays that song that had special recording last week, the voice recording was the length of the full song, 4 minutes long with sex sound behind it. You start smiling to the producer.

‘What the fuck is this?’

‘I mean, It's a sample bruh, just put it for the mood man, 90’s R&B vibe’s songs often play while people are having sex, you didn’t know that?’

‘I mean-, alright. i’ll give it to you man’

‘Yeah, right? Slow and smooth instrumentals are created something, don’t cut it off the track, leave it, it’s already finished’

You talk with producer and then go into the booth to record some songs. Suddenly, your producer wants you to listen something.

‘Hey, you want to listen to the song that Giselle had recorded a couple days ago? You might want to hop on the track’

‘Yeah play it’

The producer plays Giselle’s unfinished song with this bar on it.

‘If you wanna be my pet, call me mommy’

You start to smile and giggle a little at what she said. The producer sees your reaction. 

‘What do you even laugh about?’

‘Nothing’

Then you continue this session, while that bar is still around your head, reminding you of the special session last week. 

- totemstones

[my-body-likes-you-in-control]

Enough Credits

The first time I found Metamorph, I thought it was a prank—some elaborate role-playing scam or a dark web trap for the desperate. But the testimonials were too raw, the credit system too brutally efficient, the rules too meticulously structured to be fake.

Metamorph was a body-swapping marketplace.

The setup was simple, almost deceptively so. You signed up, submitted to a biometric scan to register your "profile," and got a handful of starter credits. Then—if you had the points—you could slip into someone else’s skin. Every swap you initiated cost credits. But if someone else chose your body, you’d be paid in theirs.

There were two kinds of swaps: temporary and permanent.

Temporary swaps were the most common—brief trades lasting anywhere from an hour to ten days. The catch? You couldn’t refuse them. If someone had the credits and wanted your body, they took it. No warning, no consent. Just a sudden, violent lurch—your consciousness torn from your flesh and dumped into theirs, no matter how unfamiliar or unwelcome. Some users described it like blacking out mid-breath: one second you’re yourself, the next you’re choking awake in a stranger’s life, their pulse hammering in your throat.

Permanent swaps were rarer, more deliberate. Unlike temporary trades, they didn’t cost the initiator credits. Instead, they could offer to take your body outright. If you accepted—and this time, you did have a choice—Metamorph would deposit enough credits into your account for three years of temporary swaps. Three years of bouncing between models, athletes, even the occasional washed-up celebrity. Three years of borrowed lives, no regrets. That’s because once you agreed, your old body was no longer your home—and the person who took it was locked out of Metamorph forever.

As I scrolled through the catalog of profiles—each tagged with vitals, photos, even user ratings—my pulse spiked. Damn. So many hotties. Sharp jawlines, gym-sculpted arms, guys who looked like they’d walked straight off a billboard. And I knew my own worth. My body was lean, angular, the kind that turned heads in a club. Some of these high-credit users would absolutely burn points to step into me for a night. I mean look at me:

At first, I was right. It was electric. I woke up in lawyers, musicians, a guy who owned a yacht in Miami. I racked up credits fast, riding the thrill of each new swap. Sure, none were keepers—one guy had a nicotine habit that left me wheezing, another had a wife who side-eyed "his" sudden indifference—but it was fun. Until it wasn’t.

Max was easily the worst body I’d been dumped into yet.

Not some wealthy muscle god, not even a guy with decent charm. He was soft around the middle, patchy stubble, the kind of face that made waitresses forget to refill his water. I groaned, rolling off the sagging mattress and stumbling into his dingy bathroom. The mirror confirmed it: dull brown eyes, thinning hair, a nose that had clearly lost a fight with a door frame.

What the hell?

I grabbed his phone, swiping to the Metamorph widget. 10 days. The max lockout period. My stomach dropped. Ten days in this?

Then I saw his credit balance.

My breath stalled.

87,430 credits.

An obscene amount. More than I’d ever seen—enough to live in other bodies nonstop for decades.

A note sat on the counter, scrawled in messy handwriting:

Hey, If you’re reading this, congrats—you’re my first pleasure swap in 10 years. I’ve been playing the long game. Take an ugly body, train it up, swap it permanently for another ugly one, stack credits. Rinse and repeat. Twelve times. This body (Max) is my home now. But I saved all these credits for one reason: to finally have fun. Yours was the first body that tempted me in years. Enjoy the credits! —M

I stared at the note, then back at the phone.

