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lovelytsunoda · 3 months

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give me a kiss (or three) // lando norris

summary: matching clothes shouldn't turn lando on this much.

pairing: lando norris x female reader

warnings: smut, the worst description I have ever written, it’s a lil bit cringe. lando has a nickname for his dick, and a box of flavoured condoms in his bedside drawer. lowkey inspired by an audio posted by the wonderful @2-fast-2-curious. (I took a lot of creative liberties and added a ton of things, but the base idea is still there), there's more laughter than sex in here my dudes-

seeing lando norris wrapped up in the soft pink bedspread should not have warmed her heart the way that it did.

she had slipped out of the bed and ducked across the hallway to use the bathroom, and when she came back, her chest seized at the sight of her lover, his arms wrapped around the massive section of duvet that she was previously buried under.

she never thought she'd see the day, and she never thought she could feel this way about someone who felt the same way back.

she slowly began to dress, careful not to make any noise in the small bedroom. not only would she prefer not to wake her roommates, lando himself was a light sleeper and he needed to be well rested before they went to visit her parents that afternoon.

"sweetheart?" lando mumbled, messy-haired and groggy as he began to surface from underneath the duvet. "its so early, what are you doing awake?"

"i have to run to tescos, and then i have boxing at ten." she smiled softly, tightening the strap on her lacy bralette. "i wanted to let you sleep in. you'll need all your energy for the drive later."

lando snorted, sitting up straight, his curls matted by sleep and sticking to his skin. "there's no way you're wearing a bra that nice to your boxing class."

"i'll change when i get there." she chuckled, leaning in to give him a quick kiss.

the blankets shifted with the movement, falling away from lando's thighs to where his royal blue boxers hugged his skin. the man looked down, and then over to the matching set his girlfriend was wearing before he let out a laugh.

"what's so funny?"

"your bra matches my underwear." lando snickered. "we match. a perfect pair."

she couldn't help but join in with her lovers laughter and mirth, looping her arm's around his neck with a chortle. his skin was warmed against hers, which had rapidly cooled since she had emerged from her blanket huddle and into the winter air that filled her home.

"you're so cringe." she giggled, standing between his legs, the slight shade of difference between their underclothes making her smile.

he was right. they were almost a perfect pair.

"cringe? you think i'm cringe?" lando feigned hurt, squeezing her sides playfully. he kissed her deeply, nipping at her bottom lip as his hands roamed her lower body.

the kiss was passionate, yet playful, smiles evident on both of their faces (even when lando slipped his tongue into her mouth, earning a surprised shout).

"not as cringe as the time-" she stopped midsentence, whining as lando ran his tongue along the sweet spot on her neck before diving back in to kiss her. "you wore the monoply boxers."

"i thought 'wanna go to jail" was a great line!"

"yeah, for a fifteen year old boy!"

"it still worked, didn't it?" lando laughed, grabbing at her thighs to roll them over.

the duvet was soft and pillowy around her, bunched up just enoough around her that it narrowed her field of vision. all that existed in that moment was her and lando.

just the way she liked it. she loved it when they were silly like this, playful and sexy at the same time. an experience that felt so uniquely like the two of them and their love, and ensured that they never got tired of being intimate with each other.

"am i still cringe when i've got your wrists pinned to the bed?" lando smirked, his body a comfortable weight against hers, her wrists cradled against the goose down.

"i dunno." she smiled arching upwards to press her lips against his. "why don't we find out?"

lando grinned at her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "i like the way you think, but don't you have to go to boxing?"

"they won't miss me. i'm there three times a week as it is." she smiled, snaking one bare leg around his.

lando's touch was as familiar as her afternoon stretching routine. every brush of his fingertips against her skin made her feel powerful, like she could do anything. his lips were comfortable and warm against hers, yet new and exciting every time. lando's grip on her wrists let up, and she buried her fingers in his curls, tugging softly.

"fuck, babe. i love it when you do that." he moaned, lips dancing over the material of her bralette, tonguing at her peaked nipples.

"i know." she hummed, breath hitching. "oh, i love it when you do that."

"that's my girl." lando hummed, reverence in his eyes and a serene expression on his face as he continued to kiss across her collarbone, throughout the valley between her breasts. "you want my fingers, baby? want me to make you feel good?"

“please.” she keened, arching into him.

landos calloused fingers danced across her thigh, over the cluster of freckles that used to make her feel so insecure but he so dearly loved, reaching for the damp spot on her panties. his touch was feather light, running up and down her slit, barely applying any pressure at all.

“lando.” she breathed, making a show of spreading her legs wider for him.

“I’ve got you, sweet girl.” he hummed, tugging her panties to the side before dipping two fingers in with a moan. “all this for me? you’re so wet, love.”

“only for you.” she moaned, breath hitching as she dug her fingernails into landos shoulder blades, his tongue darting out to lick the sweat off her neck. “oh, baby.”

“such a good girl for me, taking my fingers so well.” he praised, using his free hand to guide her face towards his.

lando kissed her deeply, her hands moving to clutch his hair as his fingers fucked her deeper. every inch of her body was on fire with desire, pleasure pooling in her stomach, her lovers hard cock pressing against her stomach while he finger-fucked her to high heaven.

“oh my god, lando, fuck, I think I’m gonna-“

she didn’t have time to finish that thought before lando pulled his fingers out abruptly, making a show out of licking them off as she whined impatiently at her ruined orgasm.

“what the fuck, dude!”

lando just laughed, kissing her forehead. “payback, sweetheart. you called me cringe, so you don’t get to come.”

“fuck you.”

“I beleive you’re trying to.”

the room went awkwardly silent, so much so that you could hear a pin drop. and then, all at once, they both burst out laughing. the kind of laughter that makes your eyes water, your stomach start to hurt. Lando was laughing so hard that he dropped back onto the bed, bare chest heaving as he looked up at the ceiling.

“why the fuck did I say that?” he cackled.

“I don’t know!” she laughed back. “if it helps, I thought it was cute, and it really made me want to suck your dick.”

“yes, actually. that does help.” landos eyes brightened as she shifted his position, sliding his boxers down his legs. “little lando has missed your pretty face.”

“little lando? god I hate that you have a nickname for your penis.”

“we’ll, if you’re going to insult him like that-“

“shut up.” she breathed, kissing him with a smile. “do we have any of those flavoured condoms left?”

lando grinned. “watermelon or fruit punch?”

she slipped off the bed, foot tangling with the flat sheet as she crouched in front of the bedside table, digging through the drawer for the small red box, searching for the elusive fruit punch condom.

she had never been a fan of giving head. there was something about it that had always just icked her out, but lando made her want to try. she wanted to expand her horizons with him, not for him. it took a lot of trial and error, but they found a way: flavoured condoms. this way, it was more enjoyable for her as well as him. it was akin to a warm ice lolly, rather than a body part.

she deftly ripped the packaging open, sliding the rubber shield onto landos cock. she positioned herself between his legs, taking a few deep breaths before taking his cock in her mouth, hollowing her cheeks and running her tongue up and down the shaft.

“oh my god!” lando moaned, resisting the urge to buck his hips. getting blown was always a treat for him, considering that y/n didn’t enjoy it all the time, finding it more stressful than it was worth. but every time she did it, he was reminded just how incredible she was at it.

it was a treat, one that he would savour until the end of time.

he bit his lip to stifle a moan, dropping his hand to the back of her head. he was big in her mouth, weighty against her tongue. she closed her eyes, sucking gently.

“god, you’re so perfect.” lando whined, rubbing reassuring circles with his thumb on the side of her head. “taking me like such a good girl.”

she opened her eyes, chancing a look at the love of her life. she moaned at the sight of his rippling abs, body contorted in pleasure.

all because of her. she did that.

“fucking hell, honey. I think I’m gonna blow.”

lando came with a howl, hips stuttering as he came inside the condom sheath. she slipped off his cock quickly, leaving a trail of saliva behind as she made her way up his body to press a soft kiss to landos lips. using a handful of tissues, he slipped the condom off, balling it up and tossing it in the wastebasket. his breathing was heavy, but he was raring to go for more.

“sit on my cock, babe. ride me, please. I need it.”

she smiled, kissing him again. “now who’s the needy one?”

“shut up. do you want to come on my dick or not?” he joked, tickling her sides.

she playfully pushed him against the headboard before rooting around for another condom (a normal one, this time). she pressed the foil packet into lando's hand before getting to her feet and sliding off her soaked panties. she moved to take off her bra as well, but lando grabbed her arm, stopping her.

"keep it on, gorgeous."

and how could she argue when he was giving her puppy dog eyes?

she sunk down slowly, dramatically playing up her actions with some hair-fluffing and boob-primping. lando laughed underneath her, the sound distracting her from the sting as he stretched her out with his cock.

she shifted slowly at first, moving her hips in slow, torturous circles, biting her lip to stop a moan. her lover groaned, looking up at her with lust and reverence in his eyes.

"comfy?" he quipped, hands gently moving to grip her backside.

"very." she smiled, leaning in to kiss him.

lando wasted no time in guiding her movements, lifting her up and down on his cock like it was no effort at all. her fingernails dug into his shoulders, small pants coming out in quick breaths as she bounced on his length.

"oh my god, lando." she whined. "you feel so good. so good, baby."

"that's my girl." lando hummed, dotting kisses along her collarbone, his hands grabbing fistfuls of her ass. "only i get to see you like this, make you feel this good." he growled "and you're doing so so well for me, love."

if lando were to explain what having sex with his girlfriend was like in two words, he'd probably say coming home. she was his safe haven. they fit together like a glove, always seemed to know what the other needed without saying a word. and if they spent more time laughing than actually having sex, or fi their sex was goofier than it was seductive? that didn't matter to him. all that mattered was that they spent that time together.

just two people in love, showing the other just how much.

every bit of praise made her skin break out in goosebumps. she could feel herself dripping onto lando's thighs, but she didn't care. she just wanted to be close to him. as close as physically possible. she arched inwards, leaning against his chest for support as lando stopped moving her hips, instead thrusting his up rapidly to meet hers, a strangled moan escaping her throat.

"that's it, princess. you don't need to do any of the work. lando's got you." he cooed, pressing kisses to her sweaty forehead, whispering words of praise in between moans and grunts. animalistic sounds that just turned her on even more, pleasure reverberating throughout her body.

her slender fingers came up to tangle in his hair, tugging gently. lando moaned softly, angelically, his head tilted backwards and his eyes closed. it was a heavenly sight as he leaned down to sew her lips to his, walls beginning to contract against his cock.

"fuck, lando, go faster. i'm so close, baby." she whined, feeling him pick up the pace, hugging her body closer. she matched his movements, circling her hips and reaching a hand towards her clit.

"you coming, baby? you gonna come all over my thick, hard dick?" lando crooned. "touching yourself for me? getting yourself off on my cock."

"lando, please." she breathed, fingers rapidly moving against her swollen bud. she could feel herself getting closer, the band in her stomach getting tighter. "make me come."

he kissed her hard, thrusting deeper, the room echoing with the sounds of his skin slapping against hers, his guttural moans as his head fell back against the pillows. she could feel him release into the condom, his dick shuddering inside her, the latex getting warmer as it filled.

that was enough to trigger her own release, her juices pouring out of her, running down lando's shaft and dripping onto his thighs. she came with a cry of his name, bracing her hands against the headboard. her limbs felt like jelly as she tried to ease herself off him.

"easy does it." lando spoke softly, his voice raspy (as it usually was after sex), his touch gentle as he eased her down onto the bed. "remember to breathe, there's still water on the nightstand from last night. finish the glass, darling." he kissed her forehead softly before stripping himself of the condom and wiping her legs up with a handful of tissues. "come here."

she smiled, placing the now-empty ikea glass on the nightstand before curling up against him, wrapping her naked limbs over his, pulling the flat sheet over their bodies.

"this was a much better workout than boxing." she smiled, resting her head on his chest. "you're more fun than the coach is."

"i should hope so. i need to give you a reason to keep me around." lando joked, kissing her forehead. "i love you, my darling darling girl."

"i love you too, my handsome boy." she smiled, leaning up to kiss him, trailing a hand across his face as they kissed softly.

"by the way, this doesn't absolve you of driving to my mum's later. and yes, we're still going."

"god damn it! she always sends home with so much crap, i can't fit it all in the mclaren!"

TAGS:

@magnummagnussen @httpiastri @libraryofloveletters @diorleclerc @thatsdemko @scuderiamh @twinkodium @sidcrosbyspuck @cartierre @lorarri @userlando

#lando norris x reader #formula one x reader #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 smut #lando norris smut #lando norris fanfic #lando norris fluff #lando norris fic #lando norris x you #Spotify

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moondirti · 28 days

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simon sees a familiar face. (AO3 mirror) tags: darkfic. ghost x nude model! reader. (given a stage name but no discerning characteristics.) violent intrusive thoughts. objectification. rough sex. marking. dacryphilia. possessiveness. dubcon photo sharing.

It's the slip of her skin in his periphery. Moisturised, gold shimmer body glaze. Tucked up against the bar and nursing a negroni in both hands, her dress riding high up on her thigh. Sticks out like a sore thumb in a pub like this, where seedy men come to drink their woes away. Just a little too clean, prim and perfect polish. Pretty enough to make his teeth hurt.

He has to do a double take before he can be sure. Where he would know her calves, those hands and varnished nails, anywhere, he can hardly believe it until she turns a quarter angle and her face comes into full view. Lips he's seen perked up and glossed into erotic O's. Eyes so often half-cast and sultry, lined in kohl, that it's odd to see them wide like this; looking around, searching for something.

Yeah. Simon knows her. Knows her like the grip of a gun, the rip release of a hand grenade, the flat lining of barrack cot mattresses. Knows her so well that his cock chubs up in an almost pavlovian response, fat and heavy and leaking already, like a bloody sixth former seeing a pair of tits for the first time. In all honesty, this might just be the equivalent for a man like himself. Aching jowls, frothy lips. Ageing, dirty beast – thrown the most delectable fucking bone.

Because it's her. Cut straight from the centrefold of his favourite magazine and pasted a mere four feet away. Just as alluring, as provocative as she is in the poster he'd gifted Johnny on a deployment birthday. The object gracing every page not adhered together with dry cum. The one thing that gets him – and frankly, every other mutt on the task force – through long missions.

He throws back the last of his bourbon and slips his mask back over his chin. The haunt is emptier than usual. He assumes the big guy by the doorway is responsible, no doubt hired to follow her around and scare the creeps away. Simon must count as one – if his intentions, latched like filthy claws in his stomach, are anything to go by – but he's also bigger. Bolder. Probably has tattoos that outlast her bodyguard's experience in the field. So he takes his chances as he stretches up and prowls up to where she's sitting.

"Selene Harlow." It's a stage name, of that he's certain. But he has nothing else to call her by, not having fallen short of searching for her true identity. She's good at keeping herself safe from perverts like him. A good fucking girl, if not a little minx.

"Only on the clock." She smiles softly, dipping the orange peel in and out of her drink. It looks untouched, glass sweating onto the bar top. He thinks of holding her head back by her hair and knocking the concoction down her throat. "You don't look like my date."

Simon makes a sound. "No' your usual type, then?"

"I didn't say that." Her dress is low cut, bandage tight. When she breathes in, he devours the way her chest heaves out of the material. Begging to pop free, or else be ripped open right here. He can't imagine she would be opposed to being stripped in public. Not with her breasts plastered on a million different publications, issues displayed in the illicit material case behind every gas station counter.

"Well, he must be soft in th'head."

She shrugs. "Don't sound so surprised." Simon wonders, if he were to press his thumbs down onto each collarbone, how much pressure it would take to snap them in place. He's always liked the delicate arch of her shoulders, the swan-like column of her neck. With how he fixated he is on them now, he can hardly place the dejection in her voice. "Not a lot of people wanna go out with a girl who does what I do. It was only a matter of time before he found out."

"Can' be too pissed at him, a'suppose."

"Hm?"

"His loss is my gain."

"Aha." A flash of teeth. She turns on the bar stool to fully face him, and her knees knock his. Soft fucking legs, plush like a chew toy and he knows– he knows what they look like completely nude and spread open. But nothing could've quite prepared him for how different it is to see them in real life. To see her – real, fleshly, blood full – and not be able to take. Have to hold himself back despite the way he's pumped himself raw to her arse almost a hundred times now. He lost the plot some time ago. His mind must think of her as his. "Is that what this is?"

And what is this? Simon doesn't have a name for it. All he knows is the way his head itches, the tantalisation crawling in his skin. The sheer self-restraint it takes not to pocket her home and chain her to his bed. He wants to dig his teeth into her cheek.

Instead–

"Could be."

"I think that's up to me." She crinkles in a wily little smile and he chuckles because it's funny. Funny because she takes him to be a good man. But with the way her bodyguard is eyeing him from across the room (fucking muppet), he knows that's not the quality he's projecting. There's the urge to crack a sick joke, something about clipping a bird's wings, just to see her pick up on the rot he carries with him. "You military?"

"Tha' obvious?"

"Hm, no. Wild guess." She straightens her back and the vague gesture she makes with her wrist is enough to drive him up a wall. It sets a timer, ticking time bomb, in his brain that'll detonate if he doesn't get his nasty old hands on her waist. Thirty seconds on the clock. He can never be patient when it comes to sweet things. "Your... stature. And I tend to be popular with servicemen, anyway. What's your name?"

"And why do you wan' to know my name, bird?"

She flutters her lashes, pointedly looking down to where he's bulging in his jeans. Bird is right. She shines like one with pretty feathers, begs to be plucked, because why else would mother nature create things like her if not to appease men like him?

"Figure you'd want me to moan it later."

And it's like watching one fly into a cage on its own accord. His blood boils hot and thin, flooding his head until his eyes strain with something ferocious. "Why wait." Simon says. He can't wrap an arm around her waist fast enough, scooping her from her seat and wrapping her tight against his side. Tight enough that, if she changed her mind, she wouldn't be able to flap her way out of it. "Name's Simon, and there's a bathroom 'round back."

It's nasty. Depraved. Graffiti lines all four walls and it's no coincidence that the one he pins her up against looks the filthiest. Something in him craves to see her degraded (the same part that marked a picture of her in black ink, chicken-scratch body writing proclaiming her as his), brought down to the same peg that he occupies. Beasts with too much baggage stored in their marrow. Humans, men, with moral compasses that skew a tad too far left. Animals. Animalistic.

"I don– Don't usually do this..." She breathes, excuse stuttered through little whimpers as he mouths at her jaw. Maybe she's afraid of living up to her name, or whatever image Selene Harlow projects. Not a prostitute, he can almost hear her say. Tastes the fear of misconception, sour on otherwise tart skin. He hums and tugs her breasts free with one, scarred paw.

"Doesn' really matter, bird. Were fuckin' made for it." He squeezes the two mounds, pinches knotted nipples and rolls them between his fingers until she cries. Her voice breaks in little bubbled sobs – starts crying so fast that, christ, it must be some sort of record – and he aches in his trousers. Ready to burst if he doesn't bully his cock into a hole soon, just like she's been ready to be unravelled all night. "Made to be mine, yeah? Bloody 'ell, jus' look at you."

Frayed little tapestry. If he weren't so mad with lust, he'd obsess what drove her to this point. What brought her to some shitty pub in Manchester to meet a good for nothing lemon. Why she mewls and completely melts into him when he slaps her tits, just to see the way they jiggle. He's an ugly bastard, definitely punching just by breathing the same air as her, and yet she's so perfectly willing. Flaying herself open, skinned alive. Gasping selfish gulps of air when he finally pulls off his mask to sink his canines into her shoulder.

He's so used to seeing her posed, perfectly still. To have her like this, a trapped worm underneath him, feels like concentrated lightning on every artery. Overstimulating. Paralysing. He never thought he'd see the day where she exposes herself in motion: folding her dress up over her wide hips, slipping soaked panties down to her ankles.

(In fact, he vividly remembers brooding over an interview her magazine had added to the corner of a cover page, once. Selene Harlow tells all! Answers inquiries on video pornography and more!

I don't think I'm the right person for that sort of scene. Not much of an actress, I'm afraid.)

Not that her feigning was ever a concern. Simon knows the giddy gossamer over her eyes can't be artificially replicated. She's too clumsy, too amateur in the way she readies herself for him. Used to doing all this prep in a frilly dressing room with apathetic staff members directing her. Sways a bit on her heels and holds onto his thick forearms as she widens her stance. He stands until she's steady, then drops to his knees in search of the star of this show.

And the sight is as much a bludgeon to his self control as seeing her for the first time was, trigger for the feral mongrel that barks and chomps on his ribcage. Her cunt is just as perfect up close in this grimy bathroom as it is well lit, professionally oiled, and printed on coated paper. A little fuzzy, swollen enough that it flowers open for him on its own. Shyly inviting him to dig his nose right under her clit and inhale, eyes rolling to the back of his head at the scent of her, undiluted. Salivate blooms around his teeth.

When he flattens his tongue against it, she tries to find purchase in the roots of his shorn hair. Nails scrambling along the buzzcut until she forfeits and clamps her hand behind his ears, head thrown back to knock against the wall. If he were a nice man, he would spend hours buried between her legs. Sated by licking her slick from its source, like a kitten given a bowl of cream. Would make her cum until she forgets how to keep quiet, until she screams his name loud enough for the world knows their muse is off the market now.

But if he were a nice man, he wouldn't be defiling her here. He would've taken her out to the Greek place that never seems to have room for him alone, and then back to her apartment, where he'd drop her off with a chaste kiss and a promise to call her tomorrow.

So Simon combs through her lips once, twice, three times. Coats her in enough spit to be able to shove two fingers with little fuss, and scissors them apart. The little thing stretches to accommodate his ministrations immediately, clutch swallowing him up to the second knuckle and sucking around him when he spreads her hole for his leering eye. It's cute – so fucking cute how she clenches and keens and cries. Neck arched up above him. Apple of eden, blank canvas. His fingers leave her cunt as he rises to bite into it.

(Truthfully, she could've done with more prep. She wasn't lying when she said she doesn't do this often, whatever this is. But the way silver pebbles brim on her lash-line makes his chest twist, the dog rearing on its haunches, ready to pounce – and he thinks he'd like to see her babble in pain as he splits her open on his cock.)

"Gonna take you home after this, y'hear? Fuck you well 'n' good, all proper like. Fold ya over a mattress and print my cock on your guts, birdie. Never let you forget it. "

"S-Si! Simon, please. I n-need..."

