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haztory · 1 month

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[fairytales: fathoms below]

⤷ john price x f!reader; fairytales!au, mermaid!reader, no warnings!

⤷ summary: a series imagining each of the cod men in fantasy/fairytale settings.

(w.c: 3.2k)

captain john price - the little mermaid

Deep brown oak lays a steady foundation for the billowing ivory cotton. It is a formidable beast, splitting the current with a wicked ferocity that only further emboldens everything your sisters have said in the privacy of hidden corners and muttered breaths. This monster is a fearsome one, its force unparalleled. Something entirely different than what you have seen before.

Mind your distance, your eldest sister had spoken in between the echoing bellows of your father’s rampage as he raged and roared about the increased presence of the fiend in the seas. It is a frightening being.

Yet, as you peek above the waves to peer at its high fixtures and its grand weight gliding across the water, you’re less inclined to be scared of the vessel and more curious about who could have made such a thing. Your sister’s words and your father’s fear are quickly things of the past, rendered outdated almost instantaneously beneath its shadow.

What could they know about the intent of such a thing with certainty when they themselves have never been as close as this before? If they had, surely they’d feel the same as you do now.

The ship rocks with a force equal to the volume of the men steering it. They are of varying shapes and sizes, loud as they shout at one another along the choppy water. Words you can only catch on whispering winds, syllables and sounds that are completely foreign as you try to repeat them to yourself. A pulse echoes within you, a ferocious beating of your heart that begs you to get closer, to let the curiosity that surges within you seize its grand moment. If only just to see, just to hear.

It is one thing to see the ancestors of this magnificent watercraft on the seafloor—to play in its cracked beams and chase your sisters through the wreckage, imagining in secret what an image it would be were it fixed and afloat—but it is something entirely different to see the beast alive.

To see it be tamed, made nothing more than a tool to be beckoned— by him.

He stands commanding on the helm, the gruffness of his voice carrying on the winds, crossing the distances to you. The men follow his calls, responding in time to his orders and moving with preciseness on the vessel, not entirely unlike your father’s guards. They are seasoned, well learned, and they follow him without question. It is truly a sight to behold, but him, he trumps it all.

His figure is distinguishable even from afar. You’ve been able to make him out even as you trailed a couple hundred kilometers behind, curiosity consuming all reason as you followed the ship past neighboring reefs and exiting well beyond the boundaries of your father’s kingdom. He’s well cut and corded, muscle visible even if the white of his shirt didn’t stick to his skin—wet from the seawater.

He’s wide in the shoulders, tall and lean, before it tapers down to a narrow waist; His bottom half is obscured by a dark fabric, which must be the object of your father’s frequent cursing. Legs. You’ve never seen them before, much less two of them.

Still, his… abnormality hardly detracts from the verboten truth—your eye is caught. It hardly deviates from his powerful stance; Your gaze can wander across the bridge of the ship to the working crew, but it ends up inevitably circling back to him. Drawn into the vortex of him, water rushing, pulling and pushing, and the pang of longing that you have long held quiet finds its strength.

It tastes of wonder and the desperation to escape; To leave behind the home that you know, all that has created you, for the realization that there’s more.

You leave behind the ship before you risk the chance of it seeing you, but the appetite of fascination is hardly appeased. It becomes the bad habit. The ships are wondrous things, but you find out rather quickly that when he is at the helm, that is truly when your heart leaps and you trail even closer to its hull, eager for a sight.

It goes this way for forty rises and sets, your eyes held on the horizon for the familiar sight of the wooden ship’s sigil and its master.

Today, he is seen on the day of the great storm.

The sky sits in a violent gray, lightning spreading its branches as they flare across the clouds. The air smells of the impending storm as the seas grow rougher and with it the ship rocks unsteadily—the waves beating against wood, climbing up its ridges higher each time it strikes against its side, as if it were begging to climb aboard. Despite the mayhem, he stays sharp, pointing direction from the helm and eventually leaving it to the charge of someone else when he decides to help directly. Grabbing rope and throwing it around the masts, clapping others on the back, Keep going, boys! shouting from his mouth.

You see it before they do. A crack that widens in the undercarriage of the ship, beaten open as the waves ram against it, water rushing in. You want to shout, tell them to look, but they realize it soon enough. One of the shipmates peers over the edge of the ship before turning back and shouting,

“She’s goin’ to sink, Captain!”

The Captain—finally a name to the face, one that you roll around in your mind as your eyes track his every movement; Captain, captain, captain.— moves quickly, foregoing the lugging of a rope and saying something that forces all men to divert attention elsewhere. It’s a flurry of movement from there, the men gathering supplies, hauling smaller wooden vessels by rope and filling them in a quick frenzy. Abandoning the ship.

It’s difficult as wind and rain pellet them, obscuring vision and keeping them unsteady as they attempt to save themselves. The first lifeboat hits the sea viciously, the waves almost capsizing the vessel as they meet its surface. You don’t mean to interfere—you know you shouldn’t— but they’re terrified, and risk drowning, and you’re much more worried about them dying than you are yourself, so you swim to them; Grab the bottom of the boat and pull with as much strength as your arms and tail can muster and haul them away from the immediate danger of the turbulent waves split by the sinking ship.

The pulley breaks when the next boat tries to descend, hitting the surface unceremoniously, but the men make it to the water. Two wooden boats buoy a safe distance away from the main ship and the crew sits, thankfully, unharmed as they look towards their Captain, beckoning him to jump. He stands at the edge of the great being, a monolith of a man overseeing the wreckage of his great accomplishment. He must be bidding it goodbye, because he then turns, ready to jump, fortified in that decision as he realizes that all of his men are safe and it is now his turn.

Wind turns threatening and the air ignites with a charge that speaks of impending doom. It is then that lightning strikes the mast, sparking a loud blast. It singes the wooden pillar, immediately exploding it into a shattering of pieces. The detonation’s impact pushes him off the edge, the Captain’s body hurdling over one-hundred feet.

Your scream is hidden by the shouts of his own men. His body hits the surface of the water, plunging into the depths as the violent waves hurtle him below.

There is no hesitation, a choice made without conscious thought. You curl beneath the cresting of a wave and immediately sink into the depth in search for him. It is significantly easier to swim beneath the hurtling waves than atop of them, pressure equalizing against your body. You glide within the water, pushing straightforwardly to the spot where his body met water.

Your heart pounds in fear. Even if you reach him—no, when you reach him— there is no guarantee of his survival. There must be some kind of injury from falling that kind of distance, or so you would imagine. Being sucked into vortexes does all kinds of damage to merfolk, it must be of equal balance for humans. And even if by some miracle he does survive impact, humans cannot breathe under the water like you can. He must have swallowed some water, is that dangerous for him? How much can he swallow? What do you do if he has swallowed too much?

Thoughts hurtle and tumble in fast succession, but your body moves faster. Crossing the distance between your position next to the lifeboats to the spot of impact at a speed that has never before been demanded of you. Your lungs burning, your mind aching, your heart hurting with worry for a man that you do not yet know. A man that, for all you have been told, could kill you. A man whose kind has hunted yours down for sport, strung your people up for decoration.

You should not care for this man, have been warned not to, and yet the relief you feel when you find him are the blessings from the forces of the heavens and earth.

He’s sinking, unconsciously. His eyes closed, body suspended to the whims of the tides as they pull him down. Nearing him reveals that he is much larger than you had anticipated but it means nothing in the rapid pump of adrenaline. Hooking your arms underneath his, his back to your chest, you haul with great might. Lugging his weight with a grunt to the surface, just to get him to breathe again.

Breaching the surface exposes you to the pellets of the ferocious rain, but it matters not. Your eyes set for direction, your head turning frantically in search of a marker, a sight, something to reveal where you are— where you can take him for safety. The lifeboats have been taken far away by the tumbling tides and the ship that was once so marvelous now roars with a fire aboard its surface.