A weird mix of flattery and dread coiled in my chest.

Ten days later, I snapped back into my own body like a rubber band. My skin hummed with familiarity—the lean muscles, the sharp jaw, the way my shirt draped just right. I exhaled, running my hands over my face like I was checking for damage.

Home.

Another note waited on my desk.

Thank you. —M

I thought that was the end of it. And hey, now I had credits to burn, right? Wrong.

Two days later, I was brushing my teeth when the world tilted sideways.

I was back in Max’s bathroom, staring into his tired eyes, my hands gripping his chipped sink.

“What the—?!”

His phone buzzed. This time a DM:

Max: Hey, gorgeous. Miss me? Sorry for the surprise. Cut my Rio trip short—some Brazilian adonis is gonna wake up very confuse (and probably very relieved). You’re just… different.

I hurled the phone onto his unmade bed.

The next ten days crawled. Max’s body was a wreck—aching knees, a back that popped when he stretched, a fridge full of microwave meals. I barely left his apartment, counting down the hours like a prisoner.

When I finally snapped back into my own skin, I collapsed onto my floor, kissing the familiar creaks of my hardwood.

Four days of freedom. Then—wrench. Back to Max’s sagging couch and doughy love handles.

Another DM:

Max: Okay, hear me out. I tried to resist taking you again. But then I took over some hedge-fund bro’s body (6’2”, abs, yawn) and all I could think about was your biceps and the curve of your hips. Pathetic, right? Anyway. Ten more days. Try not to hate me. (Or do. That’s kinda hot now that I think about it.)

“You creep,” I muttered.

Enough. I opened a support ticket, fingers jittering:

"How do I block a user from repeatedly swapping into my body?"

The reply came fast:

Metamorph Support: "User blocking is not currently supported. If a participant has sufficient credits and respects the 48-hour cooldown, swaps are permitted. Adjust profile visibility or spend credits to remain in other bodies longer to avoid unwanted exchanges."*

I stared at the screen. Adjust visibility? Useless—he already knew my ID. Spend credits to hide? A temporary fix.

I was trapped.

I waited out the ten days in Max’s body, scrambling for a solution. Nothing. Maybe he’d get bored. Finally, I was back in my own skin—my hands, my apartment, my reflection—when the app chimed.

A notification:

PERMANENT SWAP REQUEST User ID#4492-LL would like to swap bodies with you. Max: I feel so right as you.

My stomach lurched. I smashed REJECT so fast.

“Fuck no.”

The app blinked. Request denied.

He wanted to be me?

Another DM popped up:

Max: Worth a shot. ;)

[theoretically-questionable]

I've often found myself confused by people who use LLMs for tasks that involve communication, even in an office or other setting where a non-trivial portion of emails/messages are 'box-checking' rather than strictly interpersonally communicative.

Having thought it over, I think the difference in attitudes is probably akin to the split between people who value small talk and people who regard it, with extreme distaste, as "pointless and annoying": i.e., there is something the former is getting out of small talk that the latter group is not.

This is mostly just a rambling tangent, but oh well.

I like communicating and I do so with intent. I've heard the sentiment from some other autistic people that they'd love to have an 'autoresponder'-style module for their brain to automate away layers of necessary-but-draining/pointless conversation. Never been able to relate, in significant part because doing so would give people communicating with said autoresponder the entirely wrong impression about how I was feeling.

The purpose to communication is to transmit information from one person to another. There are so many layers to this information — something I have definitely struggled with, as an autistic person. Some of those layers were totally opaque to me for a long time. Hell, sometimes I didn't even know some layers existed.

In a collaborative environment, even rote/'pointless' communication rituals have a huge density of information. That is the point. It is important. If Joe Bloggs over in HR replies to my routine email confirming details for this week's parking garage allotments in a more abrupt way than usual, or slower than usual, that's contextual information.

Maybe I'll pick up that he's probably got a lot on his plate or feeling stressed. Maybe that's not relevant. Maybe I need someone from HR to do something later that day, and then I can either loop in someone else from the department or just know to approach Joe tactfully, rather than just passing the task along as I usually would.

When people start using LLMs to write emails, summarize meetings, and 'touch up' all of their work, all of that context turns to unparseable sludge. It's entirely random. You can't "get used to" how someone writes and learn to pick up context clues when everything longer than a single-sentence reply is being filtered through an LLM.

