#who knows if this will show up in the tags again

[cherrixpie]

DINNER AND DIATRIBES

double feature: part a - part b

-> not only is mattheo too late to ask you out to the yule ball, you're going with harry potter of all people. now, his best friend is going to the ball with his nemesis and he has some feelings about it.

-> mattheo riddle x bsf! reader; part a; sfw; wc: 13k; cw: suggestive, mentions of violence; tags: friends to lovers, yule ball setup; again I wasn't able to tag everyone, sorry :(

( masterlist )

There were many who would call Mattheo Riddle crazy. A bloodthirsty maniac, who couldn’t be bothered to feel attachment, or fear, or any normal human emotion for that matter. A psychopath who would snap on a whim and held an iron grip on the school when he wanted to.

But you had never been able to see him the way other people did, never could relate the picture the whispers and rumors painted to the man who was currently breathing down your neck. His nose ran down your skin and you could feel his boredom on your fingertips as he leaned his forehead against the back of your neck. His knee rocked unsteadily under you, making the thigh you had slung over his bounce up and down almost indiscernibly in return.

“Have you heard that Susan Bones is going with one of our house?” asked Pansy through the chatter surrounding you, widening her eyes dramatically. “Susan Bones. And a Slytherin. Merlin, I didn’t think I’d see the day, they must have the same freaky kinks or something to make that match work.”

Blaise’s laughter echoed off the stone walls of the dungeons. The Slytherin common room was painted in its usual emerald glow. It flickered across the tapestry showing scenes of a medieval wedding tonight. Only after spending more time with Pansy and the boys in your fifth year, and after weeks of hanging around with them in their common room, had you noticed that the tapestry kept changing its motif and scenery. Low chatter and conversation filled the space as groups of students were huddled around couches or desks, studying or talking, some of them reading by themselves. It wasn’t as busy as your common room, nor was it as loud, and you quite enjoyed the calmer atmosphere.

You sat comfortably on Mattheo’s lap, his arm draped lazily around your waist, fingers absentmindedly tracing circles on the fabric of your uniform skirt. It wasn’t unusual- your friendship with you-know-who’s son was quite affectionate, filled with easy touches and stolen warmth, a silent understanding of physical proximity neither of you ever questioned. But tonight, something felt different. His grip was a little tighter, his body a little tenser beneath yours, his usual sharp, sarcastic remarks replaced with a brooding silence as the others discussed the upcoming Yule Ball.

“I think I’d say yes to Diggory, if he asked,” Pansy mused, twirling a strand of dark hair between her fingers and quirking an evil little smirk at Blaise’s frown. “He’s got that whole golden-boy thing going on.”

Mattheo scoffed under his breath and you felt the brush of puffed-out air tingling the skin of your neck, his hand tightening slightly on your hip. “Golden-boy thing is just another way of saying boring.” His tone was clipped, disinterested, but you could still feel the way his legs bounced slightly beneath you, a tell-tale sign of his agitation. He’d been in a foul mood all day, propelling anyone near him or passing him in the corridors into a constant state of nervousness and vigilance.

As you thought back, you guessed his bad mood must have started back when Professor McGonnagall had announced the ball, halfway into december, and you felt your lips twitch at the thought that Mattheo Riddle might shy away from a dance. You shifted slightly in his lap, turning to look at him with a raised brow. “What’s got your robes in a twist?” you teased brazenly, delivering a playful nudge to his shoulder.

But instead of smirking back at you like he usually would, he simply huffed, gaze flickering away. “I just don’t see why any of you care so much,” he muttered. “It’s just a bloody dance.”

“And you call me a spoilsport,” huffed Theo next to the two of you, balancing a book in his lap. His eyes met yours and his lips curled into a mocking smile as they flickered back to Mattheo. Theo and you were probably his best friends- as well as the only ones who would ever tell him off for something. For good reason. Because the two of you were also, with high probability, the only ones Mattheo would never seriously hurt.

“Shut it, Nott,” mumbled Mattheo warningly and Theo shrugged, turning a page in his book.

Your body was still turned to Mattheo when Draco’s drawling voice spoke up. He was lounging in the best seat by the fire with an air of superiority. “I don’t know about you all,” he said uppishly, “But I already have a date for the Ball.”

“Really?” Pansy asked in surprise and shot up from where she was leaning against Blaise. Her eyes glinted at the prospect of being the first one to receive the newest gossip. Half the reason she was so excited for the Yule Ball had to be watching all the drama unfold. Having a front-row seat and sipping her red wine when the screaming matches and tearful breakups would start.

“Who are you going with?” asked Enzo, interested, from his place at the far end of the couch. He himself had already gotten three invitations to the Ball that day, all from very flustered looking, younger girls, and had to decline all of them with an apologetic smile, later complaining about it to his friends. And of course, you had all diligently listened to his woes before smacking him over the head with a pillow for being such a damn loverboy. And watching him shuffle his curls back into place.

“Daphne,” revealed Draco in a superior tone, watching his nails in feigned disinterest.

But Pansy sucked a loud breath in through her lips and gripped Blaises thigh so hard he let out a low noise of complaint. She ignored him, a predatory smile on his face. “Did you ask her or did she ask you?”

“Does that matter?” scoffed Draco lazily, but there was a very faint tint of pink on his pale cheeks. His displeased frown flickered over Pansy, Enzo, Blaise and you as you all started laughing. Mumbling something indiscernible, he pretended to be interested in the tapestry above, making Pansy bend forward with giggles.

“What about you, Pans?” you asked when she had calmed down and slumped back into Blaise, your eyes wandering back and forth between them. “Do you already know who you’re going with?”

With a secretive smile, Pansy shrugged but splayed a thigh over Blaise’s leg. Her manicured nails traced a line up his knee as she winked at you. “Who knows?” Her eyes flickered between you and the disgruntled looking Mattheo currently resting his chin on your shoulder and glaring into the emerald fire. “What about you?”

At the question, Mattheo’s hold on your waist stiffened. His fingers, that had been drawing lazy circles on your hip, suddenly stilled, pressing just a fraction harder into the fabric of your skirt. On your shoulder, you felt his jaw tense, a muscle ticking as he shifted slightly beneath you, his leg bouncing once more before he forced it to stop. Though he kept his gaze trained on the fire, his grip on you didn’t falter.

Normally, he held you like this when he had to somehow ground himself, threatening to lose himself in a whirlwind of anger and stress, moments before either jumping another student or being dragged off by you or Theo. But there was no one here that might have attracted his hate, and your brows scrunched up in a frown he couldn’t see. Anyone else might’ve missed the way his fingers flexed or how his breath grew just slightly uneven, but you felt it- every small, quiet reaction that betrayed his indifference.

Something about this Ball seemed to agitate him, and you placed a warm hand on his thigh to draw careful circles on it, in the hopes of appeasing whatever it was that fueled his bitter temperament.

“No plans,” you answered, as casually as possible. In truth, you had been hoping for Mattheo to ask you ever since the announcement. You had had a giant crush on him for months now, one that you sometimes thought he reciprocated, when his touch would grow a little to intimate, his face inch a little too close, his dark promises a little too sincere to be considered platonic. This was the downside to your rather touchy friendship, the fact that there was no clear line to cross, that you could never be sure.

Holding onto hope, you’d declined Harry’s invitation a few days before, still dreaming that he could feel the same about you, as Pansy constantly assured you. But if he didn’t ask you today… Glancing back at him carefully, you only caught half his face in your field of vision, but it showed no emotion. It was still hardened with the earlier tension, not a muscle twitching, not even a small look back at you.

Enzo leaned forwards slightly, propping his arms up on his knees and giving you a sly grin. “I heard Pucey’s thinking about asking you,” he insinuated, brows wiggling suggestively.

Before you could answer, Mattheo’s voices sounded against your neck, his chin still propped up on your shoulder. “Pucey can go fuck himself.” It was a low, dangerous sound and the group fell silent for a few seconds.

Something like excitement curled into your stomach, until you realized with a pang of disappointment that Mattheo’s disapproval of Pucey reached far deeper than some Ball. He was always raving and raging about him when he returned from his Quidditch practices, and made you card your hands through his curls until he considered himself appeased. Naturally, he wouldn’t want one of his best friends going out with his least favorite housemate. Naturally. Platonically. Disappointingly.

Pansy was the first one to speak again, the grin had found its way back onto her face as she turned to you once more. “So, that’s the verdict then, love? No secret admirers to swipe you away to the night of your life?”

She jiggled her brows suggestively, biting down on her bottom lip in a not so subtle way that made you chuckle and shake your head at her. Raising your hands in mock surrender, you leaned back into Mattheo whose chest seemed to be rising and falling a bit faster as he glared at Pansy. “No secret admirers that I know of.”

A low scoff sounded behind you, as Mattheo seemed much more eager to join the conversation than during the last half hour. “They wouldn’t be very secret if they knew what was good for them.”

Merlin, sometimes you wished he would talk more like your friend and less like… well, whatever this was. But his brows were furrowed so beautifully you could barely think about the implications of his words, or the way Pansy shrunk back instinctively at the look he was giving her, fingers curling around your thigh. Otherwise, you’d surely have scolded him for scowling at her like that.

Blaise hummed, rubbing circles on Pansy’s back and giving you a sly look. “You should go with someone … unexpected,” he suggested, mocking a thoughtful tone and expression, “Shake things up, y’know? Maybe you could release Enzo from his misery. Gryffindor Miss perfect with a Slytherin pureblood, story writes itself, doesn’t it?” You could hear his voice was meant to provoke, just who you weren’t sure. Because you merely laughed at the clearly unserious idea.

But over the amused look you shared with Pansy, you missed the way Enzo widened panicked eyes at Blaise as if he’d just thrown him under the bus, as well as the way Mattheo pulled you depper into his lap. You followed the urge subconsciously and leaned your head against his, still grinning. “Someone shocking, you say?” you picked up his statement, careful not to be too obvious, “Like who? Apart from poor Enzo, I mean.”

“Not fucking Pucey, that’s for sure,” said Mattheo under his breath and you bit down on your tongue, swallowing your disappointment. Pansy threw you a knowing look that you pretended not to see. You were being absolutely ridiculous.

A long, dramatically exasperated sigh came from the armchair near the fire were Draco was still sprawled out, toying with a loose strand of the leather cushions. “You could always go with Mattheo,” he suggested what you hadn’t had the guts to- quite ironic though it was; and ran his eyes over your intertwined figures. “Since you two can’t seem to spend five minutes apart anyway.”

In an attempt to overplay your flusteredness that he had brought it up, just said it out loud, while you were seated in Mattheo’s lap no less and one of his hands dipped under your shirt to bury itself in the meat of your tummy, you chuckled and scratched the back of your neck. Craning your head around, you smiled humorously at your friend. “What, and boost his ego even more?”

For the first time in a while, an actual grin finally played around his lips again as he kneaded the flesh of your belly, throwing you a challenging look. “You love my ego.”

Because one couldn’t simply lie to Mattheo without him knowing, you turned away with a laugh instead of answering his question. Joining in, Pansy watched the outline of Mattheo’s fingers against your shirt and smirked. Her glance back up at him was a silent promise not to let the topic go so easily, and he rolled his eyes at her behind your back.

“You do have standards, right?” asked Blaise lazily, passing around a bar of dark chocolate and shuffling around on the sofa to put his head in Pansy’s lap, who raised her brow but didn’t throw him off. Instead, she returned her attention to you.

“You should definitely go with someone who can actually dance,” she said, smirking.

You nudged Mattheo in the side, not catching the look in his eyes as they snapped up to your bright face. “So, not Mattheo then?”

Suddenly, his body seemed on alert again, no longer leaning against the cushions as his lips seemed to hover somewhere near your ear. If it was any indication, his breath fanned your earlobe and you had to suppress a shiver as his voice sounded low, next to your ear. “You don’t even know what I can do, sweetheart.”

Ah. Sweetheart. Damn the way your insides were curling with the way the nickname rolled off his tongue so smoothly. Mattheo had tried out many of those before settling on sweetheart, for some reason. You had loved every single one, from doll to darling to princess, but for some reason, Mattheo had decided that sweetheart was around to stay. So, now you were his sweetheart. In any sense but the literal one.

“Well,” said Enzo, carefully examining Mattheo, as if gauging if he was in a mood to be reasoned with. Not that he had to worry, Enzo was probably the fastest runner out of your friend group, always the least likely to get in trouble for a brawl or altercation because he was the first who disappeared from the scene of the crime, even before the teachers showed up, keeping him his prefect’s badge. “I heard something through the grapevine the other day-”

You believed to know what was coming now and your eyes widened as you shook your head at him. But Pansy leaned forwards eagerly, ignoring Blaise’s protests. “Go on!”

“Ah,” said Enzo, clearly deriving some sort of pleasure from having everyone hang onto his every word. “You see, some little birdie told me you had been asked out by Potter.”

Closing your eyes, you let the round of jeers and whistles that swept the others wash over you and buried your face in your hands, burning with embarrassment. When you looked up again, you met the eyes of five attentive listeners, eager to hear your side of the story. Even Theo had marked his page with an index finger and raised a brow at you expectantly. Only Mattheo was eerily still beneath you, his fingers having halted all movement.

“How do you get all this information?” you asked Enzo incredulously, rubbing the back of your neck again and trying to deflect from the fact he had just dropped- knowing nothing would fulfill your friends’ curiosity but your explanation.

“I have my sources,” said Enzo secretively and tapped his fingers against each other, watching you over them. “And it seems like they’re reliable.”

“You’re not- you know- going with him?” asked Pansy in an almost disgusted voice and you frowned at her. “I declined. But even if I didn’t, what would be wrong with that? He’s my friend after all.”

Your friends fell silent, probably swallowing down a round of insult they would gladly chat about once you were gone. Thinking of which, your eyes snapped to the clock above the fireplace and you jolted a bit when you saw the time. Before Pansy could open her mouth to ask you another question, you interrupted her. “Alright, this has been fun, but I’m leaving before this conversation gets worse- or before Filch starts patrolling the corridors.”

As you shifted to get up from his lap, Mattheo’s arm around your waist tightened instinctively, his fingers pressing into your side just enough to make you hesitate. You pushed against his chest lightly, but he didn’t budge, his grip lazy yet firm- like he wasn’t quite ready to let you go. Or, perhaps, punishing you, for being asked out by Harry.

“Mattheo,” you murmured, half amused, half embarrassed because all your friends were watching with teasing eyes and matching grins.

But he only smirked, his dark eyes flickering up to yours with a glint of something unreadable. “What?” he drawled, feigning innocence even as his hold on you lingered, burning against your skin. It took another small shove- this time with a bit more force behind it- for him to finally release you, his hands dragging down your sides as you slipped free, leaving behind a warmth that made your skin tingle even long after you stood.

“Yeah,” said Theo slowly, tapping his fingers against the back of his book as his eyes lingered on Mattheo, who was now looking at you in a way that made it quite difficult for you to move your feet in the right direction- and steadily at that. “You better go before Mattheo combusts.”

Mattheo rolled his eyes at Theo, though his gaze was still firmly locked on you. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to ruin the fun.”

With a light-hearted giggle, you pushed past the sofas and armchairs and waved them goodbye, earning a round of “Good night”s and “Have fun with the lions” in return. As your figure disappeared in the common room entrance, Mattheo's eyes lingered on the wall sealing itself again, as if you were still standing there.

“Well, that was painful,” commented Theo, leaning back against the cushions and glancing over at his best mate. “Watching you struggling not to show how much you care who she goes with.”

“I don’t,” the other lied, knowing it was in vain when he saw the devilish smirk spread on Pansy’s face. “You know, for someone who doesn’t care,” she emphasized the last words sarcastically, “you sure grabbed her like she was yours.”

You were. Feeling annoyed at the lot of them and knowing he would be subjected to a great deal of teasing until Theo’s desire for a smoke reached the level of his, Mattheo leaned back against the couch and rolled his eyes, trying not to focus his mind on the memory of you flush against him- right where he liked you best. “She was already sitting there. What, you wanted me to throw her off?,” he snarled back, glaring at one of the portraits to avoid Pansy’s raised brows. When it came to affairs of romance, she was surprisingly sharp. No wonder she seemed to know how much he fucking adored you.

Next to him, Theo coughed a false, ironic cough and Mattheo knew he couldn’t expect any support from that side either. “Mate, your hand was on her hip like you were staking a claim,” Theo drawled, giving him a smug look that Mattheo returned, unimpressed. “You want me to put my hand on your hip instead?”

“Dios mio, no,” replied Theo under his breath, reopening his book but still actively listening to the conversation unfolding.

Again, it was Pansy who broke the silence with a daring grin, crooking her head at Mattheo. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re mad she hasn’t asked you to the ball yet.”

Mattheo deadpanned, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Oh, yeah, Pans. I’m devastated.”

“You know,” Enzo piqued up now, smiling casually in the knowledge that he was on the winning side in this. “If you asked her nicely, maybe she’d go out with you.”

Leaning forwards, Mattheo gave him a sardonic smile, sneering, “Oh right.” His tone was mocking, exaggerated. “‘Please, love of my life, light of my existence, will you attend the stupidest event of the year with me?'” He did his best to sound nonchalant, as if the mere idea of asking you out on a date was absurd and not the subject of his more innocent daydreams.

But irony could only do so much to conceal how much he really meant the words, how they opened the door to a path to his deepest, darkest desires that he would rather not open right now. No, he preferred to visit those darker corridors of his sacreligious existence when he was alone, in his dorm, shame and excitement curling in his chest as he imagined you how he could never have you. Where nobody could see just how much you meant to him.

Draco let out a scoff from his place by the fire and everyone turned towards him instead. “Imagine if she said yes to Potter,” he said, expression morphing into one of disgust. “Imagine them slow dancing.” Mattheo, who knew exactly what purpose hid behind those carefully chosen words, couldn’t help but tightening his jaw at the idea, the image. If he hadn’t hated Potter enough already, the idea itself would have done it.

“Imagine me hexing you into next week,” he growled at Malfoym who fell silent immediately, but earned himself an appraising nod from Pansy.

“What if she actually did go with Potter though?” Blaise pried further, smirking up at him from where his head rested in Pansy’s lap.

Mattheo felt his patience undeniably tested, fingers flexing against his tense legs as one of them started to bounce restlessly. Merlin, how he could have smashed Blaise’s stupid, grinning face into this stupid, grinning portrait to make them both stop mocking him. But that would prove all of them right, and maybe he didn’t even want to admit to himself how much the image bothered him, how much it made him want to storm up to Gryffindor tower to eliminate the threat himself. “Then Hogwarts would need a new chosen one,” he gruffed out, voice low as his fingers itched for a cigarette.

The topic of you and your friendship had been one of great interest these past few months, ever since it had become normal for you to rest on each other's lap, run your fingers through each other's hair or sleep over in each other’s dorm. It had raised more than a few eyebrows, but Mattheo had always smirked them away, relishing in showing you off. This loose but ever-present claim he had on you, that made him feel perfectly entitled to stare down any boy you crossed when walking through the halls with him, it had been enough for him.

Up until now, it seemed. When they had gotten brazen enough to think that they could dare ask out his girl. Only that you weren’t, he had to remind himself. No matter how often he touched you, it wouldn’t make you his, properly, until he worked up the courage to ask you. But there was just one problem: himself. And the danger he put you in by making you something more than a friend.

“What makes you think I even want to go out with her?” he asked roughly, brows scrunched up in a bitter frown and aching for something to soothe his nerves. You would have been ideal, but alas, you were gone and he needed another, a lesser fix. When he glanced up, he was met with four pairs of raised brows, as his friends all stared at him incredulously.

“Mate,” said Enzo in a voice that suggested he was trying to reason with him. “You just had her in your lap. You glare at any guy who even looks at her. You beat up Zacharias Smith when he stood her up so bad he had to spend the holiday in St. Mungos, and the only reason you weren’t charged with something was because you literally threatened to kill him if he spoke to someone about it.”

Mattheo glowered at the ground, conflicting emotions clawing at his chest, desperate for release. He felt it again. The whirlwind of his own self, all-consuming, unstoppable, but by the your touch, the sound of your voice. When he felt like he was hovering with one foot over the abyss, threatening to be swept up by the confusing storm raging against the confines of his body, you were the only one able to reach him, reach out to him, calm his whirling thoughts, his flaring temper.

No wonder Enzo always ran for you whenever it looked like he was about to start a fight. He knew how utterly disarmed he was when you looked at him with those pretty wide eyes of yours. How your worry extinguished any and all rage inside him, making something else entirely pulse in his chest.

“Can’t I be a good friend?” he asked, sarcastically. But he knew the charade wasn’t fooling anyone anymore. Hell, it was not even fooling himself.

Pansy’s voice sounded surprisingly genuine, the teasing, though still present, taking a backseat to a hesitant reaching out. “Well, I think she would like you better as her boyfriend.”

Not wanting to even acknowledge the sincerity of the words, allow himself to think of the real possibility, get his damn hopes up only to get them squashed down again, he sniggered mockingly at her, a contemptuous smile dancing around his lips. Detached. “Well, I think she would have given some sort of indicator or signal if she felt that way.”

A stunned silence followed as all of them, even Theo, seemed completely taken aback. Pansy and Blaise shared an is he actually being serious right now sort of look and Enzo blinked, perplexedly, at his friend. All of them, completely stupefied with the blatant ignorance of the both of you. They had taken you to be oblivious because of some vague romantic insecurity, but Mattheo could usually be trusted to be quite observant, especially when it came down to you. His friends tended to tease him for being so much of a guard dog, having developed some kind of sixth sense for boys looking at you with greedy eyes and how he would press a quick goodbye kiss to your temple before excusing himself to go and sort them out.

But here he was, being so utterly oblivious to the way you clearly reciprocated his affections- how you would barely manage to conceal your blushing, how your eyes would linger on him, how you would stare at him lovingly when lost in thought, how he would always be your very first priority, how you would drop everything you were doing to come help him, even if it was about something some would consider utterly meaningless.

But alas, his ignorance seemed to match yours, and they had to sit and watch, growing ever more frustrated with the way you pined and yearned for each other without ever getting a fucking move on.

Theo was the first to break the silence, brow raised at Mattheo who still stubbornly glared at te ground. “So, what’s the plan? Keep glaring at every guy who looks at her until she magically realizes you’re in love with her?”

He had dropped the magic word. the l-word, that would never make it past Mattheo’s lips and could barely enter his thoughts, as if it was a trigger. Any time he heard it, he cringed involuntarily. But he was too tired of this day and this damn converssation to correct him. “Worked out so far,” he shrugged.

Theo rolled his eyes at him, and from the way his fingers twitched agitatedly against the bookcase, Mattheo knew he was just as eager for a smoke as him, meaning he would provide him with a way out of this fucking therapy session in under five minutes. The guy was just as addicted to nicotine as he was. “And how would you feel about it if someone asks her out tomorrow who she wouldn't be so quick to decline. How would you feel about it when she turns up to the ball with someone other than you?”

Nothing, was what he meant to say. But the words didn’t make it past his lips. They were chocked by the image of you, hanging onto another guy’s arm, laughing for another guy, dancing with another guy. Something dangerous coiled in his stomach, like a snake, ready to attack but with no one to sink its teeth into but himself.

“Fucking hell,” he cursed darkly, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles were plain white, close to cracking, or so it seemed to him.

Theo nodded appreciatively, rising from his seat as Mattheo followed, running a calloused and shaky hand over his face. “You know what to do then.”

When you pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady, you were greeted with a warmth both the Slytherin common room and the halls of Hogwarts had been missing. Loud chattering and laughter filled the room, the figures of many Gryffindor students in the golden hue of the cackling fireplaces. Where Slytherin’s common room was undeniably more stylish and sophisticated, your common room was just cozy.

You spotted your friends sitting by the fire, having snatched the best sofa for themselves. Hermoine seemed to be working on an essay, Ginny’s nose was buried in her book, and over the rim of the worn out cushions, you spotted the heads of Harry and Ron, setting on the carpeted floor between sofa and fireplace. Walking over to them, you let your bag down with a thud that made some of them turn their heads and smile in greeting, though you could see the light frowns on some of their faces.

They were equally as unpleased about your friendship with their Slytherin peers as they were about your Gryffindor housemates. Really, it was only natural, seeing as the two groups had a history of picking petty fights with each other and landing the others in the hospital wing. At least some of them held their frustration with the others back for the quidditch pitch, but the same couldn’t be said for all of them.

But your friends’ disapproival of your Slytherin friendgroup was nothing compared to their objection to your attachment to Mattheo Riddle, son of Lord Voldemort himslef and Harry’s personal nemesis since first grade. Not only were they among the students whispering about his reputation and dark legacy behind his back, Harry (and Ron) had also been on the receiving end of Mattheo's fists before- and hit back.