You have no idea where to go. You have no idea what to do.

But the Captain is held tightly in your arms, his head rolling lifelessly on your shoulder. A quick placement of your fingers on his neck reveals a pulsing heart and while it hardly solves any of your problems, it’s all you need to do as you have always done and swim. Somewhere, anywhere.

So, you do.

South, in search of sanctuary.

It comes faster than you had thought it would. The shallowing of waters after an hour long haul of both he and you bleeds a hope in your soul that pushed you forward until it came into sight. A cove. Away from the large strip of land that surrounds it, remote enough to deposit him without being seen, but close enough to civilization for him to find a way home. Wherever home may be for him.

Your body is exhausted, the muscles in your tail cramping and spasming from the sheer burden of his weight on yours but you don’t stop. Even as you can touch sand with your hands, even as the movement of waves can carry you the distance to the shore— you don’t stop until he is safe. On land.

Hauling him out of the water and onto the flattening surface of the beach is surely the worst part. Dragging him a safe distance from the water that was able to ease the pressure of his full weight on you to now being on the surface where his body seems to weigh even more, your arms trembling from trying to pull him further up on the coast, is misery. But you do it, with some herculean effort that has never been introduced to you before.

He lays on land, supine on his back, finally safe. The rain has stopped, the sky turning from the harsh gray of before to a smattering of thickened clouds that finally allow the sun to bleed through.

You fall beside him in exhaustion. Ragged breaths heaving your chest, your tail grateful for the much needed rest. The swim home will be significantly easier (and faster) without the man in your arms, but such a trek is daunting when physical debility renders you useless.

But you must go, before he sees you. You have done what you needed to, you have brought him to land, and while you don’t know how to save him, or if you need to, you know his heart still beats. And that is enough to make a job well done. Rather, it should be enough to grant you dismissal.

And yet, you linger. Unable to part, waiting. Watching. You shouldn’t, and still you cannot help yourself.

You sit up and lean over him, curious to spare him another look.

Laid beneath you, the truth repeats like a broken mantra in your head. It is a sin of the highest offense to touch him. Being near him like this is a crime itself. But, there is an ache in your fingers that urges you forward and the desire to know eats away at you, until you blink and suddenly, your fingers are tracing the length of his strong nose.

A straight bridge, freckled with color. Your fingers move in a fixed trance, trailing across the soft of his cheek until it reaches the jagged meeting line where skin becomes obscured with hair. You feel the coarseness of his beard, trace the pads of your fingertips down the thick and long hairs. The men at home have hair on their faces, your own father does, but it doesn’t feel like this. So coarse, so rough, prickling against the tips of your fingers. Not made silk by the submergence in water, but thick and apparent.

You don’t dislike it. At least, you don’t think you do, your fingers smoothing down the expanse of his cheek. Up and down, over and over. Feeling the vitality of this human life.

You don’t feel the same repulsion that your father does whenever mention of the humans is made near him, nor do you feel the same fear that your sisters have at the mere thought of them. You’re drawn closer, if anything. Curious to know more.

Wondering what would happen if he opened his eyes.

He has a nose, two ears, and a gentle prodding of his lips reveals a full set of teeth. They’re not sharpened in fangs ready to rip your throat (a rumor circulating through the schools of children) nor are they laid in multiple jagged rows (a preach hailed truth by your father). Instead, just a set of hard bones, the same as yours. He has two eyes that you don’t dare try and see the color of, and a full head of thick brown hair.

For all intents and purposes, he looks like you. The same features, the same design.

Your fingers trail downward, below the thick of his beard and down the column of his strong neck. His shirt is soaked and stuck to his skin, stretched to reveal even more tufts of thick hair on his chest. That is new to you. The men at home don’t have hair on their chest much less a kind so thick. They’re smooth, and if you thread your fingers through it in wonder, it will be a secret you take back to the sea with you.

Maybe the gods made you more similar than different. From where you sit beside him, the only obvious difference lies below. Two long limbs that hold flat appendages at the end. Feet, separated with what you can only imagine are toes. Ten of them on each one.

Maybe in his creation there was an image of you. A curiosity that was sated by the division of a tail into legs, but otherwise remains the same. Two beings sent to their respective homes and yet destined to intertwine. It must be, otherwise these unexplainable feelings that brew within you have no source other than sheer madness.

A kind of madness that finds you sitting beside him, staring in lingering awe at the marvels of danger.

You don’t know how long you stay there for, trailing your fingers over him. Finding them studying the feel of his skin and somehow always returning back to his neck, feeling the pulsing of his heart as reassurance. But, a long look to the horizon reveals that the sun is beginning to set and you know then that much time has passed. The sky turns to a burnt orange and the warning to return home beats within your mind. It is unwanted, but you know that you can no longer stay here with the man. Soon your father will suspect something amiss and send guards to find you. While you don’t doubt the capabilities of the human, there’s no guarantee he will be able to defend himself against the royal guards of the palace, especially in his weakened state. (There is no telling what he could do to you if he awakens in this state.)

So you will leave him with the hope that he will wake soon, that he will recuperate enough to pull himself from the sand and walk the short distance back to the mainland. That your efforts were timely and he is able to make his way home.

You will leave him and hope that maybe, he will come back to the cove in search of you. You will leave him and hope that maybe he will see you waiting for him in the water.

With a sigh, you turn your head back to his face. To look at him once more before you go.

Eyes as blue as the sea you pulled him from, meet yours. You gasp, jolting backwards in shock and he—the Captain, alive and awake— blinks slowly.

“You’re real.” He croaks, his voice hoarse. It still holds the same gruffness that you heard on the ship, the commandeering tone and hefty weight, but in the closeness it is twinged with gentleness. No longer addressing men at his command, but you. A softness mirrored in tone and gaze as he, for the first time, sees you.

His hand reaches up and you hold still in fear. The conditioning of your father’s paranoia rears its head; Is this where his strength is exhibited? In the calloused palm of his that is larger

than your own? Is this where he decides to lay waste to you in a manner your father is so convinced that humans possess?

Instead, his hand raises to your face, fingertips slowly brushing a fallen strand of your hair and tucking it behind your ear. His touch is light on your skin, brushing against the curve of your ear before trailing downward and across your cheek. Warm and soft, he stares a seriousness into you as though the only thing he intends to do in that moment is commit you to memory.

You fall into his touch with little convincing. His skin melding to your own, as though it were meant to be there.

“I thought you a dream.”

You shake your head slightly. His eyes dart across your face before moving downward. Surveying you before spotting the obvious truth.

“Mermaid.” He chokes out, in reverence. His stare does not falter and his face does not scrunch upward in disgust. He looks at you much like you have always looked at him.

Adoration disguised in the innocence of curiosity.

“You saved me,” He says. “Thank you.”

a.n: i blame my visit to disney world for this idea. the thoughts of john price soaking wet is irresistible, and i aint sorry for it!!

simon is next :)

#cod x reader #call of duty x reader #john price x reader #captain john price x reader #cod angst #fairytale au #cw: mermaids #cod fluff #my writing #irda writes

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haztory · 2 months

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HELLO ????? NEW SPIDEROO CH ????? SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP IDEK HOW TO REACT it's literally 1am, I'm pulling an all nighter because university is kicking my ass so I just checked tumblr bc I'm on my silly little study break and when I tell you I SCREAMED

HI!!!!!!

DID YOU LIKE IT??? the way that this fic has at least twelve different drafts is not an exaggeration, i struggled so hard with it and tbh im not satisfied but hey, its out

also treat urself to ur study breaks!!! i hate school and believe we should be allowed to read fanfic on our down time!!!!!