Ichor beads in the shape of his teeth, streaking oxygenated red down her throat. He makes a mess of it, smearing it across the marred patch of skin, and brings the fluid up to her face to rub it into her cheek. The type of marking he'd reserve for his third or fourth going with someone – if anyone ever lasts that long – but is absolutely necessary right now. Here, with her. Technically their hundredth something time together, if he were deranged enough to count the various times he'd spent himself over her spreads.

But nothing can supersede the truth of the matter. He streaks blood along her face and licks it off in a show of merciless possession. Pretty things like her get plucked off streets and ruined everyday, despite her cynicism on her value, and he can point to at least three other men by name who would slaughter to be in his place. Best to stake his claim now, clamp a collar on the exotic fowl he pulled down from the sky.

"Need wha', hm?" His tongue laps at her cheek, laving over the contour of her nose and swiping right under her eye to catch the tears that freely fall. She winces when he gets too close, hands faltering along his waistband.

"Your... d-dick. Please, please. Just wanna be fucked, Simon."

He plants a rough kiss onto her mouth, all teeth and tongue, and finally ladles himself free of his jeans.

Just wanna be fucked.

Daft, silly girl.

She should've chosen anyone else.

It takes a bit of pressure to feed himself into her cunt, pinning either leg to the sides of his hips as he guides his cock toward the opening. If she was putty before, she's positively liquid now, boneless rag doll slumped onto him. Dead weight. Letting him take control of this fight. Content to do nothing, slack-jawed and empty eyed as her hot walls come to embrace him completely. Her breath halts, the air recalibrating to just the sound of his ragged grunts, and he considers it an invitation to wrap a fist around her neck.

"I'll do more than jus' fuck you, pretty thing. Won' ever let you out of my sight."

And he means it.

It's impossible to withdraw completely from her – vacuum sealed too tight, too good, around him. So he fucks in short thrusts instead, snapping his pelvis back, only to shove forward once her legs begin to flail about. It's brutal even by his standards, rough in a way that supplants pleasure with pain. A small pity surfaces when her lip trembles, discomfort wringing her darling face up like a dish towel. Wet and pathetic, but he sneaks his free hand down to knead at her swollen clit anyway.

Like oil, it slips and hardens, tense enough that he knows she won't last long if he keeps it up.

Simon feels his own release encroaching. Unfurling at the base of his spine to form something cruel and primal. His vision tunnels to fixate on her – not the filthy bathroom or the lewd squelch of her pussy taking him in. Not the banging on the door by a customer desperately needing to piss, or otherwise, her bodyguard concerned at the choked screams carved from her lungs. Just her. Little bird.

The howling in his head doesn't stop, but it sure as hell quiets down when she soaks the coarse hairs at the base of his cock. Squirts, off-white fluid gushing from her and trickling onto the tiled floor. His movements grow stilted, off-rhythm, at the sight. His want grows claws and scales, grows wants that have wants. Beastly. He sees red.

"N-noghonbirfcontraahl." She gasps, suffocated still by the fingers pressing crescent-shaped scars beneath her jaw.

"Don' give a shit." He growls, then cums.

(Really, he doesn't. To see her swell up with his child is just one more added temptation, carrot on a stick. He bucks like a rabid animal and bookmarks that thought away for later.)

His seed doesn't stay put when he pumps her full of it. It gathers and drips out of her, undeterred by the barrage of his softening cock. When he pulls out, it draws milky treks down her legs. There's the instinct to shovel it back into her, tape her lips shut until the spend takes; but as he pockets her panties and helps her readjust her dress (after polishing himself clean on the expensive fabric), he finds he quite likes the thought of parading her around like this.

"C'mon," He nips her earlobe. "let's walk you home."

Simon does end up making good on his promise. They hardly get any sleep that night, sweating on every available surface her flat affords. By the end of it, she's so tuckered out that he has to lift her to bed. Hardly cognisant as he strips to his boxers and sidles up right next to her.

What doesn't escape her notice, however, is when he pulls his phone out to snap a picture of her like this. Fucked to oblivion, puffy pussy oozing about three loads worth of cum.

"W-what are you–" Stuttered. Panicked, like a pet that has at last realised it's been caged.

"Shhhh, birdie. You're my model, ain't you? Let me show you off, yeah? Won' let it get into the wrong hands."

"Promise?" She whimpers, tucking into his broad chest. She isn't in the condition to give her proper assent, but he takes it anyway, kissing both eyes and carding his fingers across her scalp.

"Promise." He mutters, then sends the portrait off. "Jus' to men like me."

Sgt. Garrick: ?! Is that Capt. Price: Christ, Simon. Someone ought to muzzle you. Johnny: I don't believe you. Johnny: Pick up my calls. Johnny: SIMON.

#should've made this a proper fic #it's longer than i expected it to be #anyway.#simon 'ghost' riley x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon 'ghost' riley #simon riley #ghost #x female reader #call of duty #fanfiction

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steddiealltheway · 10 months

Text

After Eddie seems to become a staple member of the group, Steve pulls him aside and says, "Hey, I just wanted to warn you that I can be a bit bitchy at times, and don't be afraid to tell me if I ever go too far. Dustin calls me out all the time."

Eddie softly smiles and lays a gentle hand on Steve's arm. "My friends have to tell me when I go too far with flirting, so you can call me out on that too. No worries."

Steve's head spins a bit. Eddie 'The Freak' Munson goes too far when flirting? He snorts. "I don't think you'd ever go too far with me."

Eddie's head tilts to the side as he takes Steve in. "You don't believe me." It's more of a statement than a question.

"I don't," Steve confirms. "But hey, I'll let you know if something you say makes me cream my pants."

Eddie smiles wide. "You know, my words might not, but I know something else that will if you're down later."

Steve feels himself take in an involuntary deep breath as the shock reaches his system. Instead of letting Eddie in on it, he leans in and says, "I'll let you know."

Eddie's eyes flicker down to his lips, and Steve is reminded of the hand on his arm as it squeezes hard for a moment. "You're so damn pretty, big boy. Would love to see you absolutely wrecke-"

"Guys."

Steve's head whips around to where the rest of the group is staring at them. He's not sure when they racked up an audience.

"Steve here said I couldn't go too far with the flirting. I'm giving him a first-hand experience with it," Eddie says shamelessly while wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

"I still don't think you can," Steve says turning to him which is the wrong thing to do because he didn't realize how close Eddie was to him.

The other boy takes advantage of it and leans in a little closer, brushing his nose against Steve's. "Is that a challenge?"

His heart beats hard in his chest, but Steve isn't one to back down, so he lets his hand come up to cup Eddie's jaw. "If you want it to be," he replies.

Eddie seems to falter a bit at this, and his own breathing rate increases.

"Guys," Dustin says again but more exasperated.

Steve turns to him and quickly says, "One more interruption and I'll throw you through another gate."

"Woah, too far," Dustin says, pointing at him and Eddie, "Both of you."

Steve holds his hands up and takes a step away from Eddie. “Alright. Okay. I’m sorry. Too far.”

Dustin nods and turns back to the group.

Steve thinks that’s the end of things until Eddie leans in and whispers, “We’ll chat later, sweetheart.”

He tries not to have a physical reaction to him. He doesn’t know why his flirting is taking him so off guard. But it’s nice to have someone who can keep up with the Harrington charm.

Maybe.

Later that night, Steve is surprised when Eddie doesn’t stick behind and keep his promise. But it gives him a minute to breathe after all the flirty winks and innocent fleeting touches whenever Eddie would pass him.

He tries to just shake it off as a normal reaction to being the target of such intense flirting that he's not sure he's ever experienced before. But it feels like something more than that.

He sleeps it off and doesn't think much of it especially when he gets into his Family Video routine. Then, the bell to the front door rings, and Steve launches into his, "Welcome to Family Video," speech which is quickly cut off when he sees Eddie walk in.

Nothing is really different except he has his hair pulled back into a messy bun that makes Steve's hands flex wanting to touch. Shit.

"Hi gorgeous," Eddie says with a bright smile, leaning across the counter.

Steve feels a blush creep up his neck and spread across his face. "Hi," he replies. Then he remembers their little challenge and doesn't hold back from reaching up, tucking a stray curly strand behind Eddie's ear. "You should wear your hair like this more often. Lets me see more of you."

It's Eddie's turn to blush as he glances down with a soft smile.

"So, what brings you in today? Not that I'm complaining, I would take any excuse to see that pretty face of yours," Steve says, laying it on heavy.

Eddie snorts as if he's joking.

Steve uses his hand to softly tilt Eddie's jaw so he can look at him. "I'm not kidding," he insists, rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip slowly. Shit, he has such soft lips.

Eddie's lips move forward as if on impulse, quickly kissing the pad of his finger. His eyes widen, and Steve sees the way both of their breath hitch in their chests.

"Too far?" Eddie asks quietly.

"Not even close."

Eddie holds his gaze for a moment, searching for something. He must not find it because he pulls back a bit, putting more space between them than Steve wants. "I was just stopping by to see you," Eddie confesses.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Steve asks with a smile.

Eddie shrugs. "Just wanted to."

It takes Steve back a bit. He was expecting some sort of line, but the response sounds entirely genuine. He doesn't know how to respond.

Eddie fidgets with his rings for a moment before saying, "Well, I'll see you later." He turns quickly and leaves before Steve has a chance to respond.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Robin asks, startling Steve.

"Shit," Steve says, laying a dramatic hand over his chest. "How long have you been listening?"

"Considering I've been literally right behind you this entire shift and you guys didn't even try to make that a private conversation, I listened the whole time."

Steve runs a hand through his hair and says, "I basically challenged him yesterday to try to be too much when he flirts because apparently he can do that. But yeah, it's no big deal." He smiles and shakes his head as if it's clear as day that this is not affecting him at all.

Robin stares at him for a second before jabbing her finger into his chest repeatedly. "Don't you lie to me! I'm your best friend! You were totally flirting back and you got flustered! No one does that to you!"

"Ow!" Steve says, backing away after a particularly hard jab. "Okay! Okay! Yes, it's flustering me a bit, but I've never had someone who could keep up with me."

"Gross."

Steve rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean."

He resumes stacking his tapes until Robin scoots in next to him and says, "You know, it's okay if it's more than that."

Steve pauses and thinks about it. Is it more than that? He shakes his head and whispers, "I don't know if it is."

Robin's arms slowly wrap around his waist, and Steve leans his head on top of hers. Maybe the flirting has gone too far already, but he doesn't want it to end. And that's a scary thought.

He finishes out his shift, thinking about what Robin said while trying to interpret his own feelings. After they close, Steve drives Robin home and heads back to his house. Only, he makes a split-second decision and takes a different turn, heading toward Eddie's new place.

Might as well figure this out now.

He rushes to the side of his new trailer and taps on his bedroom window. The curtains open and Eddie looks at him confused. Steve mouthes Is your uncle home?

Eddie shakes his head and points to the front door before closing the curtains.

Steve rushes to the door and steps inside as soon as Eddie opens it. He closes it behind him and looks at Eddie. God, his heart races even when he doesn't say anything.

"Hi," Steve says with a big smile.

"Hi," Eddie replies, pulling his hair in front of his face.

"No bun?" Steve asks.

"I can put it up if you like."

Steve shakes his head. "No, it looks great."

Eddie smiles and steps closer to him, running a hand through Steve's hair. "Not everyone can have such luscious hair as you."

Steve closes his eyes and leans into the hand. It feels nice.

"So, are you taking me up on my offer from before?" Eddie asks.

Steve opens his eyes and takes in the flirtatious glint in his eyes. "Depends on what you're offering."

Eddie moves in closer and puts his hands in his pockets. "Anything that you'd like."

Steve wraps his arms around Eddie's shoulders and flirts back, "Anything?"

Eddie's hands wrap around his waist. "Anything."

"Kiss me then."

Eddie freezes in his arms, the flirtatious look leaving his face as he looks at him. "Steve..."

"Too far?" Steve asks, not stepping back.

Eddie looks at his lips and back at his eyes. "You know I could never say no to you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Eddie says, leaning forward, brushing his nose against Steve's. He waits a moment and whispers, "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes," Steve says, moving forward to meet Eddie, connecting their lips in a kiss that makes Steve realize this is definitely more than just a challenge.

His hands move into Eddie's hair, trying to bring him closer as Eddie's hands trail up and down his back, pressing into him.

Steve breaks the kiss, breathing deeply before going right back in, deepening the kiss when he feels Eddie's tongue trace the seam of his lips.

Shit, he needs to make sure this isn't just him flirting.

He slows the kiss and gently pulls away, only for Eddie to kiss him again, pulling him in even closer, only breaking away when Steve breaks the kiss again and rests his forehead against Eddie's.

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and says, "Please, let me just stay in this a little longer before it has to end."

Steve's heart thuds in his chest as he works up the courage to ask, "Does it have to end?"

Eddie slowly pulls away and looks at him. "Steve, that was too far and we both know it."

"What if it wasn't?" Steve asks.

Eddie looks at him with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and maybe even sorrow. "It was for me."

Oh. Steve steps back a bit and nods, running both his hands through his hair. He pauses and looks at Eddie who looks unbelievably scared. There's no way he thinks that he didn't enjoy that... right? "Eddie-"

"Don't, Steve. It's fine. I won't tell anyone."

Steve shakes his head and steps forward, only for Eddie to step back in fear. "Eddie, you can't seriously think this was just me seeing how flirtatious you can be, right? At least, that's not what it was to me."

"It's not?"

"No," Steve says and steps forward again, "Look, I don't know what changed, but from the first moment you started flirting with me, it's felt like more than a challenge. And yes, maybe it's been less than a full day since then, but I really like you. And I don't want the flirting to be fake anymore."

Eddie takes a second to process what he's saying then asks, "This isn't flirting going way too far, right?"

Steve shakes his head. "No."

Eddie smiles. "So, you're saying that my flirting worked?"

"If you agree to go on a date with me, then yes."

Eddie's face lights up. "I'll say yes if you still promise to tell me if it ever goes too far."

"Like I said, I don't think it ever could."

"And I think it can, my fuzzy wuzzy bear."

Steve's nose scrunches in disgust while Eddie stares at him with a manic smile, waiting to hear his reaction. "Okay! Too far! That was horrible."

"I know," Eddie says with a laugh. "And you still want to go out with me?"

"Yes," Steve says without hesitation, "But please, no more horrible nicknames or I'll find out what's too far for you."

Eddie winks. "I look forward to it."

Steve laughs while shaking his head before he pulls Eddie into another kiss.

And while Eddie never really goes too far with Steve, the kids and Robin chime in often to alert Eddie when they've had enough. But it never seems to stop him.

#steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #steddie ficlet

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saintobio · 2 months

Text

sincerely yours. (10)

↳ gojou satoru/reader

when a twist of fate led their marriage to the path of a quintessential tragic romance, two past lovers go through another series of experiences on love, heartbreak, identity, illness, and trauma along the road to a happily ever after.

genre. heavy angst, amnesia, modern au, 18+

tags/warnings. depression, intoxication, trauma, implied suicide attempt, toxic relationships,

notes. important announcement ! as you all know, this series has always had an extensive approach into detailing the events in its side stories (ie. sera x sukuna x naoya, yuuji x megumi, maki x yuuta x miwa, etc), but while writing the chapters, the word count and the plot building had become too exhausting for me to produce consistently, esp with the amount of scenes and side stories i was introducing to the story, so i've decided it's best for me to stick to the main characters, reader & gojo, and will only add side stories as necessary. this really hurts me knowing that i can't achieve the level of comprehensive writing and world building that i did for sincerely not, but i really want to finish sy as soon as possible and removing a chunk of side stories would be some of the things that'd help me achieve that 😭 i hope you guys understand. hopefully i'll figure out a way to write those side stories instead of completely abandoning them mid-way in this series. but as always, thanks for ur continued support <3

series masterlist -> episode eleven

“It’s a little weird.”

What was supposed to be her bed time had turned into a moment of reflection for Sera who, instead of being fast asleep at this time of the night, had unconsciously brought herself inside Sukuna’s home office to join the up-and-coming tech mogul in his late-night programming.

She wore her silk pajamas, pacing back and forth in her boyfriend’s office as her mind flew back to the recent encounter she had with her ex-boyfriend. Who knew that Satoru’s kid would look just like a carbon copy of him? No, actually, the question should be: who knew it would be a different woman by his side acting as the mother of his child? Sera had to laugh at herself, shaking her head as she realized how truly and undeniably ridiculous her ex was. It was clear that day that he wasn’t really as loyal of a partner as he claimed himself to be.

Did he really just go through all those crazy things with you, only to look like a whore-hopping fool now?

If he was bound to end up with someone else other than you, then why did he have to make Sera’s life miserable in the first place?

She may have done terrible things before as a selfish and materialistic lover of his, but that wouldn’t change the fact that Satoru also contributed to her role as the side-piece in his marital relationship. He allowed her to cling to him like a mistress. Being his side-piece wasn’t even something that she had forced upon him. It was his promise, an idea that he planted on Sera’s head, saying that she would need to stay by his side and that he would marry her guaranteed that he had already secured the merger and divorced you. He swore like a fool that he would divorce you. But guess what? The jerk ended up falling in love with his wife and suddenly had no use of Sera. Suddenly, he was such a good husband who couldn’t be more loyal. Suddenly, he was a lovestruck man who had always been in love with his childhood friend. If he had downright dumped Sera the moment his engagement was announced, if he had not been prideful and ambitious since the beginning of his marriage, he probably would have had better luck at having that healthy relationship he yearned from you.

But how come the blame of being the third-party was all on Sera when her only mistake then was loving the person who promised her all the good things in life?

Now, you see, this was all just bitterness brewing at the back of her head. She knew what she did was still wrong and that she wasn’t innocent. Sera swore to herself that she would never look back on those awful days ever again, but seeing how Satoru was running around freely with a different woman just reminded Sera of his days as a spiteful, two-timing man. Somehow, it felt like he had changed and yet didn’t at all.

Ha ha ha. How ridiculous was that?

“What’s funny?” asked Sukuna, her present boyfriend and thankfully so. He was Sera’s blessing, because she never would have thought that a man like him could still exist in a world full of Satoru’s and Naoya’s. “You look cute smiling to yourself, though.”

“I know,” she responded to the compliment, shifting to settle herself on his lap, though his attention remained fixed on his laptop screen. “It's just strange to me,” she continued, her voice thoughtful, “how Gojou appears his usual self, yet there's something off about him.”

The question clouded Sukuna’s eyes in confusion, tilting his head to the side as he tried to comprehend her description. “You mean dude got uglier?”

I wish, Sera thought. “No, he’s… he’s different. The vibes are different. For a second, he even looked like he was dissociating the whole time he was with that girl,” she said, referring to Satoru’s new girl as though she was your cheap alternative, “But then again, why is he with her in the first place if he looks absent-minded the whole time, you know what I mean?”

“Was he like that with you before?”

“At times, but it’s not like the way he’s acting right now… I don’t know, I can’t explain it. The energy is off. That’s just not how he acts when he’s really, really into someone.”

To be honest, Sukuna didn’t give a damn about Satoru Gojou’s life and any normal boyfriend wouldn’t really like hearing their girlfriend talking about another man, especially her ex at that, but he knew Sera found joy in old money gossip and he was aware of the demoralizing past she has had by associating herself with them. Sukuna was acting all engaged in their conversation because he wanted to make her feel heard and that he shared her simple joys in life. Besides, it was through her that he learned so many inside scoops about the people that ran the country’s biggest conglomerates. It was like watching one heck of a messy episode of Dynasty.

“Didn’t he get into a car accident?” he recalled, remembering the headlines on the news that day, “Then, we saw him at the expo and he couldn’t really remember you. The guy’s probably got his head all messed up.”

Sera was bitter at the time thinking that Satoru was toying with her when he asked who she was, when the truth was, he was actually diagnosed with amnesia. It was such a shock to her, truthfully, because having amnesia felt like something you would only see on a movie’s screen. Well, in that case, she could also say karma’s a bitch. The director might be onto something here.

“He’s probably not mentally fine, but still…” she thought carefully and played the scene in her head again. What was it about the Gojou that she saw the other day that was different? “He just has a different vibe to him that it feels uncomfortable. It’s like he’s rude, but not so rude? He doesn’t have much of a personality anymore. Like a complete stranger.”

“Maybe it’s the new girl rubbing off on him.” Sukuna was back to typing on his laptop as he said that. Frankly, he was just saying anything at this point.

Sera shook her head in response. “Well, I don’t know about that girl he’s seeing and I don’t really care, but it’s common knowledge to the filthy rich that she’s Y/N’s best friend. That’s why I recognized her right away, and that’s why it disgusted me,” she pressed on, “Tell me, would you—and be honest about this—would you fuck your best friend’s ex?”

The humor on her boyfriend’s face came right as she asked that. “Babe, you fucked a married man. It’s worse than fucking somebody’s ex.”

“Shut up.” Rolling her eyes, she got up from his lap and sighed, but Sukuna wasted no time in pulling her back onto his lap. His chuckle was mingling with the gentle kiss he had planted on her cheek, unaware that his actions made Sera’s heart flutter. “Forget it. I shouldn’t even be talking about Satoru with you.”

The man stretched his arms and finally closed his laptop, patting Sera’s thigh afterwards. “On that note, I do have another ‘dude from your past’ that I gotta meet tomorrow.”

Her reaction alone was a response for him. “Naoya?” she protested, face contorting with disgust. “What for? I told you not to take on that project.”

“Yeah, I considered it, and you know, the partnership could really benefit CleaveTech,” Sukuna reasoned, leaning back as he outlined the situation to her from a business standpoint. Given her own background working for the Gojou Group before, he expected her to grasp the significance of this partnership and set aside any personal grievances or emotional attachments. “The Zen'in Group is a major client. It’s all pros and no cons here.”

“The contra is the guy you’re gonna work with,” she highlighted with a hint of annoyance rising from her throat, “Naoya is nothing but an opportunistic motherfucker. Mind you, he’s a stupid elitist, too.”

He held back a laugh, not even threatened by a man who had a terrible history with his girlfriend. “Nah, I’ll deal with him. Just trust me on this.”

As much as Sera wanted to object, she knew Sukuna had a point and that she really shouldn’t hinder his company from being partnered with such a large conglomerate. She just didn’t like the thought of her boyfriend being around a man who manipulated and humiliated her to the point where she had been blacklisted by multiple companies, leaving her to resort to being somewhat of a prostitute just to make ends meet.