As you sat down between Hermoine and Ginny on the couch, you saw that Harry and Ron were sitting on the carpet, facing each other, a board of wizard chess in between them. The game seemed to have been going on for a while already, as a larger pile of defeated white figures and a smaller one of black figures lay by the side of the board. Harry seemed to be losing, as anyone would, against Ron. Watching Ron make a clever move against him, you lamented that you would love to see him play with Theo- it would certainly be a battle for the ages.

Ron looked up from the game when you got comfortable in the squishy cushions of the worn-out sofa and his eyes ran over you for a second, as if checking for injuries. “How was the snakepit?” he asked, and though it was humorous, his voice held an underlying tension.

“Anyone bite you?” asked Ginny from behind the shitty romance book she was currently hate-reading, a teasing tone evident in her voice. Out of all of them, Ginny was probably the most chill about your ties to the Slytherins, as she herself didn’t give much of a shit about house rivalries. “Anyone you’d want to bite you?” she added, making you huff out a small laugh under your breath.

“I am unharmed, thank you,” you said, a bit curtly at the condescending tone of Ron’s question. Just as it was with your Slytherin friends, you’d always defend your ties to the other group when they talked shit about each other- in the full knowledge that it would never change anything, and they would just keep hating each other.

When Mattheo had suggested you shouldn't waste your breath trying to stand up for your friends when their hostility ran too deep to ever be dismantled, you had asked if he’d say that about you defending him in front of your friends too. Thinking back to his taken-aback expression, you had to suppress a smile. Mattheo had never again tried to convince you not to stick up for your friends, but when you'd slept over at his dorm a few nights later, he’d asked you if you had been serious about defending him to your friends. He hadn’t looked at you, but you had heard the vulnerability in every gruff grumble of his tone.

Hermoine’s matter of fact voice drew your attention back to the situation at hand. “Did he finally ask you?” she inquired, scratching a loudly purring crokshanks behind the ear.

You knew what she was talking about, of course, and averted your eyes. Concealing your disappointment, you pretended to be interested in Harry's and Ron's game, where Ron now checkmated Harry, making him groan loudly. “No,” you answered in your best impression of indifference.

Harry, who had not been paying attention to the conversation due to his humiliating defeat, finally admitted his loss and turned his attention to the couch. “y/n?” he addressed you, chiming in, and you raised your brows at him inquiringly. Wringing his hands, he seemed a little embarrassed. “So… remember when I asked you about being my date for the Yule Ball?”

“Vividly,” you answered, nodding.

In fact, you did. In this very same common room, at about one in the morning, he’d called back to you when you’d made your way back up the stairs to the girl's dormitories. Due to procrastinating your homework of the last week, you had been staying up to complete several essays, with only him as your company. Being the Quidditch team captain and assigned the duties coming along with the position, he’d been behind his course work as well until the last embers of the fire had burned down. In the total darkness, he’d asked you to come with him to the yule ball- as a friend, of course. But you had declined the offer, still foolishly hoping that Mattheo might put his money where his mouth was and ask you out instead.

Harry rubbed his neck, sounding just as embarrassed as that night. “Yeah, well, I still kind of don’t really have a date yet ...”

General laughter took over the group at his red-faced confession. Next to you, Ginny giggled, shifting her concentration back onto her book, as Hermoine shook her head with a little smile. “Absolutely pathetic, mate,” commented Ron, collecting the chess figures and board to store them back in one of the shelves beside the fireplace.

“Hey,” said Harry indignantly, raising his brows at him, “you had to get asked by Hermoine because you didn’t have the balls to ask her herself!” More laughter followed his words and you clutched your sides, glancing over at Hermoine who was chuckling to herself as her eyes skimmed the parchment for any errors she might have missed. “He does have a point," she smiled.

Ron groaned at her, as if she had just delivered a brutal stab to his back, and let himself fall back onto the carpet as the laughter subsided. When he was done grinning at Ron’s humiliation, Harry turned back to you in a business-like manner. “Alright, I’ll be asking you one last time before i accept my fate as the sad, date-less guy for the night.”

His words reminded you that you, too, were among the last people to not have a date for the night, probably in the entire school. Pretty much all of your friends already had partners, and really, it wasn’t only true that you were Harry’s last resort, he was also yours, since Mattheo didn’t seem remotely interested in the idea of taking you out for the ball.

“And that would be different from the usual how?” Ginny asked with raised brows, still not looking up from her book.

“You’re not helping, Ginny,” Harry deadpanned at her before turning back to you, a pleading look in his eyes. “Look. You don’t have a date. I don’t have a date. And, speaking for myself here, if I don’t find one, McGonnagall might force me to take Mrs. Norris out of pity.”

The thought made you break out into a fit of giggles, picturing Harry dancing with the caretaker’s grumpy cat. Ron, who seemed to feel a similar way, grinned. “Now that’s a mental image I didn’t need.”

“Mrs. Norris in a tiny gown…,” said Ginny dreamily, turning a page in her book and making Harry roll his eyes at his friends’ antics.

Feigneing support, you patted his shoulder and offered empathetic, constructive advice. “Why not take Filch himself while you’re at it? I’m sure he’s a great dancer.”

Harry rubbed at his temples and shook his head at the round of laughter that followed your words. “Okay, so, moving on-,” he turned his gaze back to you, serious once more. “You are my best option.”

“Flattering, Harry,” you joked, “And they say chivalry is dead.” Smiling, you averted your eyes to think properly and instead focused them upon crookshanks who was striding towards you on the couch. You started to pet him, earning a mechanical sort of purr from the old cat, as you contemplated the situation.

“Listen,” said Harry, dragging himself on the carpet in your direction. “It’s a good pitch. We’ll go as friends, no pressure, no drama, no expectations- just two people avoiding being total losers together.”

Crookshanks began purring with more enthusiasm as you scratched him behind the ears, hesitating. “I mean… I guess?” It wasn’t like he didn’t have a point. Turning up alone would be less than favorable, especially since all your friends had dates for the night, except Harry. Honestly, you’d probably spend most of the night with him anyway, due to that fact. Might as well make it official.

The scratching of Hermpoine’s quill next to you had stopped as she looked at you over the rim of her parchment. “You guess?” she asked, eyes narrowed. You shrugged, instead of relaying the lengthy explanation for your hesitation. In spite of what Pansy constantly tried to convince you off, you were quite sure by now that Mattheo wasn’t going to ask you- which was fine. Really. It was absolutely fine with you. Except for the part where it wasn’t at all.

Maybe it was because Pansy had gotten your hopes up about this. Any time you had expressed your doubts about your friendship with Mattheo to her, she’d roll her eyes at you and tell you all sorts of things: how he’d been responsible for McLaggen’s unlucky incident that sent him to St Mungos after he had stood you up, how he would look at you with, as she put it, ‘a disgustingly lovesick stare’, how he would always find ways to bring you up in conversation when you weren’t around, his mind floating back to you regardless of the context, either stating or guessing what your opinion might be on the matter.

‘Honestly,’ she’d say, ‘That boy is so in love with you it’s embarrassing to sit next to. Like, truly appalling. And even worse to sit by while he always cops out of asking you out officially.’

But either way, whether what she was saying was true or a misguided guess, or a kind lie, you were quite sure he wouldn’t be making a move before Christmas. Did you really want to turn up without a date and watch him spend the night with some other girl dangling from his arm? He had enough of them at his disposal, in spite of his parentage or reputation. And, really, if he was doing these things in spite of your blatant signaling, in spite of being so weirdly territorial over you, you might as well go out with a guy that would tickle his nerves. See how he felt about that. As his arch-nemesis, Harry would certainly be ideal in that regard.

“You wanted Riddle to ask you, didn't you?” Hermoine’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts, her gaze knowing as it rested on you.

You felt caught and sat up a little straighter. “...no.” Curse your denial to come out so hesitantly. But really, she was right. There had been nothing you had been more excited for than the possibility of going out with your best friend, back when the yule ball had been announced. And now, this.

Ron pointed an accusatory finger at you, frowning. “That was the least convincing no I’ve ever heard.”

Meanwhile, Ginny was giggling away at your side. “You so did,” she called your bluff and patted your leg in false pity.

With a long, desperate groan, you buried your face in your hands. “Ugh, shut up, please!”

But Ginny, still laughing, only marked her page with a bookmark and threw it aside onto a nearby table to turn her whole attention to you. “Merlin, this is so much better than my book!”

To quell all of their teasing at once - you could see Ron opening his mouth to add to your embarrassment and even Hermoine seemed to have something to say as she put away her parchment - you lifted your head from the palms of your hands and raised them to bring about silence. However, only your next words could get their attention. “Alright, alright, sure!” you called, face burning, “I’ll go with you, Harry.”

Whistling loudly, Ron earned himself a stern glare from Hermoine. When she had silenced his appreciative teasing, she turned to you, slightly frowning now. Meanwhile, Harry fisted the air, a relieved smile spreading across his face. “You won’t regret it, I promise. I’ll be the best fake date you’ve ever had.”

These words did manage to make your lips twitch into a small smile. “That is not a very high bar, Harry.”

Still frowning worriedly, Hermoine, ever the voice of reason, leaned towards you and placed a hand on your leg. “You don’t have to say yes just because Harry is desperate, you know that, right?”

“Wow, thanks, Hermoine,” said Harry sarcastically from the side, but she ignored him. Hoping to calm her worries, you smiled at her.

If you were being truthful, you would admit that this wasn’t a purely altruistic move on your part. Actually, you were hoping for some benefit to come out of this arrangement for you, as well. Maybe you could finally figure out if Mattheo felt anything more for you than friendship, if you forced his hand by going with his biggest rival. But you would rather have Harry and the others think you were just doing your friend a favor, a far more noble motivation than these darker intentions.

But Ginny seemed to see right through you. “Oh, come on. We all know you’re just saying yes to make Riddle jealous,” she blatantly called you out, earning herself a round of chuckles as the blood rushed to your face.

“That’s not-” you lied, a blushing and embarrassed mess and probably very obvious. You had never been that good at lying, and at least Mattheo said that he appreciated it, being surrounded with a group of friends who were just as good at lying as seeing through the lies of others. That he felt less like he had to watch his every step with you. He liked your openness, and he found your blushing adorable, always pinching your cheeks when you did and only worsening your situation most of the time.

Ginny curled with laughter at your feeble attempts to hide your true attention. “It totally is, who are you trying to convince here?” she asked, amusedly and you breathed a long sigh. Why did all this have to be so complicated? Feelings and people and dances.

But at least Harry seemed to take mercy on you, which was the least he could do after you’d given into his desperate pleas. “Alright, it’s settled then,” he sounded over Ginny’s laughter, giving you a trusted smile, “You and me- two best mates, going to the ball together. No weirdness.”

“No weirdness,” you repeated, quite thankful.

But Ginny quirked a teasing brow at you. “Except for when Riddle inevitably loses his mind over it." The idea ignited a spark of hope in you that you immediately felt bad for. Of course you didn’t want to make Harry a pawn in your game- but it may have been a sacrifice you were willing to make. However, you certainly didn’t want to put him at risk of spending time in the hospital wing or anything. Which was not that far-fetched of a worry.

“Not my problem,” shrugged Harry at Ginny’s words and you bit down on your lip. “It might be.”

Your words had been but a quiet mutter, but Ginny picked up on them and grinned at you with an expression that eerily reminded you of Pansy at the prospect of some juicy new drama. “On a scale of one to absolute insanity, how bad do you think he’s gonna take it?”

Sighing deeply and wringing your hands in your lap, you gave her a sheepish look, trying not to glance at Harry when you said, “I’m hoping for mild irritation.”

Ginny’s eyebrows shot up until they almost reached her hairline. Harry, too, seemed quite skeptical, as he leaned against the couch and frowned up at you. “And expecting?”

A small smile tugged at your lips, but you weren’t in a mood for joking. “...Something between homicide and setting the entire venue on fire,” you replied, hesitantly but probably as a more realistic estimation of the prospects. Regardless of whether or not Mattheo liked you, he surely didn’t take kindly to any boy getting, in his opinion, too close to you-especially not the Chosen One, whom he’d been pitted against since the first time he’d set foot on the doorstep of the castle.

“So, about a nine?” asked Ron, chuckling, and making the rest of you laugh again. It resoilved some of the tension that had been lingering in the air, the knowledge of a looming confrontation. Leaning over to you with faux secrecy, Ron said, “Just don’t come crying to us when he inevitably drags you into some dark corridor for a dramatic argument.”

“She’s hoping for that,” smirked Ginny, rolling her eyes- if at you or at her brother, you weren’t sure. Honestly, both of you deserved it.

Suddenly, Harry stood up from the carpet and straightened out his shirt, grinning dowm at you. Again, he had a business-like air about him. “Alright, if we’re doing this. we’re doing it properly.”

“What do you mean?” you asked, chuckling at his sudden enthusiasm.

Harry tipped an imaginary hat. “If i have to face the wrath of Mattheo Riddle, I at least want to look good while doing it” All of you chuckled at his determination and Ginny whistled. “Now, that’s the spirit.”

The first day of the holidays brought the first proper snow of the winter. Overnight, the snowflakes had danced quietly onto the earth and had turned the castle grounds into a fairytale landscape. The dark forest was no longer a black but a white mass, somehow less threatening and more inviting. But who would have felt the desire to disappear into the trees when the castle was buzzing with warmth and christmas joy?

The excitement for the yule ball especially was apparent everywhere, as students stood in the courtyard, huddled together in groups against the cold, and discussed dress robes and hairstyles for the next day's evening. A blanket of snow lay thick upon the stone gargoyles as you passed them, trotting behind Harry and Ron with Hermoine by your side. Your crunching steps left footprints in the white, glistening layer as you listened to Harry and Ron how much cake they would need for the afterparty in the common room.

Reaching the protection of the castle wall, you stood together, shielded against the sharp winter winds, as Ron started to change the topic to the amounts of firewhiskey they could smuggle in. “The thing is,” he said with a fervor you could rarely spot with him in class-related situations. “The Slytherins have the best connections to the hogshead, so we had a bit of trouble even finding someone who would give us hard liquor. We tried pretending to be McGonnagall to trick Madam Rosmerta into sending some up to the castle, but I don’t think it worked because she didn’t answer our owl.”

“Have you considered to pass yourself off as a teacher a bit more… relaxed than Professor McGonnagall?,” you suggested, looking from Harry to Ron with an amused expression.

“She’s the only professor who’s writing I could mimic,” said Harry, shrugging. “You have connections in Slytherin, right? Maybe you could get us some firewhiskey.” Hermoine murmured something like a reasonable objection into her scarf, but there was a lenient glinting in her eyes when she looked at Ron, who suddenly seemed hopeful at the idea. For once, not overly critical of your other friendships.

“Nah,” you said, deriving a certain satisfaction from seeing their hopeful expressions crumble. “Get your own connections. I’m not catching shit from McGonnagall for being responsible for your alcoholism.”

“Says the one with the nicotine addicted whatever he is to you,” said Hermoine, arms crossed tightly over her chest for warmth, with a smile and you huffed out an amused chuckle, your breath swirling in transcendent forms in the air before mingling with theirs and fading.

“But you bring up a good point,” said Harry, “The real question is: how would we even get all of it past McGonnagall and up to Gryffindor tower? I mean, we could use the invisibility cloak, but-”

Abruptly, he fell silent, and just the split of a second later did you realize the reason why, when the familiar smell of cigarettes and leather alerted you, with pin-point accuracy, who the culprit of Harry’s sudden discontinuation was. A shadow loomed over the four of you, huddled into your corner, and the easy atmosphere shattered like glass. You did not need him to speak to know who it was.

“Mind if I steal her for a moment?”

Mattheo’s voice was low, edged with amusement, but laced with something else as well, something unreadable. Ron and Hermoine whipped around, sharply, at the sound of his voice, Ron stepping in front of her slightly, as if on instinct. However, you turned only reluctantly, already aware who you’d find standing there, but not knowing whether you were keen on talking to him and revealing the inevitable bomb that might set him off.

Mattheo was leaning against the castle wall, mere feet from you. His dark eyes flickered over your friends with a lazy kind of scrutiny, lips twitching when he caught the way Hermoine’s posture stiffened and Ron’s expression darkened. His gaze lingered on Harry for half a second longer than necessary. Harry straightened slightly, shoulders squaring, and shifted as if to protest, but before he could speak, Mattheo cut him off with an easy smirk and a tilt of his head. “Relax, Potter, I won’t bite.” His gaze flickered back to you, locking onto yours as his smirk shifted into something more… deliberate. “Unless you ask nicely.”

He extended a hand- not touching you, just gesturing you forward, but the implication was clear. The moment seemed to stretch, a thick tension settling in the chilly air, before you stepped away from the wall, brushing a bit of snow off your sleeve. Behind you, Hermoine let out a barely audible sound of disapproval, Ron muttered something, in all likelihood, rude under his breath and Harry shifted slightly in your field of vision, as if he wanted to step in. But you threw them a pleading look not to make a thing out of it and walked over to Mattheo’s side, raising your brows at him in silent inquiry.

His eyes studied your expression, before he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and led you away. With a last little smile to your friends, you told them goodbye and walked away with him, not registering the slow, smug glance Mattheo gave them over his shoulder as he turned with you towards the entrance.

But the castle didn’t seem to be his desired destination. Instead, he led you down the flight of stairs connecting the courtyard and the greenhouses, all the while silent. You stocked it up to his bad mood. In truth, it was nervosity.

Mattheo had been rolling it around in his head all night, ever since he’d watched you leave the common room last night, Theo's dark suggestion still ringing in his ears, the cursed images of you with Potter, of all people, still haunting him. He’d already given Pucey his piece of mind about him considering to ask you out, but he knew you would mind - a lot - if he had a go at Harry that was so clearly provocated by himself. Knowing you wouldn’t forgive him too easily if he rearranged Potter’s face just a few days before christmas, and considering the massive truthbomb that was the fact that he, in actuality, held no claim over you. Yet.

Finally, after staring at the ceiling stubbornly for a good few hours, making his way through what was left of his last pack of cigarettes and not getting a minute of sleep, he’d finally not only worked up the courage, but also the words to finally, finally ask. But now, as he led you down the icy stairs, vigilant you wouldn’t trip, both the nerve and the ability to articulate himself seemed to have left him. Maybe he should have gotten some sleep before this after all. Or consumed anything other than black coffee and nicotine before approaching you to ask you- possibly the only question that really mattered.

When you reached the greenhouses, he leaned against one of the glass walls, fogged up against the cold, hands buried in his coat pockets. Feeling nervous, you moved to stand on the bit of snow-covered grass in front of him, sneaking glances up at him, his furrowed brows, his clenched jaw. “So,” he said slowly, as if weighing every word, “About the ball.”

“Oh,” you made, swallowing. With a nervous little nod, you wrung your frost-bitten hands and looked up into his brown eyes, so beautiful against the cold white sky. They were surprisingly calm, given the news you thought would enrage him. Maybe it didn’t matter to him after all. “So you heard, then?”

But Mattheo tilted his head, incredulously. “Heard what, exactly?” Oh shit. Perplexedly, you blinked up at him, having assumed he would have heard by now through Enzo’s miraculous grapevines, and that that was the reason he had wanted a chat. “...that I’m going with Harry.”

Mattheo stilled, expression faltering for just a second before his jaw clenched- tight. His eyes, usually gleanming with lazy humour, darkened as they locked onto yours, the look in them almost making you take a step back before you could get your instincts back under control. “Potter?” he said, his voice deceptively calm, but you could see the way his fingers flexed, as if suppressing a sudden urge to clench them into fists. His tongue ran over his teeth, exhaling sharply through his nose like he was trying to reel himself in.

Mattheo felt the words hit im like a slap, over and over again. That I’m going with Harry. I’m going with Harry. I’m going with Harry. They twisted something inside him, and it hurt, though he’d rather die than let it show. Potter. Out of all the people in this godforsaken castle, it had to be him. His jaw was locked as he forced himself to keep his expression neutral, but he could feel the tightness in his chest, the way his fingers flexed and twitched with the urge to grab you- to shake some sense into you.

You tilted your head and looked up at him with those nervous, pretty eyes of yours, an unsure, hesitant smile playing around your lips. “What other Harrys could I possibly be referring to?” you asked, in a feeble attempt to bring some humour into the situation, light up his face that was grim and tight, as if in shadow.

Mattheo wanted to laugh, to show you how utterly unaffected he was by this news, and at the same time, he burned to throw out some sharp, cutting remark about how predictable it was, how you must have lost your damn mind. But the words felt heavy in his throat. Because it was a perfectly sane decision. Going out with Potter was probably way more sensible than going out with him.

Instead, he leaned back slightly, rolling his shoulders as if the news didn't settle like lead in his stomach. “Didn’t know you were into charity work now,” he drawled, voice deceptively smooth, but there was a cutting edge to it, a sharpness that wasn’t usually there- or rather, was usually directed at everyone but you.

“You’re really going with that bastard?” he asked, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. Not even looking into your eyes could calm the storm raging inside him now, as it spread through every fibre of his body, balled in his chest, reached the tips of his fingers as they almost shook with suppressed rage. Now, they were just a reminder of what he couldn’t have.

Of course you’d go with Potter, why would you have even considered him? When people were already whispering behind your back about you and your friendship with him, calling you names and giving you looks, calling you a house traitor and shallow or two-faced, the irony not even occurring to them. But Merlin, how he hated, how he detested, how he loathed that Harry was, sensibly, a better option for you than he would ever be.

He let out a slow breath through his nose, shaking his head slightly, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek. He shouldn't even care. Since when had he let people get to him like this? But you weren't just anyone. You were you. You were his. And then again, you weren’t. And he shouldn’t be feeling this burning frustration curling in his chest, shouldn’t feel the itch in his fingers to grab your wrist and tell you to drop the whole fucking thing. But he did. And that pissed him off even more.

“He asked me as a friend,” you said, feeling the need to clarify. Why you had thought it would calm the storm raging in his eyes, you didn’t know, as a dry, sarcastic laugh fell from his lips, missing his usual casual teasing tone. “Oh, of course. Just friends.”

Your clueless frown only fueled his anger and he clicked his tongue impatient at you, taking some sick enjoyment in the way his glare made you recoil slightly. “Never taken you as naive before, sweetheart.” When he usually whispered the nickname, it was a flirty drawl, and accompanied by a teasing smirk, or just a casual, rare smile. Now, he spat it out, barely containing his frustration. But he wasn’t the only one irked by the other.

“Mattheo, I adore you,” you said firmly, frowning up at him, “But just because you’ve got a hidden motive behind everything doesn’t mean he has.” Trying to think of the right words, you bit down on your lower lip. “He just…”

“...didn’t find anyone as nice as you to take pity on him?” Mattheo finished your sentence, his brows raised with dry humor. You could tell he was trying to push your buttons now, deflecting from his own emotions by trying to get yours up, in an attempt to get the upper hand. Because with him, everything had to be a fight, a struggle, a confrontation.

Refusing to let him get to you, you crossed your arms over your chest and looked at him coolly. “Maybe I said yes because he actually asked me.”

Unexpectedly, his detached demeanor seemed to crack for just a second. Something shifted in his expression, flickering -or falling- before he got his features back under control. “Huh,” he made, and you were treated to the rare sight of Mattheo Riddle running out of words. His lips twitched grimly, brows furrowed.

Trying to stop him thinking of some sarcastic, meticulous provocation, you took a step towards him, your breath puffing in the air. “Yeah. Huh.”

Finally, an ironic smile forced itself upon his face, it almost seemed to pain him, as the way his nails dug into his palms had to. “So, you’re gonna spend the whole night batting your eyelashes at Mr. Gryffindor Golden Boy then?”

“Why do you care?” you asked quickly, trying to catch him off guard. Your eyes zeroed in on every twitch of his expression, looking for tell-tale signs- as he surely was, too. Was it platonic protectiveness and his disdain for his rival, Harry, or could it be jealousy? His eyes met yours, fiercely, his intense stare piercing you, and though your heart skipped a beat, you held his gaze, determined not to back down.

Mattheo leaned in slightly, getting close to your face with a mocking smile dancing around his lips. “I don’t,” he said with biting sarcasm. “I wish you the best of times with Potter.”

Scoffing, you averted your eyes. His proximity was suffocating, it was confusing, a round of sparks dancing in the pit of your stomach, so unlike the butterflies people always talked about. No, your love for him was explosive, it was brimming with glimmering tension, threatening to turn into a wildwire, expanding until it consumed you whole. And you’d burn gladly as long as you burned in his hold. “No, you don’t” you contered, looking back up to find him looking at you with such hunger in his brown eyes.

Mattheo grinned grimly, clicking his tongue in a way that could have drove you into a craze. “You’re right. Hope you trip in those ridiculous heels Pansy will make you wear.”

Pretending to be annoyed, you huffed out a long breath, caught somewhere in between amusement and exasperation. “You have no right to be mad, Mattheo.”