#other: wonyoschubs

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haztory · 2 months

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my brain rumbles with johnny mactavish a/b/o thoughts

medically discharged alpha johnny with an overgrown beard who relocates to a farm in the highlands in frustration, angry that he’s physically inept now, bullet to the head ruining some of his motor functions, fucks with his memory.

and you, the omega who moved into the abandoned neighboring farmhouse a few weeks ago, stopping by to introduce yourself— asking him if he has any tips on fixing the barbed fencing around your property.

and yeah, his hands shake in uncoordinated movements these days, and he has a hard time judging distance and picking out the right words— but there’s a deep ache in him that he can’t forget.

and he knows of it as clear as he breathes, damaged brain all but likened to a discussion about the weather.

he remembers the sweetness of an omega on his tongue, and you’re right in front of him.

#help!!!!!!#my pussy is aching!!!!!#johnny mactavish x reader #soap x reader #cw: omegaverse #cw: a/b/o

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haztory · 2 months

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When you pull into the driveway, Kita is hanging the laundry. He takes his time, pulling sheets from a wicker basket and clothespinning them to the wire. In the other basket, swaddled tight, is your baby girl. She sleeps so well for a newborn- you're grateful for that.

"You're home early," Kita says as you get out of the car, voice soft so as to not wake his daughter. You hop out of the car and join him, letting your husband kiss your cheek.

"Well," You try to keep your tone level. "They told me I can't get an IUD today."

The corners of his mouth twitch up. "Oh, really?"

He kisses you again, this time on the lips, then does it again and again. You almost fall for his affections and forget that you're annoyed with him.

Almost.

"Yeah." You let out a sigh. "Turns out my womb is already occupied."

Kita erupts into a smile, all pink cheeks and straight teeth and laughter. His impatient hands urge you closer, pulling you by the hips into him, urging for another, deeper kiss- but you deny him with a hand to the chest.

"At least pretend you aren't happy, Shinsuke."

"How could I be anything but?" He doesn't take the joy from his voice. "The love of my life is giving me a second beautiful child. How far along?"

Kita hadn't been thrilled at the idea of you getting the implant. He had wanted your second child to be close in age to your first, while you had wanted a five year gap. An IUD seemed like the smartest choice for you, but it turns out your husband is faster than you thought.

"8 weeks." You playfully punch his arm, but he just laughs. "Our daughter's only 4 months! How am I eight weeks?"

"Well, farmers are good at planting seed on fertile field."

"Shinsuke!" You wrinkle your nose at that.

"I should have known." He squeezes your hips before moving his hands to your stomach. There's a dreamy, starry look in his eyes, one that makes your heart flutter a bit too hard. "You're glowing. You always glow when you're carrying my baby."

Ugh. There's the real reason you're pregnant again. Kita gives you that look and your legs just want to fall open.

"Babies," you correct. "Looks like twins."

"Auspicious."

#i crave domesticity #and i crave it with him #he would treat me so right #please

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haztory · 2 months

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“I can fix him dw” [drill sounds] {screaming} [chainsaw revving]

#@all of the cod men

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haztory · 2 months

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OMH HIIIIII HOW R U DOING HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN A LONG TIME KITH KITH

NYXXXXXX!!!!!! MY POOKIE BEAR!!!!!!!! HIIIIIII

BIG KISSES RIGHT BACK AT YOU HOW ARE YOU PREPARE FOR ME TO BE BAVK IN UR INBOX FULL TIME

#other: nyx #MY BELOVEDDDDDD

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haztory · 2 months

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tag list: @crashed-wing; @kvroomi; @milkteeboba; @milktea-academia; @holychocopie; @jarjarwinx; @a--nonymousse; @koshii-meji; @kara-grayson04; @mustardd

[seagirl]

⤷ kuroo tetsurou x f!reader; spider-man!au, mentions of violence, brief gore mention, exes to lovers arc, p in v smut, fingering, praise, a lot of descriptive language

⤷ summary: her underwater ecstasy, you could easily be the death of me, i swim through/ he comes to me, stuck on his knees, asking for better days

(w.c: 9.5k)

previous | masterlist

He stands in your living room like an ill-timed memory.

Whole and vivid, he’s a flash of overdue colors and a crashing tide that overwhelms you. You blink a few times in hope that this may still be a dream; That his image will turn bleary and you’ll close your eyes enough times to realize they were never really open. That you’re in your bed waiting for the alarm to ring and the day to start as it always does.

It doesn’t happen.

The person ambling around the room is not a figment of sheepish delusions, or the product of late night fantasies, but him— a heart-wrenching familiarity in a room that has been home to him so many times before.

It’s been three months since a hue of red has disturbed your home.

He’s lit only by the warm lowlight of your lamps as the sun returns to its place of rest. The dark bruise on his face looks gaunt, and his cheekbones arch higher in the shadows. He’s hauntingly beautiful, always has been, and yet, this beauty is unfamiliar to you. He looks nothing like you remember.

Kuroo walks slowly in your living room, his trained steps light and deft on tile as he practically tiptoes around the room. As though a guard dog were sleeping in the corner of the room and one slight misstep would awaken the beast, disturb the peace and replace it with snarling roars and gnashing teeth. Force him out of the apartment entirely.

Maybe there is one—a silent protector lying in wait for the chance to jump out and bite; Chains wrapped tightly around its neck, made bloodied and raw from how tightly it’s leashed. It watches with focused eyes ready to ring the alarm at any second. It must sit largely in the corner, its presence so unmistakable that Kuroo must see it otherwise he wouldn’t be so diligent in trying to avoid the furniture. He circumvents the rug underneath your coffee table, hunches his shoulders and makes his body smaller as he sidesteps the loveseat to look quickly out the balcony sliding doors. He briefly pushes the curtains aside with one finger, surveying the darkening city with little more than a nod of acknowledgment before he returns his attention back to the room, looking around once more to see if anything has awoken by his doing.

He stills— amber eyes meet yours and he waits. Watching and waiting, waiting and watching. Stilling his movements as the predator watches its prey. Hoping for the acceptance in your space yet preparing for the barking.

It’s only when you break the gaze that he breathes. The dog rests its head on the floor.

The walls of your apartment have seen and felt Kuroo Tetsurou many times before; They have tasted his spilled blood, remain stained from it, and know of him in whole and scattered fragments—and yet he stands as a man seeing it for the first time. Perusing trinkets he knows too well, and focusing a little harder at the ones that have found their place during his absence. Acting as a stranger in the garden he helped grow.

Do you—can we do this someplace more… private?

N-no, I can’t do this—

Please? You can ask me anything, yell at me, whatever, I swear. I want to explain things, just… not here.

He had begged in the pharmacy.

All reservations you had leading up to this moment crumbled alongside the shopping basket laid abandoned by your feet—much like everything else belonging to him and you. He’s in your home and it feels like both the violation of a boundary that you have rigidly put up for safety and the final piece to a puzzle. You try not to choke around a lump in your throat.

You fight to ignore the whine of the dog and the ache that pulses your fingertips with the remembrance of him beneath your touch. A tired and worn body held tightly by lithe and lean muscles adorned with the kisses of blue and purple. Valleys and bumps, heartbeats pulsing beneath skin, it shouldn’t have changed that much in such a time— it couldn’t have. But, he looks so different in the passage of such a brief time.

Maybe his heart beats differently now, but you suppose yours does too. You hardly feel like the same person that held him close on a thundering night. Was it even you who held a warm hand under violet flowers? You wouldn’t know.

(It was you. There’s no way you could ever forget, no matter how hard you try.)

He’s standing by the coffee table when he reaches out to pick up an item on the glass surface; Some coasters lying stacked on top of each other, well loved and stained with drink. They’re recent additions to your home, hand painted and gifted by a friend from work after the success of one of your reports, but you suppose he must know that they’re new with the way he fixates.