The world was harsh for the not-so-rich, and all Sera wanted was to give those upper class people a taste of their own medicine. But seeing as her desire for revenge would clash with her boyfriend’s chance at company growth, she had to set aside her personal grudge and support him on this one.

Still, there was nothing wrong with being curious. “Is there any other reason you agreed to this partnership?”

Sukuna smirked as if he expected that question from her. “Blame it on my little brother, he’s been bugging me ‘bout it.”

“Yuuji?” Sera asked, clearly confused.

To which her boyfriend quickly answered, “Yeah. He said it’ll give him an opportunity to work with his best friend. You know that kid, Fushiguro, right?”

Ahh. Toji’s kid aka the heir to the Zen’in business empire. Sera had met Megumi before, and while that other brat Mai used to be unreasonably rude to her, the younger boy was always civil and respectful at least. He never even once treated Sera like dirt when she was spending time with Naoya at their mansion. Perhaps their upbringing really differed because he was raised by Toji and the other Zen’ins were raised by demons.

Nevertheless, with a connection now established between Sukuna and Naoya through Yuuji and Megumi, Sera couldn’t help but feel that her peaceful days as a nouveau riche were about to become far more intriguing. Depending on the cards she would choose to play, they could even turn into a living nightmare.

— —

You weren’t exactly abandoning your company; you were merely taking a break, a necessary pause given your current mental state after the whole break-up with Toji and the Osaka thing. Your mind was just too overwhelmingly occupied to even properly function. Each day, mustering the energy to show up at Hearte's head office became increasingly challenging, especially when faced with individuals who relied on you for major decisions and creative direction.

To make matters worse, Akemi’s sudden resignation hit hard.

You received her decision by a simple letter, a mere piece of paper, without even having the guts and decency to meet with you in person. Was she scared? Or was this her way of rubbing salt on the wound, shoving it in your face that she was now taking things to the next level with your ex-husband?

She did cite in her resignation letter that her reason for resigning from the role was due to conflict of interest. You wanted to laugh when you read that part. No, you wanted to choke in your fit of laughter after reading through her asinine reasons. She could have been upfront and mentioned that the so-called ‘conflict’ was the very man her best friend had previously married.

Obviously, everyone in the office felt sad knowing that a core member of the company left without at least a 30-day notice, but they were all also aware that her resignation was due to personal albeit controversial reasons. Did Akemi not care about her image at all? The same colleagues she had trained, managed, and collaborated with would now likely gossip about her behind her back. She would become a hot topic of disrespect among the people that once heavily respected her. Did she also not care about the company you two created together anymore? This was the same company you two had passionately dreamed of during your late-night conversations on a New York rooftop. She was the one who wanted to build a fashion house together with you.

Yet, it seemed she was willing to throw it all away for a man already entangled in complicated familial dynamics. Her immediate resignation and refusal to speak to you in person just further confirmed it to you that Akemi was willing to forsake your friendship by choosing a man who already had a child with someone else.

Since she chose that path, you couldn’t help but interpret Akemi’s actions as a deliberate slight against your friendship. It seemed clear that she no longer viewed you as a friend and was essentially cutting ties with you. Otherwise, why would she take such a step? Akemi wasn’t the type to be vindictive; she likely believed she was sparing you further pain by severing your connection. However, regardless of her intentions, her actions felt deeply disrespectful and hurtful.

If this was what she wanted, then kudos to her and her unbelievable confidence to choose a man like Satoru Gojou. Besides, it didn’t even take you a week to find another replacement. Your family connections were powerful after all. You readily had a pool of potential candidates for the role of the Head of Sales, Retail, and Merchandising—all from prestigious backgrounds and unparalleled expertise. While the competition was tough, you selected the person you deemed was the most qualified to be your second-in-command. This was someone you had esteemed since college, a person who excelled in both business acumen and creative vision.

Yuki Tsukumo. She was influential in every sense, and you trusted that she would be able to manage the high pressure environment of a start-up fashion house and transform it into an iconic brand, a household name that would one day rival Chanel and Miu Miu.

You may have succeeded in replacing Akemi. You may have shown her that her position in the workforce was easily replaceable, but her role as your friend still left a lingering, repugnant mark that proved far more difficult to erase. This underlying sentiment could explain the unreasonable anger festering in your heart—a visceral reaction born from feelings of backstabbing betrayal.

It was hard enough for you to travel all the way to Osaka with a broken heart, but it became much more agonizing to watch your own son run up to Akemi like she was his mother. It was a goddamn slap to your face, indeed, to see that your ex-husband had already chosen a woman to have his happy, little family with. That he wanted to be a good man and be everything you wished for in a husband for her.

As they say, nothing hurts more than building a man for another woman.

And honestly? You cried so much on the way home that you became numb. Now, you were just trying to get over it. You were trying to bury the searing pain in order to forget the betrayal you felt. It was all too much for a person to handle and it wasn’t like you hadn’t gone through the same old shit before. Wasn’t it worse before with Satoru actually cheating and all? He technically wasn’t crossing any lines here, so it shouldn’t hurt you. It shouldn’t. You had been here before. If you had managed to get through such an awful time as his previous wife, his relationship with Akemi shouldn’t be too hard to accept. No, you weren’t trying to lowball your pain, but it was better to be an optimist in this situation than be a suicidal, self-destructive person. You had a business to run and a child to raise. You had to be strong.

Or at least, that was what you told yourself. That was what you had been telling yourself over and over, each time you got up from bed forcing yourself to have a false positive mindset. In fact, that was also why you had to take this extended break because you had to have your peace of mind. You had to have some form of release to remember why you needed to stay alive and keep yourself going.

Not just for Sachiro’s sake, but also for your own.

Your safe haven for now was at the horse ranch, where the tranquility of riding and the beauty of nature provided the perfect ambiance for reflection. How long has it been since your last visit to Willow? Your father had been joking that you shouldn’t be leaving a beautiful, white Friesian horse unattended for years, especially not for the expensive price he paid her for. True enough, because the moment you saw the mare again, you almost forgot how majestic she was for her breed. Willow was a completely docile and graceful horse, so alike to you in many ways. However, one thing that was unlike you, was that she lived in peace, existing solely for herself and not for anyone else.

If only you could be like her.

As you reached out to stroke your rare-breed horse, a new and unfamiliar stallion in the stable caught your eye. To think of it, your family shared this equestrian estate with the Gojou family. This realization meant that the strikingly elegant and tall gray horse in the adjacent stall belonged to none other than Satoru.

“It’s a Thoroughbred,” the equine caretaker informed while guiding your horse out of the stable, “Mr. Satoru got him recently and named him Six.”

A gray Thoroughbred, renowned as the most expensive horse breeds out there. It could fetch a price as high as $70 million, and of course, Satoru was the perfect owner for such a prestigious horse. The stallion embodied his essence completely—its color, its build, its rarity. On the other hand, you couldn’t help but find his naming convention by number a bit odd. His previous black stallion was named Eight. This time around, it was Six. Couldn’t he be more imaginative?

“He’s beautiful,” you mumbled, nonetheless, in awe with the regality of the horse.

“He’s a good boy, too,” added the enthusiastic horsekeeper in a thick country accent, “Mr. Satoru was here yesterday and played polo while riding him. They were perfectly in sync even if it was his first time riding him.”

Of course, he would play polo. That was one of his favorite recreational sports. The burning question at hand was, who was with him during his visit? Because if the caretaker mentioned Akemi, you would certainly lose it. This was your private space with him. This estate was a place that none of his other women had access to, not even Sera. This was a location filled with memories from your childhood. For him to bring another woman here would be crossing the damn line.

“Did he bring anyone with him?” you asked, trying to sound casual as you dusted off your boots.

The caretaker denied. “No, he was alone. He just came to play polo and check the horses he recently bought.”

Oh… “He bought more than one?”

Did he seriously get Akemi her own horse? Your heart was racing at the thought, but the caretaker led you to the stable near the exit to show you the other horse than your ex-husband had purchased. It was a brown Shetland pony.

“He got a fully trained Shetland for your son,” the horsekeeper proudly declared, showcasing the pony as if he had been instructed to do so in anticipation of your visit. It was obvious that Gojou had already briefed him on introducing Sachiro’s new pony to you because he knew you would be asking about it. “His name is Elmo. He is kid-safe and very friendly.”

Frankly, you wanted to sigh in relief, but at the same time, it warmed your heart to know that Satoru got his son his own horse at such a young age. You could already sense him planning to make Sachiro take equestrian classes when he gets older, and probably join him on his horseback riding sessions, too. You could imagine just how perfect it would be to see the father and son bonding here, racing together, playing polo together… yet it would not be you who would be watching them on the side.

This future he was setting up with his son would be an experience he would share with Akemi.

There was no you in that vision anymore.

The caretaker likely questioned your sanity when he noticed the bitter smile on your face as you mounted your mare. He might have even doubted whether you were sane enough to ride alone, without a guide, particularly through the woods since Willow had not been ridden for some time now. However, you had done it countless times before and were quite familiar with the trail, and so you dismissed his offer to lead you and assured him confidently that you knew your way back.

You needed this solitude. You craved this moment of peace, alone with your thoughts and surrounded by nature, to reflect on the ceaseless torture of your life. It was just never-ending, squeezing every drop of happiness out of your system to make sure that you would only live to suffer. You really thought you had your happy ending with someone else? You actually believed you had found the perfect man to be your actual husband?

Well, unfortunately for you, Toji was not the one.

At first, your mind flew to Toji as you went on to the trail, allowing the mare to continue trotting as you held the reins to control her. You remembered Toji’s text that morning, asking you for the hundredth time if he could meet with you. He likely wanted to apologize in person, but you doubted he would change his mind and take back the things he said. Because they were true. He could never fill the void left by his deceased wife by being with another empty soul. It was painfully, unmistakably true. You were better off dead if that was the case, because even if you did end up marrying him, you would never be regarded as the person he loved the most. After all, your role in this world seemed to always be the second option. You were never the first in other people’s books. Not with your ex-husband. Not even with your family, especially with Gen around. You were meant to be a bystander, watching others live their perfect lives while you were forced to be in your misery. Someone like Toji would not have a guaranteed blissful marriage with you and you had to spare him from that. You had to draw the line and step back from this charade that you were playing with him, knowing that you were never the right person to be with him, so at some point, you had to accept his drunken words. They came from a place of truth, and that truth would set the both of you free.

Even it hurt. Even if it fucking hurt to hear his words. You couldn’t deny them.

You could easily forgive him, but his words might take a while for you to forget because even thinking about it now was bringing a wave of pain into your chest. You didn’t even notice that you were losing control on Willow’s reins by the time you entered further into the woods, bouncing on the saddle as you galloped along the challenging path. With the speed you were riding right now, inexperienced riders would certainly find it unsafe and scary. But for you? It was just what you needed. The breeze of fresh air, the thrill of riding alone, the peaceful sound of nature—you could die there and be at your happiest.

Maybe that was where you had to be; to disappear and leave them all behind. Wouldn’t that be best for everyone? If you were to vanish, they could finally be free. Your presence, even from the beginning, was a burden for everyone—for your dad, Gen, Satoru, Toji, and even Akemi. The people you trusted the most would be the same people who would secretly celebrate your demise. So, what else was hindering you from taking matters into your own hands and ending it all yourself?

“Giddy up!”

Was it Sachiro? Definitely. But now he had his father, and he was likely starting to see Akemi as a mother figure as well. Your role as his beloved mama could be easily replaced if you were to leave him now. It wouldn’t hurt him as much that way. Three years with Sachiro seemed sufficient enough, and he was at an age where he could grow up alongside his father. In this short span, he would have lasting memories with you, yet not enough to deeply grieve your absence. He was a young child, surrounded by people who would offer the whole world to him. At least, for that, you were eternally grateful. It brought you comfort knowing that your son would have support after you were gone, and that he would find a mother figure in Akemi. Given the brief time he spent with you and the rest of his life with her as his stepmother, Sachiro would likely come to love and accept Akemi as his own mother. This was the best outcome you could hope for.

My child, my son, my baby… please don’t get mad at mommy.

Tears were gushing out of your eyes and you hadn’t even realized it until they started blurring your vision. You were far too lost in your own thoughts, unaware that you were now in an unfamiliar and seemingly dangerous part of the trail. The path was getting a little bit too steep and poor Willow was clearly stressed at your inconsiderate handling. There were multiple obstacles on your rocky terrain and you weren’t as steady and controlled as you wanted to be because the horse wasn’t comfortable navigating such a difficult path with the pace you were forcing her to.

“Ah!”

Your attempt to balance was interrupted by Willow’s loud neigh, signaling her distress before she bolted into a full rampage. She was sprinting at an estimated speed of 20 miles per hour. Not even a skilled rider like Satoru himself would be cantering that fast on unfamiliar terrain and an unfit horse. But you, you clearly had a death wish, because instead of fearing for your own life, you were far more concerned at the thought of how dreamy Satoru and Akemi’s wedding would look like after your demise. They would definitely make Sachiro their ringbearer. Suguru would be the best man. Shoko, the maid of honor. People on the internet would praise them for being an attractive couple. They would anticipate their beautiful kids together, living in the same mansion he bought as a gift to you. He would kiss her good night, tell her loves her, and offer the whole world to her. They would exchange vows and promise themselves a lifelong commitment to be by each other’s side through sickness and in health, and only in death would they part.

“Willow!”

You let out a shriek as the reins slipped from your grasp, causing you to tumble off the saddle and crash onto the ground. The impact was first felt in your elbow, and a sharp, searing pain then radiated through your body. There you lay, sprawled on the dirt, helplessly watching Willow galloping out of control up the mountain, and then tragically plummeting off a cliff.

“Nooo! Willow, no!”

Utter hysteria overtook you. You sobbed uncontrollably, unable to determine which pain was more agonizing—the clearly broken elbow, the loss of the horse you had inadvertently led to its death, or the heart-wrenching reality of Satoru starting a family with someone else.

You were pathetic. You were such a pathetic excuse of a human being and this was why you deserve hell.

“Willow!”

Toji couldn’t love you. Your own son didn’t want to be around you. Satoru had gotten over you. And now, you drove a poor innocent horse to its demise because of your recklessness!

You were crying hysterically as you held your pained elbow, crawling by the cliff’s edge as you screamed for your horse’s name, but in the end, there was nothing you could do. You could only apologize to poor Willow for having such an irresponsible owner, and now she was dead because of you. 16 years of her life, she was able to live in peace until you came and ruined it all for her. It should have been you. You were the one who should have jumped off a cliff. You should atone for your sins and follow her, but you were too weak, far to overcome by the excruciating pain on your hip and your broken elbow to move or do anything at all.

That was, until your mind had completely shut down, leaving you as a mere body to be discarded alone in the darkness of the woods. You hoped that no one else would find you soon.

— —

“A-Angina?” Satoru’s eyes went wide. His whole world stopped before him.

“Yes. She was diagnosed with stable angina,” Dr. Mori confirmed, much to your husband’s horror. “But there is another factor that requires her to have more rest. You need to take good care of your wife, Mr. Gojou. Her body needs a lot of nutrients so she can carry safely.”

He could barely process the whole thing in his head because the news kept coming one after another, leaving him in a befuddled state with a flood of unanswered questions running through his mind. “What do you mean…?”

“Your wife is seven weeks pregnant.”

…

“Y/N?”

“Y/N!”

“Are you out of your mind?!”

You could barely pry your eyes open, but when you finally managed to, you were met with the concerned expression on Gen’s face. The harsh glare of fluorescent lights and the antiseptic scent confirmed to you that you were in the ER, likely an hour or two after the incident in the woods. The memory of the trail quickly flooded your thoughts, and a pang of sorrow gripped your heart as you recalled Willow's final moments before she fell off the cliff. The poor horse had lost her life, while the one responsible for her tragic death remained alive, save for the bandage wrapped around your arm.

“Why did you ride into the woods alone?” Gen persisted with her barrage of questions, standing by your bed as you attempted to sit up. “Are you suicidal or what? Riding your horse in a dangerous trail like that—”

“You know what, maybe I should have just died back there!” you snapped, wincing from the pain in your elbow. Her choice of words struck a nerve in you. “Maybe I’d prefer that over sitting here, listening to your sanctimonious lecture like you're so perfect yourself! How obnoxious.”

“Then, maybe you shouldn’t be riding so recklessly and causing alarm to everyone else!”

“Did I literally ask you to come save me?!”

The atmosphere around you two just became even more uninviting, with discomfiting silence seeping through as you and Gen were engaged in a sharp glaring contest. Your father stood behind her, clearing his throat to cut the tension.

“That’s enough, Gen.” Your dad placed a hand on her shoulder, and although she wanted to protest, she knew better not to keep stirring the pot after receiving his strict gaze. “Let’s just be thankful your sister is safe. There’s no need to be so overwhelming.”

You rolled your eyes, drawing in a deep breath before you looked away from them. None of them would ever understand your pain unless they were in your position. They didn’t carry the same baggage as you, so they would never fully comprehend the weight of your suffering. You had already dealt with similar pain on your own before and that was why you didn’t need any of them to come to your aid, meddling with your life like they knew exactly what you were going through. “Just leave me alone, you guys. I wanna rest.”

Since when did your relationship with your sister start to get rough? It wasn’t really like this before, but ever since she started to become too overprotective over you and your choices in life, particularly choices linked to Satoru, Gen had started to become insufferable in your eyes. She was acting too much like a mother; controlling your decisions, lecturing you about your personal relationships, being too involved with your private life. There, ever since that, you started to distance yourself from her, and she didn’t like that. Her stubbornness wouldn’t allow her to cease acting like this mature, picture perfect big sister to you.

With that said, Gen would have normally gotten annoyed when you asked them to leave you alone, but this time around, she seemed to have reflected on her insensitivity a lot better with your father around. “I’m sorry, okay?” she said, her tone still tinged with stubbornness, “I just got worried. I don’t know what’s gotten into you to put yourself in danger like that, but… please, Y/N. If you’re going through something, you can always speak to us. Dad and I, we’re here for you.”

To be fair, if you had to put yourself in their shoes, it really would have been alarming to know that your sister almost died. This wasn’t the first time you were at death’s door either, so they were probably scared shitless when they were informed of your situation. Your absolutely reckless situation. You didn’t mean to cause a scene, neither did you intend to bother them on their already busy schedules. You just had so many things in your mind while you were horseback riding, too engulfed by your own sorrow that you didn’t realize the repercussions after the incident had already taken place.

“I’m sorry, too.” Your voice softened with humility. “I didn’t mean to worry you guys. It was just really an accident.”

Of course, Gen suspected it was more than just an accident. Your dad did, too. It was obvious on their forlorn faces that they were worried for your mental and emotional well-being, but none of them dared address the elephant in the room. It seemed they didn’t need to, anyway, since one of the many reasons that contributed to your earlier breakdown took a peek from behind the curtains, clearing his throat and sending you a look of sympathy.

“Y/N?” Toji looked at your father and your sister for approval before stepping further inside your space in the ER. “Can I talk to you?”

There was no escaping Toji’s presence anymore. No more hiding, no more avoiding. You knew you had to have this talk with him no matter how many times you ignored his flood of texts and calls. While this may have struck as an opportune moment for him to speak to you in person, facing the painful truth of your situation weighed heavily on you. Besides, hadn’t the irony presented itself right there? If Satoru were the one trying to speak to you, even if he was the father of your child, Gen would have been quick to lash out at him. Yet with Toji, even with the general knowledge of what had transpired between you two, your sister still showed no hostility towards him, allowing him to approach you freely and without interference.

But then again, Toji was far from being a cheating, manipulative scumbag who not only caused you suffering but also sought to selfishly acquire your family’s company. Therefore, he wasn’t considered a threat.

Alright, then. Since Toji genuinely wasn’t a threat to your current emotional state, you agreed to talk with him. It was the first time you had seen the not-so-confident side of Toji Zen’in. He was typically a man of virtue, often holding his chin high, offering the best advice, and having insightful perspectives on life. However, it seemed you had shattered that confidence in him. You could sense his cautiousness around you as he stood by your side in the ER, assisting you with your needs, and eventually agreeing to your request to walk you to the rooftop garden.

“I don’t really think there’s anything else we should talk about.” It was you who first broke the silence, staring at the cityscape while sitting on a wheelchair. The calm breeze allowed your mind to seize the moment with a peaceful mind. “I already heard what you had to say.”

Toji found it better to kneel down in front of you to meet your eyes as he spoke to you in a sincere and earnest voice. “Y/N, I was drunk when I said all that shit back there. I didn’t mean them. I didn’t mean to hurt you with my callous words, and I feel awful that you had to hear them from me. You trusted me. You sought comfort from me. I wasn’t thinking like a normal person when those things came out of my mouth.”

“That doesn’t mean they weren’t true,” you replied with quiet resignation. It was the acceptance in your face that seemed to have caused Toji’s heartbroken gaze. “It’s okay, Toji. I think, when you said all those things, it actually made me realize some aspects of our relationship that had to be addressed. It made me more self-aware and it opened my eyes on the bigger picture.” You touched his hand, giving it a comforting squeeze as you mustered the courage to speak your next words. “It’s for the best that we part ways. It’s not fair to me to become a placeholder for your wife the same way it isn’t fair to you to have to deal with my ex-husband always being present in my life. Our unresolved feelings won’t really be resolved by being together.”

“Y/N…” Toji’s voice hinted at his vulnerable emotions, though he restrained himself from showing it fully. And you didn’t miss the apologetic look he had presented to you. “Despite all that, I hope you know that I’d been true to you. I do love you and will always love you. I’ll always be someone you can rely on, someone you can seek comfort from, someone you can turn to when you need help…”

Damn it. Why did he have to make it sound like an actual break up? Now, it tugged at your heartstrings and hit you in a place it shouldn’t have. You weren’t good at these things and it certainly was your first time dealing with such a mature and mutual separation, but wasn’t that a good thing? No further drama was to happen, leaving a stark comparison to your separation with Satoru. While this one didn’t hurt as much, it still brought a hollow feeling in your chest.

“Same for me,” you agreed, displaying a weak smile. “You’ll always have a spot in my heart, Toji. I’ll always be grateful that I met you.”

Sometimes, two people didn’t need to be together to love each other. Friendships could still thrive between ex-lovers, and that was why closure was so important. It not only closed a certain chapter of your life in a healthy way, but also allowed you to heal and open yourselves to a new beginning without any bitterness left behind.

It shouldn’t be considered bad to remain friends with an ex. It also shouldn’t be bad to give a parting kiss from said ex, right?