For a moment, the only sound between you was the distant howl of the wind in the courtyard archways above, the faint echo of laughter carried down to the greenhouses by the breeze as the truth of your words hung in the tense air between you. Mattheo was watching you, his jaw tight, his lips curved into that infuriating smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. You could see it- how his amusement was forced, how something far more volatile simmered beneath the surface. His words from a second ago still hung between you, sharp-edged and taunting. “Who says I’m mad?”

Without thinking, you reached up, fingers curling around his jaw, your palm warm against the biting cold of his skin. His breath hitched- so soft, so fleeting you almost missed it- but his entire body went rigid, as if the contact had struck him like a spell. His dark eyes, always so unreadable, widened just slightly, caught between surprise and something else. You tilted his chin up just enough to meet his gaze fully, your thumb brushing over the sharp edge of his jaw, and then, with a voice quiet but unwavering, you murmured, “Your face.”

With a whiplash-inducing speed, his demeanor changed, his smirk turning seductive as he leaned into your touch, a disarming glint in his chocolate brown eyes. “And you’d no all about that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”

It was unfair. He knew exactly how to tickle your nerves, and just when you’d thought you’d won the struggle for the upper hand, he flipped a card like this, completely taking you aback. The heat of your stomach seemed to rush into your cheeks and you glared at him, at the knowing look in his eyes. There was a reason he was in Slytherin. But there was also a reason you were in Gryffindor.

“I'll see you tomorrow at the ball,” you scoffed, frustrated, let go of his face and took a step back. You knew looking at him might make you turn back to either kiss or slap him, so you turned around sharply and stormed up the stairs back to the courtyard. He didn't follow you, but you could feel the burning piercing of his stare resting on your back.

Pansy’s dorm was alive with the flicker of enchanted candlelight, the air thick with the mingling scents of your perfumes, hairspray and the faintest trace of Pansy’s expensive vanilla-sandalwood lotion. You stood before her full-length mirror, smoothing your hands over the flowing green fabric of your dress as Pansy, perched on the edge of the bed, tilted her head in assessment. “Honey, you look absolutely gorgeous,” she concluded, rising from the bed to walk over to you and arrange the dress in areas.

Her's was already wrapped around her figure, complementing her curves. You tugged at the neckline of yours, unsure of how much cleavage you were showing. In the shop, it had somehow seemed less risque, though it had still been more than you would usually be comfortable with. “Are you sure?”

Halting her prodding movements and tugs, Pansy straightened up and rested her head on your shoulder, smirking at you through the mirror with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Am I sure you look gorgeous or that Mattheo will like it?”

The blush that shot up into your cheeks would have made any rouge unnecessary. “Pansy!” you hissed, glaring at her, but she only laughed and lifted her head from your shoulder to turn you away from the mirror and to her, for further inspection.

“Don’t worry,” she said, for once with a sincere look on her face and a warm smile gracing her lips. “He will fall in love with you all over again and beat Potter to death before he can even get a hand onto your waist.” Her eyes glinted. “At least after I’m done with your hair.”

In spite of her reassuring words, you let your critical eyes wander over your figure in the mirror as Pansy sat you down on a chair. Her fingers carded into your hair, brushing it out and parting it into sections as she got to work on pinning it up in elegant ways. Brows furrowed in concentration, her fingers worked as if she’d done it a million times before. You scanned her frowning face in the mirror's reflection, rolling her words over in your mind. Pansy was one of your best friends, she wouldn’t lie to you, but-

“Pans?” you asked into the quiet, making her hum in response and raise her brows at you. You opened your mouth, lips parted to beg for further reassurance- but you closed them again, swallowing. It wasn’t like they would convince you, not after having heard her constant encourages for months and never truly having believed them. Or had you? Was it the reason you were so disappointed about Mattheo not asking you out, like you felt you could expect it of him after all Pansy had told you? “Thanks,” you finally said.

Your defeated tone seemed to catch her attention as her eyes snapped up to meet yours in the mirror’s reflection. She frowned. “You know, for someone who’s got a date tonight, you don’t look very excited.”

“I am excited,” you lied, giving her a tense little smile she saw right through.

With raised brows, she got back to putting your hair up with a mix of barrettes, hairspray, and magic. “Mhm, try saying that again without sounding like you’re in mourning.” With a promising little smile, she nudged your shoulder. “I promise you the evening will still get rather exciting for you, even if Potter’s a bore.”

You sighed, unable to hold onto the words any longer as your hands clasped in your lap. “You always try to convince me that he likes me,” you said, without saying the name you were trying to avoid, because it was such a sinful pleasure to let it flow off your tongue, like a kid mumbling a curse word under the protection of its blanket, just to try out the sound of it. A forbidden sound, the promise of freedom. Why was it so hard to say his name, after you’d said it so many times these past few months? In scolding tones, in warning tones, in teasing tones, in affectionate tones. Most of the times, it was the latter- most of the time, he returned your name in the same way.

As you thought of the right way to express the confusion you felt over his actions, Pansy waited, sielntly, and delivered the last, finishing touches to your hair. “If he likes me, why didn’t he ask me?” you finally asked, simple enough.

The question made her sigh and roll her eyes as her perfectly manicured hands clasped down on your thinly clad shoulders. “Because he’s an idiot and a coward. Just like you. Don’t tell him I said that.” You returned her encouraging smile, though still feeling rather pessimistic. Pansy patted your shoulder. “Honestly, since when has Mattheo known to handle his feelings?”

“Fair point,” you sighed, as she released you and walked over to her desk, to her other mirror, displaying her makeup on the surface. As she started to put hers on, you opened your bag as well and got out what you needed, making sure to get none on your dress. For a few minutes, you worked in silent concentration, the quiet only broken by laughter and shouts from the Slytherin common room.

Because she’d insisted on helping you with your hair, you’d agreed to get ready with Pansy in her dorm on the big evening. You had been here for an hour, chatting, trying on each other’s dresses, flipping through magazines for hair and makeup inspiration. Now, it was only an hour until the start of the ball, and the excitement that brimmed in the whole castle even reached the Slytherin dorms in the dungeons. When you’d hurried through it with Pansy, the common room had been devoid of its usual calm and had rather reminded you of the Gryffindor common room on a rowdy saturday, with students mingling and mixing, chatting in excited voices, their anticipation barely contained behind their Slytherin coolness.

Pansy’s voice cut through your meandering thoughts, snapping you back to reality as you started to apply mascara. “When did you tell him, anyway? That you’re going with Potter?”

“Yesterday,” you answered, leaning forward to examine your work in detail. “Why?”

Even through her distant reflection in the mirror, you could distinctly make out her sudden smirk, pulling at her now full and red looking lips. “Oh, nothing,” she warbled innocently, though she looked as if she’d just unraveled a particularly thrilling christmas present. Her glinting eyes locking on your expression as she closed the lid on her lipstick was like a mouse trap snapping shut. “Just… Have I mentioned Mattheo has been a complete nightmare since yesterday?”

You paused mid lipgloss application to meet her eyes through the mirror, her words sinking in and coiling in the pit of your stomach. “...What?” you asked, trying not to sound too eager for her to expand on these seductive words.

Pansy grinned, turning to her mirror to deliver some last finishing touches to her face. “Oh, darling. He’s livid.”

“Why would he be livid?” you asked, frowning, getting back to your lipgloss. “It’s not like he cares.”

Pansy’s mock gasp told you she was not at all convinced by your reasoning- nor fooled by the false indifference in your voice. But she gave into your silent need for answers anyway, a knowing smile on her lips. “Oh, sure, that’s why he nearly hexed Enzo for breathing too loudly this morning.” She corrected the blend of her eyeshadow, enjoying the effect her words had on you. “Honestly, I should be mad at you for causing such an unbearable mood in our common room, but it’s just too entertaining.”

“I didn’t cause anything,” you deflected grumpily, glaring at your own reflection as if it were him, trying to convince yourself, trying not to let Pansy get your hopes up again and, at the same time, yearning for something to grasp onto. “Whatever’s got to him, I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with me.”

Making an unconvinced sound, Pans angled her face differently to admire it in different lighting. “Tell that to the poor first-year who had a nervous breakdown yesterday when Mattheo snapped at him for existing.”

“What?” you snapped sharply, frown deepening. Unfazed, Pansy rose from her seat and walked over to you, swaying her hips as she met your eyes in the mirror. You sighed at the grin on her face, getting back to applying your makeup. “He can be mad all he wants, it doesn’t change the facts.” Right. It changed nothing. You shouldn’t even care.

Pansy raised her perfectly lined brows at your attempts to seem indifferent. “Then why are you applying your lipgloss for the third time?” Before you could answer, she grabbed the lipgloss out of your hands, closed it and threw it back into your back. With a pull that left no room for protest, she tugged you up and towards the door. “You look fantastic. Come on, let’s get you out and about so you can meet your Chosen One up at Gryffindor tower.”

As you walked down the steps and stepped into the common room, your heart began to thrum in your chest at the realization that he’d probably be there. That he’d see you. In this dress. For a moment, you wished you’d gotten one with a more modest neckline, but then again, you burned to see his reaction.

It was as if you already felt it on the bottom step, as Pansy urged you into the common room. His presence, and then, the weight of his stare as you spotted him leaning against one of the leather couches beside Theo, dressed in, for once, unsullied dress robes. His gaze locked and you, your figure, and the tension in the air seemed thick enough to choke on.

Mattheo hadn’t even been looking, let alone waiting for you. At least that was what he told himself. But the moment the sound of heels clicking against the stone steps echoed through the common room, his body betrayed him. His fingers, lazily spinning a silver ring around his knuckle, stilled. His jaw clenched. And when he finally glanced up, just like he swore he wouldn’t, it was like taking a hit straight to the ribs.

You were stunning. Not just in the way that made his breath catch, but in the way that made his stomach twist, made something dark coil in his chest. Because you weren’t dressed for him. And yet, his first thought was that you should’ve been. His expression didn’t change, smirk perfectly in place, body draped in his usual lazy confidence- but his grip on his ring tightened, his throat felt dry, and he had to physically stop himself from shifting toward you. He knew the moment your eyes met his, you’d notice something in his stare, something raw, something dangerous. So he looked away first. Just for a second. Just long enough to breathe.

A thrill ran through you when your eyes met his, sharp and electric. He was still lounging in that infuriatingly effortless way, all cocky smirks and feigned disinterest, but you knew better. You saw it—the clench in his jaw, the way his fingers had gone stiff around that damn silver ring. The way his gaze flickered, just barely, before snapping back to you like he hadn’t meant to look away at all.

The other boys had now taken notice of your presence as well. Charming compliments rolling off his lips like the finest vinegar, Blaise made his way towards Pansy, who smirked him off and locked her arm with yours, telling him something about just having perfected her look and getting you out of here before someone choked on their own spit. But your eyes were still locked on Mattheo, as if there was a magnetic pull attracting them that rendered you unable to avert your gaze.

Only Pansy’s gentle nudges and tugging moved your feet towards the entrance wall, as if on autopilot, and only her whispered voice as she leaned in could cut through the rushing in your ears. “Alright, what’s the plan for tonight when Mattheo inevitably corners you at the ball?”

Anxious for none of the boys to overhear you, you leaned in closer, muttering, “... Ignore him?”

Pansy scoffed at your suggestion, rolling her eyes with a little smirk. Gently, she nudged your side and lifted her brows at you. “Adorable. Wrong, but adorable.”

You sighed, reaching the entrance to the common room and turning to her for a brief goodbye. You had to physically restrain yourself from looking back at Mattheo, who’s gaze you could feel burning into your skin, a silent dare to look back, walk back, to him. But you wouldn’t. “It doesn’t matter,” you tried to convince yourself more than you tried to convince Pansy. “I’m with Harry tonight. End of story.”

But Pansy seemed unimpressed by your stubborn conviction. A promising smirk graced her lips as she tilted her head towards Mattheo subtly. “Oh, honey. This story is just getting started.”

a/n: stay tuned for part b 🫶 | if anyone would like to get tagged for part b who isn't already in the general or mattheo tag list, leave a comment!

taglist: @lady-peiskos @hazeldunst @juliet-017 @furioussharkcat @onlytenkos @jannie-belaerys @blueflowerpots @whosyourgnomie @revesephemeres @longpondlibrary @aespaslut @s00ty-feet @cosplayboi18 @messageforthesmallestman @iamheretoread1234 @devilsadvcte @jolly4holly @deeplyinlovewithfluffbullshit

[forcaleb]

apple of my eye — rafayel

warnings — dramatic rafayel, fluff, VERY minor angst, just really cute fluff tbh that's it

notes — i love my dramatic fish AND RAFAYEL BIRTHDAY BANNER TODAY WHO IS READY // tags: @sydneybee @tojicide

“you’re late. again,” rafayel complains as you walk into his studio. he’s perched on his ladder, focused on his canvas. the painting has progressed since your last visit, now bursting with vibrant colors. “so, what brings you here? late by…” he checks his watch. “two hours.”

“i’m sorry, rafa,” you say, shaking the plastic bag in your hands to catch his attention. “but look! i brought you snacks from the convenience store.”

rafayel huffs, his eyes flicking briefly to the bag before returning to the canvas. “i don’t care about that,” he mutters, a pout forming on his lips. “i can’t believe you’re late again. what happened to the promise you made in the hospital?”

“look, it’s not my fault wanderers showed up just as i was about to leave!” you explain. “do you really want me to ignore them when i’m a hunter?”

he doesn’t respond, dipping his paintbrush into the white paint, clearly choosing to ignore you.

“rafa.”

“what?” he mumbles. “i can’t hear you.”

he’s being petty again, you think, sighing inwardly. walking up to him, you poke his thigh. “rafa, come on. come here.”

he glances down at your outstretched hand, grumbling as he sets his paintbrush in the cup. taking your hand, he climbs down the ladder. “here, take a break, yeah?” you guide him to the couch.

rafayel sits down, the pout still firmly on his face. you pull out a bag of chips from the plastic bag, one of his favorites. “here! i bought this on my way here,” you say, handing it to him. you notice the way his eyes light up. “am i forgiven now?”

“mhm,” rafayel hums, grabbing a chip and munching on it happily. “do you have more? one bag isn’t enough to earn my forgiveness, you know.”

“oh,” you blink, leaning closer to him. rafayel freezes, his wide eyes locked on yours as a blush blooms across his face. you smile before kissing him softly on the lips. when you pull away, his eyes are still wide, his expression now a mix of embarrassment and surprise. “is that enough to earn your forgiveness?”

“y-yeah…” he stammers, looking away, his face still flushed. “that was enough.”

you smile, patting his head gently. just as you’re about to pull back, rafayel tugs you into his arms, wrapping you in a tight embrace.

“what? do you need something?” you ask, looking up at him. his blush deepens, but he holds you firmly in place.

“nothing,” he murmurs. “i just want to hug you. i missed you.”

your expression softens, and you rest your head against him. “i missed you too, rafa.”

[akawifeyy]

silly girl | smau (LN4)

description: the life of a comedian is full of laughter, but the biggest punchline? your experience with love.

tropes: chaos galore, he's obsessed with her, sunshine x sunshine, age gap (23 and 25), comedian!fem!reader

face claim: faith collins

trigger warnings: suggestive content, some mature jokes, swearing

| note: hehehe i love this fic 🫶

@ yourusername: dallas was incredible, i had the best time laughing with you all! a recorded video of tonight's show is posted at the link in my bio if you couldn't make it. see you next weekend in austin 😘

tagged: @ standupcomedy

comments (2567):

@ user1: Amazing shows! I went to Night 2 and I couldn't breathe, I was laughing so hard. Wish I bought tickets for the other two nights.

-> @ user2: sooo real, i got to see her in miami and i felt like my heart was going to explode from laughing

@ user3: Incredible job, so proud 💖

@ user4: Mother has fed us during this tour, I never want it to end

@ yourbffusername: SCREAMING CRYING, I love you SO much Y/N

@ f1: Just 3 more days until COTA! How are you gearing up for the Grand Prix?

tagged: @ mclaren, @ mercedes, @ redbullracing, & 6 more

comments (49584):

@ landonorris: Can't wait to be a cowboy again 🤠

@ user5: COTAAAA MY BELOVED

@ user6: so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@ user7: No because I'm actually a second away from crashing out because I just realized @ yourusername's show is at the same time as the Austin GP

-> @ user8: wait nonono you're joking 😭 i bought tickets too

10/19/25 at Y/N's Show (Transcript):

Y/N L/N: I feel like if I don't bring this up, the masses are going to come at me with pitchforks. (clearing throat) Today's a pretty big day in Austin. Um, Formula One is having its COTA Grand Prix.

Audience members: (whooping)

Y/N L/N: Yeah, looks like we have quite a few F1 fans in here. I'd kind of consider myself one, but please don't ask me what DRS stands for off the top of my head or what Ferrari's strategies are during races, because I wouldn't be able to tell you. But anyways, I found out that I scheduled this show at the same time as the GP.

Audience member: (loud yelling noise)

Y/N L/N: (breaks down laughing) Yep, I know. I'm sorry. I didn't realize. But I totally get it. Seeing a bunch of rich, hot men drive around in circles? Like, aw man, where did my pants go? I swear they were just on. (continues giggling) Seriously, though, some of those drivers? It should be illegal how attractive they are. Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris. Oh God, don't even get me started on Lando Norris.

Y/N L/N: (eyes widen dramatically) I never liked brunettes or Englishmen, but he might just make me change my mind.

Interview with Lando Norris (2025):

Interviewer: Have you seen the clips from Y/N L/N's most recent comedy show here in Austin?

Lando Norris: (laughs) Yes, I heard about it!

Interviewer: Thoughts?

Lando Norris: She's very funny. I like her sense of humor. But as for relationships, I have to focus on my racing, so I can't get distracted. Sorry!

10/20/25 at Y/N's Show (Transcript):

Y/N L/N: So... Yesterday's show. (makes popping sound with lips) Some of y'all, I feel like I need to ban you – and before you boo, let me explain why. I made jokes about Formula One drivers, and how hot they are, and a select few of you decided to out me? (mock gasp)

Y/N L/N: Yeah, I know! Fucking Lando Norris was interviewed about me! Isn't that insane? This ultra-rich motor sport driver was asked about some redhead girl who yaps for a living. And he called me funny? I need to put this on my resume.

Audience member: You two need to date!

Y/N L/N: The matchmaking is insane. Oh God, wait until my mother hears about this, then I'm actually cooked. I'm 23 years old, I have a lot of biological time left, but you're vultures! When is it going to end? And don't say, "When you get married to Lando Norris", because it's not happening. Sadly.

@ ynupdates: Contrary to popular belief, Y/N did have a boyfriend! This was way back in 2019 to 2022. His name is Emmett Ellgren, and they dated for three years until their mutual split. Since then, Y/N has poked fun at the relationship, but no substantial details have been released about their break up.

tagged: @ yourusername

comments (2942):

@ user9: HELP i forgot about emmett he's such an npc 😮‍💨

@ user10: emmett is no longer relevant to the lore

-> @ user2: The real man we should be paying attention to is Lando Norris

-> @ user8: i know omg 😭

comments (3842):

@ user11: They're both silly gooses, I'm scared to see the havoc they'll wreak together in McLaren 🥲

@ user12: i'll believe it when i see it

@ user13: Lando is too immature to have a stable girlfriend

-> @ user3: which is why Y/N's perfect, they'll be immature together ����

-> @ user4: This just proves you've never watched one of Y/N's shows before lmao

Y/N's Instagram Story (2025):

comments (8521):

@ user13: OMG OMG OMG IT'S STARTING

-> @ user14: I'm so glad I get to be alive during the LandoY/N era

@ user12: It'll be so funny if this turns out to be from Oscar or something 🙃

-> @ user15: HELP

Text Messages between Y/N and Lando (2025):

@ landonorris: P3 in Mexico! Awesome results

tagged: @ mclaren, @ f1, @ yourusername

comments (64312):

@ user16: ALERT ALERT Y/N HAS BEEN TAGGED

@ user13: guys i'm actually gonna combust 🫣🔥

-> @ user17: They're together, it has to be

@ yourusername: nice sombrero 😋

-> @ landonorris: Thank you!!!

Text Messages between Y/N and Lando (2025):

@ yourusername: hola mexico 🇲🇽

tagged: @ landonorris

comments (3846):

@ yourbffusername: Looks so fun!

-> @ yourusername: yes it was incredible

@ user10: laaandoooo i see you 👀

@ user18: How does it feel to be living my dream

@ landonorris: So glad you could make it, had a lot of fun talking to you

@ f1gossip: It is rumored that comedian Y/N L/N and McLaren driver Lando Norris are together, after Y/N posted a photo of her receiving paddock passes, and the pair responded to one another's posts about the Mexico Grand Prix.

tagged: @ yourusername, @ landonorris

comments (1293):

@ user9: i'm waitinggg

@ user10: this is worse than the wait for reputation tv

-> @ user18: clowning so hard i know 😖

@ user19: HAVE ANY OF YOU GUYS SEEN LANDO'S INSTA STORY? 🤯

Lando's Deleted Instagram Story:

comments (235):

@ user20: OMGOMGDSDKLSDDNS

@ user21: my eyes are not deceiving me, this is y/n

@ user5: Y/N IS THAT YOU 😳

@ landonorris: OK OK yes I give in, we are together. Happy one month, @ yourusername, I love you to the moon and back!

tagged: @ yourusername

comments (34852):

@ user21: classic Lando accidentally posting the wrong thing and outing himself

-> @ user22: idk what else we would expect from chaos incarnate 😭

@ yourusername: love you too, muppet 😘

Interview with Lando Norris (2025):

Interviewer: So, you've just recently announced that you're dating Y/N L/N!

Lando Norris: Yes, I'm really happy about it.

Interviewer: Any plans to bring her to the next race?

Lando Norris: Maybe, we'll see. (laughs and smiles) The paddock is a lot cheerier when she's there, so hopefully, fingers crossed. I'm very, very lucky to call her mine.

─── ୨୧ ─── THE END ─── ୨୧ ───

[josiebelladonna]

^that last one made me think of stranger things. Remember back in 2022 how fucking ubiquitous, pervasive, and inescapable that season was (and to the point it was starting to piss me off because none of the kids look like kids anymore, it was sneaking into tags it had no business sneaking into, and it felt like it was becoming more about the music than… actually being watchable and having a memorable storyline, god forbid—granted, it was one of the best soundtracks in a long time, but it came as a bonus in the first two seasons, so that’s not the point)? Now, I’ll see some offhand fics here and there in the fanfic tags, but that’s about it—add to this, everything I see about this final season is, um… don’t get your hopes up. In other words, I fully expect there to be an avalanche of fix-it fics and more fics surrounding Eddie Muenster whatever his name is once the season hits, and then it’ll disappear again.

I guess last year there was a rebirth of the House, M.D. fandom, a fandom which I didn’t even know existed when I was watching that show when it was going and even when it ended back in 2012. Key phrase there is “last year”: I haven’t seen anything about it since like November.

Dan and Phil is another one. I don’t have any idea who they are (I could never get into YouTubers) but every other post on my dash now is about them, and all I can think is “I won’t see them two months from now.”

You also have the strange case of me: start a previously not-catalogued fandom from the ground up and it goes well for a few months, and then something happens to me where I need to speak out, and then all of a sudden POOF! Everyone loses respect and I feel like I have to leave after a time, even if I’m still very much in the zone—especially if I’m still very much in the zone. “Ew, no, she’s obsessed and delusional and unstable, let’s start our own hub in another place and do better than her.” Yeah, and then your bullshit ____ x reader fics from last summer fall by the wayside whereas one of my longfics which I started back in 2022 is still rolling because I’m not callous enough to do it for spite.

They cannibalize the fandom and also the people who make it. They treat it like it’s a thing to be consumed and given to their peers, hence the popularity of the “reader insert” fanfic (which I hate with a passion for this reason), and someone like me, someone who’s actually a fan, is seen as a psychopath, not realizing that this is killing fandom and making the “creator” feel (ab)used. I soldier on because I’m a fan and I love the men involved, dammit.

More used feelings by calling me a “creator”, too, as that is a word that is thrown around way too lightly and shortchanges someone like me by glossing over our craft. I’m an artist and a writer and a baker, I am NOT a creator.