He looks at them intently, fingers gently brushing over the acrylic surface. Tracing over the painted image with reverence, holding it tightly with a look in his eye that you can’t quite make out. But, he’s thinking— maybe too much as a minute, then two, passes. And still, he stares.

It is only after he speaks that you remember the coasters have wisteria painted on the surface.

“These are pretty.” He says, quietly.

It’s a decoy—a false coercion to ease. A knock on your door with a whisper behind its asking sound, a quiet plea to join him. You’ve already let him in, isn’t that enough? What more could he want? It’s bait.

You take it anyway. “Aoi made them.”

He nods, impressed. He holds the coaster up, waving the handiwork of your coworker gently in the air between his pointer and thumb. “Compliments to the chef.” He says, before setting it back down on the table. A gentleness in the action as though an actual flower were between his fingers, threatening to rupture at any sudden movement. “How is she?”

“Good.” You supply, simply.

He nods again. “And the job?”

“Good, too.” Even simpler.

Silence encumbers the space once more. Red, scabbed knuckles make a flash appearance that you stare at, swallow a little too thickly at. Words live and die on your tongue, the urge to break fickle silence seemingly impossible.

What could you ask him that you didn’t already know? What answers could you beg for that you weren’t already sure of? Spoken in the thick of his betrayal, truth settled on the guilt that hunches his shoulders. You don’t want to know about his life and the things he’s been up to because then it needs to be discussed.

But it ravages within you; the glaringly obvious, the bleeding heart of truth. The whining dog foams at the mouth as it barks for the taste of spilled ichor, the feel of the bone cracking between jagged teeth, and the savor of the split marrow. The dark, apoplectic fit of a yearning so deep that it tears the seams of you, screams to be held. Your want of knowing is equal if not more to the anger that has simmered within you for so long.

You could demand an apology. It would be the appropriate thing to do.

(It wouldn’t solve anything. Because he still left, and you still know why even if you lie to yourself and say that you don’t, and you both end up in the same place that you started. The hideous silence drowning you in the sanctity of your own home; Two familiar strangers trapped on a deflating raft wondering what there even was to say.)

“I read your articles.” He says, after a moment. Eyes flicker to yours, a slanted smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Genuity etched into the cracks. “The one about the wisteria tunnels was good. Really good.”

Hook pierces through you and tears through skin. Bait, bait, bait—

“Not too cheesy?” You offer quietly, eyes following red knuckles down to their place beside his body. If only to avoid his gaze.

“No.” He says earnestly. “The right amount of cheese. It was amazing. You’re amazing.”

Your body stills, rigid. You sigh and he knows. The barking commences.

“Kuroo—”

Lolling his head forward, shaking the mess of his black hair as he tries to roll the discomfort off of his body, he meets your gaze with a grimace of his own. “No, c’mon. Don’t—don’t do that. Please.” His lips are drawn in a tight line, some kind of debate playing over his features as he weighs the pros and cons of this—whatever this is. It’s infuriating, it’s misery, it puts you right back into the hole of devastation that you just finally started to see a way out of.

Eyes of deep sorrow meet your angry ones.

“That’s not my name,” Tetsurou breathes out in the empty space of your living room. He’s quiet with his words, convinced in them despite how gentle he says it. “Not with you.”

You shake your head bitterly, “You don’t get to do that anymore.”

His face furrows with a register of injury, but he doesn’t fight it. He does not mean to challenge you. He did not come with the intention to wage a war and emerge victorious— he didn’t really have much of an intentioned plan at all. Only knew that his mind froze at the sight of you and his heart lurched in a need long left unsatisfied.

The frigid cold of your stare meets the charged electric of the tense room, the atmosphere turning white and hot as it bolsters through the already fraught room, unspoken words feeding the collision of the two forces. Your breath draws more ragged, the floods rising to your neck; Kuroo stands still, certain that his next step forward will be on the wire to the ticking bomb in the room—the cause of the implosion.

(Kuroo thought he knew what the aftermath of an imploded life looked like— capitulating anger molding with deprived sleep left him a hollowed mess; Locked knee-deep in an endless vortex of must-do’s and must-be’s that resulted in nothing but a blank wall to stare at as fingers attempted to clean a mess that had no resolve. A fool tethering the same wounds, with the same tools, with the same outcome.

This is a different kind of hurt. Where home spits a poisonous rejection and burns through the still raw stitchings of patched skin. Comfort turned caustic, the remnants of good intentions showing him just how well they turned out to be. His name is no longer the reason for an amorous love, but instead the code to a blaring, bright red warning.

Bloodied and broken fingers inch forward, doing as they always do and try to fix. Like a fool.)

“Okay.” He nods in acquiescence, placating but still firm. Determined, even in the threat of your gaze that tears him apart, to mend this. He hasn’t been imagining this day for three months now to fuck it up at the slightest sense of your anger. No, he’s handled worse than this. He would handle much worse if it guaranteed him this moment, this chance. Straightening his shoulders and standing tall before you, he readies himself for impact. Bracing himself for the explosion.

He takes the step forward.

“How do you want to do this?” He says, staring a kind of serious in you that is unsettling. As though something snapped into place within the brief second, a resolve solidified. This isn’t the Tetsurou you once knew, the one who made a fool of himself in his youth; This is the one you had the unpleasant encounter with—where lightning cast a sharp silhouette around with blood pouring from gaping wounds and fear filled the room with an impenetrable stink.

That Tetsurou stands before you. Your bitterness settles like a pill stuck in your throat. “Hm, I don’t know. Maybe you should start with an apology?”

“An apology won’t fix this.” He says succinctly, a knowing within him that he has deemed unnecessary to expand on, and it infuriates you.

“Well then maybe you should have thought of that before you left.” Rage stirs your appetite. Teeth growing, snarl rising, bite less of an inhibition and much more of a possibility as you thrash against rising waters. The taste of the marrow is thick on your tongue, its source right in sight. “No phone calls, no texts, nothing. You threw me away—”

He seems affronted, as though that insinuation were an insulting one, but he has no right. It only drives your anger further the more he seems to hunker down. “I was trying to protect you.”

“You don’t protect someone by leaving them in the dark about something. By abandoning them.”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but you need to understand—”

“No, you need to understand what you did. The last time I saw you I thought you were going to die.”

It’s the opening of the Pandora’s Box; Hurt and all of its tendrils that you tried to shove so deep within the confines of hiding crawl up your throat, wrapping around vocal chords and choking. They weave the familiar narrative and it is as vivid as you remember it to be. The pains and aches of an abandonment that dug into the depths of your soul, the heartbreak that comes when your great love has removed himself from it entirely. Rage tainting all that you have known, a rage that you were just starting to overcome. It’s hard to tap into the person you were earlier, the one that sat at lunch smiling and light-hearted and somewhat healed from the atrocities of lost love.

Your guard has risen before the man you’ve entrusted the entirety of yourself to, its fortified walls shaking with each knock of hurt he brings to your door. “And then you left. You swore Kenma to secrecy. He wouldn’t tell me more than if you were alive or not. You could’ve given me something, anything. But you decided to act as if I didn’t exist—how could you do that to me?”

His jaw clenches, the skin above pulsing with the movement. Darkness seems to swirl around him as he says, “I told you. I put you in danger.” But you hardly notice; Hardly care to. You plow forward.

“And I told you I was safer with you. You had no right to make a choice for me, especially not one that I didn’t want. And what’s worse is that you didn’t even have to think twice about leaving me behind.”

Kuroo takes another step forward, truly insulted as he crosses the expanse of your living room in quick steps— the speed in his movements still an alarming sight even after all of this time. He’s an arm’s distance away suddenly, intensity in his stare as he defends against your jabbing strikes, defense webbed against your venom.

“That’s not even remotely true. It hurt me to let you go, more than you could ever know.”

“Did it? More than not knowing anything? You had no problem staying away.”

