#glass boundary fence
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Glass Balustrade Price Calculator Get an Instant Estimate
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Pond Landscape Perth
Design ideas for a mid-sized contemporary full sun backyard stone landscaping.
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Pool Fencing Regulations and FAQs
If this is the first time that you are getting pool fencing installation done and very excited about customisations, you need to hold yourself back. The reason is that there are some laws, guidelines and rules to following this regards and only after they have all been applied, you can think about adding your specific customizations and modifications. Here in this small post, we have covered the basic rules and guidelines you need to follow while getting this installation done.
Pool Fencing Installations Regulations – The Basics
The first thing you need to understand is that these guidelines and rules differ state to state and all of them are designed to keep people safe when around the poolside. Victoria, NSW, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia and the ACT all must adhere to the current Australian Standard AS1926-2012. Here are some pointers related to the size and dimensions of security pool fencing.
Must be a minimum height of 1200mm
The top of the fence must be a minimum of 900mm
It should be away from climbable objects including trees, pergolas, barbecues, toys, pot plants and furniture
Gaps in the fencing must be less than 100mm
Must be constructed from durable materials
Gates must be self-closing and swing away from the pool
Gate latches must be mounted pool-side
In case of doubts and confusions, the ideal step is to seek guidance and advice from the Fence contractor chosen for pool fencing installation.
Here are the answers of some very common questions that first time owners have in mind regarding these pool fencing installations.
Can A Boundary Fence Be A Pool Fence?
The answer is "yes", but the dimensions are different if you are using boundary as a swimming pool fencing. The boundary fencing must at least 1800mm in height.
Do I Have To Put A Fence Around My Pool?
Yes, according to Australian laws, it is mandatory to fence all kinds of pools, whether they are in-ground or above-ground pools. As mentioned above, there are different specifications in different states regarding dimensions, but yes, pool fence is mandatory.
#Pool Fencing#frameless glass pool fence#Pool fence for security#pool fencing installation#swimming pool fencing#Pool Fence Boundary#fencing must at least 1800mm#fencing gap must be less than 100mm#durable materials pool fence#Pool fence rounded spigot designs#frameless pool fence#semi-frameless pool fence#framed designs pool fence#transparent glass panels#fence#fence company#Fence contractor
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property lines
dark!steve rogers x neighbour!reader
kinktober countdown: day two (facefucking).
synopsis: your neighbour is inappropriate, and you aren’t quite sure how to broach the subject.
wc: 2.2k
cw: dark content, non con, oral (male receiving), femme language + afab!reader, pet names, internal victim blaming, pet names (sweetheart), a touch of misogyny
author’s note: day 2 brings us more dark!steve, i fear i may be incapable of writing him sincerely. he’s just a little too perfect. I like to take off a bit of the shine. thank you @katsukikitten u r my muse.
Your neighbour is inappropriate, and you aren’t quite sure how to broach the subject. Mostly because you can’t be sure if he’s doing it on purpose or if he’s just overly friendly. Maybe it’s the signals you give off, bringing a plate of thick, sweet, cheesecake brownies over to the recently sold house next door, hoping to make a new connection. Suburbia can be isolating, and with all of your friends shaking ass in the city, you need to branch out. It really isn’t the kind of home you figured a single man like Steven Grant Rogers would buy, but then again, you lived in your suburban palace alone, willed to you by your late grandmother and only in need of a few renovations.
He’d been so bright, when you first met him, with a perfect white smile and twinkling blue eyes. He’d been happy to accept the desserts, even happier to return the plate a day later, extolling the praise he and his poker buddies lauded on you over the taste. You’d shrugged it off, “The least I could do for a neighbour. I’m just glad you all liked them.”
Secretly though, the compliments had thrilled you, especially once you’d gotten a glimpse at the aforementioned “poker buddies”, the whole lot of them, handsome, built, big. All too happy to fix leaky pipes and paint fences in exchange for chocolate cream pie or a dish of homemade lasagna. But Steven - “Steve, please” - was your most loyal customer, always lending a hand, pausing during his early morning jog to check up on you while you watered your flower beds, asking how your book is going, what you do in that “big old house all by yourself” when you aren’t working on “the next great American novel”, of course (his words, not yours).
It’s fine at first, a little disarming to be at the centre of his white hot attention, burning your flesh like he had you under a magnifying glass on a perfect sunny day. But eventually it’s not fine, eventually Steve Rogers takes more and more steps over the property line of overly friendly and into the front yard of wildly overbearing. Eventually, Mr. Rogers insists on weekly visits, popping into your house by using the spare key under the mat he shouldn’t even know about. Slinging his muscled arm over you during the neighbourhood block party, and your neighbour’s son’s 5th birthday party, and the Fourth of July barbeque. He fixes your car without you asking, brings in your groceries when he sees you unloading them in your driveway, brings your mail to you during his daily jog. It’s helpful sometimes, yes, but it’s also suffocating. And you were going to set him straight. You were! But it’s hard, hard to stare into the face of a suburban god, the literal king of the neighbourhood and tell him no. It’s hard to tell him that he’s making you uncomfortable, that you’d like for him to stop being so goddamn friendly all the time.
So maybe a little of it is your fault. Maybe you should’ve been clearer on your boundaries. Maybe, when handsome, strapping Mr. Rogers came to your front door to ask you to essentially cater one of his poker nights, you shouldn’t have stayed to serve the food, playing happy little housewife in front of Steve’s friends, bringing them cold beers from the fridge and sitting next to Steve, playfully making faces at his hand, then plating up dessert when he asked you to. But it felt good to have his attention. His favour. So when “the boys” start to head home, laying praise and amazement at your feet, you’re sufficiently buttered up for Steve to ask yet another favour of you. It’s not much, of course. Just a little help with cleanup. Then he’ll escort you home himself. After all, there are some real sickos out there.
So you agree. What’s the harm, right?
The harm, it just so happens, comes quickly after you finish drying the dishes Steve washes. You slide the last plate, towel dried as best you could, into his cabinets, sighing in contentment at a job well done. The harm is when Steve turns you around and presses you against the sink, water soaking into the back of your blouse, making the fabric cling to your skin. You stay there for a minute, not processing what’s happening, ready to laugh off another inappropriate joke from Steve.
You don’t really get the chance.
Two heavy hands clap down on your shoulders, exerting pressure on you until you crumple to the floor, knees hitting the tile of Steve's kitchen painfully. You yelp, struggling against him, pressing, then beating your fist against his tree trunk legs.
"Stev-" you choke on his name when your neighbour unzips his trousers before you, undoes the fly of the pair you helped him pick out, with him bent over your shoulder while you held his phone, his front pressed close to your back. Pulls his half hard dick out of pants starched and pressed with the iron he'd borrowed from you because his was "on the fritz" again.
"Open up." He cajoles, and you pin him with an incredulous, confused stare. No. No. This is all wrong. He doesn’t act like that. Steve Rogers isn’t like that.
The hand he doesn't use to stroke himself grabs your jaw, squeezing until you open your mouth, squeezing til it hurts. A sharp, purposeful punch of his hips is all it takes for him to make use of the opening. All it takes to put every little joke, boundary crossing, and stray touch into startling, horrifying perspective.
“It was the baking.” He whispers above you. “Peggy never baked, which was fine.” He sighs above you like he isn’t pistoning his cock deep into your throat with reckless abandon. “But I missed it, y’know? And you, you bake how angels ought to, sweetheart.”