[oikarma]

muse

pairing: lando norris x poet!reader

summary: you're notoriously picky about your muses. no wonder lando's all flattered when he manages to figure out that you've written a few poems about him.

a/n: please enjoy! as per usual any songs/poems i reference are not my work. thank you so much for the request, i didn't follow it entirely but i loved the idea of an artistic!reader

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by mothercain and others

yourinstagram found a new muse

view all 1,394 comments

user1 new collection WHEN

user2 that cat is so cute is it yours? ♥︎ liked by yourinstagram

yourinstagram yes! her name is stevie

user3 she's picking up the pen again!

mothercain well? show it to me

yourinstagram i'm in the editing process 🤕 art takes time mothercain or you're getting shy

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by alexandrasaintmleux and others

yourinstagram oh...technology

view all 3,078 comments

user1 y/n and f1 crossover??

user2 collab we didn't know we needed

user3 we see you alex

alexandrasaintmleux send me the pictures you took please 🩷 think i found my new favorite photographer

yourinstagram too kind. usually i'm more of a pen and paper girl alexandrasaintmleux well the artistry certainly carries over user4 i KNEW they'd like each other

user5 waist who

user6 love you SM

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by f1 and others

yourinstagram teaser

view all 12,569 comments

user1 OH MY GOD WHERE CAN I ORDER

user2 ur such an inspiration y/n

mothercain proud of you

yourinstagram thanks ml <3

user3 wtf is f1 admin doing here

f1 we love y/n's poetry, doesn't everyone? user4 is she doing a f1 special or sth

user5 the signature is sooo cute

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by mclaren and others

lando i'm literate, i promise.

view all 4,719 comments

user1 his jawline...

user2 on holiday?? don't you have a car to be driving

oscarpiastri as long as you believe it!

lando you're a horrible friend

user3 WAIT GUYS THAT'S Y/N'S BOOK

user4 who's y/n user3 @/user4 @/yourinstagram she's a poet and she recently came out with a new poetry collection user5 woah. hear me out: it's about lando?? user6 bfr no educated girl would go for that man

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by lando and others

mclaren Celebrated poet Y/N L/N in our garage today 🧡 Wanna write something about our cars, too?

tagged: yourinstagram

view all 3,472 comments

user1 i would cry if i wrote a poem about a driver and he read it and his team read it and then they invited me and asked me to write about their cars

user2 mclaren really trying to cement their legacy

user3 oh she's STUNNING

yourinstagram was it fun tormenting me

mclaren do you not like our company ☹️ user4 @/mclaren she's only there for lando

user5 so we're basically accepting that her new collection is about a freaking racecar driver

user6 lando's fine but is he THAT fine user7 love does weird things to people user8 i mean he liked the post

lando guess i'm just more interesting

user9 y/n hasn't responded guess she's busy dying of mortification user10 oh he's going to be insufferable user11 the dad lore will go crazy "that poem you're reading in english class? yeah! it's about me!"

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by others

f1gossipofficial Is that Y/N L/N with Lando Norris? We think it might be.

tagged: yourinstagram, lando

view all 1,393 comments

user1 oh my god it's real

user2 are they car-shopping together??

user3 i'm so confused who is she

user4 YN NATION RISE SHE HAS A MAN. I REPEAT. SHE HAS A MAN!

user5 lowk can't believe the guy who bagged our girl y/n is an athlete user6 i thought she'd go for like a random college prof. or a nerd. idk. user7 remember when we thought she was dating daniel radcliffe 😭 and then it turned out she was coaching him for the kill your darlings promo LMAO let's not rush into this user8 @/user7 that was so embarrassing...we all got tricked but this time y/n's been writing about him user9 @/user8 are we SURE though

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by mothercain and others

lando thought it was time to return the favor x

tagged: yourinstagram

view all 23,581 comments

user1 don't be shy, lando. show us the picture

user2 they're so book couple coded?

user3 if i write enough fanfiction will my celeb crush notice me too

yourinstagram not bad, norris.

lando so now you're all nonchalant? didn't seem like it last night user4 HELLO? freaks. FREAKS, i tell you. user5 well y/n it might be time to write your man a pr manual

user6 well she's definitely an artist for the ages. he'll be immortalized in her work. and her? her legacy speaks for itself but i suppose she might treasure that photo just as much

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

a/n: have a great march!

[bubbleggum444]

—❝TℍE LE꓄꓄ER❞

contents damian wayne x fem!reader, youtuber!reader au, fluff, 2k+ wc. synopsis a letter filled with sweet compliments from damian leaves youtuber!reader eager to find him.

"Dear, ___. My name is Damian Wayne..."

As you read the letter over and over, a whirlwind of emotions surged through you—curiosity, warmth, and something dangerously close to flattery.

Two weeks after posting on your forum about accepting gifts, four arrived. Excited, you unwrapped each one on camera, recording your live reaction for your followers.

Sitting cross-legged, hair braided, face bare, you held his letter in trembling hands. The more you read, the more you found yourself stealing glances at the camera lens, cheeks growing impossibly warmer.

"You're pretty and kind."

Ba dum ba dum

"Your videos make me feel calm and happy."

Ba dum ba dum ba dum

"But what makes me the most content is watching the way your eyes sparkle. And it makes my own sparkle, too. Your sweetness is infatuating."

Ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum—

That was it. The breaking point.

Leaping out of your chair, you shut off the camera with a sharp click.

—

"This boy likes me. Like—like likes me!"

You looked down at the small cat stamp adorning the envelope, its tie patterned with the American flag. A smile graced your lips.

Spinning toward your vanity, you let out a breathless laugh, unable to ignore the ridiculous blush staining your cheeks. (Hyperpigmentation is a curse, you thought.)

Lightly, you patted your face, willing yourself to calm down. If your nosy family caught you fangirling over a fan, you'd never live it down. Especially your older sister. (Sisters, am I right?)

Damian Wayne. USA. Gotham.

With that information, you opened Instagram. Come on... something... anything!

Two painfully long minutes later, you hadn’t found him, but you had found his older brother.

Oh boy, was this dude active.

Real_D_Grayson

With over 100k followers, he seemed to enjoy showing off—abs, acrobatics, and adventures galore. But one pinned post caught your attention: a picture of him standing beside a boy with piercing green eyes and olive skin.

Oh. My—

Your fingers frantically tapped at the mouse, opening the description.

"With baby bro, Dami. It's chest day, baby 😎"

Dami... Damian. Of course.

The sweaty boy in the photo, slightly scowling at the camera, was the same one who had written words that made your knees weak and turned your face as red as a strawberry.

"Come on, faster, faster, you stupid internet!" you muttered, impatiently clicking on the tagged profile.

As the page loaded, a small smile tugged at your lips.

dw_00___

"Dude, I never would've found your account. If you like me, at least drop your Insta next time." You rolled your eyes playfully, muttering to yourself over the young Wayne’s lack of foresight.

Biting your bottom lip, you hovered over the 'Follow' button.

Click.

—

An Instagram notification buzzed through the air during the Wayne family’s dinner.

"What now?" Damian sighed, agitated, as the entire table turned to look at him.

"If it’s you, Grayson—sending me those pointless acrobat reels or whatever again—" he shot a glare at his older brother.

"Don’t look at me, baby bird, I’m playing pool." Dick held up his phone in defense, proving his innocence.

Still puzzled, Damian checked his notification bar. And then—

___ just followed you!

A lump of air caught in his throat. He coughed, covering his mouth as he clicked on the profile.

It was you.

His brain stalled.

How did you find his account?

How could he have been so careless as to not include his username in the letter?

How could he—

"Follow her back already."

A quiet voice snapped him out of his spiral. Cass shot him a knowing wink, her eyes shifting to her younger brother, who was inwardly panicking.

She nodded toward his phone again, subtly urging him before the rest of the family caught on.

Damian exhaled sharply, schooling his expression as he quickly hit ‘Follow Back.’

Sliding his phone into his pocket, he reached for his napkin, pretending to cough into it.

But really, he just needed to hide his reddening face from his ever-curious siblings—and his father.

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

© — ggυɱi '25

likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated

ദ്ദി ≽^⎚˕⎚^≼ .ᐟ

╭────────────────────.★..─╮

🏷️;

@liabiamiakiawia @jason-todd-fangirl-14

@shirp-collector-of-fixations @1abi

@nervousalpacalady @silverklaus

@riaaavm  @queenofviolenceandnerds

★

author's note 1: another chapter done :> next one's probably this friday ahead

author's note 2: also making the jason ff

author's note 3: and I made a dick grayson one, should i post it?

author's note 4: i also make bots on c.ai, send me req for characters in my tumblr req :)

author's note5: this is how i imagine reader when she was in front of the mirror btw, ty hendry for the inspo.

╰─..★.────────────────────╯

[vexcraft]

okay. so. what we know about this whole exile and world border moving thing so far

grian teases the permit office exile program (in a very severance-style clip), saying that the world spawn has been relocated. he's talking to "another" grian who does not seem very excited about this whole thing

doc talks about the whole banishing thing in his video (since the permit office has permission to use his world border cannon), saying it would be funny as a one-time laugh as people sent to the world border could just die and be back at their spawns. he then says he's been informed the world spawn has been moved to the world border

the permit office crew shows up at the beginning of jevin's stream, demanding he give up his unused permit

jevin refuses so cub, grian, and scar attack him and he dies. jevin spawns at the normal world spawn. might be unrelated but after this he gets a message and briefly ends stream for a minute or so and he's back at his base with the permit office crew once he restarts stream. they briefly threaten him, talking about how this was "unsuccessful" and tell him to reconsider his stance on the permits (as jevin is the leader of no-poe)

jevin sets his spawn at his base

after this at multiple points of the stream, the permit office crew is killing each other (mostly scar...) and logging on and off multiple times (seemingly not for skin changes, aside from scar changing into his poe poe skin on one of the log-outs). this seems like they're probably testing things

grian kills scar and scar spawns outside the world border. jevin is just about to leave the end, and despite having set his spawn earlier, also spawns outside the world border (clip). grian tells them not to panic and after a moment tells them that they can respawn again and both jevin and scar spawn at the normal world spawn

then there's whatever this is. scar dies to a zombie almost immediately and spawns at normal world spawn

killing continues but this time scar's not spawning outside the world border!

something happens here

this time scar kills cub and grian, jokingly leaving after, which seems like he successfully sent them to the new spawn (or just sent them somewhere lol) and left them there (as without someone around the normal area, they wouldn't be able to teleport back through things like stasis chambers i'm pretty sure as there would be no one to trigger it). scar logs back on after a moment

when jevin leaves the end for the second time, he spawns back in his bed (in which he set his spawn again after the whole world border case). shortly after this jevin ends stream. during this whole thing it was only jevin and the permit office crew online

so.

it seems that currently the world spawn might be near the world border and if it's not, the permit office can move it there. having your spawn set prevents getting sent there even though for some reason that did not work for jevin the first time. i believe doc has talked about ender pearls in stasis chambers no longer disappearing when you die and joe tried it on stream moments ago, so a stasis chamber would be a way to get out of there

i believe this is all we know so far. i'll try to reblog this post with updates if there's more and feel free to reply/leave tags if i forgot something :D

[seellove]

Could You Stay a Little Longer // drug dealer!sukuna x reader

Masterlist

Chapter 2 // (12.1k words) // Explicit - 18+

\|/ AO3 - Chapter 2 | << Chapter 1 | Chapter 3 >>

You're pursuing a master degree across the country, but are currently back in your hometown housesitting for your parents. They've told you all about their undesirable new neighbor, but when you start to get to know said neighbor, you realize he isn't all that bad. Your controlling boyfriend won't let up on you and you grapple with enjoying the company of this drug dealing neighbor boy, Sukuna. Nothing about this is going the way you planned, but is it so bad to let yourself be treated well for a change?

The cultural setting for this is technically economically depressed, rural USA where good paying jobs are hard to come by and there's not many opportunities in small towns, but it could really be anywhere that meets this criteria!

Content Tags/Warnings Throughout Work: Reader and Sukuna are mid 20s, mentions of recreational drug use and drug dealing, mentions of abusive/controlling/manipulative relationship (not Sukuna), could possibly be considered cheating depending on your interpretation (not Sukuna), angst, smut, fluff, time skip, prison time, happy ending trust!

Day 3

You decide to continue cleaning out the gardens this morning, once again trying to get ahead of the midday heat. As you head towards the road, the morning chorus of birds in the trees bring a sort of serenity to the neighborhood…until you notice Sukuna’s yard looks anything but peaceful, wrecked once again. 

It’s not surprising considering how loud things were over there last night. It didn’t keep you up per se, but you definitely could hear the loud music and cars engines revving all night long. The man definitely did not seem to want to keep a low profile that’s for sure considering the neighborhood already had it out for him. Thank god for earplugs.

What is the point of cleaning up yesterday if he just trashed everything less than 3 hours later? 

You throw your earbuds in, get on your knees, and start pulling weeds. It’s tiring and uncomfortable, but you figure if you do a little at a time each day you’ll have something good to show for it by the time you leave. Attempting to try and decipher the ways of the immature, cute, bad boy across the street wasn’t something even your advanced schooling could help with.  

After some time, a shadow appears where you are working, blocking the sun temporarily.

“You’re up early tomato girl,” Sukuna’s playful voice sounds from behind you. 

“I could say the same thing. Seemed like you had a late night. Don’t you have stuff to do during the day?” you chide at him, taking out your earbuds and setting your weed pile to the side so you can turn around. 

He’s in shorts and a t-shirt with a backwards hat smothering his wild hair, red eyes hidden by a pair of shades. He’s smirking down at you and you notice he’s holding a pair of hedge clippers.

“Sweets, I’m a dealer with a suspended license, what do you expect me to be doing all day?” 

“I don’t know, counting pills. Counting money? How should I know?” you retort. 

“You’re cute for thinking that’s what I’d do all day,” he teases. 

You just roll your eyes in response, you honestly don’t care to know, it’s not something you want to know anything about at this point.

“I’m going to clean up some of these shrubs,” he gestures to some plants on the edges of the garden.

“Oh that’s not necessary-“

“I know it’s not, but I’m a grown adult who can make his own decisions. Also tired of these people who won’t get the fuck out my house, I’d rather be around someone I actually enjoy.” 

“Why do you have people over if you want them to leave early? Drugs and booze aren’t exactly conducive to people getting up and at ‘em in the morning,” you tease him as he starts working on a bush a few feet away.

“They’re my childhood friends, but they’re some degenerates who don’t do shit all day. They always promise they’ll be out by 8, but it never happens,” he sighs as he prunes his way around the shrubbery.

“Hey Kuna what’re you doing out here?” you hear a girl’s voice from the road. You look up and see two girls walking your way. They look pretty hungover, must have been some of the company from last night.

“I’m helping my neighbor with some yard work, are you all going to be leaving soon?” 

“Yeah, we were just about to go. Just wanted to see if we could buy something before we leave,” the other girl smiles at him. 

“Go ask Toji or one of the other guys, I’m busy,” he responds bluntly, not looking up from what he’s doing. 

They seem to take the hint and walk away, leaving you both alone again.

“Do you let girls sleep with you in lieu of paying?” you ask.

He bursts out laughing. 

“Fuck no, I’m actually pretty picky about who I’ll sleep with. Just never know their true intentions, especially because I’m weak for some good pillow talk. Haven’t been with anyone in a while now that I think of it since I got in trouble with the law again, maybe I’m paranoid of undercover shit or something.”  

You just nod in agreement, a surprisingly astute and mature response coming from him. It makes sense, but you’d expected him to be more free spirited and reckless. His pillow talk comment makes you internally laugh, you can totally see that being a thing, he’s so emotional and expressive after all. 

As you both continue working, your mind wanders back to your conversations with Cam last night. He’d ripped into you about Sukuna answering the phone while on your walk. 

He’d never let you have guy friends, so being around a random guy yesterday definitely set him off worse than usual. You did feel a little guilty about hanging around Sukuna, but it felt good at the same time, you enjoyed his company. With Cam not here, you had more freedom than you’ve had in ages, so you were keen to take advantage of it for a few days.

“Lemonade break?” you nudge his side as the heat starts to distract you.

“Yeah, fuckin’ brutal out here,” he runs his fingers through his hair.

You go retrieve some glasses and find Sukuna leaned back against the trunk of an old oak tree. You sit next to him, passing him an ice cold glass.

You both sit in silence, letting the cold liquid quench your dry throats, enjoying the soft breeze in your shady refuge. Sukuna’s hat is off, tufts of his pink hair dancing in the wind districting your gaze. 

“Do you think you’ll come back here after your grad school?” Sukuna asks once you’ve both cooled off.

“I haven’t decided yet. I love the area where my school is, but I do miss my family and friends here. Just harder to find a job ya know?” 

It was one of the reasons you’d moved away, to have a better opportunity at research opportunities and post graduate options for your chosen degree. 

“That’s valid,” he responds, stretching his long legs out on the grass in front of him. “Do you still have a lot of friends here?”

“I do, but a bunch of them got married pretty quick and already have a kid or two. Only a few of us are still childless,” you laugh. 

“Figures, seems to be the way things go around here. I remember my mom saying something about how no good girls will be left if I wait to settle down, but it seems like there’s still some goods around,” he turns his head to look at you, sunglasses pushed up on his head now.

“I like to think I’m pretty decent,” you laugh, averting your gaze as you feel your cheeks heat up.

“Better than the crew who I hang around,” he snorts.

“I mean that’s not saying much,” you joke with him.

“Oh please, you know what I meant,” he huffs.

“I could set you up with a decent single friend or two,” you nudge his side.

“Two? Shit, that’s just asking for trouble,” he picks at the grass between his legs, tossing it at you absentmindedly.

“They’re nurses, they’d take good care of you.”

“I’m sure they would. Maybe one day, tomato girl,” he laughs. 

“A gift for you,” he leans your way, presenting what looks like grass to you.

Except it’s not grass, it’s a four leaf clover. Some good luck in his future perhaps?

“You don’t wanna keep your luck?” you giggle, laying it in your palm so both of you can get a better look. 

“Eh, you might need it more, I’m already pretty lucky I live the life I do and haven’t gotten in more trouble.”

“I’ll cherish it forever,” you smile at him, leaning against his arm, the bark of the tree starting to hurt your back. 

You both watch as people slowly trickle out of Sukuna’s house, the line of cars parked on the side of the road disappearing after another hour. 

“You want some more vegetables?” you ask him.

“For meeeeee?” he gasps, giving you a fake surprised look.

“Yes you goof,” you laugh. 

“What’s your offer?”

“There’s some radishes and jalapeños over here,” you get up and point to some plants you had been weeding around.

“Well sure if you’re offering,” he smiles, navigating his way carefully through the garden and cutting a few of them off. 

“I’ve got some stuff to do, but would you wanna come eat dinner at my place tonight? I was gonna whip up some stuff with the tomatoes and I can go ahead and make some stuff with these too…you know as a thank you for sharing,” he says as a faint blush appears on his cheeks, spreading to his ears.

“Oh? Sure, why not. Want me to bring anything?” you respond, feeling a little flutter in your chest.

“Bring your favorite wine,” he grins at you. “I’m gonna start cooking at 5, feel free to come by anytime after then. Sounds good?”

“Um, yeah, that sounds great. Thank you,” you suddenly feel all flustered. It’s just dinner with your temporary neighbor.

In his house…but he can’t drive…so this makes sense right? 

What if Cam finds out? 

There’s no way.

You deserve this though. How many times has the man cheated on you and gaslit you into oblivion until you truly believed you were the reason for his infidelity and abusive actions, like no matter what you did it was never good enough?

You deserve to have one nice night with someone who is kind to you. Eating dinner with a friend is not wrong. Hell it’s not like you ever get to go out with your friends back home because of his controlling nature.

“If it’ll put you in a bind with…him, you don’t have to,” Sukuna’s voice jerks you from your thoughts as if sensing your inner turmoil.

“Huh? No, it’s fine. He cheats all the fucking time, god forbid I have dinner with a friend,” you retort, unsure if you are responding to him or trying convincing yourself. Probably both. 

Sukuna grimaces but quickly replaces it with his trademark smirk. 

“Great, I’ll see you later then,” he turns and walks back to his house. 

As you watch him walk away, your inner self is doing cartwheels in excitement. It’s almost like…

You like him. Crushing on the neighborhood delinquent with the mysterious red eyes and the fine ass tattoos adorning that shredded body. The kind hearted boy who’s captivated you in three short days. 

Nah, you can’t be. Like you said, it’s been three days, you hardly know him…right?

***

You were staring at yourself in the mirror, analyzing the third outfit you’ve tried on. It’s not like you brought that many clothes, but you want to look put together and like you put a little effort in!

You can’t even remember the last time you were giddy and excited for something, and that makes you sad, realizing just how shitty your relationship situation is back home, slowly bleeding the life out of you. 

You grab the wine bottle of choice, some popsicles for dessert, and lock up the house, leaving the light on in anticipation of coming back after dark. The walk across the street and up to Sukuna’s porch is over quickly, noticing for once his car seems to be the only one in the driveway. 

You knock on the door and wait, suddenly wondering what it’s going to look like on the inside. You figure it’ll either look like a frat house bachelor pad, or sleek and clean with nice furniture that could only be afforded with drug money.

You’ll soon find out as you hear heavy footsteps on the other side before the door opens up to Sukuna in an apron overtop of a t-shirt and shorts. It catches you off guard seeing him domestic like this, but it quickly fades as his excited smile greets you.

“So glad you came tomato girl, right this way,” he says, holding the door open for you. 

“Nice apron,” you tease as you place the bottle on the counter. The inside is leaning more towards sleek and sophisticated. Black kitchen table, black chairs, black living room furniture, black cabinets, some type of stone countertops, and so on. It’s not what you expected, but you can’t deny he has good taste.

“Tch, thanks. These tomatoes are really juicy and I was worried about getting them all over me,” he laughs, moving to the other side of the kitchen island to fiddle with some pots on the stove.

“So what’s for dinner chef?” you sit at one of his bar top stools across from him, scanning the area around you. Everything seems very neat and organized, you’d never suspect someone with a record lived here if you walked in without knowing him.

“My appetizer, if you will, is chips and pico de gallo. Made the chips myself, aaaaaaand, the pico features your jalapenos and tomatoes of course,” he pulls a bowl out of the stainless steel fridge and places it in front of you. Chips were already out on the counter.

“Wow you make your own chips?” 

“Damn straight, no bagged chips here,” he points his wooden spoon at you playfully. Something about this big strong man wielding a wooden spoon around in this animated way makes you giggle in amusement. Never a dull moment with him.

You take one, dip, and eat, the satisfying crunch loud in your ears. It’s so good, better than any other chip or salsa you’ve had lately.

“Soooo verdict?” Sukuna rests his elbows on the counter and stares at you with wide eyes, eagerly awaiting your response. His backwards baseball hat hides some of his unruly pink locks, giving him an almost frat boy aesthetic.

“Delicious! I’m impressed,” you say, emphasizing the warmth in your words, reaching for more.

“Sweet,” he mutters with a grin. “I know it doesn’t really go with the chips and pico, but I’ve got some homemade tomato sauce going that we’ll eat with meatballs and pasta. The theme of tonight's menu is tomatoes after all, regardless of the meal classification, so I think it fits,” his eyes twinkle with excitement. He seems proud of himself and it’s oddly heartwarming. 

Your mouth is watering because it all sounds and smells so good. This is the last thing you expected him to be doing, whipping up meals from scratch in the kitchen.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” 

“Actually, yes. First pour us two glasses of your wine, and second, come stir this sauce for me, I need to cut this pasta up.”

“Homemade pasta too?” you gasp.

“Duh, you think I’d feed you inferior boxed pasta?” he smirks as he fishes a wine opener out of a drawer, uncorking the bottle and procuring two glasses. 

“I mean most of the time, men aren’t serving me anything except disappointment, so even boxed would be impressive,” you laugh. 

“Well you’re in for a treat then sweets,” he winks and passes you his spoon. He opts to pour out the wine and sets a glass next to where you are standing. 

Sukuna busies himself with pasta, meatballs, and even some garlic bread while you stir his sauce.

“That’s probably fine now,” he eventually reaches over you to lower the heat, his chest lightly pressing against your shoulder. He’s definitely got some height on you so you don’t even need to duck out of his way.

“Come with me,” he grabs your wrist and drags you towards the back door. Out on his deck you realize there is an abundance of fresh herbs in clay pots.

“You get the basil, I’ll get the parsley,” he instructs, showing you how to properly remove the leaves. 

All of this just keeps surprising you, it makes the butterflies form in your chest again. At this point they might as well just take up refuge there. 

How can you be falling for someone with a record? A drug dealer for god sake! It seems like it has bad idea written all over it. Plus he’s said himself, he doesn’t do long term stuff. 

“Hey!” Sukuna’s voice snaps you back to reality, “I asked if you need any help?”

“N-no, I’m good, I think I got enough,” you stutter, almost convinced he can hear your thoughts. 

“Yep looks good to me,” he answers after coming over to inspect your haul. 

Once back inside, it’s only a little while longer before Sukuna starts plating everything. You are about a glass and a half deep into the wine so you’ve settled at the kitchen table, eagerly awaiting the food.

“Eat up!” Sukuna exclaims as he sets the plates down, joining you at the table.

“Sukuna this looks amazing,” you smile, “thank you again, this was so nice of you.”

“But of course, anything for my neighbor,” he responds. 