“I did it to save your life.” He says, firmness beneath his in the tone, his own ire rising to match yours and you roll your eyes.

“From someone who was already in police custody. Don’t say it like I should be grateful to you for it. Maybe if you involved me in the first place, maybe if I knew a little more than just you bleeding out on my couch, I’d have a little bit more sympathy for you right now.”

The explosion happens, then— the bomb sets off. Only, it was you who stepped on the wire.

Series of images that only he knows intimately flash through his mind in quick succession—hideouts, trails of blood, dirty men with dirty intentions that filled Tetsurou with a vengeance that broke Hell and lit every fiber of his being aflame. It bursts from him at that moment.

“He knew where you lived. He knew your schedule, he had a whole fucking hideout with photos of you on the walls! I was compromised and because of that, you were a target. So yeah, I made a choice for you. I cut all ties and made it clear that you and I were done so that I could make sure he and anyone else he was working with were off of your scent. So that I could protect you.”

His lived nightmare—the one he worked so hard to shield you from for the past three months— spills from his lips in a frenzied shout. There is no hesitation to his tone, conviction bleeds through and you are taken aback. He is pulled taut, a rope fraying at the edges, unraveling right before your eyes.

Tetsurou continues, “I didn’t know who was involved or how long I had so I— I panicked. I should have told you, I know that. I’ve spent the past three months knowing I did it wrong but, I’m outside your window most nights just so I can make sure that you’re safe. And you are, so far as I can tell. So that means I did what I was supposed to do and I did a good fucking job at it.”

You stare at him, wide eyed and silent. It’s all you can think to do.

It was always a possibility. One you ran through in your mind, held quietly when Kuroo’s own worries about his other job came to the forefront. Someone knowing you, knowing about your ties to him and using that against him; But a year had passed with him as Spider-Man and for all of its ups and downs, Kuroo was careful. Nothing ever came of it.

But, a hideout? Enemies, plural, knowing who you were and seeking you out?

Even if doubt wanted to wiggle within the expanse of your mind at the admission, disbelief and all of its synonymous cousins working overtime to protect you from an unfathomable reality, it’s quickly squashed at the sight of Tetsurou’s haunted eyes. Caged fear and all of its tattered belongings veiled within his gaze. And while this transgression of his is large and looming, you believe it’s cause entirely; Because Kuroo may have broken your heart, but he’s never lied to you before. He couldn’t even think to lie to you about the symptoms of a spider bite, he certainly wouldn’t lie to you now about this.

You believe him, unquestioningly. And it clicks then, like a light switch flicking, that as you have been wallowing in the ache of your loneliness, he has been navigating a world that has threatened him and you all on his own. That your life was in more danger than he had initially let on when he stumbled into your apartment, worried and frantic for your safety and he knew nothing more in his injured state other than the fact that he had to fix it.

His stupid senses of righteousness, his assumed burden to protect; Taking on the world at the tender age of twenty-three. Atlas, with his dark eyes and bruised skin, believes the threat of your safety to be his sin. One that he has exiled himself for, that has him stepping tentatively closer to you, until he’s right in front of you. And he doesn’t want to tell you these things that have kept him up at night, he hardly wanted to tell them to himself, but he knows if there is any way for him to win this—to make you see— then he’ll have to concede something.

“I’m not— I’m smart but I’m not—I’m not good at this stuff. Okay? I don't know how to be him and also be yours. But, he knew your name.” Tetsurou’s voice cracks with desperation. “And yeah, I could’ve done a hundred things differently, but it wouldn’t have mattered because of how scared I was. I was willing to do anything to make sure you were safe.”

The first piece to your cracked walls falls.

His fingertips lift up, padded fingers tracing your jaw, and it’s exactly as you remember. Heavy and sweet, the familiar touch satiating a dormant urge that has awoken only at his doing. You lean into it without realizing, the feel of his comfort sticking to you like caramel. The sticky sugar of him pulls in closer no matter how hard your mind tries to chew your way out of it. You're stuck in the tar, mouth closed, voice silent, heart fluttering.

His thumb sweeps across your cheek, his hand fitting against your skin like it never left. Warmth seeping in, blending the eternally blurred lines. A gentle force has your chin pulling upward, amber eyes meeting yours, like they always do. Finding you in a crowd of hundreds just as they do in the darkness of your living room. Meeting your gaze with little effort and boring into you, giving you ample opportunity to witness the throes of the brewing hurricane in his irises.

Its hurtling towards you, the arms of its winds already wrapping around your wrists, your neck, your lungs. You’re inhaling its scent—musky and warm, the fading smell of a well-loved aftershave and damned latex. Tetsurou stares at you, and you stare at him, and it’s a fool’s game to think you’re anywhere but knee-deep in the eye of the storm.

“I will do anything to keep you safe.” He says, determination and all of its implications weigh on you.

His stare trails. Skirts across the features of your face as though he’s studying. It’s a quick flicker down to your lips and your heart leaps emphatically. He hears it, he must, because he’s then looking back to you and stops there. Parks his wandering gaze right into you and waits. He’s unconstrained, open, pleading for you to look and see; Find the answer in the ways that only you can find within him.

“I couldn’t lose you.” Tetsurou brushes the underside of your lip with his thumb. His voice is low, low enough to rumble through his chest and into you. “I can’t lose you.”

You knew the moment he left why he did. Remember his words like a repeating lullabye as you run over them in your mind before bed, the desperation in his tone withering away the stone walls of your heart, the begging crumblings of letting him back in. Forgiving him is excusing the pain and the anger that tore through you, that left you cracked open and raw. You try to insist that within you, hammer that truth in with rusty nails in hopes that it will stick.

But you're drowning in the deep waters of anguish that he has flooded your apartment with, fighting life and limb against the beatings of caged desire that begs to reach out to him. Maybe, if you close your eyes hard enough you can shield yourself from the certainty of his gaze that the whimsies of romance try to convince you of and you can stand firm. You can open them and realize that this is all a dream that you had hoped it was at the beginning of this whole thing.

Maybe you could believe in that harrowed truth enough to have it buoy you to safety. A life preserver that whisks you away from the familiar touch of his hands that meld into your skin and drag you into the depths of his waters.

You can remember his wrongs and try to do right by the girl that sat hurt and alone for three months. (Not alone, never alone. He was there; Watching, waiting. Ensuring your safety from a distance, checking through a widow.

Loving you from afar in the only way that he could.)

“I wish you trusted me.” You whisper, and it’s not an invitation for forgiveness, but he shifts closer anyway. Lowlights of the room dance across his features, the shadows suiting him as they blend him half into the light and half into the darkness. What isn’t spoken is the hearty truth that lingers in the air. I wish I trusted you now.

Suddenly, his nose bumps into yours. Lips brush against yours and they part on instinct, puzzle pieces inching to find their unity once more. Mouths dancing, breaths mingling, one push and it would be the reunion of a past that is held up only by the misery of yearning.

You want it, know deep within the parts that belong to him that he does too. He’s chasing it, looking for what once was his. His alter-ego isn’t one of the past, not one that he intends to give up anytime soon. Kuroo has never been a quitter, and you doubt as he pushes past blurring lines and unspoken boundaries that this is the indication that he’s willing to turn over a new leaf.

He still wants both, still wants to be in the light and the dark, wants the normalcy of a life with you with the suit of red and blue. (And maybe, just maybe, a compromise could be struck; Balance could be found, with the growing pains. He could do both, don the mask and make time for you. You could enjoy the moments with him without pouring so much of yourself into him, the tiny voice of your heart whispers in your ear.

Maybe.)

“You should go.” You say, lips brushing his as your mouth moves to draw the line in the sand. The shattered pieces that were begging to finally be glued together drop to the floor.