Tears stream down your face while Steve uses you, dragging your dazed, crying face back and forth on his hard-on. On a particularly strong thrust, he broaches your throat. Your eyes roll up, until he can barely see the perimeter of your irises, and you warble out a miserable moan, begging, all while wrapped around his dick, for a reprieve. Your head is pinned to the counter behind you, and even though you shove against the muscle of his thighs, Steve brooks no quarter.
“Just take it,” he coos, like he wants you to swallow cough syrup, “it’ll be over soon.” his breath stutters when your lips brush against his balls. Steve moves one of his hands to cup the back of your head, keeping you as close as possible when he comes down your throat, groaning in pleasure while you struggle to swallow stream after bitter stream of his seed, lest you choke on it or fucking drown.
He finally releases you, and you pull back so fast you bang the back of your head on his pristine white counters. The pain radiates through your scalp, grounding you in the moment, cementing you to the spotless linoleum floor of Steve Rogers’ kitchen. You’re both panting, eager to fill your lungs with gulps of air.
“Whew.” He sighs, hands on his hips, like that took a lot out of him. “I didn’t mean to get so rough with you, just didn’t expect the struggle.” He chuckles, patting you on the head. “But you settled down quick, didn’t ya?” His tone takes on…contentment? Happiness?
No. That’s not quite right.
It’s pride. Steve is looking down at you, your spit and cum slick mouth, the weepy, watery state of your eyes, and the disarray of the hair he’d used as a handle, with pride.
Your stomach roils.
He bends low and you flinch away from him, smacking your head on the countertop again. He cocks his head at the involuntary movement, and smiles at you. A familiar, warm thing. One that made your heart flutter with pleasure, beat fast with your own surge of pride when he accepted a pie, or offered a compliment. Now it does the same, your heart speeds up, your palms itch curiously, and your brain doesn’t know if you’re happy or sad. Doesn’t know if it craves those smiles anymore.
“Just wanna set you on your feet. C’mon.” He speaks quietly, like he’s soothing a frightened animal, and hooks his hand under your armpits, heaving you up with the same startling strength he'd used to face fuck the fight out of you.
“It’s okay.” You bleat, voice as wobbly and unstable as the pair of legs struggling to keep you upright. And it’s not, it’s far from okay, the taste of him lingers in the back of your throat and if you think about it for even a second more you’ll throw up all over his shiny floors, on those godforsaken pants.
“I admit,” he laughs, ducks his head with that small town charm he does so well, “I wanted to last longer. But you were too good.” He winks at you, like you share a secret. Like you’re in league with each other.
He staring, waiting for you to say something, arches a brow like it’s your line and you’re fucking up the show.
But there it is again, that smile, sunny and open, and so pristine.
“Let’s get you home.” He herds you towards his front door, hand glued to the small of your back, his pinky finger stroking the skin exposed by the riding up of your still wet shirt. The two of you walk into the balmy summer air, and the spaces in between the black night, punctuated with the occasional white streetlight, designate your path home. Some of your neighbours’ houses are still illuminated, their warm yellow windows denoting the presence of life. You wonder what goes on behind their doors, you wonder if someone is having a good night somewhere close to you.
You come across your door faster than you were prepared for, the cheery yellow paint job Steve and James had done for caramel apple pie, mocks you. The way he’d smiled in your face, touched you, laughed. Steve shifts next to you, holding onto your extensive tower of pyrex and tupperware, for an instant your blood runs cold at the prospect of Steve inviting himself in, like he’s done so many times before. Not to bring in groceries or put together a dresser, but to pin you prone to the carpet of your bedroom and smile at you.
“So!” He turns, “Same time next week?” You gawk at him, and when you don’t say or do anything, he stoops and slides your extra keys out from under your Garfield emblazoned doormat. The jingle of two, simple metal keys against the little bell shaped key-chain makes your head pound, your blood boil. He unlocks the door, and gestures for you to take a step indoors. You raise both hands, palms upturned so he can give the keys back, so you can hide them, or melt them, or flush them down the toilet. Instead, you get to watch him slip the key-ring into his pocket, before he places your dishes into your uplifted open palms. “I gotta say, the lemon bars were a hit.” He tweaks your nose between his thumb and forefinger, his compliment tempered by the greedy shine in his eyes. You nearly scratch your own eyes out when you get that pleased, soft tingle in your chest.
He smiles and you salivate. He compliments you and your heart responds. He’s proud and your brain tells you ‘I’m happy’.
Why hasn’t it gone away? Will it ever go away?
“Maybe those brownies again, the cream cheese ones?” His voice is hopeful, soft and pliant, like he’s worried you’ll say ‘no’.
Like there’s a world where he’d take no for an answer.
You nod, a jerky, quick gesture that rattles your brain around in your skull. “Sure. Yeah.” You answer, sweaty hands slipping against tempered glass and plastic lids. “Yes. Brownies.” Steve beams, clapping his hands together, once, loud, drawing your eyes to the brutish width of them.
“Fantastic. I can’t wait.” He jogs down your front steps, and the fist secured around your lungs loosens with every step he takes away from you. He pauses at the side walk, one foot still on your property, the other poised to leave it.
“We make a great team. Don’t we?” He turns to you, and this time, he isn’t smiling. This time, his eyes cut through the night and the streetlight and the foggy haze of misfortune clouding your brain.
And the fear finally comes.
You kick your door closed, and you lock your door, and you drop your pyrex and tupperwear and serving spoons in the sink and you lock your windows and you get into bed, still dressed for a poker night you had no business being at, and you pull the covers up and up and over your face.
But the fear doesn’t go away.
And neither will your neighbour.
god i want him so bad. tomorrow, captain soap.
find the rest of the masterlist here.
support city girls who bought $50 of baked cheesecake today, reblog what you like.
#steve rogers x reader#dark!steve rogers#dark!steve smut#dark!steve x reader#dark steve x reader#dark steve rogers#dark!captain america#dark!fic#mcu smut#mcu x reader#slasher!au#stalker!steve rogers#steve rogers x y/n#steve rogers x you#kechiwriteskinktober#kechiwrites#cw: dark content#cw: noncon#kinktober 2023#captain america x reader#chris evans characters#steve rogers x black!reader#captain america x black!reader#steve rogers x black reader
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Tether Me - Chapter 1
Pairing(s): Geto/Gojo/Reader
Summary:
“Jesus!” You shrieked and jumped with all the elegance of a newborn fawn, spinning on your heel to find a head of blindingly white hair and pearly canines equally as eye-burning greeting you through a wide grin. Though you couldn’t see the man's eyes behind those curiously round shades of his, you could picture how his cheeks crinkled his hidden hues at the corners.
If any of the Greek or Roman gods were real, he’d outshine every one of them without breaking a sweat.
“Not quite,” the unfairly gorgeous stranger replied with a snicker from where he leaned against the fence, “but I’m flattered.”
CW: No y/n | polyamory | slow burn | slice of life | alt au - no curses | fluff | light angst | eventual smut | forgive me, there's internal monologues | I like using big words... | Gojo & Geto are whipped for you | emotionally constipated reader | (most of the tags have been condensed, you can find the full list on my ao3 here)
AN: no particular additional warnings for this chapter. I'll add new warnings for any chapters that might require them (for example, nsfw)
Ch: Prologue | Ch: 1 | Ch: 2 | Ch: 3
WC: 15.3k
Seeing your new…home in the unforgiving glare of daytime made you realize that the realtor spent more time photoshopping the box of danger to make it appear appealing than actually selling it. Gave it to the first poor buyer that bit the bait and dashed off.
Said poor buyer was you. Apparently.