It genuinely ends up being a bit of a nightmare for me, having absolutely no access to any kind of context, just taking a ride down a river of vaguely polite- and professional-sounding drivel, all without even the barest grace of useful context. It just... makes things worse. It becomes a self-perpetuating loop with no eject button.

If it's really easy for everyone to maintain the 'professionalspeak' facade, nobody ever has times when they break the facade. And *breaking the facade* is important. Being able to shape the communication norms of your department/company over time is... I mean, I think it's essential? Willingly choosing "we all communicate via LLM" seems horrifying, like not just acquiescing to but actively reinforcing the worst parts of corporate expectations of overly sanitized communication standards handed down from your manager's manager.

And yeah, some of my feelings on the matter are definitely my own baggage, but it feels just as frustrating as having to work with someone who actively scorns 'small talk' and deliberately makes every single communication as stripped-down as possible — and ends up being less efficient overall, not more, because what they're actually doing is refusing to engage with their colleagues or make sure they're getting all the right information across.

The other thing is that LLMs don't actually, by default, have access to all the information you do. If you want to get specific information across in the output, you have to give it to the LLM first. I've never hit a scenario where I would have preferred an LLM-generated email instead of. like. just the bullet-point list of information that was used when prompting it.

If you're time-poor and easily frustrated by communication tedium, I would rather *know that*, and know for sure that none of the information you're giving me has been twiddled accidentally to be slightly wrong by a context-free LLM, than get 'professionally formatted' emails from you all the time.

the scariest thing about the generative AI thing is how quickly people have accepted it as an indefinite, irrevocable part of their reality. people have genuinely convinced themselves that ChatGPT is the only solution to most tasks - tasks they did with their own brain without any large effort two years ago. like you know damn well all of us used to write emails ourselves why are we pretending like this is an impossible task to do with your own two hands. what's with the fucking. AI revisionism. i feel like i am going insane.

[pomefioredove]

Hello! Can I please get a #3 sugar cookie with frosting, sprinkles, and chocolate drizzle? Thank you and happy holidays! 😊

delicious yummy prompt... thank you for waiting so patiently, anon! here's one vil fic to finish off apvril

order #3, sugar with frosting, sprinkles, chocolate drizzle

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ are you happy?

summary: an unexpected meeting with fate, and your ex-husband tropes: only one bed, hurt/comfort, exes to lovers characters: vil additional info: romantic, gender neutral reader, reader is yuu, post-nrc, but also at nrc, DIVORCE!!! I LOVE DIVORCE!! this is long because angst

To the observer, to the other, to the hungry tabloid reporters and your own friends, it was simple: Vil Schoenheit had ruined your life.

Two years wasted on lavender-scented sunscreen and mud baths and a man who dumped you for a movie deal.

It was hard, and you told yourself you'd been through worse: overblots, burns, cuts, broken teeth and bruised ribs, even Crewel's make-up exams. But not even the end of the world itself could hold a candle to this.

This. Anger. This poisonous resentment that filled your lungs, forced bile from your throat, and left a bitter taste on your tongue. This sadness, this fear, this confusion. It left you feeling young again, in all the worst ways. If you closed your eyes, you could feel the drafty, mildewed interior of Ramshackle, the splinters under your cold hands, the moon which so resembled your own home's in the grinning, gap-toothed roof.

You had moved on from that. From Ramshackle, yes, but also from the hope that you might ever see your home again.

He had been there for you, of course. Consoling you, coddling you. Letting you ramble on about your culture and family and the place you grew up, and he was your sanctuary, your escape from reality, from the cold, broken world you had been brought into.

Vil was thoughtful in that way. Always thinking of you. For you.

There was a time when it was difficult- nay, impossible, to imagine yourself without him. He had swept you up in the luxury of loyalty, taken you under his wing like a true mother bird.

That was years ago. And now you're older, lonelier, the subject of pitiful whispers and prying eyes. Your luxurious life had plummeted down into the dirt, exactly where you started. No longer the spouse of a superstar, the sexiest man alive (named so six years in a row by Shaftlands Quarterly). No, now you were nothing but a name lost to internet forums and inactive fan blogs, and you're an employee of Night Raven College.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

More of a peer to the professors who had chastised you for being tardy and forgetting your books than to the students who were once your friends.