It’s hard to convince yourself that this is what you want, especially when he feels like sweet release in your hands, your mind finally feeling quiet in the warmth of his touch. It’s a betrayal against the deepest parts of your romantic self to deny this homecoming, but you do it anyway. Pulling away from his touch just slightly to stay firm.

It’s a minute before he finally nods. It’s absent of surety, instinctual almost, as he collects himself amidst the swarming tides of his thoughts. He parts, feet taking slow and heavy steps away from you. His thumb rubs across scabbed knuckles, hardly minding the pangs of pain that accompany as he picks and prods at his peeling skin. The jabs of sharp hurt macabrely steadying him as he wades through the sea of his own longing— intently hoping to push it to the side for this, for you.

“Yeah. Okay.” He says quietly, like he too has forgotten himself and is trying to piece himself together once more.

His departure is slow moving, the disentangling of an entwined tar removing itself from the tether, an even harder fest the second time around— but he manages. Gathering himself, he steps towards your apartment door, opening it before halting and sparing one more glance towards you. Searching for something, trying to find it in your apartment, in you.

But you steel yourself, hold firm on this. Forgiveness is not given, it is earned—even for him.

“I want—” He begins before grimacing and shaking his head, “I would like to explain more. If you want. I know we’re not— I have to put the work in to get you to trust me again, and I want to do it.”

He shuffles in place, door adjusting with his movement, “Can I take you out for dinner? Try to do this the right way?”

And you should say no, should slam the door in his face for coming into your home, touching your things, yelling at you and crossing boundaries all within the same night. But even as your anger has risen at the confrontation of the past, at the poor attempts of mending, he has equally placated them. And you hate him for it, hate the fact that even though you haven’t seen him for three months, you’re still just as in tune with him as you were when he left.

This is a fine line between healing and dangerous territory— it could be the closure you need, the step forward to clarity. Or a warning. You fold your arms into yourself, deciding on the boundary at that moment, as shaky as it may be within your mind.

This cannot happen again; He cannot come into your home, touching you, breathing life into you when you have been wasted for so long. Pieces of the past cannot be picked up after they have laid abandoned for so long. For as long as you continue to look at Kuroo and see the wreckage that lies between you, things cannot be as they once were. Where you were a silly girl in head over heels for a stupid boy, reactionary to the ebbs and flows of a relationship that hadn’t known what steady ground was since the bite of the spider. It wasn’t a way to live, it wasn’t the way to be with someone.

Things need to be rewritten, dismantled and put back together. Etched anew. You are not who you once were three months ago, you look at him with too much distrust to be. He is not who he once was, his eyes are too sad to be.

“I won’t promise you that I’ll trust you again.” You tell him and a deep breath racks his shoulders, “But I want to hear you out. As a friend.”

Tetsurou stares for a moment, understanding the words written between the lines of your statement. The line drawn in the sand. He weighs the options for a moment before eventually nodding, seemingly satisfied with that answer. Better to have you than not at all. “Yeah, that’s… that’s good. I’ll text you, we can figure out the details later.”

“As friends.” You repeat, unsure if it was meant to be a convincing reminder to him or yourself.

“As friends.” He confirms. He gives you one last long look before he leaves your home. The water that choked you all evening receding with his exit.

You had hoped in the crevices and cruxes of your mind as your entire world was tilted on its axis the moment that Tetsurou made his appearance, that you would be able to find your footing once he left. That your breath would come back to you in a way that it was pointedly thinned from your lungs— that peace could be found in the same way that you were just starting to become acquainted with it without your ex. This does not happen; As the apartment is submerged in silence, leaving only you in its embrace, you find that air doesn’t come back to you. If anything, you choke even more. Stand achingly still as your apartment becomes as it once was and settles emptily.

Even with the fire that he dredged forth, even the hurt that beat against the cages of your chest, even as you found the urge to yell and yell and never stop yelling at him—you can’t deny the truth that remains and rattles in the hollows of your mind.

You missed him. The way he spoke, how he filled your room, how his eyes found yours and stared an eternity into them. And maybe that’s the problem with first loves— the ghosts of them will always haunt the space of your heart, phantoms entwining around arteries and veins, infusing in your blood. But this is more than a rose-tinged ardor and a childish squabble; This is life and death, his and your own. And it cannot be regarded as anything but that, even if you want nothing more than to run out into the hallway and call after him.

You put that desire down, leaving it in the cage with all the other locked up hurts you hold of he and you, deciding it is a problem for another day. You force yourself to shift gear, turning to your bathroom in need of a shower to wash away all of the strain of the day, all of its exhaustion—

A knock resounds throughout the apartment. A beat passes, then two as its echo rings throughout the space.

You stare at it, wondering for a moment if it is your brain playing with you. If somehow you hadn’t locked that desire up tight enough and it was now at your door, toying with your hearing. A shadow filters underneath the door, a shuffling of feet.

You know what’s on the other side without having to look.

There’s a million reasons not to do something, pages and pages of entries in your castaway diary that depict the woes of your heart in the time that Kuroo had abandoned it—all of it’s waxing poetry serving as a poignant explanation as to why you should not open the door. But something tells you to open it, something smaller and sanguine—plumes of billowing hope that curdle in your stomach and float through you like an intoxicating smoke. Filling your lungs on the inhale, decadent exhaust that burns the nicotine, spreading the burning high.

Your hand is on the knob before you have much of a realization.

And he’s there.

Eyes inked with a steady fortitude, filled with an intensity saved for moments where you imagine the other guy comes to play, saved for the moments when he’s hellbent on getting you to see him. He stands at your doorway, lit under the harshness of the fluorescent hallway lights, chest rising and falling with the heaviness of his breaths.

And it calls to you—that craving for the marrow, the barking that rings throughout your ears. It isn’t for the truth of words—it’s for him.

Really, he should be a better person and commit to the drive that led him to leave for three months, his need to keep you safe; Commit to the boundary that you have placed, the one that says I’m not ready to forgive you, the one that dresses you in caution tape and blinks in flashing red lights to avoid lest he do as he’s done before and try to fix things like a fool.

(A fool in love.)

But it tugs at him, pulls him to his knees when you meet him with your eyes wide and eyebrows furrowed. Confusion, curiosity, and something pouring into you. He’s neck deep in the throes of longing just at the sight of you and that third element, that fickle something that he knows better than anyone else. He should be a better person and walk away, do as you have asked and respect boundaries. But then you say his name, a whisper on your tongue, like how you used to speak to him. And he realizes that he’s already done his time in being a better person. Three months of denying all he has wanted for the sake of protection.

He’ll indulge in selfishness, just this once.

Greedy with his intentions, desperate for you; Ready to drown.

His hand is on the wood veneered door pushing it wider. His heart races in his chest as he realizes you put up no resistance in his doing so. A decision is made, absent of logic, truant of any remorse.

“We will never be just friends.” He says, voice laden and heavy with that third thing that sparks a glint in your own eyes—want.

His lips are pressing to yours, rushing forward and slamming the door closed behind him in quick succession. A muffled whimper escapes your lips as you fall into old habit. The rough parting of plushness for a ravenous taste that stokes the embers of a desire hardly contained. And suddenly, his waters are rising around your ankles again, his own feet dragging against the force of its push and pull. Salty spray splattering against him, his clothes heavy with the damp and he’s sinking.

(Even if you hate him, even if you push him away, at least you’re there—alive.

He should fight and climb his way to survival, it’s the one thing he’s good at after all. But he doesn’t. This could easily be his death, headstone laid at your feet, the key to his coffin in your palm.

There is no part of him that hasn’t been tethered to you in the formations of love and remained resilient in the absence of you; He is and has been yours, entirely. And that was precisely the issue; For where he ended, you began. There was no better danger to him than you. And now, there is no greater danger to you than him.

The taste of you is just as he remembered.)

Kuroo kisses as if this is how he could explain things.