A rickety bamboo fence, chipped and scratched by god knows what, wrapped loosely around your property, the pathetic poles clinging to life by threads about as strong as spider silk. Quite the sad barrier. Honestly, you had no idea how it managed to remain upright this long at all.
The description on the site you found it on was very, very vague with anything regarding the building. Even with your prodding, the most you generally got was “well, nobody died in it, and it’s still standing.”
Good enough for you, clearly, considering you slapped the Sold! sign on the damn listing yourself maybe 30 minutes and a glass of wine (or three) after finding the soggy, depressing shack.
Granny was right. This thing was a damn mess. It should have been condemned ages ago.
You couldn’t decide if it was bigger or smaller than you expected. Somewhat disproportionate was the best way you could put it. The terrain surrounding it was much more expansive than the photos showed, the boundaries only sort of marked out by the aforementioned sad barrier. It was considerably isolated, which you weren’t really complaining about, but you noted way too late that taking care of all that overgrown grass was going to be a nightmare on your back. Arms, too. Every part of your body, honestly.
The building itself had certainly seen better days, such as the day it was built, and perhaps the day after, if you were being generous. The agent was very shifty about exact details, but in his defense, this place was basically in the Bumfuck Middle of Nowhere, Japan, in likely one of the smallest countryside villages there was in the whole country.
You were also substantially intoxicated and ready to put down your life savings on anything.
Thankfully, you didn’t have to go that far, but you truly underestimated the scope of this ‘project’. The entire plot needed a fresh splash of paint at minimum. Ideally, you needed to shear the lawn of all those super pretty weeds that you were very tempted to just leave as is because they were so pretty, mhm, would be an absolute shame to get rid of them.
You’d need to clear out the stone path leading from the fence gate to your front door that you quite literally stumbled over last night. Or just toss the stones altogether, because fuck those things and whoever put them there.
The outer walls needed a good scrubbing, and another, and one more for good measure. Quite a few shingles on the roof showed signs of being ready to split your skull open with only a wayward breeze needed to push them off the edge. The hinges creaked horribly on every part of the building, enough so that you were certain the entire village would’ve been awoken by you tripping over yourself to get into the house had you not been a decent 10 or so minute walk from the closest cottage.
And all of this was just what was outside.
That fence, ugly little shit that it was, was either going to become your worst nightmare, or a begrudging friend.
You noted with mild interest that your house resembled western abodes more than Japanese ones.
Maybe if you kept the place rundown, people wouldn’t think to stop by your place unannounced. Ah, what a delight that would be. If you were lucky, nobody knew the property had been sold yet. If you were extra lucky, you could get your shopping done (plus whatever other errands you couldn’t do from home) by keeping your head down, and none would be the wiser to your existence.
Aside from Granny, of course. Kinda hard to hide from that woman now that she’d given you food off her own back. You needed to do something in return, but you set that on the back burner for now.
The interior required basically everything to be fixed up, that was non-negotiable. You refused to sleep on crusty wood floors and old tatami that had long since been glued to the surface beneath with gods know what. At the very least, you needed to somehow clean the floor. Preferably, mend the walls, plug any holes, get the pipes functioning if they weren’t already, and a whole other fuckin’ list of soul crushing deeds that needed completion.
Furniture, while questionably not a necessity for survival, was definitely a need for you. If only so you had something to sleep on other than the basically flat, nylon bag laid out in the corner of the room you gracelessly snored within.
But how?
You planted your hands on your hips and exhaled through your nose. “I wonder if Amazon ships to this place…”
A pipe dream, certainly; but, gods, would it make your life so much easier.
You could try to build your own furniture, but you trusted running with scissors more than you trusted your own potential handiwork. Which meant repairing the house itself on your own was likely a very bad idea.
“Ah, fuck,” you hissed as you realized the other shit you’d need to do aside from creating an actual proper space to live. “I’ll have to learn how to sew and garden and fucking carpent and everything…”
You groaned as you pictured every task that awaited you, and subsequently buried your face in your hands. Maybe you should have just torn the whole fucking thing down, bought a plastic shed from the nearest city, dragged it over, set it up, and called it home sweet home. You didn’t need that much space anyway, right?
“No, can’t regret this now, too late to regret this, you chose this,” your voice was muffled and grit out through clenched teeth. “Made your bed, now sleep in it, idiot.”
“Yeah, kinda dumb choice, if you ask me.”
An unexpected voice originated from behind you, startling the living daylights out of you and shooting your heart straight out of your body.
“Jesus!” You shrieked and jumped with all the elegance of a newborn fawn, spinning on your heel to find a head of blindingly white hair and pearly canines equally as eye-burning greeting you via a wide grin. Though you couldn’t see the man's eyes behind those curiously round shades of his, you could picture how his cheeks crinkled his hidden hues at the corners.
If any of the Greek or Roman gods were real, he’d outshine every one of them without breaking a sweat.
The warming late-spring wind grazed through the fluffy locks of his hair like the delicate touch of a lover’s hands, weaving through the fine strands and carrying his scent to you.
Mixed with the heat of the approaching humid season, you caught faint hints of sweetness, with an underlying minty tone and something you couldn't name. He was too far away for you to pinpoint the exact fragrance, but you had no intention of just skipping right over and shoving your nose against the junction of his neck to get a better whiff.
Or maybe his chest? The way he was slouching made it difficult to gauge his height, but you had a feeling he was a great deal taller than you, and the stout slope you stood on would do you virtually no favors.
The shiver that went up your spine at the thought was promptly ignored.
“Not quite,” the unfairly gorgeous stranger replied with a snicker from where he leaned against the fence, arms slotted between the bamboo sticks. How it held him up without crumbling into dust was a miracle in itself. “But I’m flattered.”
Your pulse pounded in your ears as you placed your hand against your chest, trying to will the wretched thing to calm down. Handling adrenaline was not your forte, much less from a scare like this. With your eyes narrowed, and only partially because of the accursed brilliance that was coming summer, you glared at the man. He was far too relaxed and cocky for your liking, still sporting that goofy grin that had you feeling things you didn’t want to address now.
Or ever.
“Who are you?” You queried.
“I should be asking you that, pretty girl.”
Your nose wrinkled incredulously. “Pretty girl?”
He chose to overlook your objection, instead nodding towards your house. “Never thought I’d get to witness this shithole get bought by anyone, let alone someone like you. Thought it’d get torn down sooner than have a hundred yen tossed towards it.”
Your eyes rolled. Hard. He wasn’t wrong, it was a shithole, but now it was your shithole. The less reminders about its miserable state of existence you had, the better. “Gee, thanks.”
“No problem.”
Completely against your will, you snorted. He was going to be a wonderful source of entertainment, or he was going to be a thorn in your side, just like the sickly sticks under his arms. The jury was still out on it.
You stared at one another for a few seconds that dragged on too long before you raised a brow. “Weeeell…?” You drew out the word.
His head cocked to the side. “Well?”
“Your name. You never told me who you are.” You knew it was polite to introduce yourself first, but fuck that, he scared the hell out of you. The responsibility was on him.
“Oh, right,” he straightened up, then bent forward with one hand to his chest and the other outstretched sideways in an extravagant bow. “Gojo Satoru, the very one and only. What about you, sweetheart?”
Pet names aside, there was a debate in your mind, an argument between whether you should give the admittedly attractive stranger your real name, or create one on the spot. You had done the latter in your later months of running all over your home country like a chicken without a head under the stupid belief that it'd further separate you from the anxieties clinging to your shins.