You weren’t the one who initiated it, after all. It was Toji’s hand that gently stroked your cheek. It was him, who leaned forward and pressed his lips onto yours. It wasn’t forceful, but neither was it passionate. It was simply a tender kiss of goodbye, feeling the warmth of each other’s lips for one last time before you two would transition from being lovers to friends. What you didn’t understand from this supposedly bittersweet moment was the faint tears that somehow managed to escape your eyes, perhaps because you knew that once Toji left, you would be alone again.

You had no one by your side to love you, cherish you, choose you, and offer their entire world for you. You were meant to live this cruel world all by yourself.

As he pulled away, he pressed his forehead against yours. “Please learn to love yourself before anyone else, Y/N. It’s what you need and what you deserve.”

That night, while you were getting your MRI, your mind kept flying to the possibilities of a future without having anyone by your side. Any normal person would tell you to focus on loving yourself first, as Toji did recently, focusing on what matters most, and ridding yourself of the toxic things that hinder you from moving forward with your life. Things weren’t as easy as they sounded. Besides, it was different being on the receiving end of the said advice. How could you do those things when the primary cause of your pain was someone whose life would always be linked to yours forever?

Based on the result of your MRI scans, your doctor recommended that you undergo elbow arthroscopy. It was just a minimally invasive procedure compared to open surgeries, but considering how much of an overthinker your dad was when it came to your health, he insisted on your confinement at the hospital until you had been completely cleared of any other issues. He really placed a big deal on your condition and emphasized to the doctors that they make sure nothing was missed. It could have been worse; you could have had a broken hip or a fractured leg, but at least you only had a dislocated elbow. Nothing that couldn’t be easily corrected by surgery and physical therapy.

The decision was for you to stay there for two days, and on your first night, a crying Sachiro ran inside your private room because his ‘mama has a boo boo’. Gen said he was picked up from daycare and dropped off at the hospital because the poor kid was looking for you. She didn’t mention who dropped your son off to you, but you could tell it was Satoru. You could sense it by the glances she exchanged with Ian after you asked how Sachiro came to the hospital.

So, in that case, Satoru must have found out about your little incident and didn’t care enough to see you. Did he not even have an ounce of care anymore? Or was it Gen who stopped him from seeing you?

“Did you ask him to leave?” you confronted Gen in a mellow voice, rubbing Sachiro’s back as he snuggled into you on the hospital bed.

Your sister knew exactly which man you were referring to, and she denied having done such. “No, I didn’t even talk to him. He took Sachi here and left.”

You didn’t know why you looked at Ian to confirm the truth of his wife’s words, but hurt yourself upon seeing his bowed head. It was an apologetic expression that did signify your ex-husband’s blatant act of ignoring you. To hear about your near-death experience and simply leave without even checking on you should be your wake-up call. He didn’t care anymore. No, why should he care? He had Akemi. His only responsibility with you was to be a supportive father to your son.

Why did the pain in your heart feel far more agonizing than the discomfort on your dislocated elbow?

If anything, you wanted to ask for the strongest anesthetic they could offer to numb your pain. You were desperate to have anything even if they had to put you into an eternal sleep. That would have been much easier to deal with than feeling disregarded by a person you supposedly had moved on from. Satoru did nothing wrong here. It was you who had that expectation, only to disappoint yourself when things didn’t happen as you imagined.

And just when you thought things would get better as long as you ignore your torturous thoughts, it didn’t help that being in the hospital kept giving you flashbacks of the time you were in this exact room, hearing Satoru crying helplessly from outside and begging for you not to terminate his child. What comes around certainly goes back around. Or worse.

Such depressive thoughts had you occupied throughout your stay there, and your unusual placidness alarmed the nurses instead of being assured that you were doing well. You heard your doctors telling your father and sister to always keep a close eye on you as the incident may not seem serious, but the trauma would undoubtedly be present somewhere and somehow. Were they aware? Of your intrusive thoughts of wanting to hurt yourself?

The elbow arthroscopy was successful and by the second day, you were free to go home. You were placed on certain medications to help with the swelling and the pain, and while you were walking around the hospital with a listless mind, you happened to pass by the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department. What a deja vu it was, remembering the time you had seen Satoru there waiting outside for Sera. Back then, it was one of the climactic events in your life that led to a domino effect on the downfall of your marriage. Not that you were reminiscing, but it did remind you that Shoko was probably there in her consultation room and it would be nice to talk to a friend who had witnessed the wild history of your marriage.

You asked Gen to wait for you in the car while you headed to Ieiri’s consultation room, assuring your visibly worried sister that everything was fine and that you wouldn’t take too long. You had to give Gen some slack, because despite the strains in your relationship as sisters, she was still always there for you. At the end of the day, she was family.

Shoko, on the other hand, was the next closest thing you had for a sister. She welcomed you inside her room in a very worried embrace, telling you that if she had known about the incident, she would have gone straight to your hospital room on your first day, but you told her not to worry about it and understood that being in the medical field already had her schedule tight.

“Well, I guess it’s perfect that you’re here, too.” Shoko smiled warmly, sitting behind her desk. She had exciting news to offer, it seemed. “I just wanna say that… of course, I’ll still be sending you a formal invitation and everything. I actually have a few gifts along with it.”

You shared her enthusiasm. “Hmm… is it what I think it is?”

The wedding. The most eventful day of her life would be arriving soon and you were the first one to hear it.

“Yes!” she answered, with the utmost joy coruscating from her eyes. “I want you to be my maid-of-honor, Y/N. I’d be extremely happy if you could make it. I know you just got into an accident, but it won’t be until two months, so—”

“Hey, it’s okay.” You eased her worries by chuckling. “I’m completely fine, of course I’ll be there. I can’t miss it.”

Shoko was grateful to hear your answer, relieved even, because by asking you to be her maid-of-honor, you should already understand who Suguru’s best man would be. That was a touchy subject for you and she was keenly aware of it, but you didn’t want her to worry. You didn’t want your relationship with your ex-husband to have a negative impact on the relationship of all the other people surrounding the both of you. It was already bad enough that Shoko and Suguru almost called off their engagement after they fought over their morals as you and Satoru’s friends, and you were glad that they somehow made things work. They somehow set aside their disagreements and ultimately chose their love over anything else.

Their love was beautiful, and while that wasn’t something you could easily have, it was something you deeply admired.

“Where are you guys planning to hold your wedding?” you asked, steering the conversation away from any mention of your ex-husband. “Here or overseas?”

She delighted you with her answer, sounding as if this was the perfect wedding she had always dreamed of. “It’s an intimate wedding on the lakeside. Suguru chose the location, actually, since he wanted our wedding to have the view of Mount Fuji.”

“That’s perfect,” you said with wide eyes. “Lake Kawaguchiko?”

“Yep. That’s exactly where it’d be.” She smiled with her eyes. “You know this resort… Hoshinoya Fuji? We already booked the place, and we have a luxury cabin for friends and families to stay at.”

You had been there before, but you were too young to remember. All you knew was that it was a high-end resort that had the best panoramic views of Lake Kawaguchiko and Mount Fuji. The hotel owner was also a close friend of the Gojou family, so that was probably why they were able to rent the entire place for the wedding, especially at a peak season for tourists.

Since the fall season was arriving, you could only imagine the stunning views of the autumn foliage there. It offered the perfect weather, too. It wouldn’t be as hot as summer, nor as freezing as winter. Surely, it would be nice to do some nature walks and stargazing, maybe ride a boat or bathe in a hot spring. You looked forward to it, except for the fact that your ex-husband would also be there.

And just what a perfect timing it was, because as Shoko sorted through her patients' medical records above her desk, a file slipped from the pile, revealing the name of your very friend, Akemi.

“Oh,” Shoko murmured apologetically as she retrieved the record, not wanting to ruin the mood of your conversation. “She, uh, came by a few days ago... with Gojou.”

You didn’t need to ask. You didn’t need to hear any further detail. Akemi’s visit likely revolved around her desire to conceive, as she wouldn’t have visited Shoko otherwise. Why? If it were simply to monitor her polycystic ovary, why did she choose Shoko instead of her own gynecologist? Thinking of how your ex-husband and best friend were attempting to start a family together left your heart shattered in unimaginable pieces, stirring up painful memories of your pathetic marriage with Satoru and reopening old wounds you thought had already healed from. Wasn’t it ironic that a couple of years ago, you were crying over the same situation with Sera?

You couldn’t stand this feeling anymore. You thought you had already freed yourself from the pain of loving him, yet here you were suffering from the same heartbreak over and over and over again. Tears threatened to spill, but you held them back, the ache in your chest too raw to confront just yet.

“It’s funny.” Although you displayed an outward smile, the sadness in your voice reflected your otherwise inward thoughts. You didn’t know why you said that. You were just too… too emotional. Almost like you couldn’t breathe. “He was never this passionate with me. They seem so in love.”

Ieiri’s eyes carried sisterly concern in them. “Y/N, it’s not really what you think.”

Was it? You weren’t sure what to feel anymore. You certainly weren't there to hear it anymore, either. Satoru chose her, just like what you wanted for him to do. Just like what you asked him to do. He had moved on, he had found someone who would love him for who he was, he had chosen the woman he would share the rest of his future with. Call yourself ridiculous for even feeling hurt about it, because you had no right to be and you definitely chose this. Either you own up to it, or you cry about it for the rest of your life.

Both choices had no happy endings.

— —

When Satoru learned about your incident in the woods, he thought he was going to lose his mind.

Was it out of love that he swiftly left the office in the middle of a meeting just to get to where you were?

He still had to pick up Sachiro from daycare, and he felt bad telling his son on the way to the hospital that his mother was hurt. It actually gave Satoru a hard time explaining to the 3-year old that they had to go to the hospital because his mommy was there and that she had an unfortunate encounter while riding a horse.

“Dada, is… is mama okay?” Sachiro pouted with wide, tearful eyes as he clung to his father’s hand. “Sachi wants to go to mama!”

“She’ll be okay, Sachi.” Gojou carried his son and soothed him as they went inside the hospital, searching for you. “Mommy’s strong, remember?”

Was it out of love that he wanted to be the person that brought your son to you when you most needed him?

According to the nurse, your room was on the seventh floor, but when he got there, your room was empty. It was Ian who told him that you went up the rooftop garden to get some fresh air, insisting that if Satoru wanted to go and talk to you, that it was best to leave Sachiro with them.

And so he did. He ran hastily, almost out of breath, until he reached the rooftop, scanning every face within the vicinity until his tired blue eyes finally landed on you.

Satoru laughed in disbelief. He scoffed bitterly, with each breath full of disgust. The tips of his fingers felt cold, while his breathing grew thin and ragged. He could feel his stomach clenching at the humiliation of seeing you engaged in an intimate make-out session with Toji Zen’in.

How sickeningly sweet.

At that point, he was laughing at his own expense, ignoring the elderly lady who looked at him like he was a crazy person. He stood there frozen for a few minutes, watching you kiss another man before it finally woke him up from reality.

It was out of love that he let you go.

You see? This was where his attachment to you would lead him. It was pure and unreasonable selfishness, but he would gain nothing at all from even seeing you. He didn’t need to care for you at all, no. You had Toji. You seemed to be goddamn happy with your life with Toji. And what a romantic fucking moment that was, too.

Satoru couldn’t think straight when he hurriedly left the hospital and got inside his car. He desperately wanted to forget the painful image of you locking lips with somebody else. How? How would he? Fuck! He was mad, mad at himself for choosing to come to your aid like he still had any role in your life. He was disgusted at himself for ignoring Akemi’s calls after promising her a movie date after work. He couldn’t believe he had her waiting all by herself in that cinema, waiting for him to come while he was stupidly running around the hospital to see his ex-wife.

You chose Toji, then you better be happy. Satoru hoped you were happy, and that wish came from a place of genuineness. He genuinely hoped the best for you. Because for him, it was time to fully let go and stop himself from trying to be the superhero whenever you were in danger. You weren’t his wife anymore.

So, was it out of love that he headed straight to Akemi’s apartment that night with a bouquet of red roses?

She didn’t know what happened nor was she given the full detail as to why he unintentionally stood her up on their date night. He had just briefly explained that he had to drop Sachiro off to you at a hospital because you got into a small accident. Akemi, being your friend, got immediately worried upon hearing the situation and asked if Satoru was able to check on you.

He said no. He said Toji was there. He said he left as soon as dropped Sachiro off.

And in an effort to apologize for not paying attention to the current woman in his life, Satoru pulled Akemi in a tight embrace. He held her in her arms, drunk from the sweet and citrusy notes of her perfume, before pulling away to kiss her. He kissed her with the same passion as you did with Toji. Perhaps even more, even better. He completely devoured her lips, with a hand on her cheek and the other on her waist. The taste of her tongue was sweet like strawberries, while her lips were red like cherries.

This woman was all he needed.

But was this love? He didn’t know. It was too soon to tell, too early to answer, too hasty to even consider.

— —

The current situation you were in reminded you of your younger self after your mother had died. It was the same before; you never left the house, often locking yourself in your room, shutting yourself off from the world, and drowning yourself with the pain and loneliness of losing somebody important.

Sure, no one really died for you to be acting this way right now, but the feeling was still the same. Was this really a comeuppance to all of your wrongdoings before? But just how terrible were you of a person to be hit by this unbelievable truckload of sorrow? You might as well spur on the physical pains of your angina again if this torment continued. Otherwise, how else do you avoid it?

You were being a terrible mother, too. You were too engrossed by your own misery that you couldn’t even properly take care of Sachiro. He didn’t deserve to have an incompetent and irresponsible mother like you. He deserves someone better, someone like Akemi, who not only has all the motherly traits a woman should have, but also the physical and mental capacity of being a true, strong woman.

Sachiro was bound to have that, anyway. Now that his father was planning his lifelong journey with another woman, and now that he was trying to build a happy family with her, you were no longer needed in the picture. There was no need for you.

How many more times would you tell that you have accepted it?

Because, god be damned, you knew you couldn’t. You knew you were lying to yourself when you said everything was fine, lying to Satoru when you told him you didn’t need him in your life anymore, lying to Toji for telling him that you wanted to marry him, lying to Akemi that you didn’t care if she was seeing your ex-husband, and lying to Sachiro when you promised to him that you would never leave his side. You were a liar. A terrible liar. A pitiful, terrible liar.

How would you tell the universe that you couldn’t take it anymore? That, for once, you wanted to be showered by happiness and all the good things in life?

Sera was right. Not everyone could have it all. There were people of lesser fortune who weren’t blessed to live a lavish life like you, yet still work hard to achieve what they want. Why couldn't you achieve your own happiness without blaming it on the universe? If this was simply a lesson, then weren’t you the top student at this rate?

God. God, help me. You really didn’t know how to deal with this life anymore. You weren’t sure how to proceed. You couldn’t rely on anything other than the bottle of alcohol on your hand—what was once full was now half empty after you took another swig. This was your second bottle already, wasn’t it? Or third?

You got up from the floor and failed to walk in a straight line as you made your way towards the balcony. Your steps were unsteady, wavering like a leaf caught in a gentle breeze. With each attempt to move forward, your body swayed from side to side, struggling to maintain balance. You almost lost grip of the bottle you were holding. No, it did, in fact, slip from your hand and ended up crashing into the floor. Shards of glass lay across the ground, ready to pierce the soles of your feet to mirror the same physical pain your heart was experiencing.

“Stop,” you muttered under your breath, begging for your chest to stop hurting. But it only worsened, and your antidote to that was to wash it down with even more liquor. No matter how expensive it was, you didn’t even like the taste of alcohol. You hated the sting on your throat whenever you drank it. You despised the bitterness it left on your tongue. However, it did great at numbing your emotions.

It just felt wrong in many ways that you were seeing Satoru’s face whenever you closed your eyes. You could see his smile, his loving eyes, his beautiful lips. You missed his embrace, his kiss, his touch. You missed hearing his I love you’s. Him. You missed him. You yearned for him. Three goddamn years, and you were still undeniably in love with him.

“Satoru…” you cried, sitting on the floor. Each breath made it harder and harder for you to catch as tears continued to stream down your face. You were tired of pretending, denying that you no longer had feelings for him when you knew deep down that you would always choose him. “S-Satoru… come back to me, please.”

Was it him coming inside your room? Or was it your vision making a fool out of you?

“Baby, what are you doing?” Satoru’s expression was engulfed in immense worry as he knelt down and reached out to you, touching your cheek and looking at your eyes somberly. “Don’t do this yourself, Y/N.”

Your head hung low, your gaze unfocused and glazed, as you fought to keep your eyes on the path ahead. You had to reach him. You wanted to touch him, hug him. And despite your best efforts, your movements were disjointed and erratic, betraying the effects of the alcohol coursing through your veins.

“Y/N, that’s enough.” Gen had to use force just to be able to snatch the bottle away from you, forcing you to wake up to the reality where Satoru no longer existed to be there for you. It was her who came rushing inside your room in the middle of the night. The bottle of liquor was now spilled all over the floor. The same could be described with your emotions. “Get it together. You haven’t been acting like yourself lately!”

You couldn’t, even if you wanted to. You were in delirium after having dealt with all the terrible things the world had thrown at you. If you couldn’t drown yourself in alcohol, how else would you have been able to numb the pain? How else would you have been able to… forget?

As much as your sister tried to hide the obvious sympathy in her voice, even your drunken mind could recognize it. “We all know you’re going down the depression lane again, but never to this extent.” Her voice cracked in the middle of her sentence, cradling you into her arms as a tear fell down her face. The Gen who would usually lecture you, was now holding you in her arms as her only baby sister. “Stop this, Y/N, please. Don’t ruin your life the second time. I-It’s hurting me. It’s hurting Dad. Do you… do you realize what Sachiro’s gonna think of you when he sees you like this?”

“Gen…” Muffled sobs unwillingly came out of you, leaving you with such excruciating pain in the chest, so much so that it didn’t even feel like you had done surgery to fix your (quite literally) broken heart. “I w-want him back,” you continued to cry, “I want my husband back. I want to be with h-him, Gen.”

“Y/N.”

“Where’s S-Satoru…? D-Did he leave? Please take me to him—”

“Y/N, listen to me.” She gently cupped your cheeks, forcing you to look at her pained eyes. “You’re intoxicated. He was never here, and he’d never come for you. You have to let it go.”

“But—”

“He’s not good for you. He never will be.”

— —

It had been two weeks since Satoru last heard about you. Miwa was the one who updated him that you had already returned to your family’s mansion, letting him know that you were okay and that you were recovering well. Frankly, Satoru was starting to get annoyed at the fact that his secretary was still giving him updates about you. What did he care? He wasn’t your husband anymore.

Besides, Toji was probably visiting you every day, so why did he have to worry about you? If there was anyone he should be worried about, it was Akemi. She had been experiencing terrible pelvic cramps lately, which needed to be given serious attention, but you would never see her being dramatic about it. The only thing she needed was for Gojou to accompany her visits to the OB-GYN, and even then, she never showered herself in self-pity. She carried herself like an independent woman, and that was exactly what Satoru needed in his life right now.

He had a son to raise. He had a company to run. It wasn’t the perfect time to commit himself to someone lawfully. Heck, he didn’t even believe in marriage anymore. He realized that two people could still love each other without getting married. As long as Akemi didn’t pressure him about such things, he was fine with having her around. She didn’t ask for anything much, anyway.

As for you, well…

“What are you planning with that mansion you gifted Y/N?” asked Nanami, seated on the couch inside Satoru’s office, casually reading a newspaper. “Do you even remember that?”

He certainly did. “What about it?” he questioned, idly toying with a pen on his desk. “It’s her property now. She can sell it if she wants.”

Better yet, you should let Sachiro inherit the property someday. His son was already set for a life of privilege having wealthy parents on both sides, but wouldn’t the mansion be a substantial addition to his assets in the future? Satoru couldn’t help but envision the kind of man his son would grow up into. He hoped Sachiro would not inherit his father's immaturity and pettiness but would embody the kindness and altruism of his mother. From a business perspective, however, Satoru planned to groom his son to be a leader, as he was the sole heir to the Gojou Group. Additionally, he would also inherit half of Creston and the entirety of Hearte. No wonder Sachiro was recently listed as the wealthiest kid by Forbes Japan. He even beat Megumi Zen’in from the list even though the teenager was the heir of the Zen’in business empire.

These were the thoughts that should consume Satoru—the future, not the past. His kid, not you. And he was right about doing so, because when he came home to his penthouse, he was told that he had a visitor.

A visitor on a Wednesday afternoon?

Your brother-in-law, the esteemed prosecutor who sent his evil stepmother to jail, appeared on his front door, carrying Sachiro in his arms. It was hard to tell what type of emotions were visible on the man’s face, but he definitely didn’t bring any good news.

“Ian?” Satoru promptly made way for the man to come in, ushering him into the penthouse and allowing him to set Sachiro down. The young boy was quick to dart off to his playroom, leaving the two men in an uncomfortable silence. “What’s going on? Weekends are usually my schedule with Sachi.”

Ian cleared his throat, a hand on his pocket. “Do you mind looking after Sachiro for the time being?”

By saying ‘for the time being’, it seemed like Ian wanted to actually say ‘until further notice.’ But that confused Satoru even more, because what was happening for the man to come here and ask him to let Sachiro stay beyond the agreed schedule with his father? He couldn’t read through Ian’s expression and it was making him uneasy.

“I can, but… why so suddenly?” Gojou asked, glancing at his oblivious son.

“It’s Y/N’s idea, Gen doesn’t know about it.” Ian released an awkward chuckle. “You know how my wife is.”

Gen would absolutely hate it, Satoru was aware for sure. Though the questions lingered in his mind. “Why would Y/N want Sachi to stay with me? Where’s she?”

Was it him or was Ian having a hard time explaining the situation? It felt like he was walking on eggshells, deciding between what had to be said and what shouldn’t. He was careful with his words when he spoke again, “Y/N flew to Monaco this morning and will be back when she’s ready. She says Sachiro should spend all of his time with you while she’s gone.”

Monaco? Why would you be there?

Confusion bathed Satoru’s eyes. “Is it for a fashion event or something?”

“No, she’s just…” Ian struggled heavily. “Well, to sum it up, she has to go there to sort some things out. It’s a personal thing, but she really needs this time for herself and we think it’s the best for her right now. I don’t know how long she’s gonna stay there or when she’ll be back, but I hope you understand what I’m trying to say here.”

No, he didn’t. Satoru found it difficult to fathom his ex-brother-in-law’s words, seeing as he had no general idea of what was truly going on. But if you were flying to Monaco, surely Toji wouldn’t allow you to go there all by yourself?