He pours all of his ferocity into the action, eagerly laps up the savory of the needing touches and the sweetness of bared soul, as it pours out and in. Joined into one, lines blurred, delineation a fool’s game. When wrapped in the throes of your embrace, the parting of your lips is all too addicting, and submission isn’t a threat but a promise of more.

He digs his teeth into the plump and pulls, losing the fight with his feelings when a whimper erupts from your mouth and even more lost when you push into him with equal fervor. Your hands are rushing up to his hair and tugging on the strands, pulling him closer into you if that were even possible. His hands find their place on your waist, finding solace when you fit against him in the exact way that he remembers. Joy coursing through the rushing blood when his fingers dig into plush skin, craving hardly satiated but instead, amplified.

It’s desperate, and mean, and hard, and consuming and it's the greatest thing he’s ever had. Flurried limbs pulling each other together, gripping on skin in calloused moans and tugging movements. Your tongues taste one another, licking into the open in wet fervor. A whine is exhaled when your mouths pull apart that is quickly replaced with bliss when his teeth sink into your neck, lapping over your tender pulse point in the way he knows your body responds best. Your nails dig into his biceps, the fabric of his shirt tugging upward.

This dance is familiar and that makes it that much more exciting, like an inactive muscle being stretched out. He’s pushing you both further into the room, fingertips trailing at your waistband, silently asking as he sucks another mark into your neck. You beat him to it, pulling pants and underwear down in one quick movement, your heart pumping erratically as you fall on the couch, onto the buoy keeping you above the rising tide. He’s moving in tandem, your own shirt falling to your floor in abandon.

Revealed to you is a pantheon of scars that decorate the lean and lithe muscle of his chest as you settle on the sofa. Some old, faded to the color of his skin, others new, pink and raw. Your fingers are drawn to them, running over the numerous marks that bisected skin, that make constellations against his ribcages.

Atlas stares down at you, deep breaths racking his chest. “What happened to you?” You ask quietly, fingers finding a particularly jagged mark that runs from the right side of his ribcage down to his belly button. Two pale pink scars lining either side of its division— claws. His stomach tenses beneath your touch.

The worry seen in your eyes ignites a heated passion in him, the held suppression that you still care driving him forward once more.

“Later. We can talk about it later.” Invigorated, he leans back down, capturing your lips in another kiss and running his tongue on the curl of them. His hands move on their own accord, long fingers gripping beneath your knees and hiking your legs upward, exposing the wet and slickened part of your sex to the eager grind of his hard length poking through his jeans. Denim meets your sex and the rough fabric pulls a broken moan from your occupied lips as it grinds against the wet of your folds. Rubbing coarsely into your sensitive bud. His fingers find their place there soon after, splitting your seam and gathering enough wetness at your entrance to roll it over your clit, swirling his finger around the pearl in the way he knows you like it best.

There comes great advantage to being with a man for as long as you were with Kuroo. His expertise ignites the beginning rapture with a speed unlike any other. Fingers playing with your sex in ways that you’ve never been able to replicate on your own, driving your want higher, tightening the coil that burns with delectable heat in your stomach as his tongue licks into your mouth. Your breaths are heavy, lips disconnecting with him as you find yourself distracted in pleasure, a trail of spit stretching between you.

It’s when he slips a long skilled finger inside of you that you throw your head back. He makes quick work, attaching with eagerness to the column of your throat, suckling marks into the juncture of your jaw and neck. He knows where the spot lies, knows how to have your mind fogging up and your mouth opening in stupor.

And you hate it; You hate that he knows what to do and how to do it to get you so malleable underneath him. You’re putty in his hands and it's the essence of everything that you have been warning yourself of. He could ask you anything, tell you anything, and in the embrace that has been yearned for, it wouldn’t take much for you to do whatever it is that he asked.

You would do more to stop this were you not locked in the throes of pleasure—but he feeds the beaten dog so well.

A second finger enters you and you moan.

“That’s it. I wanna hear it, baby.” The huskiness of his voice pants a hot breath against the side of your neck. “Please let me hear it.”

“Tetsurou—” You manage to bite out just as his fingers curl upward, stroking against the spongy spot of your front wall. A dull fuzzy pressure begins to fill your body.

“You gonna cum for me, pretty girl?” He asks, his thumb working in tandem with his two pumping fingers to rub hard circles against your clit. “You gonna let me taste it?”

His nose presses into your cheek, lips placing a loving kiss against the surface as you nod, emphatically. He breathes, enamored with the feel of your walls clenching around his fingers, drunk off of the faint smell of your perfume, and the salt of your skin. He knows an orgasm is hardly the way to fixing things, but he’ll be damned if he won’t try. Rising on his unoccupied arm, he hovers himself above you, studying the contortion of your face. Your face, gorgeous as it scrunches in response to his ministrations; Beyond beautiful in all of its existence, when you're smiling, skin pushing on the apples of your cheek; In sleep, resting and relaxed; In your fury, furrowed and gritted as you yell at him, give him your poison and vexation, deliver an acrimony that he can only kneel before— entrenched in all of your holy.

Your eyes remain closed, sealed in bliss as he strums the familiar crescendo and as satisfying as it is to see, he wants more. Wants to see you.

He says your name in reverence, “Look at me.”

Blown pupils meet his own and it's the final stretch. Heart escalating, fingers clenching, your thighs closing around his forearm to stave off the impending blow and all of its glory. He doesn’t stop, instead he keeps your gaze, dropping his mouth to your chest and sucking a nipple into it. Laving over the sensitive skin, setting nerves tender as he maintains his steady pace with his fingers.

And it comes; The sharp inhale of breath, the tumbling of his name, the peak of the long awaited happiness. Your fingers find home in gripping his arms, the one beside your head and the other between your thighs, still stroking an even stride through the pulsing of your gummy walls and the gush of wetness from you.

It's convulsing and dizzying, you almost don’t believe that it's happening as euphoria washes over you. Tetsurou hovers over you, sliding his fingers from you and immediately putting them in his mouth, sucking the taste of you off of the digits.

Were you not already pulsing with the aftershocks of an orgasm, the sight of his eagerness would have pushed you over the ledge. It's pathetic really how Kuroo does to you what no other person can. Set you aflame with the paradoxical sisters of lust and anger. The emotions of Mars, emboldened in intensity by his doing, are further impassioned as he stands on his knees, stare blown wide as he pushes your thighs apart once more. His gaze transfixed on the mess he’s made of your sex, the length of his cock twitching in arousal the longer that he looks.

“There she is,” he says to himself, adjusting your knees further up until they’re hitting your chest. His hands grab underneath you, pulling your exposed pussy closer to him. He fists himself, a pearly bead of precum smearing over the red and leaking tip, pushing it forward so that the head of his cock bumps into the sensitive nub of you with each swipe against his length. Shocking you into the desire, building the anticipation once more. “This perfect pussy.”

He’s lost, stuck in the reverie as he stares at you and it eats you alive. To be so desired, so wanted by a man you were convinced hadn’t wanted you anymore.

“Tetsu,” Your voice is ragged and broken, propriety abandoned in the glow of the coital haze. You breathe and he seems reminded of where he is, a glaze in his own eyes. Kuroo leans down after a moment, reminding himself of what he’s meant to do. His lips find yours in a gentle peck as he breathes in your exhale.

“Tell me. Please.” He swirls the head of his cock at your entrance, gathering your slick on him but waiting. “Tell me what you want. Tell me you want this.”

It feels like you're floating in the waters, no longer drowning or at risk of sinking, but instead light and loose on its surface. No longer made an enemy of its tides but the lover, kissed with each lap of its waves. If you close your eyes you can hear the water crashing against the shore. The waves that crumble the high rise of your stone walls, their wreckage falling into the sea. You can feel that it's Kuroo’s hands underneath you keeping you afloat, holding you still. Can pretend that everything is right once more.