You were paranoid. That was easy enough to decipher.
Your conscience had spawned this nerve wracking idea that those you ghosted – from scorned lovers who scarcely got further than kissing you, to the jobs and employers you abandoned suddenly – were after you.
It left you constantly scanning your 6 from over your shoulder with the fear that they’d come chasing you down, eager to dig their claws into your paper-kite flesh and permanently force you down. You could visualize them tearing through your wings, winding layers of rope around your throat and knotting the dangling strings so tightly that not even the sharpest blade could break through the binds, much less let you breathe. So, you frequently lied about your identity as much as you could.
You inhaled slowly through your teeth, not enough to whistle, but enough to ground you. You were on the complete other side of the world, far away from those who would care to snarl and bare their fangs at your heels as they ran faster than you could – if there were any who desired to at all. You were somewhere new, somewhere unfamiliar, a place where nobody knew you, or could possibly know you by any means.
You told not a soul about where you’d gone. You never did. Like ash in the wind, you disappeared faster than anyone could blink, any memory of smoldering embers long forgotten.
Maybe…maybe you were safe to at least slip forth some truth about yourself.
Like most things you did nowadays, you told him your real name on a whim, and hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite you in the ass.
He hummed as he repeated it to you, as if testing it on his tongue, dipping in for a small taste. Then, that stunning grin returned, and your heart fluttered behind your ribs.
You stubbornly stamped your heel down onto it. You didn’t know why it decided to start acting up, but you were not going to entertain it.
“Pretty name for a pretty girl,” he cooed. “What brought you here of all places? So rich you’re bored? Fell for a scam? One of those girly things?”
You scoffed.
“Or maybe you’re running from something.”
The blood in your veins froze over in an instant, your body going rigid as you stared at him. He…he couldn’t have known, right? The way he stated it, rather than asked – like he knew – had you struggling to swallow, to so much as twitch your fingers. There was no way. You– you were nobody, a blank slate, an outsider–
His head cocked to the side playfully, and the spell he had cast on you withered away as quickly as it came.
Finally able to breathe again, you vented out the air you unknowingly held and turned your face slightly away, hoping he didn’t catch your slip-up. “One of those girly things,” you settled, to which he nodded eagerly, as if you just confirmed the existence of a theory of his that ‘girly things’ were real.
Not that he was wholly wrong, technically, as you did have ‘one of those girly things’ urges from time to time. The desire to cut or dye your hair, pick up a new name, rearrange your room, or hop on a plane to the furthest fucking location you could imagine.
“Why’d you choose this…thing then?” Gojo jerked his chin towards the shabby hut.
“It was cheap,” you answered simply.
He bobbed his head in acknowledgement. “Where are you staying?”
Your eyelashes fluttered as you blinked at him, your brow knitting. “...Here?”
“...Here.”
“Here.”
There was a brief pause, then he burst into laughter, his arms hugging his stomach. “Oh, god,” he wheezed. Personally, you couldn’t find what was so funny about the situation. “You serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
His finger slipped under the right lens of his glasses, presumably to wipe a tear away as he worked on calming himself down. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Fire flared in your veins as opposed to ice this time. “Hey!”
“I mean, seriously, who in their right mind would stay inside that thing?”
Your lip curled over your teeth in a snarl. “Oi–”
He bulldozed right along, completely ignoring you. “There’s gotta be, like, ghosts in there. Or a shit ton of spiders. Lots of spiders, actually.”
That got your attention. A shudder shot up your back and you squealed in fright, shaking off your hands to rid yourself of the phantom feeling of creepy crawlies on your skin. “Spiders?”
The milky-headed male nodded staidly. “Tons. And, y’know, the other obvious health hazards. I bet there’s asbestos in those walls.”
You opened your mouth to argue that your house had only been abandoned for 20 years, and that asbestos had been cut out of usage some 40 odd years ago, until you remembered that 1) asbestos didn’t immediately go out of use when the dangers were revealed, and 2) you house was abandoned 20 years ago, not built 20 years ago. Who knows how old it actually was?
Given its appearance…
He must’ve seen the panic on your face, because he gave you a piercing smile, an expression you very swiftly understood was one of scheming. “You should come stay with me.”
The world halted around you for the seconds it took your mind to process what he said. “...Hah?”
“I said, you should come stay with me,” Satoru shrugged nonchalantly. “I have spare guest rooms.”
“I– you– stay with– what?”
The grimace he gave your house could only be described as ‘execrating’. “I mean, come on, you’re not really thinking of staying there, are you? You’ll be sending yourself to an early grave like that, you’re too cute to die so soon. Just come stay at my place.”
Was he a murderer?
Your brain finally caught up with a click and you scowled. “Oh, yeah, that’s super safe,” you responded sardonically. “New girl in a new town full of total strangers with who-knows-what motives, lemme just go stay with the first guy that invites me to his home.”
“Come onnnn, you can trust me,” he whined, pouting.
“I literally just met you.”
The ease with which he gave up gave you whiplash, having expected him to keep pushing. “Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “Hey, did you know that your backdoor doesn’t have a lock?”
You paled.
Definitely something a murderer would say.
Your head whipped to gawp at your dwelling with wide eyes, a full on war raging through your head now.
On one hand, yes, he was a complete and total stranger. A hot one, but still an unknown entity who could just be buttering you up. Maybe the reason the house had been abandoned for so long was because anytime a new owner came in, they got snatched up by the handsome boy who invited them just like he invited you, never to be seen again.
He could have been lying about the lock – though it honestly didn’t matter, someone could probably just break through a wall if they pushed hard enough on it.
On the other hand, if he was telling the truth (how did he know that? Why?), he was the only person you knew even a little in this itty bitty isolated village (Granny doesn’t count). Anyone could go through that door at night and there you would be, wrapped up in your shitty, thin sleeping bag, prime kidnapping material. You basically did all the hard work by tying your own limbs right up yourself, easiest catch of the century.
At the very least, you knew Gojo’s name and face. Granted, the first item there was debatable, but he didn’t seem like the type to lie about his name – boast about it, more like. You’d be already acquainted with your would-be assailant, so it’d be nice to know the face of your kidnapper-slash-torturer-slash-killer, if only so you could punch a picture of it over and over in your afterlife, wherever death may take you.
You shifted your gaze to him and crossed an apprehensive arm over your chest, propping your elbow up on it while you pinched your chin in consideration.
There he was, the sly rat, wearing that dumb (cute) (no) grin of his as always, patiently awaiting your answer as if he already knew it. Nothing about him seemed inherently dangerous on the surface, but don’t they say serial killers are charming and charismatic people? He was a bit energetic for a murderer, though.
You weighed your options carefully. You could spend another horrid night in your house with the knowledge that there were likely insects everywhere, and possibly even asbestos in the walls, and who knows what else. You’d have to brush your teeth by using your water tumbler again, and…oh, fuck, you hadn’t even thought about the bathroom yet. How were you going to shower? Wash your face? Do your business?
Then there was your poor excuse of a bed, more plastic than anything even remotely comfy. Same with the pillow, you might as well have been sleeping on the bare ass floor. Your neck ached at the thought. Then there was your food issue, your clothes, your devices…
You sighed.
“What’s the catch?” You questioned reluctantly.
He merely raised his hands in a shrug. “No catch.”
That was way too easy, but the prospect of an actual bed and a tidy (hopefully) homestead was too good to pass up, serial killer owner be damned.
Future you was just getting more and more tasks thrown at her, such as your new objective being to find an inn to live in while you figured out your home issues. And getting a job to afford said inn. But that was for way later, when you weren’t losing your goddamned mind.