Another year of work, another year closer to death, another year further from home.

"And refreshments," Sam says, setting a crate of bottled cranberry cocktails (non-alcoholic, as explained on the label) on the table.

You raise an eyebrow. "Refreshments? Dire is going all out this year, is he?"

"Well, as it so happens, we have very special clientele," Sam smirks. "We want to impress the-"

"Donors," you both say, your own words accompanied by a sigh. "Why am I not surprised?"

Sam shrugs, and you almost smile, unpacking the crates with practiced precision. This wasn't your first family day, after all. Far from it.

"Who's it this time? Another prince? A billionaire heir?"

Sam doesn't respond. Your hands still, and you look over your shoulder at him. He's never one to shy away from work gossip.

Unless...

"Who is it?" you repeat. Sam tsks.

"Schoenheit's boy,"

Your fingers clench around the bottles, nearly crushing them between your dry, worn palms.

You say nothing.

Sam takes to helping you with the drinks, clearing the crate and dressing the table to avoid the awkwardness heavy in the air.

And, then, you speak.

"I didn't know he had children. Well, good for him. I'm sure he's very proud,"

"Positive," Sam deadpans, studying the forced indifference on your face.

"...I'll cover for you."

"Thank you," you exhale, hoping the tension in your body will carry away with your breath. It doesn't.

Cold. It's still cold here.

All of the renovations, all of the hours, all of the sweat and tears and bumps on your head and splinters in your fingers, and Ramshackle is still freezing.

And you even have a fire going. For old time's sake.

It's been years since you'd spent a night in your old dorm, but you couldn't bring yourself to take the long walk back to your apartment in Foothill Town.

Besides, it's a beautiful night.

The sky is clear, and the stars are out.

...Malleus had told you something about stars, once. That they don't change. For all of our worries and woes, for all the human drama in the world, the stars stay as they are. Smiling.

The thought disturbs you. You hadn't let your mind linger on Malleus in years. You only had pieces of him, from the gossip of your coworkers, and even then, they had little to say.

That's how you heard about most of them. Your former classmates. Your friends.

It had been your fault. After you and Vil started arguing, after you were sure there was no saving your marriage, you had forced everyone away. You didn't want to see them. Constant reminders of what you'd once had. No, what you could have had.

He has a son.

A boy. Going to Night Raven College. No doubt a talented mage, like his father. Maybe he has more children. You don't know. You suppose you never will.

Had he married, then? Had his career suddenly not mattered as much as when you were with him? How long did it take? Ten years? One? A month?

You aren't important enough to be asking these questions. You'd always had a bad habit of obsessing over the past, what could have been, what should have been. You supposed it was only a symptom of what had happened to you. That's how Crowley explained it.

Trein had told you, once, sometimes, these things never go away. You never grow out of grief. Mourning makes itself a home within you, like a disease, or a memory, which are more often than not the same miserable affliction.

Would you be like this forever, then? Your body would age and change but your mind would stay here, in bed, in Ramshackle, memorizing the grooves in the wood grain of the ceiling? Dreaming of something else?

You had tried to live, to have an adventure. You had married the prince, you had escaped the tower, you had lived happily ever after. And now you're too old for adventures, and so you only think about other ones.

Perhaps you were suited for a life of pencil-pushing and paperwork. Student records and attendance forms couldn't argue with you, after all.

It made you sympathetic for Crowley, in a way, which was surely a sign of an impending psychotic episode.

"Ah, you're here,"

You shoot up in bed, eyes wide, and your back aches from the sharp movement. Even in the dark of the room, the fading light of day, you recognize him.

You could feel his presence, imposing and impersonal.

"You know..." Vil starts, sitting at the edge of your bed, but delicately, as if afraid he'll frighten you.

"This is the very last place I would've expected you to be."

You look up into the rafters, dripping rainwater and dusted with mold.

"...Likewise. What are you doing here?"

"Don't be foolish, it isn't a flattering look on you," he says. "You know very well I'm here to see you. I wouldn't have come for family day if not for you."

Something in your chest tightens, and the same thing on your tongue, and you forget to speak. He's happy to supply your words for you.

"When did my father ever come to one of these? They're wastes of time, pitiful panhandling attempts from that Headmage of yours,"

"You knew I wouldn't want to see you," you argue.