Ahh. It made sense now. I see what’s happening here.

Satoru’s lips curled into sarcasm. You would be vacationing with the love of your life. Is that what it was? Planning your halted wedding? Choosing wedding gowns? Looking for venues? There was no way you would be flying to Monaco alone, especially without Sachiro around when you two had been inseparable since his birth.

“What kinda mother is she?” Satoru muttered in disgust, unaware that Ian had overheard him. But Ian had heard loud and clear. How could you leave your son behind like this? Couldn’t you face your ex-husband to discuss it, instead of just dropping Sachiro off as if he were some unwanted toy?

“Hold it right there,” Ian interjected, becoming defensive at the accusation. “You have no idea what she’s going through.”

How would he know? No one was telling him shit. No one was giving him details, so did they expect him to understand things and accept them as they were? Did they do the same thing to Satoru when he was at the verge of losing his sanity asking everyone for forgiveness over and over?

“I've never taken sides between you two, Satoru, you know that,” Ian continued, trying to maintain a calm demeanor and speak with clear judgment, “But one thing I’m not gonna let you do is call Y/N a bad mother.”

Satoru’s chest tightened at Ian's words, a mixture of guilt and frustration bubbling up inside him. He knew he shouldn’t have spoken out of turn, but the pain and resentment were too raw to contain. It felt like you were abandoning him and your child, like you were off to a new chapter in your life again, and leaving everything behind. Perhaps this was his trauma from the New York thing crawling back at him, but it definitely reminded him of the day you had abandoned him. For three fucking years. How long would it take you to return now?

Why do you keep doing this? He was sick of it. You kept running away instead of talking to him. He gets it, people change, circumstances change, but couldn’t you at least have the decency to talk to him about it? Was it wrong for him to wish you’d handled this differently? To wish that you’d talked to him, involved him in the decision-making process, instead of just making this unilateral decision and leaving him to pick up the pieces?

Satoru took a moment, collecting his thoughts before continuing. “It’s fine, I’ll take care of Sachi,” he reassured, “I’ll take some time off work and have ‘Kemi help me out.”

He looked back at Ian, his eyes pleading for further details, for answers, for some semblance of clarity in the midst of this emotional turmoil.

Yet none of it was given.

And so, would it still be wrong to assume that he could now completely forget about you? That this opportunity to be with Sachiro would allow him a chance to share it with someone else? If you spent three years of your life playing house in New York with Toji, would it still be unfair for Satoru to do the same with Akemi?

#series: sincerely yours #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo x reader #jjk x reader #gojo angst #jjk angst

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anantaru · 1 month

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⊹ ‧₊˚ ᰔ cw. finger sucking & bondage & thigh riding, fem! reader // ꒰ᐢ⸝⸝⸝⸝ᐢ꒱ ♡

ever since starting a relationship with you, neuvillette was fond of the idea of experimenting through different kind of kinks with you.

as to see what the both of you were into— until your sweaty bodies were messily sticking to each other and the heavy scent of sex and musk overthrowing your clouded minds.

what about fingersucking? hm, the idea of your hot mouth being sealed around his digits frankly, set his loins on fire, in fact, he needs to try it and feel it for himself.

slowly, neuvillethe drags two digits over your wet tongue and groans at the way you're licking around them, suckling and keeping them inside— although teasingly, as if you're very well aware of the fact that he loves when you're a good girl for him, he loves when you send him spiralling over himself until he's imagining his filthy cock replacing those two fingers of his.

to make things more interesting, before anything, he used a piece of cloth to tie your hands behind your back while you're ever so sweetly straddling his muscular thigh, leaving him so needy, showing him your glassy eyes while you're pressing your soft folds against the rough material of his pants.

he returns and stuffs your pathetic, little mouth with two digits before adding another, your sounds being reduced by shushed whimpers and slurping. in the eyes of the iudex, you were just so perfect, the love of his life which he wouldn't be able to ever take his hands off. considering his reserved nature, he felt his mouth being flodded by saliva at your torturous drags and ever so slight brushes against his thickened bulge, watching how your pussy turned into a wet, lewd mess.

neuville groans when you gurgle around his fingers and begin to lick between them— before bobbing your head back and forth and imagining it being his dripping dick instead.

he's stunned, soaking his boxers and hissing at how your tits were moving in tune with your rough grinds and your wet folds messing up his pants. you rub and rub yourself harder into his leg and shudder from head to toe when you managed to find the right rhythm, so you'll be able to stimulate your clit as well.

as if the iudex cares when you ruin his pants, or him, right? of course he doesn't.

he even quickens your pace by using his free arm to pull you back and forth himself, hungrily moving you with his immense strength and hoping you'll mess him up a little further.

until he's allowed to sink his hefty cock into your warm hole.

#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #neuvillette x reader #neuvillette smut #genshin x you #genshin impact x you #neuvillette x you #genshin drabbles #genshin impact drabbles

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fairyysoup · 3 months

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his hands

pairing(s): hairdresser!eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: How do you make getting a haircut an erotic experience? You have Eddie Munson as your hairdresser, of course.

cw: explicit, smut, unprotected piv sex, mirror sex, workplace sex, hand kink, choking, dumbification, dom!eddie, touch-starved!reader, semi-sort-of subspace happenings, referring to genitals with gendered pronouns, slight body worship, getting weirdly horny over a head massage, sexual tension, negative self talk, hair cut/style mentioned but no description of hair color/type, the aftercare is the haircut lol, implied 90s au, eddie's like 30, reader's age unspecified, eddie is employee of the month in my heart, not proofread, no beta we die like men

a/n: this is weird. and came from an interesting experience i had at the hair salon. and yes that is corpse's hand in that pic i didn't want to spend all day looking for a header pic shut up shut up shut up

ALL MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

Your hands twitch on the copy of Elle magazine in your lap. The familiar waiting area of your local salon has new furniture, which still smells a bit like the cellophane it came wrapped in, and hasn’t been worn out by patrons just yet. You’d asked for your usual stylist, Melissa. Except, you haven’t been here in so long, and apparently Melissa doesn’t work here anymore.

“We have a new stylist in her place,” the greeter at the front desk told you kindly. “I could fit you in if you’d like that same station?”

The station doesn’t matter to you; they all look the same and have the same tools. Obviously, when it comes to getting your hair cut, the stylist makes the difference. But, since you’re a couple months too late to catch up with Melissa, a new stylist is who you’ll be working with.

The PA still plays some sort of weird pop-rock fusion that mixes Nat King Cole with Billy Idol, but you just try to focus on it to keep your leg from bouncing. You always get anxious like this when you come in for an appointment, even though you always tell yourself the same thing. It’s just hair. If you don’t like it, it’ll grow back. Or, if worst comes to worst, you could always shave it.

You hear your name being called, and you look up to the person who’d just approached the waiting area around the partition that blocks off the styling area. You blink, your mind going fuzzy as you try to make sense of what you see.

“Looks like I’ll be cutting your hair today,” the man standing at the end of the row of chairs says, with a grin that puts boyish dimples on his cheeks. “I’m Eddie.”

Eddie the Hairdresser is a bit more than you can handle right now. Between his long, curly hair, and the shirt he wears that gives you a view of the tattoos crawling up his arms, you think your knees might already be made out of jelly as you try to stand. But then he sticks out his hand for you to shake, and he’s wearing big, chunky rings that glint in the light, and you think you might swoon like a Victorian damsel.

“I’m, uh–” you begin intelligently, as you fit your hand into his big one. He squeezes just the tiniest bit and smirks at you. “I– I’m trying to, uh–”

“First time?” Eddie asks you with a tilt of his head. His brown eyes crease at the edges with mirth.

“Oh, um, no,” you mutter, looking everywhere but at his dimples. He has a tattoo on his neck of a dragon. You stare at it for a moment too long. “I used to come and see Melissa, forever ago.”

“Oh! Yeah, Melissa was great. She trained me,” Eddie starts jabbering as he tilts his head and leads you around the partition. You’re met with the smell of hairspray and the sound of blow dryers getting louder. “She’s a hard act to follow, but I hope I can do well enough. Let’s get you started with a wash, hm?”

You smile as he winks at you conspiratorially. You always feel a little bit awkward as you sit in the chair for the wash sinks, but Eddie ushers you into it with a little wave of his hand and gently– more gently than you can remember even Melissa being– lifts the ends of your hair and places a soft towel around your shoulders.

“What kept you away all this time?” Eddie asks pleasantly as he tests the water temperature. “Melissa’s been gone for a while.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I was working a lot,” you stumble into an explanation, your cheeks heating up a bit. It’s hard not to feel like you need to repent for not coming in to get a trim every month. “Last time I came in, I got my hair cut really short, so it wasn’t like I needed to come in for a trim for a long time, and by the time I really needed one it was long enough that I could do it myself… so, I just kept doing that.”

“So, what are we doing today?” Eddie inquires as his fingertips brush along your temples to tuck your hair back behind your ears and into the wash basin. With gentle prompting, he tilts your head back into the bin and begins to wet the ends of your hair.

“I figured it’s time I go short again,” you tell him, more confident than you really feel about it. It was a split second decision, one that you made because the reflection in the mirror was looking back at you with such a dead expression that you decided you needed a change in a bad way. For a lighter note, you supplement, “I’m tired of brushing tangles out of my hair every morning, and the other day I had a whole bird’s nest at the back of my neck, y’know.”

“Pssh, I know all about tangles. You saw my hair,” Eddie chuckles as the lukewarm water touches your scalp. Goosebumps rise on your arms while he rambles on, “I have to comb my hair wet or else I look like I got electrocuted. I never used to care about that sort of thing before I went to school for this, but once you start learning about proper treatment it’s kind of hard to ignore. I used to wash my hair with bar soap. Dry as hell, no conditioner. I’m surprised I got it long to begin with.”

You find yourself smiling just thinking about it. “Bar soap? With those curls?”

“Don’t tell anyone, my reputation will be ruined,” Eddie leans down and whispers to you while he reaches for a bottle of shampoo. You hear a crack of a bottle cap, and then his hands are in your hair again, working the sweet smelling soap into your roots. “I’m trying to get employee of the month, but they’re never gonna give it to me if they know I used to sabotage my own hair with Irish Spring.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” you tell him sweetly, but you’re barely paying attention to his words anymore. His fingers are pressing into areas on your head that haven’t had a proper massage in forever, and months of tension headaches are being brought to the forefront of your mind.

You never consider how oddly intimate having someone wash your hair is until you’re in the thick of it. Eddie’s thumbs massage circles into your occipitals with just a perfect amount of pressure, and the muscles down the back of your neck slowly melt and relax, moving with the swell of his fingertips. You suddenly feel very relaxed and very sleepy, and your eyelids drift closed as Eddie’s thumbs trace the line of your skull up to your hairline.

It even takes a moment for you to tune into the fact that he’s humming. Under his breath, he’s singing along to the notes of the song on the PA. He’s doing it in such a way that you’re sure he’s not even aware of it, himself, and you’d comment on it if you weren’t afraid that you’d embarrass him. His fingers are massaging circles around your temples now, and while you’re trying to focus on the sound of him harmonizing with the music, your mind is again trying to distract you with the feeling developing at the base of your spine. A ticklish, warm feeling spreads between your hips, disrupting the lull you find yourself in and forcing you to blink your eyes open.

Oh, no. We’re not doing that right now.

You can’t say you’re surprised that this is your response. His hands are all over your head and you haven’t been touched by anyone in… well, a very long time, to say the least. You’re probably a little starved for it, all things considered. But this is really the wrong time and place to be getting turned on by a guy’s touch.

You shift in your seat, trying not to be too obvious about it when Eddie pulls his hands away and begins rinsing your hair again. Crossing your legs would be a dead giveaway, but the warm feeling is turning into a subtle throb between your legs, and Eddie’s hands are back on your head, now gently combing the conditioner through the length of your hair as though he’s petting you.

After a few torturous minutes of trying to ignore the blooming arousal deep in your gut, Eddie cuts the water and wraps your hair in the towel to secure it.

“Now comes the hard part,” Eddie says, probably not meaning to make it sound so suggestive, but your mind seems to be taking its sweet time loitering in the gutter.

You stare dazedly up at the ceiling. Now is the hard part?

Eddie leads you to what used to be Melissa’s station, and swings the swivel chair around for you with a flourish. “Step into my office, sweetheart. I’ll get you all dressed up in a sexy robe and everything.”

You stifle a giggle as you slide into the seat. His “office” is one table in a row of other tables, and two feet away an older woman is getting her hair bleached by a girl with an undercut. As Eddie spins you around, the stylist shoots him a look.

“He’s a shameless flirt,” she tells you, making eye contact with you in the mirror. Eddie lays a smock across your front and buttons it at the back of your neck.

“I’ll have you know, I’ve been minding my manners very well,” Eddie huffs with feigned indignation as he unwraps your hair and tosses the towel onto the table in front of you. He still winks at you in the mirror when he leans around you to pick up a comb. “So far.”

You can’t help the way that your jaw clenches. He’s really not going to make this easy on you. You wonder if he knows where your mind has been for the last ten minutes.

Eddie moves around to the back of your chair and presses on a lever to raise it up, but nothing happens.

“Dammit,” Eddie curses under his breath, and turns to his coworker, who’s still loading tinfoil into the woman’s hair until she looks like something from Close Encounters. “I can’t believe you gave me the crap chair.”

“Early birds get the good chairs,” the stylist replies.

Eddie sighs and turns back to you, and finds you looking at him curiously in the mirror. “This is the only broken chair in the whole salon, and everyone hates it, so it tends to move around. You never know if you’ll get the crap chair.”

“That’s sabotage,” you giggle.

“I know! So I have to bend down to style you, I’m sorry.”

“I think I can handle it.” You watch him give you a look in the mirror that makes you shift in your seat again.

“So,” he begins, looking down at your head as he begins detangling your hair. “We’re going short?”

“That’s the plan,” you say with a puff of your chest. Please, god, don’t let it be horrible.

“How short?” he prompts, eyeing you in the mirror. “Shoulder length? Close cropped?”

You reach up a slightly shaky hand and pinch the length that you want between two fingers. “Here’s good.”

Eddie nods, looking somewhat pleased. “Are we doing layers?”

“Yeah, I think layers would be good for the long term.”

“Gives you more flexibility,” he agrees. He picks up a pair of scissors and begins measuring out the length that you want. “I’ll start with the length and then we’ll move to bangs, all right?”

“That… sounds good.” You’re temporarily discombobulated by Eddie taking the sides of your head and tilting your head down just the slightest bit.

“Stay just like that for me, okay?” he says quietly.

You blink down at the table in front of you, feeling your mouth go dry. “No problem.” Your hands nervously twitch beneath the cover of the smock across your body.

He goes back to humming along with the music on the PA, and you don’t have the heart to interrupt him. You’re trying to focus on anything but the nerves in your system and the way his touch keeps making you want to jump out of your seat.

After a moment, he stops humming and dusts a bit of hair off of your shoulder. “There we go. Good girl.”

You blink up at Eddie in the mirror, and then see the transformation from long hair to short on your head.

“How does it feel?” Eddie asks, leaning down to pinch the ends of the front and measure the evenness of the length. You stare at his fingers, and the tattoo of a bat just above his thumb on his left hand.

“Ten pounds lighter,” you joke. It feels like you’ve swallowed a lump of hot coal, but he doesn’t need to know that. Eddie grins, and his dimples make a glorious reappearance.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he murmurs, and again positions your head where he wants it, staring directly forward. “Honestly, even if you wanted to stop here, it would suit you. I don’t think there’s a way to make you look bad, sweetheart.”

“You’ve never seen me with a hangover,” you scoff, trying to ignore how your heart skips a beat.

Eddie smirks at you in the mirror while he starts working on giving your hair layers. “My guess is that you still look just as cute, but with a bit more of a grumpy look around here.” He gestures to your brow with one finger, and reaches over to set aside the texturizing scissors.

“So, what I’m hearing is, you think I’m cute?” you say, still trying to play up the confidence that you don’t really have. Your hand squeezes your thigh under the smock you wear, your nails digging in for purchase.

“No, I think you’re gorgeous,” Eddie says swiftly, like it’s just a matter of fact. “But, I think you’d also be cute when you’re hungover. Plus, with this hair, you’d probably look all unkempt and I love the mental image that’s creating.”

His hands fluff the layers that he’s put into your hair, ruffling them gently and carding his fingers through them to measure their length. You’re sure that he’s not aware of the moon-eyed look you’re giving him in the mirror.

Except, then he moves around you to start working on your bangs, and the smirk that comes across his face when he looks down at yours is enough to make you lose your composure. He knows everything that’s going on in your head, you’re sure of it.

Cocky bastard.

“I like your tattoos,” you murmur, just loud enough for him to hear over the music and the sounds of blow dryers all around you. He’s face to face with you, so close that you can count the freckles on his pale face.

Eddie’s eyes light up. “Yeah? What about ‘em?”

“Well,” you lick your lips, your eyes flicking down to the one on his neck, and the one peeking out of his collar. “They’re colorful, and they look like you put a lot of thought into picking out each one. They’re pretty.”

“Hmm. You flatter me,” he remarks, trying to hide his grin and failing. If you look closely, there’s just the slightest pink tint to his cheeks that wasn’t there before. He finishes trimming your bangs, and just before he stands up, he chucks you lightly under the chin. “Keep it up and you might get a freebie.”

A free what? You’re imagining he means some sort of a free hair wash or something, but you can’t keep your mind from going to unprecedented places.

“All right. Bear with me, I’m gonna blow dry you now.” He turns your chair away from the mirror to get you a bit closer to the blow dryer, and for a few minutes, there’s a lull in the conversation.

Then, all at once, the blow dryer shuts off, and Eddie leans down towards you. “Ready, sweetheart?”

“Eddie, you’re gonna make me nervous.”

“Well, we don’t want that.” You just barely turn your head to look at him; just enough that your noses barely brush. You steal a breath that comes from his mouth, and then, Eddie turns you to the mirror. “Like I said,” he murmurs, “There’s not a way to make you look bad.”

“Holy shit,” you breathe. And holy shit is right– he’s done a complete number on you. Your hair is voluminous, framing your face in a way that you haven’t seen it before.

“What do you think?” he asks, and for a moment, you think it’s a rhetorical question.

“I think you’re way better than Melissa,” you tell him, once you realize that it’s not rhetorical and he’s really asking you what you think. You’re sure that he’d make adjustments if you needed, but you don’t need him to. He’s read you like a book. He’s made you look better than you could ever have hoped for.

“I’m gonna need that in writing,” he tells you, with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen. “For employee of the month, and all.”

“Tell me where to sign.”

He jerks his head, and all at once the fog lifts. You follow him to the front desk like a lost puppy, feeling like you don’t actually want to leave. You want to sit in his chair while he cuts your hair until you have none left. You want to keep his attention on you and stare at his smile, his hair, his eyes, his tattoos, for the rest of time.

“I look forward to next time, princess,” he tells you, but you’re hyperfocused on the touch of his hand to your lower back.

You watch him telling something to the girl at the front desk, his hand wrapped around the edge of the table and distracting you for the umpteenth time. You watch his silver rings glint in the light, and you think about them weaving through your hair; you think about his fingers and how they’d feel on places besides your head.

“So, when did you want to schedule an appointment?”

You blink a few times, and in a dazed glow you come back to where you are. At the front desk. Paying for your haircut. “Sorry, what?”

“The… next appointment? For your trim?” The secretary tilts her head, smiling at you kindly. “When did you want to come in?”

“Oh,” you murmur, looking down at the keyboard that she’s typing on. Eddie has disappeared back around the partition with a sweet smile and a wave cast in your direction. You just want him to come back again. “What would you suggest? Y’know, for this kind of a cut?”

“Hmm,” the girl hums, and sizes you up. Not in a way that makes you doubt yourself, but in a way that tells you she’s taking your question seriously. “Probably about four weeks. See if the length is something you’re happy with?”

“Great. Four weeks from now. With Eddie.” You peer down at the rack of business cards on the deck, and pick up the one farthest to the right.

Eddie Munson, Stylist. Set an appointment today!

By four weeks, your hair has already reached your shoulders, and the ease of maintenance is starting to wear off. When you get a call reminding you about your appointment with Eddie, your head reels with the knowledge that you’ll see him again.

You calmly assert to yourself that this time, there will be no mooning over him. He’s just your hairdresser. You figure he just has a job to do, tips to earn, and so on. You don’t know if he’s available, you don’t know if he’s single or if he even likes you the way that you like him. You don’t know anything about him, really.

False. You know that he used to wash his hair with bar soap.

You snicker to yourself as you sit in the waiting area yet again. The only available slot for him today was 6:30; pretty close to closing time, but for a Wednesday you figured it was best for you to come late, since you’d have time to get yourself together after work.

You’ve never been in the salon so late. It’s getting dark outside, and the overhead lights cast a semi-yellow glow around the waiting area. Business is dying down now. Not as many people love the idea of getting their hair cut so late, you suppose, but it was either this or wait another week to get an appointment with Eddie, and with the rate that your hair is growing, you’d probably be going insane by then.

“Hey, you,” Eddie says, popping his head around the partition with a grin that makes you nearly melt in your seat. His curly hair hangs in a curtain out in midair, and his long neck stretches out for you to take a gander at. “Just couldn’t stay away, huh?”

You smile at him. “Well, you’re the only person I trust with my head.”

What the fuck did you just say?

Eddie smirks, glowing pink around the ears. “I’ll keep that in mind, princess. Let me clean up my station real quick and I’ll getcha goin’, all right?”

You swallow back the lump in your throat. “Yeah, sure, no worries.”

When Eddie disappears again, you slide down in your seat and clap your hand across your eyes. You’re sort of glad that nobody was in the waiting room to see that ridiculous exchange, but you still have to sit with your embarrassment while Eddie cuts your hair. Again.

There will be no pining. There will be no getting weirdly turned on by him washing your hair. Nope, not happening this time.

This time, when Eddie ushers you back behind the partition, there’s only one two other stylists who are there cleaning their stations. The PA has been turned way down, so you can barely register what it’s playing at all.

“You actually came at a good time,” Eddie tells you as you trail after him toward the wash station. “You’re the last person for the night, so I can really take my time with you.”

“O-oh.. really?” You beat back your perverted thoughts with a stick. “To do what?”

“Oh, y’know,” Eddie shrugs as he lays a towel around your shoulders again, just as gentle as he was the last time. “We could do something totally crazy. Who knows what’ll happen?”