“...Fine,” you surrendered. Like a pussy. Weak.
“Yippee!” Satoru cheered, somehow smiling wider. “Good girl, knew ya had a brain somewhere up there.”
Your stomach flip-flopped at the simultaneous praise and insult, confusing your head with emotions (and hormones) that you did not want to unpack. Cheeks reddening rapidly, you hissed at him through a tight jaw, shooing away the kindling something that pooled in your tummy. “You–”
“C’mon,” he interrupted you before you could even start, already turning to leave as he waved his hand over his shoulder, “I’ll show ya the way. Ain’t far from here.”
Flustered, you stuttered indignantly, watching him walk away. You shook your head in defeat and jogged to catch up to him, needing to speed walk to match his ridiculously long strides. “Oi, slow down! You’re too damn tall!”
“You’re just short,” he argued, his hands interlocking as they rested against the back of his head. “Pipsqueak.”
You gasped in offense as if you weren’t at tiddy-sucking height. “I am not a pipsqueak!”
“You totally are,” he purred, treating you like you were some sort of adorable pet. “I bet I could pick you up and throw you if I wanted.”
An unwitting laugh bubbled out of you, and for some reason, you decided to play this frivolous game of his. “I’d like to see you try.”
You immediately regretted it as he reached out for you with a shit-eating expression of absolute delight, making you yelp and race off ahead of him, screeching as he chased right after you.
“Wait, no, don’t!” Your voice rang clear, fright mixed with childlike thrill spreading to your limbs as you scurried down the open road. “I was kidding!”
“Get back here!”
The wind blew past your ears, tangled into your hair, followed the curves of your body as you darted about alongside it. You let it guide you, toy with the fabric of your shirt, cup your face with cool hands. You breathed deeply, and you flew, untethered and free and so overwhelmed.
Somewhere above, beyond the boundless and endless cerulean, a star flickered.
You screamed when you felt his hands pinch your waist, catching Satoru’s devilish gleam as he passed you, and suddenly, you were the one chasing him. He cackled as you tried to catch up to him, taunting you all the way.
Curse his long legs.
You wondered how he managed to keep talking so cleanly and easily while you were struggling to maintain your breath and gait.
All those years of metaphorical running, sadly, did not translate into actual, physical running. Air stung your throat, and you only faintly recognized that you were running after him through the village, more focused on keeping that head of ivory tresses in sight.
Yet, somehow, contrary to how concentrated you were on that task, he managed to slip from your view when he turned a sharp corner and seemingly passed through an invisible barrier of some kind. He had to, because when you turned that same corner just seconds later, he was nowhere to be found.
Slowing your sprint into a trot, then stopping altogether, you bowed over and planted one hand on your knee while the other clutched your side.
“Oh, god,” you groaned, your body aching in several places, both internal and external. “I almost regret skipping gym in school.”
Peeking up through your hair to check around, every part of the street you were on seemed innocuous, normal, without any obvious hiding spots Satoru might have jumped into.
The vertically dominant fucker.
Cautiously, you marched forward, breathing heavily as you took slow steps. The game of cat and mouse had turned into hide-and-seek, and the sucker chose not to warn you. Granted, you would have done the exact same thing, but it was within your right to bitch about it, you were at several disadvantages.
The first alley was clear of anything, even objects. Nothing more than a small gap between two buildings, you doubted he would’ve managed to squeeze in there given how giant he was. Plus, where would he have gone even if he did wiggle into it?
The next alley was the same story. There was more space, but very little within said space, only a couple crates that were too small to hide him. Again, giant.
Everything, you belatedly realized, was completely uncharted territory to you. You should have listened to Granny and explored the village first. But, if you had, maybe you wouldn’t have a real bed to sleep in tonight. Presumably. You were putting too much faith into Gojo being genuine about the bed – and not being a serial killer – otherwise you were sleeping outside.
“Bastard.” The pain in your hip subsided and you righted yourself, inspecting every direction for any indication of white hair. It would be significantly difficult to hide that feature in an area like this, where pretty much everything had a neutral-dark colored theme, and most people had black or brunette hair.
You wondered why he was towheaded. A question for another day.
He was a magician, or trickster, you ruled, rather than acknowledging the fact that he knew this town far better than you did and likely would for a while to come.
Grumbles passed through your lips as you stood akimbo, squinting at everything skeptically. “Where the hell–”
“Boo!”
You swear your soul ascended. You could picture the trail it left behind as it rose into the heavens, pulling with it a choked croak of terror from you. The sound could hardly be considered a shout, you resembled a frog more than you did a goat in the screaming department.
Demented cackling erupted behind you as you leapt forward and clutched your chest, swinging around to glower at the boy in utter disbelief. Twice now he had done this. Twice! Beside yourself, you rushed over towards him and smacked his arm repeatedly, which only fueled his laughter. “Dick!”
“Fuck!” Satoru heaved, reaching his whistle register. “Priceless! Oh, my god, you should have seen your face.”
“I’m gonna kill you!” The threat was far less menacing than you wanted when your own voice was as squeaky as his.
By the time he calmed down, you were both panting – you out of chagrin (and for the sake of your poor heart), and him to get precious oxygen back to his smooth brain.
“I’m serious about that, by the way,” you pouted at him. “I’m gonna kill you for scaring me. Again.”
He beamed at you and reached to pat your head, but was intercepted by your hand, only to dodge around it and manage to get a few head pats in anyway. “Sure you will, sweets.”
You growled and stomped a few steps away, stopped, then whirled back around when you remembered you had no idea where you were going. He simply crossed his arms over his chest and scrutinized you with that stupid, supercilious visage.
“Go on,” he encouraged eagerly. “Ask.”
The inside of your cheek was going to be sore from how much you were chewing it. You were at an impasse; let him win, or try to find his place on your own. With no idea what it looked like. Or what direction to even go.
You imagined you’d have better luck wearing a blindfold if you tried the latter option. Either way, he was going to win, you could acknowledge that. Conceding and requesting his continued guidance meant handing over his victory on a silver platter, or he’d get some decent entertainment out of watching you try to figure out where the hell he lived.
Gods, you were regretting moving here already.
“Show me how to get to your house,” you mumbled.
The tall freak fake-cooed at you. “Aww, come on, you can do better than that.”
If glouting could kill, you would be slow-roasting him over a grill. In the meekest voice you could manage, you muttered, “please.”
“Hmmm?” He canted closer towards you. “Didn’t quite catch that.”
You could feel your sanity draining like sand in an hourglass. Just to get it over with, you spoke properly. “Please show me how to get to your house.”
The jubilant grin he gave you had you reconsidering that blindfold idea you had. “Better! Good girl, come along, now.”
Oh, your insides could just melt.
No, you argued with yourself as you trailed behind him, reluctantly obedient. You are not getting horny over that, you sad sack of potatoes. You’re just pent up. A pretty boy calls you a good girl and you’re a sobbing mess under your pants.
Pathetic.
He whistled a sharp tune as he lazily led you, weaving around the architecture in such a way that you knew you never would have found the damn place on your own – or find your way back, for that matter. He was doing this on purpose to get you confused just to fuck with you, you knew it.
You were placing a lot of stock in him not being a murderer.
“Keep up, shortie,” he waved his fingers over his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”
Taking a (albeit mild) hike up a road traveling up the mountainside was not something you expected nor planned for. Now you were lamenting skipping gym. Not that participating more in exercise over a decade ago would help you currently, but at least you’d be able to believe you were stronger than this.