Your eyes shut in hope, the promise of tomorrow within reach. The words are spoken before you have any sense otherwise. Sober wants and the repressed truth voiced in a split second.

“I want it so bad. I want you. Please, please—”

It’s all he needs, all he wants. Not the sex, forget the sex, but you—wanting him, asking for him. A revival of the shredded beating threads of a tender heart. He pushes into you, the hefty weight of his member filling you in the ways that are so familiar yet need the most adjustment. The burning stretch, the feeling of being whole as he moves forward, inch by aching inch. Slowly letting you adjust, slowly giving himself the time to fit.

He pauses his movement, a grunt, heavy and man, releases from his mouth. The wet heat of your walls choking him, wrapping around him like a vice that sets every neuron, every pathway alight. He digs his fingers into the soft of you tugging you closer in search of the home he knows, the one that will bring him to his death. In your embrace, it would be kind, long-awaited, the better alternative to the threat that he faces every night on the street.

He stills his hips, letting you acclimate to the feel of him inside of you. Conversely, he tries to catch his breath, tries to not burst at the first feel of your tightness around him.

Tetsurou looks down at you, his hands smoothing up and down the expanse of your spread thighs as he watches the quick flicks of emotion on your face. Waiting for the signal, the green light to roll into you.

Your chest heaves with a stuttered breath, your breasts rising and falling and he falls into the impulse to bring his hands to them. Palms cupping the skin, thumbs brushing over peaked and taught nipples. Your skin is dewy with sweat, eyes blown with lust, and hair messy as you lie beneath him. Beautiful, beyond beautiful. He takes a snapshot of you in his mind, folding this image in the file for the late night thoughts, for the reasons to keep living.

Your face contorts into one of shock, eyes darting to his own, disrupting the image of ecstasy you were once so lost in. He mirrors your surprise with a look of confusion, unsure what happened in the split second to cause such a look from you.

“What did you say?” You ask, rising onto your elbows, shifting his place inside of you ever so slightly.

He hisses with the movement, hands rushing down to your hips to hold you still. He can’t think with the jolting, the hot lick of pleasure that burns within him at the slightest of shifting from you, but he tries anyway. Recalling the previous couple of seconds, wondering what could have slipped out of his mouth in the few moments that he was gazing down at you, staring in awe as you writhed underneath him.

“I’m so in love with you.”

It isn’t the most jarring of things to have ever been said by him, this evening alone enough of a reminder of the kinds of outrageous that his occupation can bring, but it’s the breach of a reality. The actualization of something fragile that lies between you two. It is easier to be abhorrently angry at him rather than violently in love with Tetsurou, and yet it remains.

Like a hidden secret, you kept it locked in you. Tried to stampen it out, snuff it with hands around its throat. But here he is, on his knees, just as victimized by the truth, begging for better days.

He rolls into you, then. Energized by his own admission, eager at the locking of your eyes. He pumps a steady rhythm, cock bullying against tight walls and rubbing in all the right ways, revitalized at the moans that spill out of you.

“I said I’m in love with you,” Palms release your breasts and find your own hands, intertwining fingers together and leaning close to you. Chest to chest, mouth hovering above your own, chasing the home of sweet release but making sure you’re right in front of him. “So fucking in love with you.”

It happens in quick succession. Pressure erupting, tide pulling you in and under, his voice the only tether to the surface as your orgasm reached you in record time. Brought asunder by the turmoil, the anticipation of him, and then finally having it. You can’t tell if it's because of the ministrations of his hips that know you so well, that know how to bring you forward— thighs pressing into yours, skin clapping at the repeated meeting of him into you, the tightening of the burning coil— or the confession. Spoken just as he has said everything else to you—

With conviction, firmly believing the words he has uttered. Kuroo has never lied to you, he wouldn’t do it now.

The blooming fire in your core spreads throughout the entirety of you; Your head throws back in a cry and Kuroo takes it as permission to follow you. Drops his head into your neck, thrusting with deep abandon as he finds his own peak. He digs and digs, burying himself to the hilt as he reaches it. His stomach tightening, his body going rigid as the high he seeks renders him still deep within you. A guttural moan leaving his mouth, unintelligible whispers, low muttered honesty that he means for himself.

He holds you close to him in the wake of the decrescendo, all but collapsing on top of you. Limbs gummy and soft, minds sluggish as he keeps you connected to him, for as long as you’ll let him.

Time passes like this, held close to him, sweat gluing you back to him in the way it was always meant to be.

And it's sticky, this mess that you're in, body and mind. Clinging to one another, your hands unthread with his fingers to run through his hair, his lips plant soft kisses to the skin that he can reach, and the fragments of uncertainty between you lay shattered in their great glory on the floor. The tide slowly rises, washing away the scattered pieces, returning it back to its sea, promising to take care of it all with a loving whisper.

You don’t know where to go from here. The abated fear that was put to rest in the heat of his touch slowly inches forward. He knows it must, can probably sense your rising apprehension before you even realize it. Spider senses, and whatnot.

His head rises from laying in the space between the couch and your neck, ambers looking into yours. Honestly, carefully, lovingly.

He brings his hand up, brushing a flyaway from your face. “What are you thinking about?” The quiet plea from before.

Let me in.

“Are you going to leave when I go to sleep?” You ask, and even if you had the energy to muster a kind of bite to your words, you don’t have the desire to.

He wonders for a second, voice soft when he finally questions, “Do you want me to?”

Old habits beat the familiar song, and you fear waking up again to an empty apartment after having him so close. No, you don’t want him to leave; But admitting that is jumping four hundred steps ahead in a wasteland now imploded from your coupling with him. Nothing about this is normal, even as you try to grasp some semblances of it. You shouldn’t have slept with your ex-boyfriend, not when you told yourself things needed to be patched up first, not when you were still hurt inside, but falling into the cycle, the old song and dance of before has thrown a wreck into the healthy attempt at boundaries.

It’s just made everything so much worse. Your head hurts, your heart pounds and all you can do is cover your face with your hands. Hiding the frustration before him.

“Hey,” Tetsurou coos, admonishing you gently from your secreting. His hands pull yours away from your face, voice guiding the quieting din in your mind. “I’d like to stay. We can talk all night or not at all. I just want to be next to you. But only if you want me.”

It’s up to you; All of this is up to you, now.

“And if I say ‘no’?”

“Then I’ll wait until you’re ready. Even if you’re never ready.”

You hum, a means to fill the space. Uncertainty lingering.

He calls your name quietly, the same seriousness that has been following him all evening in his gaze again. The kind that pointedly was not apparent three months ago before the rainy night. “You need to know though, before we start anything, before you make a decision, if it comes down to it—if your safety is on the line—I’ll do it again. I’ll do whatever it takes. And you can’t change my mind on it.”

It’s then that you realize even in the height of your argument, in the consuming of one another, Tetsurou never gave you an apology. Said to your face it wouldn’t fix anything because he wasn’t going to apologize to you. Saying he’s sorry would be a lie, and he doesn’t lie to you. He’ll hurt you both again if he needs to. If it comes to pass, that’s his answer; Wherever you’re concerned, if your safety is at risk, there isn’t much Tetsurou wouldn’t do to protect it—protect you.

A knowing that you are going to have to accept. And quickly.

Your eyes see only but the honorable truth in his. Your heart pumps erratically and your mouth craves the taste of his once more.

“Stay. I want you to stay.”

a/n: its here. two long years later. big thanks to everyone who loves this series and has been interested even after my long ass hiatus. you guys are the reason i kept going through it even through the worst of things. love you all! btw i made a whole ass playlist just for this chapter so let me know if that's something we are interested in

#taglist!#i think i got everyone #plus a shameless reblog #red suits red heart and red ledgers #triple r #kuroo x reader

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