His voice is animated, pleasantly filling the empty space where your thoughts might become too much if you let them wander.

Over the past month, after you’d recovered from your last meeting with Eddie, and as you were preparing for this one, you came up with a few things that you could ask him about– just to keep your mind from going to places you didn’t want them to. To save yourself the embarrassment and the ordeal of having to play whack-a-mole with your libido, and all.

“Did you get employee of the month?” you begin with.

Eddie laughs, and then sighs. “No, our manicurist got it. I’ll get it this time, I just gotta stay on my A-game.” His blunt nails rake your hair away from your forehead and temples, and a lukewarm stream of water hits the crown of your skull.

You nearly want to jump out of your skin at the feeling. “Was it because they gave you the crap chair too many times?”

“Probably. But I got here early today, so the good news is you don’t have to sit in the crap chair this time.”

“Aww, I kind of liked the crap chair. Kept me grounded.” You hear him huff a laugh as he starts lathering shampoo through your hair. Trying to keep your mind running so you don’t focus too hard on how good his rings feel scraping against your scalp, you ask, “How’d you get into this line of work?”

“Honestly, it’s kind of a weird story,” Eddie starts, beginning to massage his fingertips into your skull in a way that makes your toes curl in your shoes. You tighten your hands on the arms of your chair and take a deep breath. “So, it took me three tries to graduate high school, right? I was terrible at it. And, y’know, I figured I’d only end up working in a garage or something for the rest of my life. But I was cutting my mane all on my own, and eventually I started cutting my friends’ hair too, because they were all in college and it’s cheaper than going to a salon. I mean–” he chuckles, and begins rinsing your hair– “believe me. I know all about it. And it just came to me really easily, ‘cause I used to be great at drawing and crafting and stuff. And it’s kind of the same thing– once you learn the medium, it’s smooth sailing from there.”

The salon has gone eerily quiet, and by the time Eddie wraps your head and sits you up, you realize that the other stylists have gone, and you and Eddie are the last people in the building. You’d be a little nervous about it, but you got Eddie on a roll, and honestly, he makes it so easy to listen to him.

“Anyways, one day my friend Robin says to me, ‘You should totally get your credential for this,’ and I said, ‘You have to go to school for this shit?’” You blow a raspberry of a laugh, no longer feeling anxious as he sits you down on his not-crap styling chair. He drapes a smock over you, and cracks a grin at you in the mirror. “I know! So, I’ve never been great at school, and I can’t afford to pay for beauty school tuition on the pay I was making at the time, so my friends… they pooled together some money to at least pay for my first semester. And then– get this– I got on the fucking Dean’s list.”

“No way.”

“I did! Yours truly!” He does a little bow, and while you’re still giggling, he begins detangling your hair. “So, I got grants. And I finished top of my class, because as it turns out, when you don’t hate what you’re studying it’s really easy to do well. I got my certification framed and everything. Show that to my damn high school principal.” He shakes his head, but the smile is still on his face when he says, “But now I just have to get that fucking employee of the month.”

“Anything I can do to help?” you offer, admiring his face in the mirror again without even realizing you’re doing it. You love seeing him grin, showing off his dimples and the smile lines around his eyes.

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs with a cute scrunch of his nose. “Just make sure you write my boss a letter saying how fantastic and amazing I am and how there’s no other hair stylist like me and how you’ll never find anyone as cool and sexy anywhere else. Something subtle like that oughta do it.”

“Shouldn’t be difficult,” you tell him smoothly. “I already had that one drafted.”

He chuckles, his eyes sparkling when he reaches for his scissors, but you still notice the faint blush on his cheeks that he tries to hide behind his curtain of hair. “Flattery. You know what that gets you with me.”

A freebie. You hear his voice echoing in your head, and you swallow past the dryness in your throat. “Like… what? A mohawk?”

“Would you want a mohawk?” he asks you, pausing his movements to peer at you. “Because that’d be metal as hell, I’d be so down.”

You laugh. “I appreciate it, but I think… probably not today.”

Eddie hums, and returns to smoothing your hair back away from your face. “So we’re just doing the same as last time?”

“Yeah, not too flashy.”

“Gotcha. It’s a shame, though. I’m always up for a challenge.”

“Well, I think that short hair is just easier to maintain,” you tell him, at a loss for what else to say. He glances up at you in the mirror, and locks eyes with you. “And it doesn’t make my neck look as stumpy as it is.”

Eddie tilts his head with a confused pout, and then he reaches down and wraps his hands loosely around your throat. Your breath stalls in your chest, your eyes focused on the sight of his hands on you, his thumbs gently stroking the nape of your neck and his ring clad fingers pressed just below your chin. His fingers link and hold you, creating a necklace that you’ll never be able to find anywhere else.

Oh, shit. Oh, fucking hell. Everything below your waist draws up tight and hard, your thighs clamping together like that’s going to somehow will away the hold that Eddie has on you.

You lift your eyes and find his in the mirror, dark and focused in on you. You hold each others’ gaze for a prolonged moment, not saying anything, you barely even daring to breathe. You can’t imagine what the expression on your face looks like. You’re too busy staring at the one on his– like there are a million thoughts running through his head, and you’re desperate to know every single one of them.

“Nah, I think you’re perfect.” And just like that, Eddie moves on like nothing happened, picking up his scissors again. Like he didn’t just fry your brain. Like you’re not halfway to cardiac arrest.

You’re dumbstruck as he starts trimming the ends of your hair. You told yourself there would be no mooning over him. No pining. But here, you are, turned on beyond belief, and having to deal with the heartbeat pulsing between your legs, and not shift around, because you don’t want to fuck him up.

When he pinches the ends of the front to see if they’re level, you’re staring directly at him in the mirror. Not even trying to hide it, either. If you did try, you’d most certainly fail. Eddie frowns in concentration, a bit of a crease to his brow as he peers at his hands.

Eddie tuts. “I’m trying to figure out– is it–?” He grabs the back of your chair, and suddenly you’re being swiveled around to face him. “Sometimes these mirrors don’t even help a guy out at the worst goddamn times…”

Your breathing is way heavier than it needs to be. Is it hot in here? Did they crank up the heat in this place specifically to spite you? Eddie’s face is so close to yours, and you’re not sure if the fact that you aren’t in the crap chair is helping. You’re higher up now, and he doesn’t have to bend down as far to get level with you, and his eyes are the color of dark chocolate, and you–

Eddie’s hand comes up and snips the tip off the right side. “There we go. One side was all fucked.”

“Well, we don’t want anything getting fucked, do we?” you mutter under your breath. What’s left of it.

Eddie pauses and his eyes flick up to yours. His eyelashes are long and flutter as he holds your gaze again, while you try hard not to look away. There’s that unreadable expression on his face from earlier, morphing slowly into something like amusement, but that could also just be your mind playing tricks on you. Don’t look at his lips. Don’t look at his lips. Don’t look at his li–

“Screw it.” Eddie tosses his scissors to the ground and his hands come up to grip your face, smoothing your hair back tenderly before he kisses you.

You open your mouth and Eddie is in it, searching, feeling. His hands hold your head firm and you feel the metal of his rings digging into your cheeks, and you’re splitting apart at the seams from the way he’s completely invading your senses. He smells like warm, spicy cologne and hairspray. He tastes like cigarettes and cherry coke. He moans into you, and the sound is like heaven.

You lift your legs and wrap them around his waist, and he grunts before he pulls away just the tiniest bit to give you breathing room.

“This is highly unprofessional, Mr. Munson,” you whisper to him, as if you don’t have him caged in with your thighs.

“I don’t… actually fucking care,” Eddie admits, his nose just nudging against yours. “Got so fuckin’ hard the minute I saw you. What am I gonna do with you, huh?”

“Dunno,” you murmur against his mouth, “I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

“C’mere.” He pulls you out of your seat, and you practically trip over the smock he clipped around your neck.

“Get me out of this thing,” you giggle, letting your forehead fall onto his shoulder. You inhale a deep breath of his cologne, feeling his chest shake with his laugh.

“Aww, but you look so cute,” Eddie coos, but his hands come up to undo the button at the back of your neck. The fabric slides to the ground, and Eddie kicks it aside as he crowds you back against the table. Your ass hits the edge of it and your hand falls onto a comb when you try to steady yourself. He pulls you flush to his body, his hands caging you in. Eddie’s tongue dances over your bottom lip and you moan, lifting your hands to tangle in the fabric of his shirt.

He ducks his head to help you pull his shirt off before he tosses it somewhere to the side. You’re distracted by his tattoos, each one of them beautiful and detailed, standing out against his pale skin.

Then, you remember something that he told you earlier, and you connect some dots that you hadn’t even realized were there. “Did you draw these?”

Eddie’s grin could blind the sun. He blushes pink down his neck and shoulders. “Yeah, I did.”

“They’re gorgeous. I meant what I said before– I really like them.”

He sucks in a deep breath, and then his lips are on you, everywhere they can manage. On your face, your neck, trying to get at your collarbone but your shirt is in the way. He fists it in his hands, making a petulant noise in the back of his throat. “Help me out here, sweetheart.”

Your shirt lands somewhere near his. You don’t see exactly where, because he’s pulling the straps of your bra down your shoulders so that he can mouth kisses across your breasts, pulling down on the cups until he can graze his teeth over your nipple. It takes you so off guard that you bite back a squeal, tugging at his hair and rubbing your thighs together to stave off the incessant throbbing between them.

When you look down at him, his eyes are so dark that they’re almost black. Your heart thuds erratically in your chest, your breath not coming even though you gasp and pull at the air with everything you have. You can’t really fathom why he has you so worked up– just that it’s been so long since anyone touched you like this, and now that you have it it’s like every little point of contact is on fire.

Eddie grazes his teeth across your breast, and your knees nearly buckle out from under you. You grab his face, guiding him back up to you.

“What were you thinking when you grabbed my throat?” you ask him, your voice hoarse in the back of your throat.

His hands are on you now, grabbing at your waist and hips, squeezing like he’ll never let go. “I can show you, if you want,” Eddie answers, and he sounds just as wrecked as you. Maybe more.

There’s absolutely no way you’re going to refuse that. Not with the way you’ve been lusting after him since meeting him. You nod. “Eddie, please–”

He kisses you hard again before mumbling against your lips, “Turn around and take off your pants.”

You do what he asks without a second’s hesitation. You watch him in the mirror as he follows your movements, undoing his own belt, and you kick your jeans and underwear off without thinking about why you’re here, without wondering about the repercussions. You figure you can probably do that later.

Right now, Eddie’s smoothing his hand up your spine, and the feeling of his fingers dancing along your skin sends shivers through your body. His fingers weave through the hair at the nape of your neck, and he pulls just slightly, until you bare your neck.

Your breath hitches in your throat. Your heart hammers as you watch him, dark eyes and hair and rosy cheeks in the mirror, his carnation colored lips twisting into a wicked grin at you. He kisses your shoulder so gently it’s like the fluttering of a feather.

“‘Stumpy neck,’” Eddie scoffs under his breath, and you tremble. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”

He bends you forward until you’re face to face with yourself in the mirror– but you’re looking at him, gazing into your eyes while he teases himself at your entrance.

“Oh my god,” you groan, dropping your head almost immediately at the feeling. Your head is spinning, your body rigid with anticipation and breaking out in a cool sweat already.

“Mm-mm,” Eddie hums condescendingly, and a hand clamps around your throat, hoisting your head up again. A gasp tears from your lips. In the mirror, his eyes are blazing. “You look at me while I fuck you. That’s the only way this is gonna happen. Got it?”

You nod. You want to shrink away from the heat in his gaze, but you want him to fuck you way more than that. You shudder as he leans forward, pressing in until his chin nearly rests on your shoulder.

“I need to hear you say it, baby.” His thumb strokes lightly along your pulse point, and you make a soft noise in the back of your throat without thinking. “Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” you tell him, barely a whisper, but he hears it all the same.

“Good girl.”

Eddie grins, kisses the nape of your neck, and pulls back. When he does, you’re barely able to take a breath before he pushes his hard cock into you, and the noise you make is almost embarrassing in its volume.

“Ohhh, you’re absolutely soaked, baby. She’s practically dripping– is this just for me?” Eddie murmurs in your ear, grinding his hips up against your ass for emphasis. The lewd noise that it makes has your toes curling and the tips of your ears burning.

“Fuck,” you moan, ginding back against him to push him deeper. He’s so thick and you’re so sensitive that your mind is completely blanking at the feeling.

Eddie notices, and he chuckles as grabs your waist with one hand as he thrusts his hips forward. “I’ve barely gotten my cock in you, princess. Don’t go getting all dumb on me already.” His voice goes straight between your legs and your cunt pulses around him, making him hiss through his teeth. The hand on your throat tightens just slightly. “I asked you a question.”

You keen, your mind reeling as you search for words. You manage to nod, babbling out, “Yes, it’s– it’s all for you, Eddie, been wanting you so bad, s’all I can think about–”

Eddie coos, grabbing your chin to shut you up while a particularly hard thrust of his hips knocks the wind out of you. He turns his head and grazes his lips against your cheek, eyeing you in the mirror as he says, “I knew it.”

Your eyes are on him, on his hand around your neck, on his rings pressed into your skin. All that your fucked-out mind can think is that it’s hot, and you like him and his strong hands and his pretty eyes and the way his cock is reaching places inside you that make thoughts really difficult to come by.

Eddie whispers something against your skin, and you miss it because you’re hooked on the way his eyelashes flutter for just a moment while his lips are pressed against your cheek. You lift your hand, until it rests over his against your throat, his fingers just barely laced with yours.

“Again,” you say– it comes out like a command, but you mean it like a question. You don’t know what the fuck he just said.

“You’re so beautiful,” he repeats, and his voice nearly cracks with the desperation in it. His sweat slick chest is pressed against your back, his thrusts rocking your hips into the table and jostling it into the wall, but his voice is so tender. “So perfect for me.”

Your mouth falls open, your hand tightening on his. You pull, until he loosens his grip and his hand comes away with yours. You kiss his palm, then his fingertips, holding his gaze in the mirror as you slowly, gently swirl your tongue around his middle and forefinger.

Eddie’s eyes narrow coyly at you, while his thrusts make you mewl and clutch at the table with your free hand. You suck his two fingers deep into your mouth, earning a pleased groan from him in your ear– a sound which you want to hear again and again, no matter what it takes.

“Look at you, sweet little thing, gettin’ my fingers all wet like that,” he whispers to you, biting his lip as you grind back against him. “Wanna do something with ‘em?”

You moan, letting his fingers slide from your mouth with a wet pop. You guide his hand down your chest, down your stomach, until his fingers slide between your legs.

“There you go,” Eddie coos, taking over from your guidance as his fingers start rubbing small circles against your clit. “Atta girl, showin’ me what you want. Just needed me to fuck you stupid first, hm?”

Your cunt pulses, and you cum with a loud moan that echoes off of the mirror in front of you and around the empty space. Eddie cries out, and you feel his warmth fill you as he cums. He slows until he stills inside you, and then he holds you, panting against your cheek, his arm wrapped around your middle and his hand on your throat.

You haven’t moved your hand away from his, you realize, after a few moments of bliss in the aftershocks. You drop your hand to the table with a thud, earning a soft, breathless chuckle from him.

“Can I take you out to dinner?” Eddie asks you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck.

“I think you can do whatever you want with me,” you murmur dazedly, just barely shifting and making him hiss. He’s still inside you, trying to hold you steady while he calms himself down.

“Good.” There’s a kiss to your cheek, and Eddie grunts as he slowly eases out of you. “I still need to finish your goddamn haircut.”

“Eddie, we’re naked.”

“And?” His hands are moving quicker than your mind is, yanking a kleenex from the table so that he can bend down and wipe the insides of your thighs. You jump at the sudden touch, but he clamps a hand around your hip to hold you still. “The sooner I finish your hair, the sooner I close up, and the sooner we go get dinner. You like Italian?”

“I didn’t think your pillow talk would involve finishing my haircut,” you grumble, but there’s a smile worming it’s way onto your face even as you say it.

“That’s the name of the game, sweetheart,” Eddie says, tossing the tissue into the trash. He picks up your underwear, and the smock from the floor. “Now, sit your cute ass down. I’m not gonna get employee of the month by dishing out orgasms and not bangs, y’know.”

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #roses*#eddie munson x you #stranger things #stranger things fanfic

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emmafrostyyy · 7 months

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y'all sleeping on Astarion/Lae'zel bc this moment is so...the way the flippant demeanor drops and he doesn't hesitate to call her out for sticking with her version of Cazador like their relationship is so underrated fr...

sitting down writing this bullshit like let me peel it like an onion a bit and elaborate why this pairing is fascinating to me

It's really interesting how during the most cathartic, life-altering moment in Astarion's questline, the reactions of the other companions are more about the moral wrongness/guilt of sacrificing innocent lives. Lae'zel doesn't do that and instead relates to his hurt.

She knows what's he's feeling, the lack of control, the unfairness of being powerless for too long. This is a woman who just found out her entire life purpose was built on lies, discarded and hunted by her own people after outliving her usefulness, and groomed to basically die for an insane power-hungry lich queen. She knows all too well that power isn't always real freedom. Her first instinct is to empathize with Astarion to steer him away from his hate and resentment.

Astarion/Lae'zel is so interesting to me because they're such a classic "can we make each other worse or make a better person out of the other?".

They both have genuine appreciation for violence and respect each other's ruthlessness. Astarion was used as a weapon of seduction while Lae'zel was of warfare. Sex with people is meaningless and not real intimacy for them, and while both have little understanding/experience of interpersonal relationships beyond the physical, they still feel and love very deeply. They have no frame of reference for things like friendship and warmth, but they badly want all of that and more, even if they don't know it yet.

In-game they can sleep with each other, which is basically the foundation of the normal Tav/Astarion romance. Lae'zel saw him during combat and got horny, who knows. Astarion who's used to luring people with his charms, takes up Lae'zel's blunt offer because she's a strong hardened warrior that can provide protection and be a worthy ally, and he doesn't know how to say no. Navigating the complications between one who wants to be seen beyond as a sex object, and one who comes from a totally alien culture with no concept of love/family/connections and only sex is honestly really compelling to me. It's a transactional, mutually beneficial thing with no emotional expectations. Once you get past the skeevy rockiness of their early relationship, I really like the idea of them slowly seeing something past the exterior and realizing they may have harshly misjudged the other, an unspoken friendship blooms, and in comes the realization that they are essentially loners longing for kindness and a comforting touch in the most desperate of situations.

Lae'zel is prideful, direct, has no sense of courtship talk, and doesn't hold back her thoughts the slightest--she's not sweet/agreeable and what you see is really what you get, which I imagine would be disarming for Astarion who's used to vacuous flattery and has difficulty trusting others. But she's also insanely protective, passionate, loyal, and an initiator-- every romance scene is triggered by her first and she's always showing effort towards her relationships, which would mesh well with Astarion who does need someone to nudge him.

She doesn't purposely suppress her feelings, she's just simply at loss at how to express them sometimes due to her wildly different upbringing. She stops the sparring match you agree to and an easy vulnerability slips instantly out of her: "I don't want to hurt you. I want to protect you, and for you to protect me." and "Thus far I've taunted you, devoured you, battled you. Now I want more than anything to soothe you." are romantic as fuck and Astarion of all people really needs to hear that tbh.

Astarion is also someone who struggles with reinforcing his boundaries, and a key theme in Lae'zel's romance is that she encourages and wants you to challenge her and learn to stand your ground. It's not gentlest method, but hey, relationships are about having to make an effort to learn each other's language.

I think he also would take pleasure "educating her on the matters of Fay-run" (I believe there's a whole banter with him teasing her and teaching her pet names) and would get a kick out of coaxing Lae'zel out of her shell with her shyness at showing public affection, and making her blush. Also it simply would be fucking funny to see Astarion who's used to easy seduction, trying to pass a persuasion check just to get a smooch and generally having to work to earn regular kisses from Lae'zel lmfaooo

Lae'zel also initially struggles to see her chains as chains. When she learns about Vlaakith's betrayal, she copes instantly through denial and shuts it down. Astarion is NOT having it and calls her out, he knows her well enough to recognize that she would value blunt honesty above all.

I imagine he also despises her lack of self-preservation, the way her entire identity is tied to duty and being in service of others, and doesn't understand her desire to still help/liberate the people that want her dead and are hunting her down. He wants to make this duty-bound soldier realize that looking out for herself, and putting herself first may not be the worst thing in the world.

They're so similar to each other but are also polar opposites in some ways that make a more equal, balanced romance I think. It's not a simple, one-sided, feel-good "she/he can fix her/him" fantasy because both of them have to earn each other's love, actually cut through the other's flaws, and actively motivate each other to be better versions of themselves.

They're not at all the other's ideal guiding hand. It's rough, jagged, and imperfect, but that's how healing goes. It's so far from being the healthiest relationship -- but even if their belief systems differ, their moral compass does often align. I imagine it's a slight relief for them to have a partner where there would be less shame and judgment when they expectedly, occasionally slip up and fall into their bad habits.

Also, man, the "You showed me the betweens and beyonds. Beyond war and peace, beyond passion and obsession, most importantly, you showed me freedom.", "First you were my wound, now you were my cure.", "But you saw something else in me - someone else I could be. Someone who could break the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago.." lines really hit hard when applied to them.

Of course, they can also make each other worse, feed into the other's negative traits that will bring out the worst part of themselves. It's this duality of their pairing that is very interesting to explore, the way it can steer in either direction because it's an intense, fraught relationship at its core.

#when he gets called by omeluum “child of the dark” and her “child of the stars” like yeah..the squid man is being literal but he Gets It fr.#lae'zel #astarion #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 meta #astarion ancunin #astarion x lae'zel #lae'zel x astarion #the rarest of rarepairs they dont even got a ship name...this is so tragique we need to discuss the pathos and potential of this pairing #bg3 lae'zel #bg3 astarion #also im a sucker for stoic knight/court darling trope and whatever variations of it yeah #bloodbruise

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inkdrinkerworld · 1 month

Text

Reader takes bc and experiences nausea and loss in appetite because of it

“Spencer I’m not taking it and you can’t force me.” It’s Sunday, a day that used to be your favourite but once a month when you get your period Sunday becomes the day you take your first birth control for the month and you’re plagued with almost immediate nausea.