Satoru watched you with no small amount of amusement as you finally caught up to his still figure, lips curved. “Man, you suck at this.”
“I didn’t exactly study hiking in school,” you grumbled, closing your eyes and breathing deep.
“I’d hardly call a walk ‘hiking’,” he commented, and you wimpishly smacked his arm. “We gotta work on your stamina.”
You could hear the smirk and underlying innuendo without needing to see his stupid, handsome face.
“In your dreams, pretty boy,” you muttered.
“How do you know what I dream about?”
Your eyes popped open to glare at the man as he fluttered his lashes and pressed his fingers to his chest. “You’re a menace,” you scowled, ignoring his faux ‘innocence’ in favor of looking ahead.
And getting the wind utterly knocked out of you.
This grandiose mansion was where he lived?
Balking, you stared up at his house from beneath the arch of the moon gate in front of it, taking in the sheer magnitude and extravagance of it, even from just the outside. A variety of leafy trees, well trimmed bushes, and aromatic flowers decorated it in precise symmetry, each individual blade of grass nipped to preeminence.
There was a garden off to the left, freshly tended to and beautiful with a pond in the center. You couldn’t see what was in it, but you wouldn’t be surprised if koi fish were there as well.
A partially shaded gazebo stood on the other side, right next to a gentle creek that trickled leisurely. A stone table sat in the center, and you could imagine drinking tea in the early morning there, when the sun would hit it at the right angle to warm you up.
The aesthetic was prizewinning; a wonderful, skillful mix between traditional and modern, all incorporated into a house you thought could only exist in one of those style magazines.
How long had it been here? How had it been built so extravagantly? How much did it cost?
All these painfully curious questions, yet, the first thing you thought to say when you opened your mouth…
“You said it was nearby,” you pouted. “This is the other side of town.”
“Eh?” He glanced down at you. “Doesn’t seem that far to me.”
Your index finger flicked the outside of his thigh. “That’s because you’re a walking tree.”
Gojo slapped his thigh in the same spot, beaming at you. “These are good for a lot of things.”
“I’m sure,” the unamused deadpan you gave him had him snickering.
That shit-eating grin was back and he waggled his brows. “I could show you.”
“Pass,” you rolled your eyes, addressing his house instead. “Why is your house so far away from the village? Up the whole ass mountain and everything.”
He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Dunno. It was built here a long time ago. Obviously upgraded over the years, duh, but if I had to guess, it’s because of the hot spring. The rest of the village just built lower down the path for convenience, or they were intimidated by the Gojo name.”
“Hot spring?” You furrowed your brow.
Nonchalant as always, he nodded. “Yeah, there’s a natural hot spring in the backyard.”
“I’m sorry, did you just say you have a hot spring in your backyard?”
Being the rich boy that he was, he cocked his head to the side and spared you an inquisitive peek, as if to say ‘you don’t have one?’ “Yeah? You wanna see?”
“Uh, yes?” You gawked shamelessly.
Satoru grinned and beckoned for you to follow, and you skipped right along behind him, barely managing to remind yourself to hurriedly take off your shoes at the door. You had to force yourself to be careful and line them up neatly. You also used this chance to eye the obviously rich-people footwear. You wouldn’t hesitate to bet that one pair alone was worth more than one of your kidneys.
All worries of him being a potential monster dashed out the window as you let him lead you through the winding halls to a shoji door near the back of his house – you had to guess, you were not paying attention at all. You were too focused on the expensive decor and feeling way out of place.
The scenery that greeted you as soon as the door slid open had you stopping dead in your tracks in shere awe.
He hadn’t been lying, there really was a hot spring in his backyard. You couldn’t find it in yourself to care about his smug expression, mindlessly allowing him to gently push you forward with a hand to the small of your back.
“Close your mouth, you’ll start drooling,” he teased.
Your jaw clicked shut and you shot him a half-hearted glare before your attention returned to the pool of steaming water ahead of you.
The entire area was gorgeous, honestly. Round stone circles created a path along gravel from the engawa to the basin, which was surrounded mostly by rocks with plants growing between cracks and around the base here and there. Massive pines encompassed the entire area, giving you the sensation of safety and protection.
A trail on the side led somewhere else, winding between mounds of perfectly maintained green terra, though that was of insignificant interest to you at the moment.
An instruction was murmured against the shell of your ear, and you wordlessly and thoughtlessly obeyed. “Look up.”
“...Oh.”
High above, between the gaps in the trees, you had a prime view of the sky, spanning across the ring the forest created, deep and wondrous and so…clear. The brightest blue you had ever seen. If the moon got caught just right, exactly in the middle, you believed magic would happen.
The towering pines kept the area shaded and pleasantly cool, and you were swept away by the urge to sink into the hot spring and let everything else fade away.
When you lowered your chin to look at him, you found he was already gazing at you, his grin softened to a small upturn of his lips at the corners. He was just so…divine. Moonflower hair framed his face, cottony and fluffy, and though you couldn’t see his eyes clearly through the indigo tint of his shades, you could feel them. They were piercing, capable of seeing right through your skin and witnessing your heart beating as it stuttered and struggled to regain its footing.
The way he studied you felt so familiar.
An intense watch, pinned directly on you, making the hairs on your nape stand.
You yearned to see his hues without the barrier his dark, round glasses provided, and you wondered if they could rival those of the sky, or the gods’.
“Whatcha think?” He asked silkenly as he leaned forward and tilted his head to be closer to you.
“It’s beautiful,” you murmured in response without really thinking, the words flowing out of you without your conscious action. “It’s like a dream.”
You weren’t sure if you meant the eden you were brought to, or the heavenly being beside you. Either way, he smiled radiantly at you and nudged your shoulder lightly with his own.
“Wanna touch it?”
Your lashes fluttered as you tried to come back to yourself and not let your mind wander to places you could not reach. “The hot spring?”
“Mhmm.”
It took a considerable amount of effort to tear your eyes off of him and set them back on the cirque of water hidden beneath mist. Like a siren’s song, you slipped on the outdoor slippers nearby and stepped off the engawa, pacing along the stone path. It was smoother, flush with the terrain, unlike the haphazardous placements of the ones you had at your own home.
The pool was milky, tinted with a rich, capri shade, reminding you instantly of a lagoon, or a salt flat mirroring the zion above that went on as far as the eye could see. A miniscule waterfall trickled placidly from the highest outcropping, following the narrow and shallow path it had carved for itself over countless years.
You resisted the urge to cup it in your hands and drink it like sacred nectar.
At the edge, you knelt down and skimmed the tips of your fingers across the water’s surface. Goosebumps broke out across your arm and you shuddered inadvertently. Heat spread over your palm as steam coiled around you, surrounding you partially in a cocoon of warmth. The temperature bordered on the line between too hot and not enough finely, urging you to crawl beneath the water’s cusp and embrace the cradle of coziness.
“Good, isn’t it?” Gojo startled you as he spoke from where he knelt down next to you. He seemed to be proficient at scaring the shit out of you. This close, you could detect his attar clearly, and the last part of his unique fragrance finally fell into place.
Lemon.
He smelled like sweet lemons and mint.
“Yeah–” you squeaked, and cleared your throat to try again. “Yeah, it’s really nice. Like…perfect, actually.”
He snickered and dipped his hand into the diaphanous liquid, bringing it back up to splash it onto your arm. With a cry of mock offense, you splashed him right back, cracking up as you managed to get a decent scoop into his mouth.