“Cheers,” he holds out his wine glass which you gladly clink against with yours. Just as he’s about to take a bite, his phone rings. His playful demeanor instantly turns to one of annoyance.

“One moment,” he gets up and answers.

“What?” he barks into the phone. 

“You absolutely will not come over here, in fact, you can tell everyone that if anyone comes over here tonight I will put a fucking bullet in their leg, got it?” he says in a commanding tone which makes you jump. 

He tosses his phone on the counter and rejoins you.

“Sorry about that,” he sits down like it’s business as usual.

“You can just flip that side of you off and on at will huh?” 

“I have to. Makes it less likely that people will fuck with me,” he explains as he digs in, “it’s just a facade though, like I’d never talk to you that way…unless you wanted me to,” he says with a sly grin.

You practically choke on your food at the bold comment. Up until this point he hasn’t taken his flirty, carefree attitude in that direction, but it churns up some type of feeling deep inside of you that you haven’t felt in a long time.

“Easy there,” you laugh, kicking him lightly under the table. 

He just shrugs with amusement and takes a long sip of his wine. 

“So when people come over here, are they picking up or what?” you decide to probe at him, the wine making you braver.

“Sometimes. I don’t keep much product here. Mainly people come by to drop off cash or get assignments. I’ve got people who report to me who handle most everything lower level like deliveries and sales. I deal with more high level stuff: managing the finances, figuring out markups and pricing, and coordinating with the wholesalers. I am the boss after all,” he grins, twirling some pasta on his fork. 

“So what’s the plan when it inevitably all blows up?”

“Excuse me? Do what now?” he chuckles while hitting you with a questioning side eye.

“You heard me, I feel like this can only be successful for so long right?” you reiterate.

“Oh ye of little faith,” he clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “Well, I guess that would mean I’m either dead, or locked up.” 

“That’s pretty extreme. So there’s no backup plan?” 

“My parents’ inheritance I guess. I’d go back to college with it and get a degree in something I suppose,” he muses.

“What made you drop out?” 

“Honestly my grades were shit. I was in a frat and wasting my parents money partying and fucking off, so they stopped paying and I moved back here. Got involved with my old high school buddy, Toji, with this shit and well here I am, the fucking king.” 

“Interesting. I was just curious,” you set your utensils down, plate completely clean.

“How about you though,” his crimson eyes bore into yours intensely, piercing you so sharply it catches you off guard. 

“What happens when your situation blows up?” he continues.

“What are you referring to?” 

“Your loser boyfriend. The odds aren’t good for women in abusive relationships.”

“It’s not technically abu-“

“Ima stop you right there and call bullshit on that tomato girl. I’m speaking the truth and we both know it. So again, what happens when your situation goes south.”

Your mouth is completely dry, no one has ever spoken about it in this way. 

“I guess similar to you, I’m either dead or in jail,” you retort, causing him to smile with amusement.

“Clever. I like that. Hopefully it’s neither, or at least if you’re in jail it’s cuz he’s dead,” his eyes flick back up to yours. You stare into his gaze, lips partially open as you process everything.

“That sounds so morbid but it may or not be a possibility I’ve mulled over in my mind,” you add.

“Well if you need an accomplice, you have my number,” he laughs, taking your plate and his and dropping them in the sink before coming back to join you.

“What do you say, do you think I should leave this all behind? Start over?” he says in a low tone, swirling the wine around in the glass and watching the liquid slowly settle out. 

“It’s not my place to say Sukuna.”

“Would you like me more if I did?” 

You cock your head at him with intrigue, unsure of what he’s getting at.

“I’d like you just the same. I like you for you right now. That’s why I’m in your house.”

He sighs, tapping his fingers on the table, staring up and away from you both.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, I wanted to settle down with some lucky lady. You think I’d have to stop to have a chance at that?”

You pause, hanging onto his words before answering. Is the wine making him say this stuff? You both hadn’t drank that much…

“I’d say it depends on the lady. If I was going to get with someone like you, yes, I’d probably want you to leave that life,” you give him a playful smile, “but I’m sure there are women out there who’d be content to support you in this life and not expect you to change.”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“What about me though, should I leave the man who’s holding me back?” you challenge him.

“Tch, is that even a question?” he rolls his eyes, reaching to rest his hand on yours. Your heart is pounding, thrumming in your ears, making you almost shiver in anticipation. 

“It is, I asked you after all.”

“Then yes, you should.”

“Would you like me more if I did?”

God is it the wine making you say this stuff? 

Sukuna arches an eyebrow in a wordless response, his gaze slowly moving to meet yours before shifting down to your lips and darting back up again.

“Whether you’re with him or not has no bearing on me doing this right now.”

In the moment it takes for your ears to convey his words to your brain, he kisses you. Your eyes widen in surprise, it must have happened in seconds. He’s standing up now, one hand on the table, the other gripping your chin and tipping it up while his soft lips envelop yours. 

The butterflies you’ve become painfully aware of the last few days ricochet around your insides like fireworks in the night sky as you lean in and kiss him back. It doesn’t stop there though, he’s pulling your chair out, cradling you against his chest while you cling to him, lips still locked as he moves towards his living room. 

He falls back into the couch, positioning you so you are straddling him. 

“Sukuna I-“

“Shhh, don’t talk, not right now,” his voice deepens, observing you through lidded eyes. 

And then his large, strong hands are in your hair, gripping your cheek and the back of your head as he pulls you into another kiss.

His lips crash against yours. It’s consuming, claiming, completely losing yourself in him as you force your tongue into his mouth. Sukuna groans against you, meeting you halfway, his soft tongue dominating yours as he deepens the kiss. Your noses brush against each other clumsily as you familiarize yourselves with the other’s movements. 

You feel almost out of practice, you can’t recall the last time Cam kissed you like this. His style was moreso fuck with the most minimal amount of foreplay, and even that was a generous word to describe it. If you do suck at this, Sukuna appears to have no qualms by the way his arms are wrapping around your back, pulling you against him, and devouring the shared air between you.

Your hands find his hair, dragging his hat off so you can thread your fingers through his soft strands. The scent of his shampoo wafts into your nose as you ravenously kiss him back. You shift yourself, groaning as you feel his hard bulge pressing against your groin, catching your clit even through the extra layers. 

“Fuuuck,” he moans into your mouth, starting to nip at your lower lip as his hands wander down to your ass, rolling his hips up to meet yours.

You haven’t felt this alive in literal years, so drunk off the way he nibbles and sucks at your neck while you grind yourself against him. You can feel yourself soaking through your panties, hoping he can’t feel it through his shorts. 

“Lemme go get a condom,” Sukuna whispers, his breath hot on your neck, eliciting a sharp whine from you as the image of what’s to come infiltrates your mind.

Wait, a condom? For sex? He wants to fuck you, god know you wanna fuck him too right now.

But you have a boyfriend, what are you even doing? Acting like a whore? Cam will be furious, you’ll be in trouble-

You start to panic, pushing yourself back from him abruptly.

“What are you doing? You know I have a boyfriend!” your voice cracks as he quickly removes his hands from you, leaning back into the couch to give you the space you were wanting.

“That piece of shit doesn’t deserve that honor,” Sukuna growls in response, his eyes flaring up in irritation.

“You’re taking advantage of me while I’m away from him, you’ve been putting these bad thoughts about him in my head this whole time. You’re no better than him. A criminal, a bad person,” you start to ramble on, freaking out at the thought of the fallout. If he found out.

Sukuna’s eyes flash with pain, your hurtful words piercing through his heart. 

“Right…,” he finally utters, averting your gaze and biting his bottom lip in discomfort. 

“I’m leaving before you turn me into more of a slut than I already am,” you push off of him, leaving him alone on the couch.

“You’re not being a slut! You’re allowed to be treated with fucking respect by someone,” Sukuna retorts, standing up as he follows you to the front door. 

You whip your head around to face him, hand on the doorknob.

“I’m a cheater, no better than him.”

“Is it really cheating when the person who’s supposed to love and respect you is constantly unfaithful and could even be doing so right now? You say it yourself, you don’t even know if you’re exclusive or not. Please, let me show you what a decent man can do, how you should be treated,” his eyes are so full of raw emotion, his hand pushing on the door next to you, partially caging you against it, but still allowing the option to leave. 

You look away from him, tears in your eyes. Everything is so confusing right now, the desperation on his face, the longing for him in your heart, the fear of Cam. It’s all just too much and you need to get away from all of it right now.

You pull the door open, and Sukuna doesn’t stop you.

“Good night Sukuna,” you stutter as you open the screen door, hearing it slam behind you. You move quickly to your parents house, never looking back towards Sukuna, unaware of the way he watches you leave full of hurt and confusion.

For the first time in his adult life, he was considering giving it all up. 

All of this. 

For you. 

The desire to be a better man, the man you never had, the man you deserved, was coursing through his veins. He thought you had felt the same way, what else could you have possibly meant by those questions? It felt like you’d kissed him with such passion and desire, how did this end with him staring at your back as you walked away from him?

Had he read the whole situation this badly? 

No, you had wanted this just as much as him. You break down with the realization as soon as you get inside, back sliding down against the door as you erupt into a sob on the floor. What’s wrong with you? Why couldn’t you just have an ounce of self esteem and break things off for good, let yourself be taken care of by a good man, one who’s been nothing but kind and helpful since you met him. 

You both go to sleep that night thinking of the other, of the night that could have been yours together. 

Day 4

It’s a little harder to get out of bed today. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, yet here you were festering in your own gloomy thoughts. The only thing forcing you up was that the pets needed taking care of, it’s not like they did anything wrong in all of this.

The humidity is through the roof this morning, probably the worst it’s been since you got here. Normally that combined with a bluebird day means thunderstorms in the afternoon, so you decide to walk Macy in the morning to try and get ahead of it. 

You glance across the street towards Sukuna’s house. No extra cars were around and all the shades were still drawn. Based on the last few days, you’d have expected to see him at some point in the morning, but with what happened last night? No shot. That was probably the last of your interactions with him. 

As you continue your walk, you can’t help but feel guilty about everything. You’d felt scared, even terrified at the thought of hooking up with him even though you’d wanted to with every fiber of your being. The irrational fear of Cam finding out and you reaping the consequences had clouded your judgement. 

“Has he hurt you?” you recall Sukuna asking.

Yeah, he has. Your mind wanders to a dark place, recalling the most recent time he was physical with you. You’d gone out with your grad school classmates for beers one night, which in and of itself caused a blowout fight because three of them were guys. Guys with long term girlfriends and fiancés you had tried to remind him, but he wasn’t having it.

The night had ended with you and two of your male classmates being the last of your group after others had left. There was nothing remotely sketchy or inappropriate going on, just friends talking about life and plans after school. Cam however had decided to take matters into his own hands and show up unannounced, furiously locking eyes with you from across the room as the two guys sat across from you.

Things only got worse for you as he made a scene in front of everyone and practically dragged you out of the bar and into the alley, both of you yelling at each other. The fight only ended when he backhanded you across the face, accusing you of being disrespectful and using his favorite line: “and you wonder why I go looking elsewhere when you constantly act like this.” 

This. Merely existing and trying to defend yourself.

This behavior had instilled a crippling fear and anxiety of never truly knowing where he would show up. You wouldn’t put it past him to find you here. Your hometown is your one safe haven, hence why your location sharing has been off. But you can’t wipe the events of that night from your mind, no matter how hard you try.

You take a left down another road that ends with access to a creek, a place you’d loved playing growing up.

Would Sukuna even understand if you explained all this to him? It shouldn’t be his burden to bear, he probably is just looking for a fun fling, not a girl with baggage as far as the eye could see. Hell you wish you could just have a fun, no string attached night, but the devil on your shoulder can’t just let you be at peace.

You sit down in the grass and let Macy off the leash to play in the water. She loves swimming, and seeing her frolic around in the stream makes you happy for a change. Oh to be a dog just doing what you love, no romantic relationships in sight. You pull a tennis ball out of your bag and toss it into the water, watching Macy swim out to it before bringing it back. 

You repeat these motions until she’s had enough, scampering over to you and falling onto her side, panting in the heat. 

“Tired you out huh girl?” you laugh as you ruffle the damp fur on her neck. You both rest for a while longer before you begin your trek back to the house. Sukuna’s house is still devoid of activity as you head back down the driveway.

You give Macy a quick rinse off outside to get the mud and dirt off of her before letting her back in and preparing some lunch.

Turning on the TV after eating, you decide to have a wallow at home kind of afternoon given your mood. You’ll just binge something and gorge yourself on comfort snacks. 

Macy starts whining to go out after about two hours, so you get up to let her out in the yard. As you lay back down, sleepiness suddenly hits you and you drift off on the couch.

BOOM!

You are jolted awake by a loud noise, scaring the shit out of you. You look outside and notice dark grey clouds covering the sky. 

Great, the afternoon storms you’d predicted have come to fruition. The wind is gusting and rain begins to pitter patter on the roof as another roar of thunder shakes the house.

You know Macy is scared of storms, so you call out to her, trying to find her inside. After checking all her usual hiding spots, you are puzzled that she’s nowhere to be found.

Oh my god. 

You remember now, you let her out and then fell asleep!

You throw on your sneakers as quickly as you can, charging out into the yard as another round of thunder makes you cringe away from the sky.

How could you be so fucking irresponsible! 

Panicking, you run around to the back, hoping by some miracle that she’s there. You are only greeted by the wet deluge that pours down on you as the sky opens up, the fat raindrops splattering onto your bare skin almost mocking you at this point.

This is so bad.

You run up towards the street, frantically calling out to her, your voice completely drowned out by the rain, wind, and thunderclaps that have your ears ringing at this point.

After traversing one end of the street, despair starts to sink in. You are freezing, drenched from head to toe, not even knowing where your tears begin and the raindrops end as rain cascades down your face. As you come back towards the house, you see Sukuna’s out of the corner of your eye.

Maybe he’ll help you.

You literally have nothing to lose, so you bound towards his front door, happy to escape the rain under his front porch.

You bang on the door loudly.

“Sukuna! Sukuna it’s me, can you help me!” you yell over the storm, doubting he can even hear you and if he could, if he’d even want to be in your presence. He has no reason to talk to you again.

To your surprise, the front door opens and you are met with the moody version of the fun loving guy you’ve hung out with the last few days. His face quickly morphs into one of concern, opening the door and coming out to join you.

“Jesus what are you doing out here?” he inspects you, brushing water off of your face and arms.

“It’s Macy, I need your help. I accidentally left her out and then the storm started. She’s terrified of them and I think she’s run off,” you are fighting back tears, voice shaking with fear and likely from the chills that are currently wracking your body as the wind slams into your drenched body.. 

“Of course, lemme put some shoes on,” he responds without missing a beat, disappearing momentarily before coming back outside with a raincoat.

“Go back to your house, let me look for her,” he says gruffly, tucking you under his raincoat, arm slipping around your waist and guiding you out into the yard. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, listen to me please, it’s not safe to be out in this,” he says seriously as lightning streaks across the sky. 

“Gimme your car keys, I’m gonna take your dad’s car.”

“What about your license?”

“Hence why I’m taking the other car, no one will know it’s me,” he scoffs, obviously getting annoyed being out in the rain. 

You unclip your house key from the car key, giving it to him. You stand glued in place, staring at him as if paralyzed on what to do next. 

“Go the fuck on inside!” Sukuna has no patience at this point, dragging you to the front stoop and shoving you towards the door.

Time seems to pass at a sluggish pace as you wait. Five minutes turns to ten and before you know it, thirty minutes have gone by with no sign of the storm letting up. 

You almost go to call Sukuna when you see headlights coming down the driveway. Jumping up, you move to open the front door and almost collapse in relief as you see Sukuna carrying a sopping wet Macy in his arms. 

You rush upstairs to get some towels in preparation for the soaking wet mess that is about to come through those doors. You hold the door open for Sukuna to squeeze by you, standing on the doormat, water running down his legs and soaking the rug.

His pink hair looks darker now and completely is plastered to his face, eyes barely perceptible from being hidden by his wet strands.

“Oh my god, you found her! Are you ok?” you dab the towel at his face, wiping his eyes and cheeks before getting his neck and arms.

“As good as I can be,” he mutters, leaning down so you can towel off his hair. 

“Let’s get this mutt to the bathtub and dry her off,” he says. You untie his shoes and help him kick them off before leading everyone to the bathroom.

Not long after, Macy is as dry as she can be and trots off to hide under the kitchen table, tired from her little adventure.

“Thank you so much Sukuna, I-I don’t know how I can ever repay you. That was so selfless. Truly, thank you again,” you look up at him as he heads back towards the front door.

“Don’t mention it, what kind of man would I be to let a girl run around in the rain by herself. I’m gonna go now, stay dry tomato girl,” he ruffles your hair before disappearing out into the storm.

As you watch him walk away, your heart drops into your stomach. He went out in the fucking storm for a girl who hurled all kinds of accusations at him just the night before. Such an unselfish act, putting you first when he had no reason to.

You wish he’d stop, wish he’d turn around and come back. You want him to stay. Your heart burns with the need to be with him, be close to him, to apologize for everything and explain yourself. Hanging out together meant more than you realized judging by the pang of emptiness you felt as the day dragged on without him, like a part of your routine was missing.

A second chance. It’s now or never, seeing how he’s almost halfway up the driveway.

Your legs move before your brain can even send the command. You rush up the driveway, the pavement slick beneath your feet, lightning flashing in your peripheral as thunder reverberates around you. You reach for his arm, fingers slipping on his rain-slicked skin, but you do enough to get his attention as he turns around in shock.

“Get back inside! Are you purposely trying to drown yourself today!” he enunciates loudly over the storm, irritation plastered across his face.

“Come back, come back please,” you throw your arms around him, pressing yourself into his chest, your cheek plastered against the drenched fabric of his shirt. 

You stare desperately up into his face, the lightning illuminating his crimson eyes. Eyes that look troubled, as if trying to decipher your intent, trying to decide if you mean this or if you are just going to rip the rug out from under him again. 

The rain drips down his pink bangs and onto your cheeks as he looks down on you, seeming to study every part of your face.

“You know I want to,” he mutters, voice deep against your ear, “don’t do this to me if you don’t really mean it.”

“I want you Sukuna. Please, let me try again. I’ll explain, just come back inside,” you choke out, fingers twisting into the waterlogged fabric of his shirt.

In response, his lips find yours, enveloping you in a calm reprieve as the storm rages around you both. Nothing else matters, just his arms around you as you convey the desperation that exists for each other. Each brush of your noses dislodges the rain from his lashes and hair, showering you with droplets warm from his body heat. 

He picks you up, hooking your legs around his waist and intensifying his movements. He forces his tongue into your mouth, clashing with yours, exploring the softness of your cheeks and following the ridges of your gums. 

He strides back towards the house, devouring you, lips welded to yours as the wind blown rain pelts both of you.

The cold air indoors sends shivers down your skin as he opens the door, all your senses suddenly present again as the walls shut out sounds of the chaos outside.

“Where,” he groans against your lips, water dripping from both of your clothes and pattering against the hardwood floor.

“Downstairs, guest room,” you utter against his lips, fingers digging into his jaw tattoos as if clinging to him to shelter you from the storm in more ways than one.

Sukuna wastes no time traversing the staircase, kicking the bedroom door shut behind him and pressing you up against the wall, both of you groping and grabbing, tearing the wet shirts off of each other and letting them drop to the floor.

You both pause, his forehead pressed against yours, chests heaving from a combination of your passionate kissing and the chill air that suddenly hits your damp skin.

“I’m freezing,” you giggle, causing him to snort in amusement. You trace his chest tattoos with your finger, feeling the hard muscle beneath you.

“Yeah why don’t we dry off and warm up,” he plants a soft kiss on your cheek as he moves you both over to the fireplace on the other side of the room, setting you down gently on the carpeted floor.

You turn on the propane fireplace while he grabs some towels out of the attached bathroom, joining you in front of the heat.

You’re down to a sports bra and shorts, feeling a little self conscious at being so exposed, but the heat of the fire radiating against your bare skin is a welcome relief. 

Sukuna peels his shorts off so he’s just in his boxers and you take one of the towels and start to dry him off, working from his upper shoulders and down his back. You chase the small rivulets of water that’d collected in the dips and valleys of his back muscles, tracing the ink that follows a similar path. You move to each leg, encountering tattooed rings around his thighs that make your breath hitch, before turning him around to get his front side. 

You end up taking your sweet time as if memorizing the ridges of his chest and abs as you drag the towel down towards his waistband. 

He sits down on the floor, giving you easier access to towel dry his hair. You can’t deny that he looks cute with his pink locks hanging down in his eyes, but he’s soon running his fingers through his hair to give it his slicked back appearance again.

He in turn does the same for you, sliding your shorts off so you are down to your bra and panties, respectfully drying you from head to toe, not missing how his eyes burn a trail down your skin as they rove over every exposed inch like a spotlight in the dark.

Finally, he launches the towels at the wall, leaning forward to kiss you again as the fire illuminates the room, crackling flames dancing in the reds of his eyes. 

“I’m sorry Sukuna,” you say as you both pull away. His mouth twitches, eyes flicking towards the floor before looking back, willing you to continue.

“Last night, those things I said, you aren’t a bad man, you aren’t a criminal, you weren’t doing anything wrong. I wanted everything you were giving me, I was just…I just got scared. I panicked,” you say quietly, staring into the flames.

He takes your hand in his, rubbing his thumb along your knuckles in a comforting pattern.

“Cam, he has a history of showing up where I am unannounced and giving me hell for it. I don’t know, I just had the thought of him finding me, finding us-“

“I know I asked you this once before, but has he hurt you? Like beyond just words?” Sukuna interrupts you. 

You slowly nod your head, looking down in shame, feeling the tears start to build up behind your eyes.

Sukuna tips your chin up, sorrow in his gaze, caressing your cheeks as his thumbs catching the  damp streaks that inevitably form.

“It pains me to hear that, truly. You know you don’t deserve it right? It’s never justified, and it’s never, ever, your fault,” he says softly, pressing gentle kisses into your forehead. 

“I’m sorry too. I came on really strong, and I should have been more attuned to your feelings, knowing the things you’ve been through. Even if he did show up right now, I wouldn’t let him hurt you, wouldn’t let him lay a finger anywhere near you. You’re safe here with me. I promise.” 

“I know,” your lip trembles as you absorb his words, basking in their meaning. They are more heartfelt than Cam has ever given you, coming from a man you’ve known for such a brief time, even though in this moment it feels like you’ve known him forever. He’s someone you could predict, you can anticipate how he would react to things. Harming you was not a possibility.

“Why me though? You deserve to be with someone without all this baggage, wouldn’t it be easier to just have some fun with a woman that you don’t need to tread lightly around wounds that you never caused?” 

He takes your hands in his, watching how your fingers tangle with his before looking back up at you.

“And I don’t have baggage? I’ve been arrested three times now, move drugs for a living, and have a rap sheet longer than some people’s obituaries. Don’t paint me like I’m a saint, that opioid crisis they are always spouting off about? I make money off of it, people overdose and die because of what I do, what I provide them. The only difference is my baggage is self-inflicted while you never asked for yours.”

“We both can’t change what’s happened in the past, but we can change things for the future, we can help make each other better. Look, I-I know I’ve only known you for what, four days? Which seems like nothing, not even a corporate work week, but you’ve completely turned my life upside down. I know it probably sounds like I’m talking nonsense, but you’ve made me want to change everything, give all this up, and be a better man. 

And those four days, I want them to become 8, then 16, 32, 64 and continue doubling indefinitely into some number that I don’t even fucking know the name of, until I can’t even remember how it all began, just that it began and will end with you.” 

You swear you stop breathing, the air trapped in your lungs threatening to burst. Sukuna, the man you didn’t know you were looking for, found you on the same street where you started your life’s journey having grown up just 10 miles away from each other. Always so close, but never knowing it, you’d been like satellites in each other’s orbit, never finding each other until you needed each other the most. Two broken souls, using shattered pieces from the other to fill the gaps, forever binding yourselves together. 

“Sukuna,” you take a long pause, “I think I love you,” your voice quivers with fear as you utter such vulnerable words.

“And I know I love you.” he hits you with that boyish grin as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear before giving you a loving kiss, a kiss that has both of you grinning into each other's mouths, giddy with the excitement of what’s to come.

“I want to continue where we left off last night,” you whisper as you trail soft kisses down his tattooed jaw, earning a soft moan from his throat.

“I’ll follow your lead, go at your own pace,” he sighs as you move to his neck, licking and sucking at his skin, taking your time getting attuned to everything about him.

It’s different being with someone you trust. Normally you’d rush into the main event, hoping to get it over with so you could get away from Cam. Emotionless sex to try and buy his favor for another few hours at best.

But now, you are at peace to just reclaim moments like these, feeling safe enough to actually take the time to appreciate every facet of Sukuna’s body and showing him how much you appreciate him.

You guide him to his back, the flickering flames still providing much needed warmth as your hot kisses make their way to his collarbone. 