“Angel,” he coos softly, stroking your hand as you lay pitifully in bed. Spencer knows it can’t feel good, he’s been nauseous before and it isn’t fun. It’s even less fun seeing you so pale and bleak and a little down as you try to get a handle on yourself again.

“No,” you shake your head, turning away from where he’s got the box and a bottle water extended to you. “Can’t I just skip this month?”

Spencer knows it’s bad, it’s terrible on the best of days. But he also knows how bad it is when you don’t take the pills.

He doesn’t know how to make it better, he isn’t a medical doctor but he’s spoken to your OBGYN and she’d said to stick it out till your next appointment.

Except, sticking it out gives you intense sickness, a loss in appetite most days and a craving for refreshing fruits- like watermelon and cucumbers- when you finally do want to eat, which isn’t substantial enough to take any of your medicine.

“You know you can’t, angel.” He sets the things down near your legs. Spencer’s hand coasts your forehead and cheek. “Remember this is a new brand, the nausea is normal. I know it doesn’t feel good, but it’ll help in the long run.”

You know he’s trying to help but right now you don’t give a damn about the long run.

“C’mon, beautiful.” He’s pulling out the big guns now. Stroking your chin and calling you beautiful like that; all head in the clouds, full of love with his big brown eyes. “There’s soda crackers too, and when you feel up to it we can go get whatever you’d like for breakfast, yeah?”

“Spence,” but he only stays silent, looking at you like you’ve put the stars in the sky individually. “Can we get bagels? I want egg, ham and cheese in mine.”

Spencer rewards you with a dazzling smile and drops a kiss to your forehead. “We can get that and fresh ones for the week, angel.” He sets the tablet in your hand and opens the water, rubbing your hair out of your face as you swallow.

“What happened to beautiful?” Spencer laughs, reaching for the green tin of crackers.

“Here you go beautiful,” you preen, taking three crackers and nibbling slowly. “Proud of you, know it’s annoying to deal with.”

You nod, laying back down on your pillow when you finish the crackers.

“Think they’ll ever stop giving me nausea?” You ask Spencer, suddenly shifting positions so you can lay your head in his lap.

“They say it’s only supposed to last for the first three months, all statistics point to that being true. But bodies are all different, it’s not a one size fits all, maybe it won’t happen this month, maybe it’ll persist. Medicine is tricky when you add hormones into the mix.”

It isn’t as reassuring as you’d wanted to hear, but you know Spencer will help you through all the nausea and mood swings as long as he’s home.

#spencerreid #spencer reid #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x black reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x yn #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x y/n #tw: nausea

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seiwas · 9 months

Text

₊˚⊹。so this is what it means to be in love | gojo satoru

wc: 8.9k

summary: gojo finds out what it really means to be in love.

contains: f!reader in mind, friends to lovers (prev. slowburn), suggestive scenes, might be mature/mildly explicit? (i only mention ‘butt’ once though…), ‘being in love’ as a journey, almost like a falls in love first (you) vs. falls in love harder (gojo), they fight, they swear, character death/s mentioned, shibuya onwards spoilers, lots and lots and lots of love

a/n: this is better read after the other parts in the collection but can work as a stand alone too!, there’s a jump between this and tell me about love (show me how) so gojo would have developed a lot in the relationship since then!

collection masterlist: conversations on love +02 (extra). look my way, you're what i crave <- you are here + (extended scene) too good to be mine -> 3.5a. this feeling inside of me—

MINORS PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT.

this is a re-upload! (because i accidentally deleted the original one!)

Gojo catches onto love slowly.

He takes the hand you leave open just for him, and closes the space between your palms, reducing infinity.

Maybe he’s felt it all this time without knowing; after all, love looks a lot less profound as friends in your early 20’s.

But being in it—being in love? That’s uncharted territory.

Gojo’s been to a lot of places, has travelled back and forth from point-to-point endlessly. He’s survived battles, a war, near-death, and cursed spirits reincarnate; he’s got eyes—two bright blue and an extra four hidden, ones that see beyond human comprehension. Unearthing this simple truth shouldn’t shake him, shouldn’t even faze him. If anything, he should have seen it coming—

Except, he doesn’t.

It sneaks up on him, bit by bit, until he finds that being in love means getting to experience you all over again, just differently.

It starts with the little things.

Gojo has known you for so long (a decade and a few years more), but has only recently begun to notice everything: how your baby hairs stick out in the humidity of summer, the way you purse your lips in thought before finally deciding on a drink to order. You play with your fingernails subconsciously, out of habit, the soft taps on your nail beds an accompaniment of anxious conversations you’ve had since you were 23.

He knows you always blink twice before focusing on him, and it’s a mystery whether this is a recent development or something he’s just never noticed, but if you’re trying to enchant him by the flutter of your eyelashes, he wants to let you know that it’s working—except, he knows that you aren’t, because you’re just like that: a daydream without even trying.

These aren’t new things; he’s sure he’s probably encountered them all before, but lately they’ve evolved into cute things, and there’s no hiding the slight curve of his lips every time he spots them.

The sun is beaming brighter this summer, the ocean a faraway blur from the beach towel you set up under the shade. Going to the beach is never your go-to when you think of an extremely hot afternoon, but Yuuji’s been eyeing a weekend getaway since sorcerer work’s lessened significantly.

‘It’s a good effort,’ Gojo convinces you, ‘to get everyone together again.’

And it is—you see it now: Yuuji and Megumi preparing to fling Yuuta into the water while Nobara and Maki race along the shoreline. Toge stays close to Panda but he watches fondly, eyes crinkling every now and then, happy.

When you blink, the image of them softens—a captured memory in the heat haze.

The only older ones here are you and Gojo; Shoko’s always disliked the stickiness of sunblock on her skin, and Ijichi’s new position has made him constantly busy. Somewhere in the distance, you can maybe envision Nanami. He wouldn’t come if you or Gojo asked, but if it were Yuuji—

You rub at your eye, resting your chin on your hand as you will your tear ducts to please, don’t cry.

Yuuji's been smiling a lot more lately, an observation you note from the way his ears are perked up every time you look his way. It’ll never be the same as it used to be but it’s relieving to know that he can exist living as himself now. Just Yuuji.

You hug your knees tighter to your chest, wrapping your arms around it. Your place under the coconut tree provides ample enough shade but your back still burns from Gojo haphazardly slathering sunscreen on it after hearing an ice cream stand from miles away.

The mind is a weird place to be at times like this—split into bittersweet reminiscing and telling yourself to just take this moment and breathe, to live in it. You think about Megumi, and how you hurt for him, always will, for all that he’s lost despite every attempt to avoid it.

You should have been there for Tsumiki, you could have been there for both of them.

Your guilt never leaves you even on days that shine as vividly as this, but perhaps that’s the silver lining—that they’re still with you, always. You can carry pieces of them to these places, and scatter them to the wind, to the sand, to the sea, and maybe to the ice cream stand Gojo’s waiting in line of, surrounded entirely by kids. They all rise to half his size, but if you squint, you think the bounce in his step makes him blend right in.

A chuckle escapes you.

You could sort through your memories and land on one where he looks just like this—freakishly large limbs towering over a tiny, excited Tsumiki. Back then, an ice cream stop after school consisted of your pseudo-family of four, with Megumi on your hand and Tsumiki on his leg, both gripping tightly to combat a chilly 10°C.

Things are different now, evidently. Megumi’s outgrown it, and Tsumiki is no longer here. But Gojo has stayed the same, and it’s comforting to know that he will continue to be this Satoru, your Satoru, even when some things are gone.

You don’t realize you’ve spaced out until he waves the ice cream cone while walking towards you.

Gojo is a sight in trunks the color of his eyes, with seahorses and starfishes in an alternating pattern of peachy-pink against cerulean blue.

You could have sworn you asked for your own cone, but he plops down beside you holding only one. For the both of you. The side-eye you give him is almost criminal, if not deadly, but your lips twitch from the smile you’re hiding (terribly).

He raises an eyebrow and you break character, shaking your head while laughing.

“Did you eat the other one on the way here?” you tease, craning your neck to lick at the bottom scoop (vanilla-strawberry-vanilla, Gojo’s signature order).

Your tongue lands dangerously close to his fingers, and he feels it, but his eyes only land on you—your lips, how they part for your tongue to glide smoothly on his–both of your–dessert. You look every bit of an angel in the soft, pale hues of your bikini, but Gojo’s thoughts are anything but saintly.

He blushes furiously, the tips of his ears and nose bright red as he turns away from you quickly.

“I’m fulfilling your dream of sharing an ice cream cone with me.” he tilts his chin up, proud, smirking slightly. He jokes about it knowing full well that this is his dream come true, just by the look of you.

You stay quiet, rolling your eyes but never meanly, no. You only ever do it fondly—he knows, being on the receiving end of it one too many times.

The beach towel scrunches when you scoot closer, looping your arm around his as you both rest your elbows on your knees. Gojo holds the cone between you two, tipping it towards you when it’s your turn to lick.

He shouldn’t stare, shouldn’t hyperfixate, but it’s so cute how you get the tiniest bit of ice cream on the tip of your nose—as if it belongs there, soft and sweet just like the rest of you.

You look up to find Gojo gazing at you, eyes glimmering like sunlight on the ocean, and a tiny smile that only widens when he realizes you’ve caught him red-handed. Your eyes narrow suspiciously, scrunching your nose in an effort to stop yourself from grinning.

When Gojo looks at you this way, as if you are his favorite place rediscovered, your heart thumps furiously against your ribcage.

“What…” you drawl, your smile impossible to hide in the lilt of your voice.

Gojo thinks he can count every eyelash, every speck of sand dotting your face, and stil not be bored of you. He can’t stop beaming.

Is this what it means to be in love with you?

“Nothing.” he replies, almost giggling, a little bashful but with every inch of sincerity. You know that smile, the only one that holds every ounce of Satoru. Gojo smiles big and wide to everyone else, but this small one you know, is reserved just for you.

He leans in, lips coming closer to brush against the tip of your nose. Your eyes fall shut, instinctively, and the pink dot is wiped clean, a hint of strawberry dancing on his palate. He’s done this more times than he can count, has gotten this near to know that close will never be close enough, but you still jolt a bit—PDA has never been your thing.

When he pulls away, you continue to stare at each other, locked in a gaze until the ice cream begins to drip down his fingers and onto the beach towel. It misses his trunks by a hair and you both laugh at how he belatedly tries to escape it even though it’s already there.

It’s indescribable, this moment, seeing you in slow motion, laughing as bright as the sun—the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. It takes every bit of him to look away so he can wipe his hands clean from the dripping dessert.

You hand him a packet of wipes and beckon him to sit in front of you after. Squeezed onto the palm of your hand is a copious amount of sunscreen you plan to slather all over him. A touch-up, if you will.

Gojo has sensitive skin, pale as bond paper and burns just as quickly. The high points of his face are already reddening, warm to the touch when you dab at them with sunscreen.

You’re so near, so close, sitting cross-legged in front of him with your knees touching his. The tip of your tongue sticks out just slightly as you focus on his skin.

Even though he knows, he still wonders what your lips would taste like, SPF chapstick and crumbly bits from the wafer cone. He wonders what your eyelashes would feel like, fluttering over his own.

The light casts a halo around you and he thinks it’s fitting for all that you do. You pamper him like this, slather love all over his chest and back, massage it in so it dissolves into him—and he feels it so deep that he tastes it.

How can your love be so sweet? He thinks, sighing as your fingers work sunscreen up his neck from his collarbone. You always apply his skincare like this: upwards, gently—‘no tugging, please!’—something about keeping his baby face even when he’s old.

“You should join them,” you mumble, rubbing more product onto the nape of his neck. You’re leaning over his shoulder, neck brushed against his cheek.

Gojo hums, watching everyone from a distance. It’s been a while since he’s had a day like this.

“But maybe after 30 minutes, so the sunblock doesn’t wash off. You’re already burning.” you note, coming back to sit.

Of course, he’s already burning. How can he not when the sun is right in front of him?

You join everyone for a game of beach volleyball in the sunset of the afternoon. You’re transported back to high school, the last time you did this—you and Satoru against Shoko and Suguru, with Haibara keeping score.

From the way Gojo’s eyes are glossed over, you can tell he’s thinking about it too, the memory having seared itself into your brains forever, it seems.

Being paired together should feel familiar—the same, but it doesn’t—isn’t, because Gojo can’t concentrate, sneaking glances to notice all the little things about you that he never used to. Your skin shines from the combination of sweat and sunscreen, and when you crash into him it’s both sticky and slippery. He should really ask for a time-out before you blind him completely.

You look unfairly good in your bikini, too good he can barely hear you calling for him; between the ocean and his blood rushing, any other sound is drowned out into nothing.

Maki and Yuuji absolutely demolish the both of you, reaching 15 first in the final set. Gojo blames the loss on you of course, even though he’s missed every pass you’ve sent his way and netted 60% of his spikes.

And maybe it technically is your fault—you and your (very distracting) little things. But it’s entirely on him that he’s fallen for it, fallen for you as much as this.

Gojo thinks of love differently when he sees a picture of himself and all it does is remind him of you.

There’s a photo tucked safely in his wallet (saved and set as his homescreen too). Shoko snorts when she walks in on him printing it, all six-foot-three of him hunched over the small inkjet printer in the faculty room.

“It’s all digital now, Satoru,” she scoffs, taking a puff on her cigarette.

Gojo doesn’t say anything even though he knows it’s true, too focused on watching the printer push out the two-by-three inch image he’s about to cut into.

Print photos aren’t as important anymore when cloud storage spaces are just as–if not more–accessible, but Gojo is admittedly sentimental despite every front he puts up to hide it.

He’s kept every single gift you’ve given him and camouflaged it as decoration in his office, and the family drawing 10-year-old Tsumiki made is still folded between the pages of a self-help book Yaga had given him when he first decided to teach.

When every moment is experienced so vividly, seen through a muddle of infinite energies, there are those he wishes could stay still—ones that take up space to remind him: ‘this is real, it happened, and here is proof that it did’.

He already has one of all of you, fresh-faced and barely pushing the peaks of youth at 16. A tangle of arms wrapped around each other—one of his gripping tightly on Suguru, and the other hanging loosely over you. Utahime is crouched in front, holding the hand you’ve placed on her shoulder while pulling Shoko into a semi-squish-semi-hug (because out of the four of you, Shoko is her favorite—completely valid; if given the choice, she’d be your favorite too). Nanami and Haibara stay close to Suguru, squatting low to balance the photo, and Haibara is smiling, the ever cheery grin Suguru loves to dote on, while Nanami is Nanami—sharp features and a serious gaze that you all know he’ll grow into someday, handsome with age.

For the longest time, Gojo has kept that photo hidden, locked away in the drawer of his bedside table as if keeping it there means the memory will stay guarded forever—untouched, unspoiled, unruined.

It would have stayed there if you didn’t stumble upon it while looking for his painkillers during another one of his skull-crushing migraines.

You approach him with the image hesitantly, eyes damp and glossy. Years have faded the colors ever so slightly, but the corners remain crisp from being stowed away neatly. You say sorry, that you shouldn’t have looked through his things, but you remember the moment it was taken so fondly: a visit to the Kyoto campus on a one-day break to train with other students.

Gojo has many theories about time and the multitude of spaces it takes—like how a person can exist at different points in time, disparate at each instance, and still take up the same big chunk of space. The opposite can be true too, that someone can live finitely (just once) and occupy spaces in every place you look: the face of a passerby down the road, a sign at the corner of the street, or even a photograph that immortalizes people you once knew.

He only shares when you ask, aware that he tends to be a bit of a nerd about it whenever it’s brought up, but you don't mind. You like listening to it all, no matter how insightful or confusing they are for you to make sense—a version of him not many get to witness. His explanations are comprehensible for the most part, except—

When Gojo tells you that he’s kept the image in his drawer, hidden, because exposing it to the space-time that exists now will erase every reminder that it ever happened, you hug him tightly.

Your sniffles are heard from the way his head is tucked into the crook of your neck, your fingers gripping strands of his hair in empathy.

He considers your near-tears as a sign that the memory is long gone, decayed into the brittling tragedy of reality. But you smile, the corners of your lips bittersweet as you express disbelief that he’s kept it all this time.

You tell him delicately that some precious things are meant to be celebrated, put out to be remembered—to be experienced.

And it becomes clearer to him then, by the look in your eyes and remembrance soft-spoken, that what good is a photo unseen?

What good is a love unwitnessed?

When you gift him a frame a year after finding the photo, he hangs it by the wall next to his office door. The image is painful to look at, always has been (even when it was hidden in his drawer)—during Suguru’s defection, and death anniversaries especially.

The recent one for Nanami was heavy; the first time he’s ever been able to process grief fully.

Gojo can argue that it grows more difficult every time he catches a glimpse of it from his desk, but you have a way of honoring pain that doesn’t make it sting as bad—that turns it into a reminder of a love that was once there, of feelings that hurt as evidence that someone cared.

Now, he wants another photo printed, one of just the two of you. Not because it hurts, but because he wants this precious thing to be remembered and seen—for this love to be witnessed too.

It’s self-timered, snapped under the shade of a cherry blossom tree in full bloom. The picture is far from perfect: your eyes bright and mouth open mid-fear of his phone falling off the bridge railing.

You may look a teensy bit funny, but Gojo will always find it cute. Anyone can see it, at how he looks at you in that moment—like you are every bit worthy of the distance travelled and seasons waited. He gazes at you fondly, eyes holding clear skies and pink lips curling into a small smile.

It’s cheesy, but if you ask him what he thinks about this year’s flowers, he’ll tell you none of them (not even any of them combined) could compare to you. The cherry blossoms could be gone and he’d still see them everywhere (in the softness of your lips, the fullness of your cheeks, the radiance you emit when you are truly, solely content and happy).

He remembers that afternoon well: the spring breeze that jolts his phone sideways, his hand resting on your lower back, unseen in the image. There’s no real reason for visiting the blossoms on this day of all days, but Gojo doesn’t believe in coincidences, and he’s counted down exactly to a year since you both had your first kiss.

It’s so silly, because he’s never thought of things like this before. He knows you probably don’t think much of it either considering that neither of you have made anything official yet since.

And he feels a little stupid for that, honestly.

You have a drawer of his clothes for the nights he stays over (more often than not), and even though you go on these little trips that are so obviously dates, you both still just tell everyone you’re ‘hanging out’.

He’s not fooling anyone here, not when he looks at you then with the feeling of his chest expanding, stretching to accommodate the overflows of his affection since learning the ways to love you—tenderness caught in little pixels of eternity.

When Gojo goes through all 179 photos from that afternoon, he filters out the ones to delete and picks this one out especially—favorites and resizes it to fit his home screen and his wallet too.

There’s something about the look on his face that reminds him of every time he’s caught the same one on you.

He slides the photo into the little sleeve behind his credit card, catching himself smiling—this must be because of you, he thinks, and the bits and pieces of yourself that have somehow become part of him slowly, sneaking into him unknowingly.

If this is what it means to be in love, with you, then he’s fucked.

Don’t you know that he’s insatiable? These traces of you will only make him want the whole of you.

You find the photo while he rushes to the restaurant restroom. On ‘hang out’s like this, you insist on splitting the bill, but Gojo has always been stubborn and you’ve learned that you can never argue.

He hands you his wallet to pay with his card, and when you slide it out, the photo falls. It’s face down on the floor when you pick it up, fully expecting it to be a photocard of some idol you know Gojo follows.

But it isn’t, and your smile widens.

When Gojo comes back, you’re looking up at him affectionately, biting your lips as if to stop yourself from speaking—the same way he always does.

It’s funny because, slotted between your two fingers is the photo he’s kind of flustered you found, but he has no time to be embarrassed when he sees a little bit of himself in the way you’re staring at him right now.

“So, Yuuji asked if we were together.”

You quirk an eyebrow, looking up at Gojo from the pile of laundry you’ve begun folding on your bed. He emerges from the bathroom, ruffling his hair with a towel.

Over the past year, Gojo has spent his weekends off with you, sleeping over and traipsing around your room in his pajama set as if he’s lived here just as long as you.

You snort as you fold, amused that this is even a question to begin with. Yuuji’s always been known for being exceptionally dense, but you didn’t think it was this bad. Gojo was especially touchy with you during that beach trip, and you’re sure Megumi and Nobara have caught up to let him know by now, somehow.

“What made him ask?”

“I think he wants to take you away.” Gojo teases, wiggling his eyebrows as he throws the towel on the chair across your vanity.

You roll your eyes, still sweetly, indulging him, “Sure.”

It’s now a running joke that Gojo’s threatened about Yuuji stealing you; you’ve always had a soft spot for bright eyes and even brighter souls and Yuuji is as close to that as anyone can get.

It’s not like that though, it could never be; Yuuji is just like your Megumi—the two boys you want to protect and care for in hopes of treating them better than their lives have ever.

Gojo feels the same, you know, otherwise he wouldn’t have guided them as much as he has (despite his... questionable ways). Still, your hands have always been gentler, kinder—and though shorter, have always outstretched much farther than his.

You have a way of inching yourself into people’s lives that just fits. He’s experienced it first-hand, can’t even dare to imagine what his life would be like if you didn’t.

He walks across the room to you, bed dipping as he steadies a knee before draping his entire body over your shoulders.

Now that you think about it, it makes sense that Yuuji’s confused, because Gojo has always been extremely touchy to everyone, just never when the feelings mattered, with you. Kiss him once, though, and it snowballs into an avalanche of firsts. And what he’s about to do right now, he thinks, might just trigger another one to form all together.

“As if I’d let him.” he mumbles right by your ear, chin tucked by the crook of your neck. It tickles when he speaks, his nose poking at your cheeks.

“Who put you in charge?” you scoff jokingly, unfazed.

He moves away from you in disbelief, mouth open as he stares at you mindlessly folding.

To be fair, he can’t fault you. You aren’t technically official even though you have kind-of-been for a little over a year. There’s no particular reason, just that you haven’t talked about it—part because you wanted him to approach it whenever he was ready, and also, because it just never seemed like a priority.

You laugh as he stares at you, stunned into silence, the pout on his face borrowed from all the versions of yours.

There’s no point of contention because you’ve only ever loved Gojo since you were 17.

“Kidding,” you kiss his cheek as an apology.

“Don’t even joke about that.” he huffs, you’re starting to take after him a little too much.

“You’re mine.” he murmurs after, arms wrapped around your waist and legs stretched out wide to encase you.

He says it as if it is the simplest truth.

Your heartbeat quickens, too loud and pounding; this is the first time you’ve ever heard this from him, and a part of you thinks this is just another one of those flirty side-comments he makes on a whim.