He smiles, smugly satisfied with your answer, as if you're saying all the things he expected you to. You hate that. "And you knew you wouldn't have a choice,"

Silence follows. Your fingers feel around the bed, finding the limp sheets and pulling them over your chest, like a small child hiding from a monster in the dark.

"You have a son," you say.

Vil hums. "And a daughter,"

"And?"

"And," he repeats the word, as if you had spoken it in another language. "And, what?"

"And? Unlike me, those children didn't come out of nowhere,"

Vil scoffs, though he seems more amused by your sarcasm than not. That's different.

He smooths out the black of his pants, and removes his woollen gloves. Overdressed, even for an event he despises. That's more like him.

"Their mother and I divorced six years ago," he says, as stern as he could, as if he would sooner die than give you the satisfaction of seeing him disturbed. "It was an amicable affair- unlike ours. We had simply fallen out of interest."

Out of interest. Not out of love, you note.

You frown. "Who was she?"

"An actress. We met on the set of the movie,"

You feel a shadow pass over you, a shiver up your spine. The movie, the final nail in the coffin of your marriage. You had been young, too young to marry, really, and you were unhappy with how much time he spent away from you. His career had always come first. The movie- a romantic drama that Neige LeBlanche (now married, happily settled and retired from acting) had passed on- was set to be filmed for six months, across the world from you.

You had begged him not to go. He had gone.

"No children of your own, I presume?" Vil asks, breaking the splintered silence.

"Grim," you say. "But... no human ones."

"Are you seeing someone?"

You won't give him the satisfaction. "I suppose you could say that,"

"Are you happy?"

You shift. The sheets bunch around your waist and the wind blows through the many broken windows in Ramshackle's walls. You're not quite sure how to answer that, and you're also not quite sure why he asked.

Are you happy?

"I'm better," you manage, "Than I was a few years ago. I'm back on my feet."

Vil hums. "I'm glad,"

You lie back down in bed, as if you might really fall asleep here, and dream of being anyone but yourself. Vil lies by your side and looking at the stars through the cat-sized hole in the roof above your heads, as if in understanding.

You don't look at him. "Are you happy?"

"No,"

You don't look at him. "Is it my fault?"

"No,"

You won't look at him. "Would things have been better if we never knew each other at all?"

That's the first time you've said that aloud. Sixteen years of feeling it in your throat and chest and fingertips.

Vil turns to you, and "Don't be stupid," is what he says. "I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't unmarry my ex-wife, I wouldn't unhave my children, I wouldn't forget you. And I know it's terribly selfish. I had always hoped you'd never go home, but when I'd gotten my wish, I took it for granted. I lost you. I've been divorced twice for the same reason- tabloids have made millions on my stupidity. We were children. And foolish ones, at that. I had always thought myself so mature- matronly. I wasn't ready. For any of it."

You look at him. "For any of it?"

"For any of it. And neither were you,"

He cups your cheek in his palm, not feeling for blemishes or dryness, but for the warmth of your body. "I can only hope that you might find it within yourself to forgive me,"

You can't. You don't want to. Forgiving him would be no better than saying goodbye, than finally letting go of yourself, the grief of the people and places you once knew. It would finally force you to grow up.

You aren't ready. You weren't then, you aren't now.

But there's a bead of sweat on his forehead, and a tremble in his lip, that betray something you hadn't even seen when you were married.

He's afraid.

Of what, you can't be sure. You don't actually want to know.

"I do," You breathe outward, your warm breath visible in the cold air. Vil kisses your forehead, and sits in bed. You follow.

"I'd like to see you again. Preferably not in another sixteen years," he says, putting his gloves on, his touch becoming warmer and yet more impersonal. "I'll be visiting my son often. I'm trying to avoid becoming his manager, rather than his father. Lunch?"

Despite his indifference, the professional, confident way of his words, there's still a stammer in his voice, a crack in his lavender-scented mask of perfection.

He's aged, now. There are lines under his eyes.

And you nod. "Lunch. I'll... I'll have Di- The Headmage send you my schedule,"

"Hmph. Better to do it yourself," Vil smiles. "I'll be in touch."

He leaves you there, in Ramshackle, on your bed, the same one you had spent every night for years on, dreaming of something else. You can see your future from here. It's not awful.

Your fingers feel up your forehead, finding nothing but the residue of chapstick.

You hadn't even noticed he wasn't wearing makeup.