You didn’t know what it was about him. Rightfully, you’d only been aware of each other for less than two hours, but it felt like you’d known him your whole life. The banter flowed easily, the games you hadn’t played since you were so young that you could only vaguely remember, the way he spoke to you, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
No heavy feelings sat on your chest, creaking the brittle bars of your ribcage, filling you with an innate sense of dread and desire to flee and never stop for a second. Nothing of the sort crossed your mind. No rock weighed in the pit of your stomach, no widow’s voice murmured in your ear.
It was just you and him, in a bubble of time where nothing and everything mattered all at once. Every breath you took was meaningless, yet held the weight of the world. Every twitch of his fingers could rest even the weariest souls, or rend the sky apart should he ever care to.
But he didn’t, and neither did you.
This pocket-sized domain of serenity you found yourself in brought forth dormant feelings of ease and comfort.
They didn’t feel like a mask painted on to cover the blooming, spreading bruises under your skin and behind your solar plexus. They didn’t feel like a temporary setup to sate your mind until the panic overwhelmed you all over again.
Rather, they composed a nest of the finest blankets you’d ever touched, let alone slept within. You wanted to crawl in and close your eyes and hibernate, sleep as life passed you by. You wanted to live in this moment forever.
The shoulder of his shirt grew damp where he rubbed his curled lips against it. “Kitty’s got claws, huh?”
“Fangs, too,” your nose scrunched up as you gave him a sly, Cheshire cat smile. “I’ll let you kill me if you let me use your hot spring first.”
“Deal.”
You snorted. “Not even gonna dispute it, huh?”
“I’m assuming the ‘kill’ part is optional here.”
“I won’t push my luck then,” you accepted as you stood up, shaking any excess moisture off your hand. Upon remembering Granny, you pulled out your phone from your purse, tsking at the 47% charge level in the top right corner, then glanced at the time. Midday.
Satoru peeped over your shoulder after he rose up. “Whatcha lookin’ at?”
“Time,” you replied, shooing him away to stop him from being nosy. Not that you really had anything worth hiding.
Most of the pictures on your phone were photos you’d taken of the outside world during your trips, random things that meant something at the time you snapped the pic, but meant absolutely zip now, or blurry images of animals that refused to stay still for you.
“Granny wanted me to explore the town to get more familiar with it, then stop by for lunch,” your phone locked with a click as you stuffed it back in your bag and continued your explanation.
He whistled. “Adopted by Granny, and on your first day, too? That’s impressive, means you’re special.”
“Eh?” Your brows furrowed in confusion. “Why? She seems like she’d be a nice person to everyone.”
He chuckled as you both headed back into his house. “Granny’s a prickly lady. Don’t get me wrong, she cares about everyone in the village,” he reassured you as he let you step in first and slid the door shut behind him, “but mostly in a ‘I-will-throw-my-shoe-at-you’ kind of way.”
“Huh,” that didn’t sound too far off from Granny, given what you knew, but you had also only met her that morning. “She gave me free food and told me she’ll have a list of handymen when I go back today.”
“Wow. She won’t even let me steal a candy bar from her store, and I’ve known her my whole life. Must mean you’re really special.”
“There’s a difference between buying and stealing, Gojo,” pausing in your steps, you frowned as contemplation came over you. “...Do you think she thinks I’m incompetent?”
“Probably.”
“Gojo!” You hissed at his lackadaisical response.
His hands raised in surrender. “Kidding, kidding! I think it just means she likes you. C’mon, I’ll show you around town.”
Following his actions, you tugged your shoes on while you thought aloud. “I didn’t even do anything. Walked around her store like an idiot and nearly ran into her.”
You stepped out of the house behind him, waiting for his response. You had expected him to laugh and indeed confirm that you were an idiot (which would be twice that day, if you were keeping proper track), or come up with another quip to taunt you with, but he was quiet, pondering something.
“You have this…aura about you,” he eventually responded. “You’re different.”
“In what way?” You approached the topic carefully, wondering if that was a good or bad thing.
His shoulders lifted and dropped. “Dunno, I’m not good with words. You’re just different. You’re easy to like.”
The incline down from his house back to the village was easier than going up it, a slow slope that followed a mild curve. The road was smooth, free of cars. Those you had seen were parked along the streets below, and not often used from what you could tell. The walk gave you time to consider his words.
You’d heard them before, but nobody ever clarified how you differed from others. He said you were likable, so you chose to believe he meant it in a good way. You’d try to pry more information out of him at some point to sate your cautious curiosity.
“How long have you been here?” You asked instead to change the topic, then winced, remembering that he mentioned his family had been here for a long time.
“Eh,” he tilted his hand side to side a few times. “Maybe 15 or so years, including my baby years.”
Oh. Turns out you were…wrong?
“You weren’t born here?”
“No, I was,” he corrected. Ah, so you were. “I just spent a few school years in Tokyo before returning not too long ago.” Sort of.
“Oh, I see,” mindlessly, you took his hand when he offered it to help you step over a gap at the bottom of the hill. His palm radiated warmth, one you missed when he pulled away and continued leading you along. “Why’d you come back?”
“Missed home.” Your gaze met his when he shot you a glance from over his shoulder. “What about you, sweets? Where'd ya come from?” Upon your answer, he nodded. “Came a long way to get here, huh?”
It’s probably best if I don’t tell him why I came here. Not yet. Not ever. “You could say that,” you responded, stopping when he did. You were grateful that he didn’t push the topic.
He pointed towards something, and you angled forward to see around his body, listening carefully as he explained what was where as he guided you through the winding streets.
“Doctor lives there,” you raised a brow at the full body shudder he experienced. “She can get scary when she’s mad. Otherwise, chill person.”
“Noted.”
While you were curious about the doctor of this village, you had no intention of meeting her by ending up in her clinic after doing something moronic, like tripping on those stupid stones outside your front door. Or walking in purely to introduce yourself. That’d be weird.
As he pointed out various family homes, stores, and miscellaneous locations, he listed off names you definitely weren't going to remember anytime soon. You found it endearing that he knew everyone and shared some tidbits of gossip with you – “Auntie Furiko lives there and she totally has a grudge against Mirio-san for stealing her man.” – and he even imparted some knowledge about a few historical places and things in the village, such as the bridge over the river having been built some 400-odd years ago.
“It was originally built as a passage that only allowed humans through,” he explained. “Back then, cursed spirits were a common thing, so the founders here created a path that had a sort of invisible wall that cursed spirits and objects couldn't get through. Like a curtain.”
“Huh,” you responded plainly as you examined the bridge. “Couldn't the spirits just go through the river?”
His candytuft hair fluffed as he shook his head. “The veil goes around the entire village, the bridge was just there for convenience's sake,” he cocked his head towards you. “But those are just legends and stories. There's plenty of tales about jujutsu sorcerers that could see the cursed spirits and eradicate them. Some people still believe cursed spirits and sorcerers are a thing, and blame disasters, like earthquakes and tsunamis, on them.”
You raised a curious expression. “Do you believe in that?”
Satoru shrugged. “To me, it’s like believing in ghosts or demons. Even if they are real, there's no way they'd beat me,” of course, he said that last bit with full-bodied, unadulterated confidence. “I'm the best.”
A fond snort escaped you. An egomaniac as a new friend(?), that seemed exactly like the kind of trouble you'd get yourself into.
Your eyes shifted over to peer at the Wayo Kenchiko edifice situated higher up, reminding you of the wonder you felt when you first saw it.
You turned fully towards it and tugged on Gojo’s shirt to draw his attention to it as well, your interest taking precedence as you regarded it. “Hey, what’s that?”