“Is this too slow?” you pause, worried you’re taking too long.

“Not at all, love it,” he responds with reassurance.

You continue your exploration of his body, tongue gliding through the ridges and valleys of his muscular physique until you reach the waistband of his boxers that look like they are about to burst from the bulge in their confines. You lightly stroke him through the fabric, earning a sharp groan from Sukuna as his erection twitches under you.

He feels fucking massive, but you’re determined to find out just how large as you coax him to lift his hips. Sliding them off, his hardened length comes into view and springs back against his abs. 

“Holy shit Sukuna,” you giggle in surprise. That’s going to…take some work.

“What?” he grins, palming himself as he sits up to look at you. 

“You know what,” you brush his hand away so you can take over.

“I knowwww, I’ll help you though if you decide you wanna go that route,” he exhales as you wrap your fingers around his thick shaft, slowly pumping his length.

“I do very much want to go that route,” you whisper in his ear as you pump his cock faster, thumb running over his defined head and dragging precum along his skin to help you glide more easily.

“Fuuuuuck,” he moans, throbbing in your hand as you grip him tighter, loving how vocal he is with each stroke of his cock.

“You’re gonna have to stop if that’s what you wanna do,” he teases, looking up at you through lust filled eyes, reaching out to grab your wrist reluctantly. 

You giggle as disappointment shows on his features when you stop gripping him. 

He strips you of your remaining layers, both of you now completely bare to the other. Picking you up, he moves you to the bed, laying your head down gently on the pillows as he sits back to admire you.

“So fucking perfect,” he sighs as he runs a hand from your neck down to cup your breast, thumb rolling your nipple until it hardens under his touch. He returns the favor to you, kissing and nipping all over every inch of your body, as if mapping it out and committing it to memory. 

“Sukunaaaa,” you say his name between breathless moans as his tongue rolls your nipple in his mouth, the other being worked by his skilled hands. Your hands are in his hair, nails digging into his scalp as he continues his ministrations. 

“Can I eat you out?” 

“Holy fuck yes,” you answer quickly. Considering how fucking good his tongue felt on your body, you could only dream of how it would feel against your soaked core.

You didn’t have to wait long because seconds later his head is between your legs, hair tickling your inner thighs. He’s licking long stripes from your entrance to your clit, already making your hips buck in anticipation.

“You’re sooooo wet already,” he murmurs against your cunt, lapping up everything he can before he dives in for more.

“So-sorry, just, haven’t had this in ages,” you stutter, feeling embarrassed all of a sudden.

“Fuck, don’t apologize. Also what a sorry excuse for a man to not go down on you,” he grumbles before he starts devouring you.

It’s so messy, so sloppy, the wet, lewd sounds almost echoing off the wall with the way he plunges his tongue into your cunt. His nose brushes against your clit, making you cry out from sheer bliss at the way he’s practically worshiping your pussy, making you feel so fucking good. You can’t look away, his blown out eyes locked onto yours, watching and observing your every reaction. You feel like you might actually rip his hair out with how hard you’re digging in, but he doesn’t seem to mind, doubling down on his efforts every time you rake your nails through his scalp. 

All his attention moves to your clit, alternating between swirling it with his warm tongue and flicking against it in a way you didn’t even know you needed. You grind yourself against him, seeking even more of that perfect friction. 

Maybe you’re extra sensitive because your loser boyfriend never attempts to make you finish, but you feel the orgasm fast approaching and you have no desire to slow it. 

“Sukuna, keep going, I’m close Sukunaaaa,” you whine, losing yourself in the moment. Each perfect drag of his tongue pushes you closer to the edge, a feeling you haven’t felt in god knows how long. 

One last flick from his skilled tongue is your undoing as the orgasm tears through you, crying his name over and over as your hips buck wildly against his face. Sukuna holds you in place when you try to push off, seeing to it that his mouth never leaves your clit as each hot wave of pleasure rolls over you, making you see stars, remembering nothing but the way his name leaves your lips.

He kisses your core one final time before he moves up to kiss your lips. You feel like dead weight, relishing in the post orgasmic bliss as you taste yourself on his tongue. 

“Damnnn you taste so fucking good,” he smirks, sitting back up, cheeks glistening with your arousal, even covering part of his chin tattoos.

“Ummm I can get used to all of that, that felt fucking amazing,” you sigh, staring up into his darkened eyes. 

“You’ll never go without again,” he grins.

“I’ve got condoms in my toiletry bag over there,” you point to the bag on the dresser.

“Don’t needa tell me twice,” he leaps up, tearing the bag open which has you giggling in amusement at his eagerness. 

“Damn girl,” he holds up the roll of four condoms, letting them dangle from his hand. His naked, muscular body looks fucking divine as the light from the fire flickers against his skin in the dim light.

“I know it seems like a lot, they’re just leftover from buying some while trav-“

“Nooooo, seems like not enough considering you are here for five more days,” he gives you that boyish grin, making your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. The idea of having sex with him four times makes your pussy clench with excitement.

“Might not even be enough for tonight.”

“Sukuna!”

“Relaaaax, I’m joking, sort of.” 

He tears one off and puts the corner in his mouth, quickly rejoining you. As he lays back down next to you, his hand slides up your inner thigh, knuckles brushing against your entrance.

“I said I’d help you,” he mutters through the foil as he slowly pushes a finger into your soaking cunt. It’s sooooo deep, deeper than you could ever reach. 

He works a second one in, gently thrusting in and out, feeling the stretch transition to pleasure with each drag of his digits against your walls. You groan as he curls his finger to prod at your spongy sweet spot, stopping to stroke it a few times.

“That’s it huh?” he gives you a toothy smile, eyes almost rolling when you clench around him.

“Fuck I need to feel that on my cock,” he gasps, quickly pulling out and tearing the packet open with his teeth. He slides it on with no hesitation, nudging his way between your legs.

You feel his tip at your entrance for just a moment as your eyes lock one more time. You give him a small nod and with that, he thrusts his hips forwards, easing his way inside. You both gasp, you at the sudden stretch and him at the feeling of your velvety walls clinging to his tip.

“Hold onto me,” he utters, waiting until you grip his shoulders before starting to work you open with short slow thrusts, letting you adjust as he sinks deeper and deeper. Now you understand his request because your nails digging into his skin is the only thing to counteract the intense, full feeling his thick cock gives you. 

“Fuckkkk baby you’re so goddamn tight,” Sukuna groans as he finally bottoms out, giving you a deep kiss as he pulls all the way out and slowly thrusts back in. You swear you can feel each vein on his shaft through the fucking condom dragging against your walls with how snug of a fit he is.

“I don’t know if I’m tight, you’re just so fucking big,” you chuckle against his lips.

“Ummm, you’re tight, trust me on that sweets, I think I’ve been in more pussies than you,” he jokes back at you while giving you slow, deep strokes.

“And I think you’re big, I’ve had more dicks ins-“ 

“Okay I believe you!” he shoves his hand over your mouth and you both erupt into a fit of giggles.

Sex with Sukuna just feels fun. Playful even, just like his general personality. There’s no pressure to perform a certain way, all the self consciousness you were feeling earlier just melts away, as you both take everything in stride and enjoy getting used to and learning about one another. 

After a few more slow thrusts, you beg him to go faster which he happily obliges, angling himself towards your sweet spot which has you moaning his name.

“Kunaaaaa yes! Just like that,” you cry out, nails digging into his shoulders as his cock head kisses you in just the right place over and over.

“Yeah? Right here?” he grunts, speeding up his movements even more, causing your eyes to roll. He hooks your leg behind his waist, plunging himself even deeper into your tight cunt as he drives you harder into the mattress. 

You forgot how good sex could feel, sure the physical was good in its own way, but the emotional security while doing it with someone you care for is unmatched.

You’re truly able to let yourself go and get lost in the other person, forgetting about everything except for each other. That’s how it was with Sukuna right now, trusting him to give you what you need and being open to you telling him what you want.

“Can I be on top?” you whisper in his ear.

“Fuck yeah, get on girl,” he nips at your neck before pulling out, propping himself up on the pillows.

You wanted to feel in control and selfish for your own pleasure for a change, and Sukuna was the kind of man to let you have that. Not like he cared either way, you looked fucking great riding his cock, his eyes glued to the way your tits were bouncing in his face while you angled yourself in just the way you needed.

“That’s it baby, fuckin’ use it, use me,” his hands rest on your hips, letting you be in control while his strong arms help to steady you, the perfect team player. 

“Can you take the condom off?” you whine, wanting to feel all of him.

“Huhhh? Really?” his eyes widen and you swear you feel him throb inside of you.

“Yeah, I’m on birth control,” you slow down and roll your hips a few times while waiting for his response. 

“Shit I’m probably gonna bust in two seconds, but fuck it, I’m willing to take that chance to feel all of you, raw and gripping me like that,” he says, lifting you up, pulling the condom off, and tossing it on the floor.

You realign yourself and take him to the hilt in one go.

“Holy shit! Fuck! Ah-shit,” he hisses, head falling back hard against the headboard with a thud, eyes rolling up to stare at the ceiling.

“Oh god are you ok?” you snort at his dramatic response. 

“Maybe, I don’t fuckin’ know, but god fuckin’ move baby,” his eyes are locked onto where you are both connected, mind only focused on one thing. He feels too damn good, his perfect cock gliding through your walls, tip just kissing your cervix as you start to feel the pool of desire within you heating up again.

You become needier, bouncing faster, angling yourself so that his fat tip hits your sweet spot, feeling yourself gushing from the impending climax. Sukuna looks like he’s barely holding on, focusing so hard on…something, probably something strange to keep his composure. His fingers are gripping you so hard, likely leaving marks on your skin.

“I’m gonna cum, help me,” you whine just as the orgasm consumes your movements and you clench around him with no control. Sukuna, being such an attentive partner, takes over thrusting into you from below, letting you ride out the high as your vision goes white from the hot waves of pleasure convulsing throughout your body.

“Fuck oh my god you’re so fucking perfect,” he growls, staring up at you with awe as you start to collapse against him, catching you with his strong arms.

“It’s a miracle I lasted through that,” he chuckles as he starts to roll you both back over, locking your legs around his waist as he slowly starts to rock into you again.

“Do you really love me?” you say softly, staring up into his eyes.

“You know I do,” he groans, his rhythm starting to get sloppy.

“Mmm, I love you too Sukuna,” you sigh, feeling him throb inside of you.

“Fuck! I’m gonna cum, where do you wannit?” he utters through gritted teeth.

“Inside.”

“Shit.”

“Fucking deep inside Kuna, want you to fill me up,” you moan, rocking your hips against his.

“Goddamn girl, gonna fuckin’ kill me,” he groans and with one last impossibly deep thrust, he unleashes his hot load, hips stuttering as he pumps thick ropes of cum into your pussy. 

He buries his face in the crook of your neck as his body finally begins to still, his hair tickling your skin as you cling to him, melding both of your bodies together. Your chests heave against each other as you catch your breaths, Sukuna’s large body pinning you beneath him. 

“Thaaaaat, was fucking awesome,” he finally exclaims, moving to lay at your side, pulling you snug against his chest.

“You have no idea,” you sigh with contentment, snuggling up to his warm body. 

You doze off and on while pressed up against him, his heartbeat thrumming against your cheek and his fingers tracing lazy circles on your upper arm. 

“Sorry I fell asleep on you,” you give him a sheepish smile as you sit up, turning to look at him.

“Tch, l just came inside you and you’re concerned that you fell asleep on me?” he teases, eyes lighting up. He looks genuinely happy and it makes your worries wash away.

“Shut up! Just…didn’t know how you’d be acting after all that.”

“I personally adore knowing I fucked you so good you passed out,” he grins, pulling you on top of his broad chest.

“I guess you did huh, body isn’t used to it I suppose,” you say as you rest your chin on his pecs.

“Hmm, that’s okay, thought it was cute having you fall asleep on me. You’re welcome to anytime,” he replies, his warm words making you want to bury yourself in his chest again.

“Oh I ordered a pizza while you were asleep, it should be here soon,” Sukuna says.

“Thank god!” you are starving and haven't even thought about dinner.

The doorbell rings and Sukuna gets up to grab you a fresh towel to clean up with.

“I’m sorry I should have done this earlier, I can come back to help you clean up,” he says as he searches the floor for his shorts.

“You’re fine, I’ll be up in a bit,” you wave him off, but appreciate the concern.

You clean up briefly and then pull on some sweats and a hoodie, trudging upstairs to join him. You realize you are pretty fucking sore right now, legs feeling a little shakey as you climb the stairs.

The storm must have stopped while you were both downstairs, the last traces of daylight rapidly fading into night as you peek out the window. Sukuna is in the kitchen getting plates and also a glass of water for you. He gives you a drive by peck on the lips before sitting down next to you.

“So what’s the plan,” Sukuna blurts out as he tends to do, he really has zero filter when it comes to saying what’s on his mind.

“What plan?” 

“The plan for you and me.”

“Well I don’t know the plan, but we can make one together,” you chuckle, “what’s at the top of your list?”

“I want you to be my girlfriend,” he says bluntly, taking a big bite of pizza while you almost choke on yours. 

“Damn okay tomato girl, don’t puke all over yourself in disgust at the thought,” he teases while you slap his arm, trying to regain your composure. 

“No! It just surprised me is all. Can you do a long distance relationship? I still have another year for my masters at least.”

“You’re worth waiting for. We can video call and shit too, and I’ll come visit you.”

“AND, while you are in school, I can go back to school too. Maybe we can be done close to the same time,” he adds. 

“Oh really?” 

“Yeah, been thinking about it since yesterday.”

“What do you think you’d want to go for?” 

“Probably something with car maintenance and repair. Actually seems to pay pretty well for the area and I already know a lot about working on them. I thought I could finish my business degree and do the apprenticeship at the same time. There’s so many online degree choices now, I should be able to make both work. God knows I have enough money.” 

“I think that is a great idea,” you respond, getting butterflies thinking about the future together. “My parents are going to be in for a shock.”

“Ha, yeah they are. They’re usually alright with me though, hopefully they’ll come around after hearing our plans. No way I’m worse than Cam. Which by the way, you technically have two boyfriends right now, playa,” he winks at you, making you snort in response. 

“I haven’t technically said yes to you yet,” you tease as you pinch his tattooed cheek, “and yes, I will be your girlfriend Sukuna. I’ll also send Cam a breakup text after eating then block him.” 

“Good, I don’t like being the other man.”

“Popsicle?” you ask, getting up to raid the freezer.

“Yes ma’am!”

One popsicle later, Sukuna has whisked you back downstairs and has his head between your legs again, eating the “real dessert” as he called it. He stops to let you send your breakup text, saying he wouldn’t let you cum until you were only his, but after that, the man is all over you until the early morning hours when you finally tap out, unable to keep your eyes open anymore.

Day 5

You awaken the next morning to Sukuna’s arms wrapped around your body and legs tangled in yours. It must be late considering the way the sun is beaming through the window. 

You groan with discomfort, your whole body feels sore and you are absolutely famished. 

“Sukuna,” you say sleepily, shaking him.

“Hmm? What?” he responds in a sleep raspy voice, sitting up and shoving his hair out of his eyes. 

“So hungry.”

“Lemme go get us some donuts.”

Your mouth waters at the thought, a local shop in the area makes apple cider donuts that you miss so much now that you live out of the area.

“What about your license?”

“It’ll be fine, I drive all the time and it’s not an issue. I just gotta be a good boy and not drive crazy,” he laughs. 

You feel yourself about to fall back asleep so you don’t argue. He crawls over to you, planting a soft kiss on your lips before getting up.

“I’ll be back in a bit, why don’t you sleep a little more, you look…quite rough,” he snickers.

“Wow I wonder what could have possibly caused this?” you roll your eyes at him. 

“Hmm I wonder?” he jokes, throwing on a shirt and sweats that he got from his house last night. 

“Love you tomato girl…friend,” he looks so proud of himself for coming up with that, making you groan.

“You are…something,” you burst out laughing, “love you too, see you soon.”

He comes over and gives you a big, crushing goodbye hug. 

“God I wish you could stay a little longer,” he nuzzles his face into your neck.

“It'll all be okay,” you thread your fingers through his hair one more time before he leaves you to bury yourself in the sheets again, quickly letting sleep consume you once again.

You are jarred from your slumber by your phone ringing. You sit up, disoriented, realizing it’s almost 3PM, much later than Sukuna was supposed to be back. Maybe he was upstairs letting you sleep.

You pick up your phone to answer. 

“Hello?”

“This is a collect call from an inmate at the Southeastern Regional Jail, press 7 to accept.” 

Masterlist

taglist: @clp-84 @zeunys @aquaberrydolphin @nynxtea @yuujispinkhair @ssc7514

[imbibitorz]

NO RULES ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

₊ ⊹ come and feel my vibe ᵎᵎ

dan heng x fem!reader x caelus, smut, a lil self-insert or self-indulgent; cucking, voyeurism(???), crumbs of aftercare, unprotected p in v; clit stimulation; implied multiple positions, manhandling & overstimulation; probably something more idk // wc:1.2k a/n: i decided to write something and so here we are. idk what else to tell ya tbh tagging some homies: @sugurouge @elyeverlasting @genxnarumi @gonjie (if anyone wants to be tagged in some future works then shoot me an ask)

the excited mischief gleaming in caelus’s eyes, paired with an almost feral stare coming from dan heng, never meant something fun… or maybe? well, depends on who you ask.

“it feels good, doesn’t it? pretty one, just- just one more, alright? for me? for him?”

“caelus!”

caelus is big, in all aspects – body, strength, cock; it’s no wonder he’s putting you in all his favourite positions, pulling out of you climax after climax, making you gush over and over until the sheets are completely drenched. all while he is watching.

“mmm, pretty little- fuck! little one, making a show over and- mmgh! over… go on, show him how pretty you look when i fuck you so deep…”

“caelus!”

each word caelus utters out, each filled with more and more lust and taunt, all has you trembling and quaking, moaning louder and mewling caelus’s name in that pretty and high-pitched voice.

“you’re playing with fire, caelus.”

his sudden low growl has your pussy clamp down on caelus’s drilling cock, has you feeling even hotter, even wetter, even more bothered. something about him watching you falling apart on your boyfriend’s cock, has your pussy flutter and legs quiver.

“heh, i know-” caelus pants out, grinning like the idiot he is. with his thrusts now getting deeper and slower, he stares first at the reflection of you in the mirror and then at him, smug and cocky expression still on. “i know you two like it, you- mngh! masochists!”

“caelus!” you whine louder into the sheets, thighs trembling as your knees barely keep your ass up on display. “cae-lus!”

“mmm, that’s right- it’s me who fucks you so good, not him, pretty one.” the gray-haired man nods and grabs your hips, holding you steady enough for you to stay ass up for him, burying your face down in the set of pillows.

your brain is slowly melting, the overwhelming pleasure mixing with excitement and lust creates a perfect acid for burning and melting your mind. aeons, caelus is fucking into you just right, hitting all the right spots, building up your pleasure and keeping your orgasm away with the speed of his thrusts; you’re screaming at him, whining, crying for him to make you finally cum… and then he does, showing you the whole galaxy with the force the peak hits you.

he can’t take it any longer. he needs to have his way with you two as well, or what’s more important, he needs more relief than stroking himself with his tied-up hands.

“caelus,” he warns again, voice coming out as a low rumble, a growl of disappointment and impatience. but caelus just smirks, seeing the way he is staring at you, at your fucked-out state, eyes rolled back and sweat clinging to your skin. “you’re crossing a line-”

“hell nah i’m not!” the smug, confident, and maybe even too bold tone of caelus, paired with his thrusts becoming erratic, clearly gives out he knows what he’s talking about. “this is my turn now! you know the rules!”

“hmph.”

“d-dan heng…!”

hearing your muffled mewls, seeing your pleading kitty eyes, dan heng can’t take it anymore; his patience and will were already running thin. with his swift movements, the ribbon around his wrists flies to the floor, and his big frame towers over you.

“hmm? princess needs a break? so soon?” caelus teases, trying to catch his breath while still pounding into your tight entrance. with a smirk, he reaches for your waist and with his strong arm, pulls your back to his chest. murmuring into your ear, he gets a hold of your breasts, holding one of then in his big palm. “i know you can do more, princess. come on, just this one more, alright? want you to- fuck- want you to cum some more…”

all dan heng can do is just watch, stroking his hard and leaking length to the sight of you getting wrecked by your other boyfriend. that was the deal – this time it’s caelus’s turn and since dan heng broke some other deal, caelus gets yet another turn. and caelus, being the little devilish and loving dipshit he is, decided to merge it all together. and so, this time caelus gets to cuck your other boyfriend for way longer than usual, with an additional deal of dan heng getting his hands tied.

well, the rules are meant to be broken.

dan heng, with his now-free hands, holds your chin in his hand and wipes some sweat off of your face, soon delving in for a kiss. as he swallows your moans and licks your lips, his other hand reaches between your legs.

“dan heng!” mewling out, you throw your head back on caelus’s shoulder, hips jerking and grinding against the dark-haired man’s hand and fingers against your all swollen, poor clit.

“fuck! you’re still so- tight, baby…” caelus pants out, his moves unwavering in their pace. now having a good angle, he sucks a pretty mark on your neck, right under your ear. “so pretty, so tight, so- fuuuck! so delicious…”

you can feel caelus being close, the way his long cock throbs inside you being a clear sign of the incoming flood. you’re no better, your pussy spasming and sucking in his dick as it tries to milk the cum out of him. pair it with the calculated rubs to your clit, the ones only dan heng can do, and bam!

“fuuuck! amazing…” caelus groans and whimpers, riding out his and your orgasm, easing you two back into reality. “aeons- baby, you took it like a champ-”

“caelus…” he loves your shy, all spent and tired whines, knowing how his compliments affect you.

“you really took it well, though…” dan heng can’t help but agree, his big palms rubbing your sides affectionately, attempting to calm you down. “we need to clean up, now. don’t want to get all sticky.”

caelus pulls out of you when you are ready to let go, his cum oozing out of your pretty and spent entrance. both of the men take in the view, loving how your pussy still flutters and tries to keep the escaping release. “aeons, you’re amazing…”

dan heng takes you and your limp body in his arms, holding you safe and firm against his chest as caelus prepares the bath. the feeling of dan heng’s spent cock covered in his own cum makes you shudder; you can feel how sticky it is, covered in what feels like gallons. you didn’t even notice when he came, but it always manages to amaze you; both of them can come so much just by watching you getting fucked by one or the other. fascinating.

“here…” your body being put in the big bathtub filled with warm water quickly melts your thoughts away, instead relaxing your sore muscles and easing your mind. this, paired with delicate and soft touches, attention and words of love coming from both men, put your heart, body and soul at ease, realizing you’re wanted, you’re needed, you’re loved, and both of them, both caelus and dan heng, are here by your sides to cherish you and help you through the bad times.

[masterlist] [ko-fi]

[ladsbible]

PLEASE make a top donator Sylus x camgirl reader

Specifically with stuff like bondage, toys, etc; maybe even mild stalking ngl

….also breeding and creampie please and ty….

tags: enemies to lovers kind of. cyber sex. "You've recieved $750 from user NOTACRIMINAL: can you fit the bigger one in?" You stare into the camera as you zone off, regretting putting that bigger dildo off to the side for show, never expecting anyone to expect you to live up to the idea of size training, or worse, being a size queen.

This stranger donated seven hundred and fifty fucking dollars though, which is a lot considering you only started doing this a few days ago...

You stare at the dildo, then stare at the screen. "Thank you to the user who is most definitely a criminal," You start awkwardly, pussy out on display, fingers fiddling around your your clit, drying up in an instant. "This one?" You continue, intentionally going for a smaller sized toy on display. "You've recieved $900 from user NOTACRIMINAL: No. To the left." Fuck. "T-this one?" You nearly complain as you grip the very large, 6 inch girthed, 10 inch depth alien dildo and show it to the camera. Sylus nods to himself on his side of the screen, so hard that he thinks he might be going crazy. It's the way you don't know it's him, it's the way he knows you can't fucking stand when he's around you. Arguably, it's your own fault for mistaking that tension for hate rather than, you know, electricity. Then again, seeing you respond and react to only his messages in your chat is enough to know you're attracted, or maybe feel some sort of reason to obey. He could pay for a private show, after all, but there's something about knowing you can't ignore the money, you can't ignore the demands, and ultimately, you can't ignore him forever. And he's right, watching you take that fucking thing and slowly plunge it into yourself with a pained look in your eye. So pretty, so whiny sounding, so willing if he pays enough. Complacent to him. He can't imagine what you'd do if he offered more. Because he has more. So much more for you.

[blueraith]

"Vi and Cait should have broken up until Zaun was freed!"