“You tell him that?” you hope he can’t hear your voice shake as he nuzzles your neck, your fingers trembling on the pair of socks you have yet to roll.

He hums, hugging you tighter. He waits for you to finish folding before letting you lean against him, offering his fingers for you to fiddle with. They’re cold, long and slender, veiny just by a bit, and he always gives them to you like they’re yours, you like to think.

There’s an inhale, a breath of hesitation, before he exhales.

“Something like it.”

You don’t say anything, only nod, and it’s nerve-wracking. He’s so nervous even though he knows he doesn’t have to be because it’s just you. And there’s no need to doubt what you’re feeling. But—

“You are though,” he pauses, “right?”

He has to be sure. This is a testament to you more than himself that he’s learned to ask instead of bulldozing you like he does with everyone else. Who else will he pick that up from but you?

There’s hesitation you hear that you think shouldn’t be there anymore; the fact that you’ve given so much of yourself to this man and he still thinks you’re unsure—

“‘Cause I’m yours.” he speaks, clearly, definitively, before you can even answer. And you know—you’ve known ever since that party years ago. A simple admittance: ‘I’m taken’.

You turn around to face him, eyes shimmering.

Can he see? You’re meant for him only.

All you’ve ever wanted was to love him; everything else he’s done up until this point is already more than you could ever imagine. The labels can only do so much to capture the gravity of what you are to one another: years of history unpacked into a mishmash of feelings overlapping—it’s a lot.

You sit cross legged in front of him, your knees touching his. He’s biting his lips again, an anxious habit you want to kiss away.

Gojo has proven far too much of himself already that he’s serious with you—your kind-of-confession, that confrontation, and the days after, all the ways you’ve both learned to love each other.

You cup his cheeks.

A single word cannot possibly define what he is to you.

“I mean, o-only if you want me to be.” he adds on, blue eyes darting back and forth.

Gojo runs his mouth almost all the time and you’ve never heard him stutter once in his life. Except now.

He’s endearing like this—a version of him you are slowly discovering.

“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” you finally say, and it’s a relief.

He feels good, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His arms pull you closer, hugging you tighter as you both smile.

He kisses you once, twice, maybe a million times all over, travelling across your eyelids, the center of your forehead, down to the corners of your mouth before landing a real one right on your lips.

Gojo always looks pretty but he looks prettiest like this, worry-free, with love in his eyes and nothing but pure happiness in the way he holds you.

He won’t tell you that Yuuji asked about your anniversary, not if you were together.

At least now he has an answer.

Gojo stares at you like he wants to say something, a thank you maybe, but he bites his lips instead. No words will ever amount to this feeling, he thinks, of his chest expanding and heart hammering. So he kisses you with all of it, trailing soft smacks of his lips down your neck, tickling. The tips of his hair are still wet from his shower, leaving droplets on your skin as he nips.

You laugh—sprinkled in love.

“S-stop!” you push him away, “Satoru,” giggling, “tickles!”

“We have to consummate it now.” he whispers, grabbing you by the waist to place you on his lap, squeezing your sides while nibbling at your neck playfully.

You roll your eyes at his antics, “It’s not–” you laugh out loud when he pinches your hips, “–marriage, Satoru.”

Oh, if only you knew, he thinks.

The image you’ve planted in his head is dangerous when he’s this drunk on love right now.

More decades, more years spent with you? In another life, or maybe even in this one, if time permits, he wouldn’t mind making that come true.

It’s crazy how much things can change—for all his life, he’s ruled out the possibility of love ever taking root in his ribcage.

You’ve managed to make it feel so easy, so good, even when he was shit-terrified not knowing how to love you like he should.

Now, he thinks, how could he ever miss out on love this way? A love this good, with you?

For all of Gojo’s life, he’s never had to be anyone else—always the strongest, the only one. He’s never had to change anything about himself, because what’s there to improve when you’re already the best?

In a way, this is why it works with you. You’ve taken him as he is, all the good and ugly and never asked for anything more than what he can give.

But being this in love with you—it’s foreign. There are pieces within him shifting, all on their own without him knowing.

How he wants to be better, for you. To be good enough to deserve all of it, and give back more of it too.

Gojo doesn’t realize how much love has changed him until he feels it uprooting every insecurity he never even knew existed, pulling it all up to the surface.

When things are going great, it’s hard to imagine them ever going the other way.

“You don’t mean that.” you mumble, voice trembling.

Gojo stares at you, at your lips quivering and the fists clenched to your sides. There are tears collecting in pools by your eyes, and if there’s anything else he hates in this world, it’s seeing you cry.

So why?

Why couldn’t he just shut up?

“Please tell me you don’t mean that,” you take a step closer, gripping the edge of his jacket, “Satoru.” your voice cracks, begging.

It’s an out-of-body experience when Gojo registers that he’s fucked up, and he sees himself now, bird’s-eye-view, and thinks this is the worst thing he could do to you after all you’ve been through.

“I need some time to think,” he says, finally, the only words coming out of his mouth—but he can’t hear himself speaking.

He should have said sorry, taken it all back, he thinks, not make it worse by leaving.

He heads for the door, heart crunching under each footstep away from you.

Is this what being in love’s supposed to do? Break his heart while yours is bleeding?

You’re too good for Gojo, in every sense of the word—and he knows it.

You are far too kind, far too generous, far too patient with him. You give him more love than he deserves, definitely, and admittedly enough, with how he is, you have been settling for the bare minimum but that’s on him, not on you.

He had no right speaking to you the way he did, hurting you with accusations born from insecurities he’s never before had to deal with.

He knows it.

Who accuses you of ‘meddling’ as if everything out of you doesn’t come from the goodness of your heart? Of provoking you with ‘chasing the bare minimum’ as if he isn’t aware that that’s all he’s given you to work with?

Utahime was right in telling you to be careful with him, and he doesn’t blame her for it. He would have done the same.

He should have told you there was something brewing inside of him already—should have talked to you instead of bursting from all the things people have been saying lately.

Gojo hasn’t spoken to you in three days and the feeling this compares to is worse than anything else he’s ever had to face.

He knocks on your door at night, a little past dinner and too early for bedtime. They echo loudly within the walls of your apartment, and you drag yourself up despite your obvious look of heartbreak.

Gojo hears your footsteps and everything moves entirely too slowly; the lock, taking far too long to turn, the gap between the door and the door frame widening incrementally. Even your face comes into view as if in stop motion, frame-by-frame, gradually.

His hands are in his pockets, lips bitten to bleed. He’s pretty sure he isn’t breathing when he takes you in—puffy eyes and a sweater that belongs to him.

(Is it sick of him to say that he still finds you beautiful this way? Even when you look every bit the part of heartache?)

Gojo didn’t have a plan coming here, didn’t have a list of things to say, just the feeling that he needed to talk to you, see you, even just be around you today.

When your eyes meet, it’s quiet. You stare into him for one–two–three– (Can you tell that they’re watery? Can you see they’re puffed up too?) and then open the door wider to let him in. You head straight to the kitchen, never once looking back while dragging your feet.

He stands outside a few seconds more, waiting for you to take it back—but you don’t, so he walks in and closes the door.

He’s been in your apartment plenty of times before, has practically lived in it by how often he stays over. But this is the first time he’s felt wholly out of place, not knowing where to put himself, just standing in the space between your kitchen counter and the living room awkwardly.

You push a glass of water towards him and he can’t stop staring at it—at you, at your fingers that he wants nothing more now but to hold.

Even with all his faults, all his wrongs, you open your arms for him to walk into, allow him in as if he didn’t just hurt you.

And he wants to cry, at the fact that this place still feels like home, at how it’ll always feel that way wherever you go.

How are you still treating him so kindly? Still taking care of him? A glass of water is one too many for someone like him.

You turn away from him to pour yourself your own then he speaks—

“You should be angry with me.” Gojo says softly, but you hear it.

You pause, tilting the pitcher back upright.

“Why aren’t you angry at me?” he says, a little louder this time, more desperate, more pleading.

Why are you never angry at me? he wants to ask.

You turn around to face him, putting the pitcher down.

Under your kitchen lights, his eyes shine like sunlight on the ocean, waves lapping on the shore. You think it might be a trick of the light, but his lips tremble when he closes them, as if he can’t speak any more.

It’s just as you’ve said, there’s no point being angry with him when your heart can never take it.

You always give Gojo the benefit of the doubt, and though he’s hurt you—though this might be the most painful thing he’s told you yet, you know that he’s been under immense pressure lately. Stressed beyond belief from negotiating with the government on policies for jujutsu society.

It’s not an excuse, you know, but Gojo always has his reasons. He'll tell you eventually, you believe that much.

You give him a sad smile, struggling to stop your tears from spilling. His fists are clenched too tightly, nails digging in hard enough to bleed. He hasn’t moved since coming in, so you push yourself off the kitchen sink towards him.

You take his hands first, unfurl each finger pressed upon his palm and rub gently. He cries quietly for a love so pure that only you would attempt to ease his hurt despite the pain he’s dealt you.

You tiptoe second, pulling the sleeves of your (his) sweater before reaching up to wipe his eyes—beautiful and blue just like you’ve always known, droplets of the ocean at your fingertips.

“Be mad,” he whispers, “please.” squeezing his eyes tightly.

It hurts more when you aren’t, he thinks.

His hand comes up to grip your wrist, bringing it down to cup his cheek. You stroke your thumb across his skin, soothing, loving, and that’s all it takes for him to pull you in. He hugs you tight, arms wrapped around you, clutching.

He wouldn’t deserve you. In any life.

Gojo’s never cried this much before, head pressed to your neck as you rub circles along his back, shushing him softly. You start sniffling too, small at first until it turns into soft hiccups when you finally cry.

Your grip on him tightens.

“‘M sorry.” he mumbles, lips moving against your neck.

“‘S–” you hiccup, “–okay.”

“Stop saying that when it’s not,” he presses against you, nuzzling your neck, “I hurt you.”

“Then don’t–” another hiccup, “–call yourself–” hic, “–bare minimum.” you cry harder.

Gojo knows your heart and the tears that leak out of your eyes; he knows they hold pain for more than just yourself but every single person in your life. You, crying now, is evidence of that truth—shedding tears for him not just because of him when he thinks he’s the bare minimum.

This must be what it means to be truly, deeply loved, he thinks, to have someone know what you mean without even having to speak it—to know your heart, and all the good and bad parts of it.

“I don’t think I’m good enough to you,” he admits, pulling himself away from you.

When he sees your face, wet, with your nose and eyes puffed up from crying, he decides that he hates it more than anything else. Makes it sick to his stomach, even.

He cradles your cheeks, thumbs wiping away your tears. A whole hand of his could cover your face entirely, but he always, without fail, holds you delicately.

“That’s not–” hic, “–true.” you gather your breathing, holding him by the wrists as he presses his forehead against yours. “Only I get to decide that. Not anyone, not you.”

You kiss his lips, a small peck before nudging his nose with yours. You soothe each other this way—in the quiet, swaying to your own tune.

“You’re good to me plenty, Satoru.” you whisper, once both of you have settled.

He opens his eyes to look at you, smiling sadly as he cradles your face, “I didn’t mean it.”

Whatever he told you that day, taking it all out on you.

“I know.” you mumble, nodding.

You always do.

Gojo has always loved you, in some type of way—as friends, colleagues, a-little-bit-more-but-less-than what you are today.

But how he feels right now? It’s kind of ridiculous, borderline out-of-hand, and it’s driving him insane.

It’s such a simple, ordinary thing for you to do: you rush up to him, phone in hand and scroll to some video you found online. You’re so excited, a bounce in your step as if he’s the first and only person you want to show this to. Your eyes shine bright with a megawatt smile to match, and you’re talking so, so fast, completely lit up like fireworks in the making.

He knows you think that he’s listening but, he couldn’t care less about it honestly. Sorry. Not when the words go in one ear and out the other, because all that registers is how adorable you are, giddy and everything.

He makes a joke—completely unrelated, but you find it so funny. Then you’re laughing, full on smacking his arm, doubled over, arms hugging your stomach, guffawing. Your feet are kicking the air as you sink deeper into your couch. Gojo’s standing in front of you, post-enactment of some impression he made, and he’s frozen in place but warm all over.

Seeing you laugh like this, smile like this, being so pretty when you’re happy, the pounding in his chest goes crazy.

This isn’t the first time he’s made you laugh; he does it all the time. You almost always roll your eyes and chuckle, sometimes giggle with your eyes squinting and laugh lines creasing. But it might be the first time it’s like this: with you so bright, more than the sun and every other star in the sky.

And he thinks, this is all he could ever want—to make you happy for the rest of his life.

There’s too much of this feeling inside of him, clawing at his throat, itching to get out. He’s filled with it, has been filled with it for so long that it’s starting to overflow and if he doesn’t say this now he might just—

“I’m so in love with you.”

Gojo breathes it out, as if finally releasing it after all this time. You don’t think he processes it because he just stands there, in the middle of your living room, staring at you.

Your laughter dies with maybe a little part of you too (in a good way).

He looks so sweet, so sincere, and you see his heart, so big, so honest and pure. You get flashbacks of every Satoru you have ever known, at 15, 17, 23, to now.

It’s not like either of you don’t know; it’s plain as day, how you feel about each other—and you would have been fine going on without ever having to hear him speak of love this way.

But hearing it now, it’s far better than anything you could have imagined.

You stare at him. He stares at you.

He’s shocked too.

You don’t want to embarrass him, especially if he didn’t mean to say it, so you chuckle, moving on to break the quiet.

“I can unhear it if you want,” you offer shyly, genuinely.

Gojo looks at you, confused, before a pout makes its way onto his face. You sit up on your couch, playing with your fingers as you look up at him.

Sure, he practically blurted it out, maybe in the heat of the moment, or something, but it doesn’t make it any less true. And he’s realizing that the only thing he really wants from this—

“Though…” you continue, biting your lips, “I think I’m pretty in love with you too.”

The little laugh you make has him, completely.

The grin that breaks on his face is infectious. Gojo, who is normally so pale, is now pink all over—red by his ears and down his neck. There’s a sparkle in his eyes that can be found in yours too.

This moment right here feels like first loves—teens first saying ‘I love you’.

“You think?” he asks incredulously, joking, “So you’re not sure?” he walks closer to you.

You laugh, candy for his cravings, and take his hand to kiss each knuckle before guiding it to your cheek. He runs a thumb across your skin, affection on his fingertips. His index finger hooks itself under your chin, tilting it to rest on his stomach as you look up at him.

A kiss to your forehead, tenderly, gently.

The best part about being in love?

He gets to be in it with you.

Gojo can’t sleep.

It’s not anything new—4 hours on average, maybe 6 on a good night. He doesn’t remember a time when sleep ever came easily.

Sleeping with you, beside you, has helped, but it’s never solved the problem. You’ve gotten him to a full 8 hours before, but never consecutively, and he’s starting to think that if you can’t do it, nothing ever will.

Your sleeping positions change every night, but they always come out as some variation of hugging. Gojo firmly believes that he might as well sleep alone if you aren’t touching.

Tonight, you’re spooning, arm slung over his waist and palm right on his chest, fingers interlaced with his. Your legs stay tangled together with soft puffs of air blowing at the back of his neck.

He opens his eyes and checks the clock by his bedside. 3:24 a.m.

He sighs deeply, carefully maneuvering his body to slip away from you. You used to wake up the first few times this happened, worried about an emergency or some kind of accident. Being a sorcerer trains you for things like that.

You’ve always known Gojo had bad sleep, just not the severity of it.

You don’t wake up to it as much as you used to, having grown accustomed to it after more nights together, but on the off-chance that you do, Gojo always kisses your forehead gently as if to tell you that it’s okay, you can go back to sleep.

You don’t wake up now, thankfully, so he grabs his phone and heads for the kitchen. There’s a sinking feeling in his chest tonight, far heavier than others he’s woken up from. He pours himself a glass of water before hopping on the kitchen counter, ready to sort through the bowl of candy sitting on the island.

The date today is October 31. Halloween. It’s been a few years since Shibuya but he still feels like he’s suffocating.

In the train station. In the box.

In front of Suguru—or Kenjaku, both, whatever.

He’s gone to therapy, just like you wanted, for the both of you, and grieving has been an interesting concept to wrap his head around since.

But no matter how much he trains his mind to deal with it, his body will always remember the feeling.

He snaps out of it when he hears your footsteps padding on the floorboards. Your figure emerges from the hallway, bed hair and eyes still sleepy, squinting.

“Satoru?” you rub at your eyes, his sleep shirt entirely too long as the sleeves extend past your fingertips. The extra fabric swings in the air. “You okay?” you whisper, approaching him.

Waking you up is the last thing he could ever want right now, but it’s hard when you’re also the only one he can talk about this with. When you know what it’s like to grieve everyone too.

He has every intention of brushing it off, of telling you to go to sleep, but one look at you—one look at him and it’s like you just know. He doesn’t even need to explain.

It isn’t hard to piece together, knowing what today is and seeing him choked up the way he is. You tell Gojo it’s your intuition, but he has a tell, and maybe you’re the only one who knows it.

His eyes—they’ve always given him away. There’s the Satoru you know, then a Satoru that’s far removed, gone away. You can spot it though, the moment it loses its sparkle, the moment it turns from blue to gray.

He feels a little selfish sharing this with you; he’s not the only one who’s lost people. You have too.

You stand in front of him and offer a sad smile, outstretching your arms as an invite, as if to tell him: you can stay here for as long as you’d like.

He moves into your space slowly, hopping off the kitchen island to slump against you.

He doesn’t hug you yet, not immediately, hands still shaky at the memory. You rub his back, hooking your chin on his shoulder as he bends down to rest his head by your cheek.

You take his hand delicately, bringing them to your lips so you can kiss every fingertip gently. When you finish, he wraps his arms around you, squeezing tightly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you whisper, like a hushed secret.

And he wants to, but also, there isn’t anything else to say that you don’t know already. You were there the first few times he had therapy, and when he felt comfortable enough to go alone, he told you all about it anyway right after.

If there’s a secret to fighting the Gojo Satoru with guaranteed victory, they’d only have to get to you—he’d be gone, entirely. You know too much of him, own too many parts of him already.

He chuckles dryly, vibrating by your neck. A step back and he’s leaning against the counter, bringing you closer by the hip, thumb stroking. He tucks away strands of your hair behind your ear, flattening down the bird’s nest that it is from your sleep.

“Nothing you haven’t heard before, pretty.”

Gojo’s been more tender lately, especially in the night when his piercing eyes turn soft, gazing.

You pout, the same one since you were 16. You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to it, the way he calls you such sweet, honeyed things; you’ve only recently begun to call him ‘baby’ and that alone has been enough to make your head spin.

Still, he wouldn’t be your Satoru if he didn’t surprise you. With how he is now, it’s hard to imagine a time when this was all so difficult for him, when even the slightest bit of your hands touching was challenging.

It’s hard to imagine that both of you are here now, living in the same space, by the kitchen at night, with the contents of your hearts memorized—the sorrow, the pain, the joy, all the love, every single one.

He kisses your nose, and that’s comfort alone.

This is his reality now, with you, and it’s safe.

It’s good.

“Do you want to make waffles?” he hears you mumble, running your hands over his chest, soothing.

The clock reads 3:56 a.m. Early breakfast doesn’t sound so bad, could also be a midnight snack.

(But he knows what you’re doing).

You don’t tell him to try to go back to sleep, never forcing anything you know he can’t do. Instead, you offer yourself to stay up with him, keep him company. Whatever he needs.

(And he loves that about you).

Gojo will forever argue that you might have fallen first, but he’s definitely fallen harder.

He could map out every single location he’s laid his love on—your eyes, the flutter of your eyelashes, the curve of your nose, and your lips, the same ones he’s kissed and nipped, bitten until he gets his fill.

Your neck and chest—a canvas for his desires. He glides a finger across your collarbone before lightly tapping on it thrice.

There’s the little dip at the base of your spine, and your thighs—

Oh, he could get lost in them.

He knows.

He has. Many times.

There’s an animal inside of him that only answers to you.

When you kiss his neck and grip his back, soft moans by his ear—short and sweet. He’s a gone man, wholly devoted to you, and you only.

You breathe his name out, “Satoru,” raspily, and he sinks into you—everything, all that he has spilling in the depths of you.

How can he possibly contain all this love?

It’s scary how so much of him already belongs to you, all these years—how you’ve been carrying pieces of him, all versions of him throughout every birthday, every moment you’ve touched his life and have it irrevocably changed.

“Are you happy?” he mumbles by your ear, voice deep and lazy.

It’s the morning, sunlight barely peeking through your curtains. Gojo hugs you from behind, arms caging you as he traces little hearts on your sides.

“Right now?” you whisper back, chuckling, “That’s not fair.”

He nips at your ear, a small bite, before you turn to face him.

He supposes you’re right, it isn’t fair to ask that now; both your bodies are sore, well-exhausted, and littered with conversations on love.

Gojo is pretty in the mornings just like he is all the time, his hair lending well to sunlight as much as it does to the moonlight. And his eyes—they shine a different shade during the day compared to the night.

You though, you’re an entirely different creature of your own: a goddess in bedsheets and pillows, wrapped in immaculate white.

You giggle when you face him, nose-to-nose, and he pulls you in tighter, grips you by the butt to slot you in right where you belong.

Are you happy with me?

He wonders, and you can read it—his eyes his greatest tell. You kiss him tenderly, lips moving gently against his. Then you smile, sincerely, before whispering—

“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

this is a re-upload! (because i accidentally deleted the original one!) thank you notes: to @stellamancer for being there since the very start!! col wouldn’t even exist without you!! you’re every much part of the creation of this as i am :'), to @crysugu for being so ever supportive, cheering me on all the time!! and for loving col reader as much as i do!! and to you reading this and everyone else who has loved this collection so far!! of course!! a credit to all the writers whose works have inspired the way i view and write gojo: to @seravphs for teen dad!gojo and cruel summer influences, i draw so much of the way i understand these characters and their dynamics from you and your beautiful way of writing them and i hope my interpretation gives justice to that!!, to @augustinewrites for keeping up with the fushigojos, this series and the way you write them, with so much love, has always pushed for me to view gojo that way!! you’ve inspired so much of my understanding that gojo does believe in love and that when he falls in it, he falls in it hard!!

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

#gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #satoru x reader #satoru gojo x reader #gojo fluff #gojo angst #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk #satoru #shotorus.writes #col #algorithm pls love me

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