Jesus fuck, once again, for the 1,485th time, Vi's concerns throughout the show have little to nothing to do with Zaun's political issues. Ekko. You are talking about Ekko. Who also evidently saw no need to wait until after the conflict to ally with Jinx. You know. The woman who's been killing off all his friends and attempted to blow him up at least once. And yet y'all never seem to bitch about how little in-universe Timebomb makes sense according to your own standards.

The standards Vi and Caitvi in general are held to compared to other characters are frankly ridiculous.

"Caitlyn hit Vi!"

Jayce fucking shot a hole in Viktor's chest.

Yet I don't go around to the other ship tags talking about stupid shit that ultimately does not fucking matter to the overall plot or enjoyment of the story presented.

No. It would not have made for a better show if Cait and Vi didn't make up until after some nebulous and far-fetched ideal about Zaun was reached.

(Y'all should be more pissed at Jinx for setting Zaun's full independence back by years at this rate for blowing up the council. Whoops, guess blind acts of violence while actively--and successfully mind you--negotiating your own sovereignty doesn't work, actually.)

Anyway, that shit would have been lame as fuck, perpetuates the idea that Vi can never just have what she fucking wants without constantly sacrificing herself for the sake of others, and turns the show's message into some Saturday morning cartoon, moralistic, and boring bullshit.

[madamspellmans-met-tet]

🔮 Time After Time 🔮

Lilia Calderu x fem!reader

summary: One night on the Witch's Road, the group shares stories about their "battle scars". You're not keen on your turn.

wc: ~ 2.7 k

tags: hurt/comfort, angst, fluff, mentions self harm & suicide, sfw

A/N: okay so this was actually one of the first fics I wanted to write ever for Lilia x Reader but just never got around to it until a sleepless night yesterday. Even had two requests about Lilia getting a vision of reader attempting and another for sh so this is kinda both. It doesn't go into great detail, but it is explicitly mentioned once or twice, so beware.

TRIGGER WARNING: If you're not in the headspace to consume this kind of content or feel unsafe, please leave this fic and reach out to someone. Reader discretion advised.

*******************************************************

At first glance, night on the Witch's Road seemed no different from an earthly one, but now that you sat with the group around a small, crackling fire, the eerie silence crept into everyone's bones. There was no wind, no insects crawling in the dirt, nothing live dwelling in this place. It was a rotting piece of void that digested every breathing thing within it bite by bite. Nobody said it, but you all felt it; the Road would chew you up if no one stayed up to hold wake.

The group had diverted their fear in idle banter, laughing the night away and sharing stories about the scars marking their bodies. Lilia, seated next to you on the rock you were sharing, pulled her clothes aside to reveal the marks of a vampire bite. "Right before I knocked out his other tooth," she added in that cheeky manner of hers and made you smile.

You could imagine her kicking vampire asses. She may be old, but she was a force to be reckoned with; that much you'd learnt during the short time you'd spent together on the Road. She was the one you stuck with, whose eyes you sought out when danger arose, well, and who you shared a rock with.

There, again!

Lilia did this thing. Checked out mid-sentence or babbled gibberish all of a sudden. Dementia, you'd heard Jen whisper, but she didn't strike you as senile at all. It was more like something ripped the soul out of her body, a displacement. And then she came back, disoriented and rattled.

"Lilia, where do you go?" Jen asked, and Lilia tensed. You gave her hand a subtle squeeze.

Luckily, Agatha's return drew the attention away from Lilia's slip-up and allowed her a moment to collect herself. You didn't notice at first how you hadn't let go of her hand yet and did so with an awkward, apologetic smile. Upon Jen's prompt, Agatha recounted the time a knitting needle had pierced her elbow.

"I've got a scar," Rio took over then, but Agatha was even quicker to say, "No, you don't."

You'd gathered during the last trial that the two somehow knew each other, but the interaction was still odd. Rio told her story anyway, which seemed to upset Agatha, and she left. When Rio followed her, Lilia gripped her wrist and gave her a warning. "Don't think for a second I've forgotten what you said in the sound booth."

Rio hissed at Lilia. You didn't like that she did. It wasn't the first time this happened, and sometimes you wanted to hiss back, but something told you not to mess with her. Before silence could overtake the round, Jen presented a scar around her ankle from a shackle to you and went on to lecture about what potions she used to minimise it and with what tincture she hoped to make it disappear entirely.

"It might work as a wrinkle cream too," she said to Lilia. "I'll let you know when I've perfected the recipe."

"How thoughtful," Lilia muttered under her breath and tossed a twig into the fire. You could've sworn you heard her add the word 'bitch'.

"What about you?" Alice asked, and it took a second before you realised she was talking to you.

"Yeah, show us your trophies," Jen agreed, gesturing in your direction.

You pulled your sleeves almost to your fingertips and turned away, shuddering under all their eyes on you. Jen crossed her arms and made a noise of disapproval. "Hey, this is a group activity. We have to rely on each other to survive out here. Do your part."

Lilia snapped around. "Watch your tongue."

"She's not wrong, though," Alice said, offering a warm smile instead. She'd only just shared one of her most vulnerable experiences with you; it would be unfair to withhold, but it was too risky. You shook your head and curled your fingers around your sleeves.

"Honey, you don't have to. Don't listen to them."

-> continue

*******************************************************

please leave a comment here or on Ao3, thank you <3

[whosyourmommy69]

Short Story of Falling in love with Rafe Cameron

The first time I saw him, I thought he was trouble. That was the thing everyone said that about him. He had this reckless, almost dangerous aura that surrounded him. Blonde hair , piercing eyes that never seemed to miss a thing, and a smile that could be either a warning or a promise. I should’ve known better.

But I didn’t.

It started at a party one of those endless nights where people float from room to room, doing god knows what barely remembering the faces they meet. I hadn’t expected to be noticed. Then he appeared, leaning against the table bent down, one arm casually slung over it. he leans up and his eyes caught mine for a moment. It was brief, but it felt like an eternity. He didn’t look away.

“Who’s this?” he asked sitting up wiping his nose , his voice almost playful, but there was something under it, something darker.

I smiled awkwardly, trying to stay composed. "Im trying to find my friend in this mess.

He laughed “You need some help?" Cmon just say no, just say no. "uh yea sure, She has blonde hair"

He smirked at me, "Gonna have to be more specific than that baby, You see how many girls here have blonde hair. What's she wearing"

"uh yea right um she has a blue dress on." I replied.

What started off as an innocent searched ended in us on his boat, drinking something from a bottle that looked like it costed more than my rent. One thing lead to another and before I know it I wake up in a bed. I was cold, naked, alone, and PISSED.

Since that night he started showing up everywhere. I’d catch him in the hallways at school or a tagged post on my instagram. At first it was annoying. This guy I have never met all of a sudden is every where in my life. So I did what any girl would do and I stalked him. I stalk his friends, his friends of friends, his siblings, even his parents. I followed behind him to his classes. You know I even went as far as talking the road that passes his house thinking maybe just maybe I would catch a glimpse of him.

This went on for weeks until one day he was there. I couldn't believe it. The guy who flipped my whole world upside down in just one night, sitting in his truck. I felt like the world stopped moving for a second when he looked up at me getting out the truck.

"hey stalker" he yelled from across the driveway, walking towards me.

"Not a stalker just passing through" I say calmly putting my head down.

"Mhm Im sure stalker. Where you coming from and where's your car?" he says almost like its a crime that Im walking.

"I uh don't have one, and Im coming back from work."

"let me give you a ride" he says smirking

I hesitated for a second before nodding, walking up to the truck and sliding into the passenger seat. The air between us was thick with unspoken tension, I tried to hide it the way my hands would hold onto my pants. With every second spent in his presence I tried to act normal, like this was just another casual ride. But inside, I was a nervous wreck. I mean I had given up hope of even talking to him again, let alone in his car with him alone. And yet here I was, in his car, close enough to smell the faint scent of his cologne. I looked at his hands thinking about the last time they were on me.

Rafe's attention was still on the road. He looked over with a look of something that felt like a challenge. My heart raced, the realization of what was happening settling in.

The drive felt like it took forever, but when he finally reached my street, Rafe didn’t immediately slow down. Instead, he pulled up just past my house and parked at the curb. I turned to look at him, my breath caught in my chest.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said, my voice a little more breathless than I intended.

Rafe didn’t say anything at first. His gaze lingered on me dark and intent. It made my skin prickle. The air between us thickened, like something was about to shift.

“You know,” Rafe said, his voice low, almost teasing. “I've been thinking about that night, and I know you have been to."

I blinked, unsure if I heard him right. “What?”

“Don’t act dumb, I've never seen you on my street before that night” he smirked, leaning closer, his face inches from mine now. “ and I also see the way you watch me. The way you follow me around when you think I’m not looking.” His words sent a shivers down my spine. He knew. He had known all along.

My cheeks flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and excitement. I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, Rafe was already kissing me soft at first like he was testing to see how I would act. I melted into it, my body reacting instinctively.

The kiss deepened, and I felt a warmth spread through my chest. The low hum of the engine, the rhythm of his breath against mine, it just felt so right. I had dreamed of this moment ever since that night on the boat, but now that it was happening, everything was different.

When we finally pulled away, my head was spinning. Rafe just laughed softly, his lips curling into a satisfied grin.

“You’ve been watching me for a while, haven’t you?” he whispered, his voice rough.

I nodded “I didn’t think you’d notice.”

“I know everything” Rafe murmured, his hand brushing against mine before he slowly withdrew. “I can't always make the first move stalker”

And with that, he started the engine again, pulling away from the curb. I watched him disappear down the street, my body still warm from the moment we shared. As I turned to head inside, I couldn’t help but smile.

Little did I know this was either the beginning of the greatest love Ive ever known, or the most painful heartbreak Ive ever experienced.

Author: There is going to be multiple parts!! so stay tuned hope u enjoy!!

[dreaming-marchling]

Snippet Saturday - Bobby Paternity Fic

Tagged by @eowon - thank you!

The first part of this that I shared is here

---

Maddie looked like she had been through war.

It wasn’t his fault, Bobby knew that, but he still felt responsible for this entire thing exploding when Maddie had an injured brother and a baby that was due to arrive in just a couple of months.

“Am I okay?” Maddie repeated with a shaky laugh, “I don’t know. It’s amazing how fast I can fall right back into it.”

“Into what?” Hen asked as gently as she could.

They didn’t want to interrogate Maddie, especially after she had just had a clearly difficult talk with her parents. Bobby wasn’t really sure if there was any way around it though. This was happening whether any of them were ready for it or not.

“Sit, sit…” Chim said, ushering Maddie over to the nearest seat.

Maddie sat. She shut her eyes and exhaled slow and steady.

Then she opened her eyes and looked straight at Bobby.

“Mom wouldn’t talk about it. She just keeps insisting that Dad is Evan’s father.” Maddie told him, sorry for reasons Bobby wasn’t sure of yet, “She was practically hysterical about it, even for her.”

Even for her.

Maddie didn’t stop to explain that, she just kept talking, “But Dad says that she only tried once.”

Only once. Only Bobby.

“If she’s telling her husband the truth.” Eddie said. He looked apologetically at Bobby, “Spare him, too ashamed, whatever. She might have been lying.”

She might have been.

How did Evan find him?

“I hate myself,” Hen said to the general group before she locked in on Bobby, “Condom?”

That he didn’t remember made him feel that little bit worse about all of this. Irresponsible. Maggie – Margaret – was probably the only woman in his life who he had slept with and then never seen again otherwise he would be panicking right now about other children out there.

“It was my college friend’s wedding weekend.” Bobby said, as if that made him being drunk better. As if they didn’t know. “I was drunk. I remember going up to her room with her and not much after.”

Athena’s hand went impossibly tighter around his.

Maddie let out a teary breath, “That makes it worse. Mom doesn’t drink like ever.”

Though he would never ask, Bobby had to wonder what had made her pick him. Was it that he had been drunk? He didn’t look much like her husband, so it couldn’t have been that beyond picking a white man. Had she just gone with any man that showed interest? He had looked healthy enough that she was reasonably sure he didn’t have any horrible family history of disease?

It was probably that he had been drunk.

---

(@ambernotember, @asmuchasidliketo, @rainbow-nerdss, @cathcer1984, @actualalligator, @inell, @daffi-990, @thunderstormoffawesomeness, @harmonic-intervention, @big-urchin-energy, @fyrehose, @princessfbi, @devirnis because you asked to be tagged and/or reblogged the first part - just let me know if you don't want to be tagged again and I wont!)

[bwat5-blog]

A Look At The "Nothing Character" Who Broke Our Hearts: Isha

**Spoilers For Arcane**

I must say, there was a time not so long ago that if someone were to tell me there was a whole tag devoted to the hatred of a cute, tenacious, brave little girl character who died tragically trying to emulate her hero, I would have found the idea completely insane. However, since becoming a part of our little community....

Before we get into this a bit let me say, I am not formally educated in writing/literature/creative story telling or any of that. So what I discuss and list will as usual be the research I could find on my own with sources provided. I know for a fact through some of my interactions on here there are some very educated people in this area, so if any of you see this and care enough, please chime in! I'd love to learn more.

What Is The Complaint?:

"Isha isn't a real character!"

"Isha did nothing except get blown up!"

"Why was this kid even in the show?"

"Isha's only purpose was to give Jinx a reason to be happy then take it away!"

You get the idea. Overall people seem to hate the character because they feel she really wasn't one. They see her as being more of a singular plot device with no real information or depth given and not having any real purpose. While it is true we don't learn a ton about her, I completely disagree as to the worth and impact of her character on the story. In doing some digging, I came across the following term:

Catalyst Character-

Per Reference.com: "A catalyst character, also known as a catalytic character, is the character in a story who causes the protagonist, or main character, to move toward some kind of action or transformation. This character is usually the person that spends the most quality and influential time with the protagonist."

Okay, rather or not you agree or think it matters I'd hope at the least that that explanation is fairly clear. So moving forward, why do I think this applied to Isha? Because she is in all aspects a MASSIVE agent of change in the narrative. I understand not liking her. That is totally individual. But to imply she didn't matter is complete and utter nonsense.

The Ventilation Chamber Battle:

The brawl between Vi and Jinx has come to a head. Vi sits atop Jinx with one gauntlet around Jinx's throat and the other poised to kill her. Jinx is telling her to do it... she's glad that Vi is the one who is going to end her. When out of nowhere Isha leaps between them pointing a gun at Vi. '

Concrete Impact:

Stops the fight cold

Jinx immediately screams no betraying her actual fear for Vi's safety

Snaps Vi out of the fight where it appears she was quite possibly pulling back her hand to finish the fight

Isha's presence is what makes Vi get in front of Caitlyn's rifle leading to their separation and what occurs for them afterward.

Jinx clearly is "seeing" Vi again for the first time when Vi leaps to stop Caitlyn

2. Life With Jinx:

We return to Jinx after the time skip. It turns she has been living quietly in hiding with Isha since the battle. She is staying out of the bloodshed, focusing on her relationship caring for the young girl. She seems more at peace than we have seen her the entire series, even declaring "Jinx is dead" when Sevika comes to demand she get involved.

Concrete Impact:

It's strange to say for something I list under concrete but just the obvious and clear effect she has on Jinx herself. We see it expressed in many ways, such as Jinx saying Isha reminds her of Powder, Jinx saying she doesn't want to screw up what she has with Isha when in Silco's office, and so on. I feel like we could do an entire analysis post on Isha's effect on Jinx mental/emotional state but that is for another time.

The fact that Isha is masquerading as Jinx during the occupation is HUGE. We have to remember, Jinx is not actually getting involved at all before the events of the rally. The people of Zaun have made her their symbol because of what she did, and because Piltover has made Jinx their symbol of why they are doing what they are doing.

It is only because Isha went to the rally and got arrested that Jinx rejoins the fight.

3. Jinx Comes To Stillwater:

Isha has been arrested along with a large group of Zaunites during the rally. Sevika limps back to the hideout and tells Jinx who is immediately extremely upset. We see her seriously glitching in full for the first time since the time skip. She and Sevika mount a rescue mission, and because of Isha. Jinx rejoins the game since the occupation began.

Concrete Impact:

Without Isha being taken Jinx doesn't get involved which quite literally changes the trajectory of the entire story. Meeting Vander again and everything that stems from that would be impacted which quite literally could effect every character in the story. It is too much to list or "what if".

4. Reuniting The Family:

In the wake of meeting Vander and rescuing Isha, Jinx goes and finds Vi in the fighting pits, telling her what she has found and together with Isha they set off on a journey to find him. Leading to the all-too-short reunification of their family, with their newest member of course.

Concrete Impact:

Of course to state the obvious, they wouldn't be here if it were not for any of the things we have already been over.

When Jinx and Vi start to fighting, once again it is Isha's involvement that stops it cold.

Seeing Jinx's care for Isha is what helps Vi start to see her sister in a new light.

It is Isha's bleeding from getting whacked that draws Vander to them. Vi immediately leaps to save her life and Jinx can see the Vi she knows is still there as well. Also being thrown into Vander's path like that leads to his regaining control and the scene we see above.

5. The Commune:

After their family is reunited Vi, Jinx and Isha take Vander to the commune to meet with Viktor. Hoping his healing gifts can save their father. Of course, it all ends in soul rending tragedy with Vander losing control and Isha sacrificing herself to save her new family during a Noxian attack.

Concrete Impact:

Isha brings Jinx's gun. Without the gun the plan to save Vander could have gone a hundred different ways.

Isha pocketed those stones. If she hadn't done so once again it is impossible to list all the ways that incident could have changed in the end.

The impact on the story from Isha's sacrifice is so far beyond "making Jinx sad" it is mind-boggling. It stops the attack in its tracks. Without Vi getting injured saving Jinx from the explosion, Caitlyn and Jinx may have never found even that microscopic bit of common ground between them we see. There is so much more and that is to say nothing of the impact on Jinx mentally/emotionally

Conclusion:

So again this is not a true deep dive or anything. And I do understand the complaint that we really don't ever learn a ton about her. But I absolutely do not understand or agree with the complaint that she is meaningless/unimportant/inconsequential to the story. Her actions and presence drive a massive amount of change in the course of season two, and without her it very likely could have all ended quite differently. To close, below is an English translation of Isha's farewell posted to reddit for you to enjoy. (I have no way of knowing if it is accurate so if not forgive me).

Child, don’t fear the thorns; walk barefoot, And you’ll find something precious. Look at this darkened sky; see how beautiful the fireworks are. There’s no need for so much sorrow. People flourish and wither, But even stubborn rocks and debris will bloom.

Part the mountains, Let her see me. Tell the stars, Hurry and shine on me. Blow away the dark clouds, With a stroke of blue. Even if the world is full of desolation, We can look up and see the moon.

While we still have the hearts of children, Even as lone blossoms among millions, we must bloom. Don’t be troubled or sad. Don’t forget: Even if tears fall, we must keep running, Run to where even time can’t find us. Be the birds that soar at the edge of the sky.

Part the mountains, Let her see me. Tell the stars, Hurry and shine on me. Blow away the dark clouds, With a stroke of blue. Even if the world is full of desolation, We can look up and see the moon.

While we still have the hearts of children, Even as lone blossoms among millions, we must bloom. Don’t be troubled or sad. Don’t forget: Even if tears fall, we must keep running, Run to where even time can’t find us. Be the birds that soar at the edge of the sky.

Don’t keep searching; Just give me a hug. Let’s quietly forget, For this is good enough for me.

[sweetgummyclusters]

OLD FRIENDS

satoru gojo x mtf reader

18+ ONLY! MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

A/N There Will Be A Part ii To This. Most Likely Next Week.

tags/cw: besties to friends to lovers trope, drunk sex, blowjob, almost caught (?), nipple play, (SLIGHTEST bit of angst)

word count: 6.7k

December was always cold; It always held too many memories. You hated to be alone during the month, and you weren't the only one. Suguru Geto was a man adored by several, but that group was never one to let themselves grieve so openly. So instead of having those who'd understand you best over at your apartment tonight, a week before the anniversary, you've invited a few people who are fun to drink with. Fun to talk to. Fun distractions.

“That's actually insane. You're insane.” The sound of her laughter brings feeling to the desolation in your chest. You turn to your friend who is giggling through her sentences. The littlest pieces of her brown hair dance from the breeze of the fan she’s hogged. You have to let your head fall back on the couch, as she sits on a cushion and you sit on the floor.

“Are you hearing this?” She asks you, her head tilted down.

“No, sorry. I missed it, I think.” You apologize, smiling sweetly at her. She scoffs and shakes her head. It's an exaggerated show of her taking offense to that, but you know she's too drunk to remember what she even finds offensive.

“This man just said he's stolen a cop car. This man.” She repeats. “A cop car!”

You furrow your eyebrows and tilt your head at the liar with a cocky grin on his face. He sits at the other side of the carpet, his hoodie on the floor next to him. “As cool as that sounds, that cannot be true.”

You watch as he sluggishly shakes his head at you, keeping the same proud expression. “Tis true.” He declares.

Your friend of higher ground and your friend of fictional hijinks choose to spend the next five minutes arguing about this. You've chosen to spend it on your phone.

There's a bit of guilt on your mind, inviting half a dozen people over to your apartment only to leave them to their own devices. But you also know that if there was any group to do that to, it would be this one. This bunch is perfect for when you want to be the quiet girl in the back who follows along on everyone else's ridiculous adventures. When the whole idea of a social life is too much to bear, but you still want the comfort of some company.

You had a few people who used to be that for you, not in this way, but in a more comfortable sense. Here, you seemed less like a part of the group and more like an accessory. With them, they made you feel like everything you said or did clicked perfectly. You used to think it was too good to be true, too good to last, if only you knew how right you were.

“Hey, do you have any more chasers somewhere? There’s nothing in the fridge.” You look over to your friend in the kitchen. Jeremy’s hair doesn’t dance at all, but instead, sits blonde, beautiful, and still at the top of his head. He wears a black turtleneck with a beige jacket tied around his waist. He didn’t show up like that, but after a few times of drinking with him, you’ve realized he gets very hot, very quickly when drunk. He saunters over from the kitchen to where you are.

“I’m probably out, then.” Your head falls back against the cushion again, as you have to look up at him when he stands above you. His eyes stay on you as his long, slender arms reach for the table right by the armrest. You hear his keys jingle in his hands as you tilt your head and furrow your eyebrows. “Where you going?”

He stares at you for a moment and doesn’t answer. He can’t help it. The way you look up at him, and the way your whole pretty face is so entirely visible, it makes him smile. Everyone else shares a knowing glance between themselves. Jeremy likes you. He has for a while. And everyone but you knew it. Well, you’ve had your moments. Moments where you felt like he was doing a bit much as a friend, putting in a lot of effort, saying too many right things, but you didn’t want to think too much into it.

“Well, someone’s out of chasers. So I’m gonna go grab some.” He has a playful tone in the way he talks to you. It makes your friends almost wanna gag.

“What? You’re not gonna drive. You drank.” In times like these, the slightest attraction you had for him wavered. He sighs.

“Yeah, okay.” He shoves his keys into his jean pocket and shifts his smile from teasing to somewhat sincere. “You worry too much about me, though.”

He continues as he walks away. “You don’t have to be pretty and sweet.” With that, he walks out the front door and shuts it behind him. Your friends all give their own unique disgusted expressions as a sort of silence befalls you all. You hate it. What were they here for if they weren’t gonna talk so much that they annoy your neighbors? You start praying to anything out there that someone speaks up, someone starts talking again, saying something. Anything.

“He’s likes you so much, it’s gross.”

You raise your head with wide eyes, turning your head and staring at the loud-mouthed woman. Not what you expected, but she certainly gave you what you asked for. Everyone else is instantly turning up the volume again, bickering and arguing over what the brunette said and why it should or should not have been said aloud. You sigh, deciding to bother with this later. You didn’t have the energy to open up that box. Instead, you get up and make your way to the bathroom. You excuse yourself, but nobody noticed anyway. They weren’t always good at that.

The way you look in the mirror captures your attention. It’s like there’s something there, something in front of your face that looks just like an exact replica. This happens sometimes, when you’ve blown past your social battery. You press your fingers against it before placing your palms on the cheeks. You shift your hands to cover the bottom-half of the face, blocking everything from view but the forehead, eyebrows, and eyes. Suguru always liked that part of your face. You assumed it’s because you wore a mask a lot in public so he saw it a lot more than your other features, but he was always good at making you feel proud of it. He made you feel feminine and beautiful, without making things feel weird or awkward at any point. You always appreciated it as one of his many talents. It’s stuff like that that you miss in times like these.

You’re pulled from your thoughts when your phone vibrates. You don’t even remember bringing it with you, and you start to question how many you had to drink out there. You take it out of your back pocket and look at the screen. Your eyes widen slightly at the name before you start to squint at the message underneath.

hey where r u rn?

You blink. It wasn’t unusual for Satoru Gojo to text you. It would be more so strange if he went a week where he didn’t, interrupting your routine to send you a meme that only he finds funny. Especially at an ungodly hour like this. After Suguru, he sort of seemed like he forgot what sleep was. But there's an off feeling in your gut when you read the text.

Tapping on your screen, you open up your chat log with the man. Ultimately, you figure that the odd feeling inside you is just the alcohol in your system. Just as you’re about to write something back, your phone vibrates again for one long second before his name and contact photo shines brightly over your display. Now, this was unusual.

Your heart beats just a little faster, and you hesitate to answer. You bite your lip and look towards the door, the faint voices in your living room make you think twice about taking a call in the bathroom.

Without wasting another second, you quickly open the door and make your way towards your bedroom. When you step inside, you turn the lock and press the green button on your phone, holding it up to your ear. You hear the chatter of loud conversation and abrasive laughter in the background. “Gojo?” You ask, your voice almost as quiet as a whisper.

This contrasts with the way he answers. “Hello?” He shouts over the noise.

“Hey dude, what’s up?”

He doesn’t answer. You hear him sigh, almost groan, as he tries to think of one. “J'st a second.” He tells you. You listen, but your confusion has almost hit its peak. After a minute or two, the sounds of people around him are replaced with the quiet hum of car engines and the occasional wind blowing.

“Gojo?” You call for him again. This time, he responds.

“Hey, yeah. Hi.” The sound of his voice is a little.. weird, you think that maybe it’s just his mic. Or maybe it’s your speaker, knowing him he probably has the best mobile device on the market, being the richest guy you personally know and all.

“Hi, are you okay?” You move over to sit at your desk, the comfort of the back pillow bringing you the smallest bit of relief.

“Yeah.” He laughs. “Yeah, nah, yeah. I’m good. So good. Always, uh.. always good.”

After finally hearing a somewhat full sentence from the blue-eyed man, you figure out the reason for the call as quickly as it arose in your mind. “Are you drunk, Gojo?”

As your question hangs in the air, you feel as if even the world around you struggles to answer back. Suddenly, it feels quiet again. You fucking hate it.

“Gojo?” You ask as if he’s disappeared, but it actually sounds more like a stern repeat of his name. Your irritation is audibly noticeable, and it almost makes him smile.

“Yeah, uhm. I mean, no. I mean, yeah. Fuck, uhm..” He sighs. “I’m not usually a drinker, so my tolerance is pretty low. I didn’t drink a lot tonight, but I prob’ly am.”

You tilt your head in confusion, as if he can see. “Drunk, I mean.” He finishes. This side of your old friend is a peculiar one. He’s usually so cool with his words, everything that flows out of him seems to be so natural. But this? This is almost awkward, somewhat gauche, he sounds.. a little adorable.

“Yeah, I’ve realized that by now.” You laugh slightly. You wonder if you should tell him how drunk you are too, but then it strikes you that he mentioned the fact that he’s not usually a drinker, and that uneasy feeling is back in your stomach.

“What gave it away?” He asks. “I thought I was being slick.”

You shake your head and sigh. “Yeah, no. That was probably the ‘unslickest’ cover-up I’ve ever heard in my life.” You joke. You think to yourself for a moment as you listen to the soft sounds of traffic on the other line before you go on.

“I’ve been drinking too.” You confess. “With some friends.”

Gojo feels a tug at his chest as you clarify. He immediately assumes that that must be why Shoko turned down his invite to the bar that evening. She was with you. His next assumption is that you must’ve actually hated him or something, because you invited her to drink at your apartment but not him. It didn’t make logical sense, and he knew that. Throughout the years, even after the split of the group, you were both always kind to each other. Always warm. Always, at the very least, friends. But Gojo couldn’t find it in himself to be logical, not when he felt so strange. Like there was a spinning rotor in his brain.

“Wow. Could’ve softened that blow.” He comments. He thanks whoever out there in the universe that he still has his sarcasm intact, even when drunk.

“What do you mean?” You ask him.

“Whad’you mean? Is she not the ‘friend’ with you?” He makes a voice at the word friend and scoffs, lifting the bottle he’s been carrying in his other hand this whole time and taking a swig. He cringes at the taste and then again at the burn down his throat. He can’t believe that you’d invite Shoko for a drink and not him. He, in his own head, is much more fun than Shoko is. He knows that you’ve never really seen him drunk before, and he’s hardly really experienced it himself, but geez! It would’ve been nice to experience it together. With you. Shoko at home. The both of you in your apartment. Alone, tipsy, and curious.

“No, she’s not here. I invited some other friends, you wouldn’t know them.”

Oh.

He feels stupid. Stupid and drunk. He thinks to himself that he should just hang up now. He should just apologize for interrupting and tell you to have a good night. That would be smart and sane of him, but then he thinks again, and he throws away any remnant of sense he had in his brain with another swig of the bottle.

“Are you still drinking?” You ask, hearing him gulp. He lets out a soft ‘blegh’ and you deadpan.

“Can you tell them to go home?” He slurs, his tone is low and almost comical. Your eyebrows furrow and you shake your head, thinking to yourself that you must’ve heard him wrong.

“Huh?”

He giggles. “Ah, you sound cute. I said.. Can. You. Tell. Them. To. Go. Home.” You don’t respond. You bring your hand up to your forehead and rest your elbow on your desk. A million questions flood your mind at once, but you can only get one out.

“Are you okay, Gojo?” You pause before asking another. “What’s wrong?”

You realize that you don’t really need him to answer the first one. You know something’s up. And you already sort of know the answer to the second one, but you hope that he’ll respond anyway. You give him about twenty seconds before feeling the irritation rise through you at the sudden silence again.

“Do you want to come over?” It’s a simple question, but the realization that you’ve just said it to Satoru Gojo makes you want to throw your pillow to the wall. Plus the fact that both of you are drunk, and he just called you cute, doesn’t help.

“Yes, I do. But get them to leave, will you?” He doesn’t say please, but he himself feels that he sounds sorta like he’s begging. You roll your eyes.

“I heard you. I will.” You respond. “Do you need the pin?”

He shakes his head slowly, as if you can see. “No. I remember where you live.”

Ah.

You say your goodbyes, although it’s more like see you soons, and hang up. You unlock your bedroom door and head out to the living area, four of the drunks are conversing amongst themselves while one of them is passed out on your couch. The conscious ones turn to look at you and cheer at your arrival. You give them a sorrowful look as you lie, explaining that something’s come up with your siblings and they have to leave. They buy it at first, waking up their sleeping friend and grabbing as much stuff as they can remember. It’s not until much later when they start to question if you’d ever mentioned having siblings before at all. But then at that point, they’re already in their uber on their way to the most sober one’s home.

—-

You sit on your couch, trying to finish the rest of the bottle your friends had left behind. Being lost in your own thoughts, the beverage doesn’t help that. You hadn’t seen Satoru Gojo in a few months, and even then, it was only because the two of you crossed paths at a bar. You think about the tension the both of you had the last time you were drunk. The brave little acts of flirtation, the carefully clumsy words of suggestion. All of that was reciprocated and he wasn’t even drinking. There’s a sudden knock on your door that makes your heart skip a beat. You look over, unsure of whether or not you’re relieved that the virgin of alcohol has arrived. On one hand, you were starting to think that if you sat in another second of this silence, you'd throw your table out the window. On the other hand, you didn’t know if a drunk Satoru Gojo was better or worse for your peace of mind.

Another knock sounds before you get up from your seat. Making your way towards the entrance, you take a couple deep breaths, trying your best to calm your nerves. Your fingers carelessly swipe at the locks and you open the door. The white-haired man stumbles forward a little bit and you slightly brace for his fall. “You, did you even.. check the peephole?” His words drag as his feet do the same, inviting himself inside.

“I knew it was you. You said you were coming, duh.” You explain, shaking your head and giving him a slow up and down glance. His black long sleeve shirt barely holds above his shoulders. His snow white pants make him look a little ridiculous, only in the sense where he kinda looks like he’s trying too hard to not look like he’s trying hard. The glasses don’t help either, but you know how sensitive his eyes are, so you never bother to question it when he puts on a pair that clashes atrociously with his outfit. Besides, he’s the most sensible when it comes to style out of any rich person in the world, you think. They always make weird fashion choices, and you’ve always been glad he’s not like them.

“That’s not safe. What if I was a murder?”

You scoff out a laugh. Gojo smiles slightly without even realizing. “Whatever.” The both of you settle on the sofa.

He takes a minute to look around your apartment, taking in his surroundings. He then looks at you, taking you in. The frame of your body in your outfit was one he missed being able to stare at. He recalls the times the six of you would be out, going to see a movie or taking the unnecessary long way to get to a store, and he would have the same unshakeable stare. You clear your throat, noticing now. You never did back then. You sort of did at the bar, but you just assumed you were imagining things.

“So, what’s up? Whatchu want?”

“Whose jacket is that?” He points to the jacket on the floor by the TV, across from the both of you. He continues, less like he’s talking to you but instead more to himself. “That isn’t yours, right? That’s not your style.”

You grimace. “No, yeah. That’s not my style at all.” You laugh, he stares even more intently.

“It’s my friend’s. He probably forgot it.” Gojo comes up with a theory that upsets him in a way he finds humorous. He’s done that before as well: Left a jacket behind at a pretty girl’s house after a party, coming back to retrieve it after everyone’s gone home and ending up spending the night at her place. His expression falls and he frowns just a little.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Gojo, I invited you over because you sounded worrisome over the phone. Don’t avoid my question.” Your impatience was clear in your voice, your tone. He hadn’t heard you sound so irritated in so long, not since the days before everything went down. It almost warmed his heart. He missed when the two of you had that kind of relationship. One where you could both be as playfully mean as you wanted, as painfully direct as you needed, and you could smile and laugh about it in an instant. Now, you seemed to dance around everything. The both of you did. Conversations that once would’ve been filled with banter and snide comments, now just empty words of politeness.

“Yeah, no. I know.” He admits, running a hand through his hair. He leans back and sighs, manspreading in his seat next to you. His knee touches yours, you think you should move, but you don’t. He notices. “I know. I just.. I don’t know. Can we not talk?”

“What do you wanna do then?”

He shrugs. “Let’s just chill. Where’s your speaker?”

You laugh a bit through your words. “It’s literally two feet away from you. How drunk are you?” You gesture to where the side table is, underneath is your speaker with a couple detachable mics. Once he reaches over, it’s clear to him that your apartment is the resident drinking location for your friends. Either that, or you’re just well-prepared with a karaoke machine in your living room.

“Okay, sec.” He takes his phone out, you glare enviously at how big his pockets are. The face he makes as he tries his hardest to connect his phone is cute, you think. Lips pursed and pushed up, forcing him to make almost a kissy face. His eyebrows are furrowed and his eyes squint at his screen. “Okay, okay. What song you want?”

“I dunno, play anything.” Immediately, Been Away by Brent Faiyaz plays, an odd choice for someone who’s barely had a real conversation with you in a couple of years. Someone who’s now drunk on your couch, staring at you when he’s not staring at his blank phone screen.

“What, no like?”

You shake your head. “No, I’m good with it.” He turns up the volume a bit and sets it by his foot. After a moment passes, you feel a pressure on your arm. Looking over, you find the sluggish man leaning against you comfortably. His glasses are off, but his eyes are closed. “Y’know I didn’t expect you to listen to R&B music. I’ve only ever heard you play like, alt-rock. Or something like that.”

“I’ve traveled the world. I can’t listen to only Asian Kung-Fu Generation for the rest of my life.” He explains. “I heard of Brent Faiyaz when I went to a place called Maryland, in America.”

Your head tilts. “For business?”

He shakes his head, it feels almost as if he’s snuggling closer to you when he does. His eyes are still closed, and you wonder if you should turn off the overhead light.

“I took a girl there and we heard it at a party.” He laughs, thinking about the look on her face when he gave her the ticket, telling her that she could cancel if she wanted to. Either way, it wouldn’t really put a dent in his bank account. “She didn’t believe me when I said I was loaded so I booked us a flight and we spent the weekend.”

You frown a bit and don’t respond. You surely weren’t salty about him booking a weekend getaway with some girl he maybe didn’t know well. That wasn’t it at all, probably. But why didn’t he tell you? When did this happen? That seems crazy. Did he always just do crazy stuff like that now? Was it normal for him at this point in his life? Is that why he never thought to bring it up? He can almost feel the clunks and bangs of turning cogs in your brain. His eyes open. “It was.. I was in a weird spot. She was nice, but it was just that. We were both cool about it.” He clarifies. You think it’s weird how he does. It’s not like you need to know that. You don’t care for that confirmation, to be reassured that it was no big deal. You don’t care.

“Whatevs.”

—-

Time passes with both of you like this. Eventually, you start to have full conversations again. Giggles, laughter, agreements, disagreements as his playlist shuffles through similar sounding tracks. It begins to feel natural, almost like old times. Except, old times wouldn’t have granted you this space for just the two of you. Old times would mean two brunette’s and a blonde on one side, and a long-haired man on the other. Rarely did you ever get opportunities like this with him. Moments where you could get more personal and connected.

At some point, you don’t even think about the hand on your lap or the breath on your neck. You just think of it as bonding, as making up for lost time, or maybe you only think of it that way because you’ve been drinking as the half-hour goes on. You’ve managed to catch up to Gojo, in terms of tipsy buzzes, for better or worse. His face is buried in your neck as you both stifle your laughter, trying not to let a chuckle turn to a cackle and disturb the neighbors.

There’s a heat between you. There’s a heat inside you. There’s so much more space on the couch, you think. The both of you are almost huddled into one spot. Any outsider looking in would think your heater had broken and you ran out of blankets. You don’t even remember how he got here. God, he’s awfully close. Doesn’t he know that?

“You smell so good.” He whispers in your ear, you don’t think it’s intentional but it makes you shiver.

“What?” You laugh, albeit a bit awkwardly. Your shoulder moves just enough where he’s forced to raise his head and look at you. You raise your eyes to meet his own and the short distance between your faces make it difficult to choose your next words carefully. “Gojo?”

His eyes travel down your features until he gets to your lips. “Can you just..” He hesitates, his breathing is deep. Yours is almost in sync.

“Just Satoru, please?”

Your eyebrows knit together. You want to look away, but you can’t. You can feel the littlest bit of reason, just in the back of your brain, and it’s screaming at you to put an end to this. This is dangerous and reckless. The both of you are drunk, being led by temptation. And if there ever was a bad time to be exploring this aspect of your relationship with Satoru Gojo, it’d be today, this week, this month. You could be making the biggest mistake of your life, just for the temporary promise of comfort and pleasure. For distraction.

And though your doubts and concerns are all completely shared sentiments by the temptation himself, it only takes one string of justification for him to close the gap.

This was a long day for you. For both of you. December is always cold; It always holds too many memories. You hate to be alone during the month, and you aren’t the only one.

You kiss back.

Like every moment in your life where it feels like you’ve randomly decided to jump off a cliff into the raging ocean, your nerves shake as your body tingles. Your breathing is quick and your head feels like it’s swirling from a windstorm. The kiss quickly shifts from curious and nerve wracking to desperate and insatiable. Satoru has his arms wrapped around you in an instant when he scoops you up and places you on his lap.

You gasp at the feeling of being manhandled and feel a pull at your stomach when he deepens the kiss, his arms roaming your torso. A sigh escapes your lips when he moves, leaving a rough string of pecks on your neck. He groans and starts grinding his crotch against you, you feel cocky at first until you realize it was you who started moving your hips before he did. The feeling of someone pressed against you like this, especially when it’s him, makes the slight bulge in your shorts twitch. The pressure of his own bulge moving against your ass makes grinding so much harder to stop, but he has to. “Wait, please.” He clumsily asks, holding your waist and resting his forehead on your shoulder.

“Need my pants off. Don’t..” He hesitates. His voice drops before he continues. “Don’t wanna cum in them.”

He almost sounds embarrassed. “Gojo-”

“Satoru.” He reminds you. “Please.”

You pause before just nodding and taking his face in your hands. You force him to look at you, and while you struggle, you successfully hold eye contact with the man. “Satoru.” His name sounds almost beautiful in your voice. Almost the way it did when he said it, when Suguru made it sound sweet. But there was an elegance to your tone, one he hadn’t heard before. It made his heart race.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?”

He breathes in deeply before closing his eyes and rubbing his cheek against your hand. The proximity of your bodies make it easy to inhale your scent with every breath. His hands are still holding onto your waist, but slowly coming to wrap themselves around you. Treating the position almost like a hug. It’s one that he doesn’t realize he needs so desperately until he gets it. That warmth of feeling you in his grasp. “I just need to feel good.” He finally answers.

Suddenly his hands slip under your top, gliding up from your lower back. You feel goosebumps form as his cold hands move on your skin. He continues. “I know you need it too.” He almost mutters. The music in the background and the way he grips onto your body creates an undeniably heated tension in the room. You struggle to answer back, until he moves his lips again. This time, back on your neck as he mumbles into your skin.

“Please, baby.”

You almost whine. Your head drops against him as his fingers stroke softly up and down your spine. You feel your own tug at his shirt; His heart pounds in his chest. He thinks back to the times before where you’d tug on his shirt, his sleeve, his bag, or his jacket. It was your quiet way of getting him to notice you and he adored it every time, getting to look at you with a smile as you slightly matched his own. Happy that you were getting the attention you craved, the eyes you wanted. “You want me?” You ask in response.

He moves his head to look at you, again with a small measure of space between you. He nods. “I do, really bad.” He can’t stop looking at your lips, he grows hungry.

You answer his prayers for him and lean in. Your kiss is soft, gentle. It contrasts with him again, but much more in the sense of nervousness. Almost fear. Fear that you might push too far, might break him. Might hurt yourself. You want to be cautious, but it gets harder and harder as you feel him rock his hips again, grinding against you. Subtle moans and whines escape the desperate man as you feel each one in your mouth, already having his tongue inside and moving against your own. His hands travel to your chest as yours find their way down to his crotch. You get started on unbuttoning his pants as he starts to knead and massage. You sigh in content, the light brushes against your nipples with his long slender fingers makes you want to lay down and let him have you.

After a moment, you get his zipper down. Your fingers push underneath the opening you’ve created and you place your palm over the long bulge in his underwear. He moans. Pulling away from the kiss, he tugs on the hem of your shirt, lifting it up to expose your chest. He leans down a bit to blow on your nipples and they take a more hardened shape at the feeling of the cold air hitting them. The feeling of his gaze locked onto your tits makes you wanna grind against him to interrupt. You choose not to, and instead begin stroking him through the fabric of his underwear. “Fuck, baby..” He moans again as his gaze shoots down to where your hand is. He’s panting as he uses one hand to shove his pants further down his thighs, you’re still on top of him as he lifts his hips up to make the adjustment easier. His other hand moves to grip and settle on the back of your neck. He licks his lips hungrily as you continue to stroke him before he has the idea to latch on to your nipples.

Sucking and lapping at your chest forces you to take a sharp breath through your teeth, a small whine escaping through the sigh you exhale. His tongue glides around your areola before his lips close around them and he starts sucking, still using his tongue as he does. His other hand finds its way to your other nipple, making sure it’s being shown proper attention. He twists and tugs, earning a guttural moan from your throat. Your hips grind more feverishly as you chase the pleasure you're craving for.

You continue to fondle his clothed cock until he can’t bear it anymore. He shoots up from his spot on the couch, bringing you up with him as he holds your ass in his hands. You gasp as your legs instinctively wrap around him. He kisses you again as he pushes you against the wall, right by the front door. You knew he was strong, you always did, but feeling him hold you tight and walk with you as he held you up with ease made your heart pulse between your legs. Eventually he gets back to your neck, before letting your legs drop back down to the floor. Your feet settle as you carry your own weight again. He moves to slip off your shirt and you raise your arms to make it easier for him. He licks, sucks, and kisses down your body until he gets to your belly. His fingers dig into where the hem of your shorts are.

Satoru looks up at you with a burning desire in his eyes, but also a needy sort of plea. The look on his face makes you all the more sure of your reckless behavior as you guide his hands to pull your bottoms down. Just enough to expose your needy, pretty penis. His eyelids droop as he bites his lip. His hands caress your thighs as they push upward, he licks the bite marks left behind on his bottom lip. Impatiently, your hands find their way onto the slutty man beneath you. One in his hair, and one under his chin. Your hand under his chin moves to make a sort of cup form in front of his lips. He eyes your palm before spitting on it, you rub it on yourself, making it easier for a hand to glide over.

As you twist and rub, Satoru leans in closer, his own impatience finally beginning to show. He licks his lips more sloppily, to coat his own mouth in just a bit of saliva, before settling on the tip of your penis. He treats your knob as he’s treated your nipples, sucking and licking. His tongue swirls around until the hand in his hair tugs his head further down your length.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

You freeze. Satoru doesn’t, only slowing his work on your body with an angry look at whoever’s taken your attention away from him. You stare at the door, realizing you forgot to lock it. You hope and pray, repeating the words over and over again in your head, ‘do not fucking open it.’ It becomes a little hard to focus though, as a tongue licks at the vein on the underside of your shaft. Your hand shoots over your mouth.

A voice begins to speak behind the closed door. “Hey, uhh just wanted to drop the chasers. I’m.. sorry to hear that something came up and uhh I hope your siblings are okay.” You recognize the voice to be Jeremy, the one you never formally told that tonight was canceled. The one who left and almost got behind the wheel after drinking enough to make his now muffled words slow and deliberate. Slightly slurring through each syllable.

You whimper and whine with the lowest volume you can possibly muster. Satoru bobs his head up and down, the tiniest drops of precum running down his throat. He looks up at you with half-lidded eyes, a mischievous glint in them as he does. It isn’t until your friend knocks on the door for a second time that you notice Satoru is excited by this. Funnily enough, it’s not his somewhat smiling lips that give it away. Not the curved ends or the air being blown from his nose in a more quick, laughing manner than just normal breathing. It’s the way he speeds up, getting sloppy with each passing moment that your friend makes his presence known.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Hey, princess. You okay?” Satoru’s eyebrows furrow. He mouths a muffled ‘princess?’ repeating the pet name from Jeremy outside. The vibration on the skin of your girl cock sends a shiver down your spine and a shaky moan out your lips. “I can hear the music, I know you’re in there.”

Gojo just feels lucky that he decided to turn the music up at some point while you two were making out. Wave after wave of pleasure hits you as the quickly sobering older man brings you in and out of his hot mouth. You struggle to keep your composure, half of the reason you’re still able to stand up is the fact that Satoru has such a tight grip on your thighs. It makes you feel held in place as his thumb rubs circles into the meat of your leg. His large, cold hands send a different kind of sensation throughout your body. One that you’ve felt before, whenever he’d look at you with a certain type of admiration in his eyes while you spoke to him about something you didn’t think others would understand as well as him and Suguru could. Your heart would race.

“Princess?” You hear Jeremy call for you again. At this point, Satoru takes you out of his mouth with a pop. His hands move to stroke you, keeping you stimulated as he continues to look up at you.

“Want you to cum.” He sticks his tongue out to lick all the way down to your balls. He sucks and pulls at you with his lips as his hands stay on your length, using his saliva and your precum as lube. “Can you cum for me, pretty girl?”

You nod, frantically. Like you’ve been holding yourself back until the very moment he told you to release. “Mhm, mm. Haah..”

“You might be asleep.” Jeremy almost sounds like he meant to mutter, but his drunkenness makes his understanding of volume so wrong that he can be heard over the music. “I’m just gonna uhh, I’ll call you later.”

He lightly taps at the door as you hear his slow footsteps begin and then fade. Just when he’s out of earshot, Gojo sinks down onto you again, until his nose pushes against your pubic area. “Ah! Fuck, fuck, fuck. Satoru.. fuck, don’t stop. P-please..” The sudden burst of whines and pleading makes a wet spot on his underwear. He almost joins you in your orgasm when he feels ropes of warm viscous fluid shoot down his throat, that paired with the sound of you crying his name out as you tug on his hair, it’s like heaven for the man. He swallows it all.

Settling down, slowing your breathing, and lightening up on the grip you have on Satoru’s hair, you tear your gaze away from the ceiling and bring it down to the smiling face beneath you. You watch him lick his lips as he leaves a trail of light kisses down your shaft. This only brings up the idea of it being his turn. That alone brings another pull to your stomach, as you feel your dick twitch again.

“Bedroom?” You ask, breathless with a soft expression. He nods fervently, scooping his arms around your legs and back before whisking you away again. Your arms rest on his shoulders. Kisses and sweet whispered nothings fill the noise not already filled by a slow jam as he makes his way to your room, holding you like a princess.

"I missed you."

A/N I've Never Really Written For Trans Women Specifically When It Comes To Reader Fics, So I Apologize If The Words Used Or Chosen Language To Describe Some Body Parts Was Not To Your Liking. Although, I Always Appreciate Criticism And Helpful Tips On What Works Best For Y'all. That Goes For All Of My Fics.