“Hm?” He followed your line of sight. “The temple?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s technically a shrine,” he clarified. “It was built when the settlers first got here, dedicated to the wolves of the mountains.”
You squinted at him. “Wolves?”
He nodded eagerly. You never would have guessed him to be somewhat of a history buff. “Yep. Wolves are like…guardian dogs. They’re long gone now, but way back then, it's said they hunted alongside the settlers. Wolves are seen as messengers for mountain gods, so people would pray to them for safety, good hunts, and good harvests.”
You nodded as you followed along. “So you guys primarily farm here, then?”
“More or less. Though we do get a lot of imported stuff from the neighboring city, like the things in Granny’s store. We do mostly exports there. It’s where a lot of the people in this village work.”
“Really?” You frowned slightly. “Isn’t that city, like…an hour or so from here?”
He acceded and tilted his head to the side. “Yeah, why?”
“Just seems like a far way to go for work.”
Gojo shrugged as he started walking again, leading you further into town. “Keeps our village alive and well. We gotta keep up with the times, ya know?”
“Suppose so,” you acquiesced. “What do you guys farm here?”
“Ehh, rice and soya, I think,” the teasing twist of his lips had you preemptively rolling your eyes. “Surprised you didn’t know that, girlie; moving to a new place you know nothing about seems risky.”
“I didn’t exactly spend my time digging into the dirt of every single person here, y’know.”
He snickered. “I have dirt on everyone. You want some gossip?”
You huffed. “I’d rather meet someone first before you air their dirty laundry to me. I wanna have an unbiased palate.”
“Oh, so you want to meet the people in this lil’ valley of ours?”
“No,” you replied automatically, then pressed your lips tightly together at your minor flub. “I meant– it’s not– I’m just not–”
His boisterous laughter cut you off, simultaneously making your eye twitch and relief flood you.
“Relax, pretty girl,” he patted your head and you scowled. “I’m just teasin’ ya.”
“I’m seriously going to kill you.”
“Cute,” he crooned, and you groaned.
By the time you two walked up to your kind-of-not-really-grandmother’s shop, you were starting to become familiar with this particular section of road. From here, you knew how to get ‘home’, something you were dreading a touch. You weren’t looking forward to seeing the catastrophe that awaited you.
“And this is where I leave you for now,” he stopped with you in front of the store.
You frowned minutely, an uncomfortable pang of disappointment settling in your chest. “You’re not coming in?”
“Nah,” Gojo shook his head. “Got stuff I need to do. I’ll have someone pick you up from your house later, once you get your stuff. Gimme your phone for a sec.”
Your brows knitted together as you pulled out your phone and unlocked it for him. His fingers grazed yours as you passed the device, causing you to shiver at the temperature difference. They were so warm – or maybe your hands were cold. The touch lingered on your skin, your mind clinging to the tiny wisp of sensation.
The screen of your phone coming back into your line of sight brought you back from mildly zoning out. Almost uncertain, you took it back from him and peered at the screen to see what he did.
You snorted.
He set up his own contact in your address book, making it extra flashy and everything, too. ✨❤️Satoru❤️✨ graced your sight, and you couldn’t help but feel like that wasn’t the first time he had done this, the flamboyant clown.
“There,” he grinned. “Text me when you’ve got your stuff from your place.”
Stuffing the device back into your purse, your moue returned. “You want me to bring my shit to your house?”
His brow raised in response. “Uh, yeah? Were you just gonna leave it in that drab hut?”
“Well, I just thought I’d get a room at an inn or something tomorrow, so I don’t have to bother you.”
The usually bright expression on Satoru’s face fell somewhat, his voice taking a earnest tone when he said your name. The back of your neck tingled at the chime of your name passing through his lips. “You’re not a bother. Seriously, I have more space than I know what to do with. You can stay at my place as long as you need, I insist.”
His change in demeanor threw you for a loop. There was something lying under the surface of his countenance, hidden under layers of a façade wrapped too tightly around his inner being for you to ever hope to see what was beneath. The switch from goofy to sincere struck you as odd, and while you could have jumped back on the ‘he’s a psycho’ train of thought, his insistence didn’t resemble that of a hunter panicking about losing his prey.
Rather, it stemmed from a genuine offer made out of concern for your wellbeing. Sure, he could have been hiding some intentions (he definitely was), but he did show you the path to his house, convoluted as it was, at least some of its interior, and even the hot spring carved behind it. When you mentioned Granny, he seemed amused, rather than worried, and showed you around these confusing and interesting backwoods.
Thinking about the whole mess you had gotten yourself into, what with buying a house in a province you knew nothing about, and your limited funds, an uneasy heaviness sat in your gut. If he was suggesting an option of solace and shelter while you figured your shit out, you had very few reasons to decline.
A bit too readily, perhaps, you set aside any preconceived notions you had about him being suspicious and nodded. “Alright. Thank you, Gojo.”
“Just Satoru is fine,” that smug visage returned, all earlier signs of sobriety fading as quickly as they came. He turned back towards the way you came from, waving over his shoulder lazily. “See ya later, sweets.”
You spied on him for a while, until he disappeared around a bend, and sighed. Considering everything that happened so far, you surmised you were in way over your head.
The doorbell to Granny’s store pinged a sweet tune as you stepped in, finding the familiar scene nearly untouched from before. The air inside was pleasantly cool compared to outside, encouraging you to relax.
“Granny?” You called out as you stepped further in, glancing down the first aisle. “Are you here?”
“Ah!” The woman you were searching for called out from a separate room, appearing through a door you hadn’t noticed at the back of the store before, carrying a bento box. “Perfect timing, I finished that list for you.”
She beckoned you towards her as she rounded the counter, setting the bento box down on top of it and digging around for something under the tabletop before straightening and holding out a sheet of paper for you to take. Your fingers closed around the yellow notebook sheet and you peered down at the writing.
You silently thanked her for having a neat hand, as you were a tad rusty on your hiragana.
A row of names spanned down the paper, along with numbers next to each one. She had also included their specific occupations, making your life that much easier.
“Those are some folks in this village that can help you out. Unfortunately, most of them work in the city, so I fear you might not be able to fix up your house so soon,” Granny noted solemnly as began untying the beautifully designed furoshiki wrapped around, presumably, your food. “Let me call up a friend to find you a place to stay for the time being.”
“Oh, n-no, it’s fine, Granny!” You raised your hands in front of you. “I actually found somewhere to stay.”
She raised a brow at you. “With whom?”
The nervous laugh you let out was meek and not very reassuring. “I, uh…ran into Gojo Satoru, and he offered to house me. I was gonna find an inn, but…’
A perturbed expression morphed her stern features. “Really? Little Satoru offered to house you?”
Little was a gnarly stretch on her part, considering Satoru easily dwarfed both of you. “Is that bad?”
Granny sighed and shook her head as she finished undoing the cloth. “Not necessarily. He’s a troublemaker, that one, but…well, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him invite someone who isn’t one of his close friends to stay with him before.”
“Huh,” Your lips curled downwards. Were you actually so unique that he treated you differently than others? “He’s a bit…” You fumbled with your words, trying to find the right description. “Dramatic, for lack of a better word, but he showed me around and said he’ll have someone pick me up later.”
Her movements had slowed as she kept her eyes on you while popping open the box, studying you. She grabbed the pair of chopsticks in the lid and held the food towards you, which you took without fuss and with a quick ‘thank you’. The length of silence was beginning to unsettle you, so you tried to cover it by taking a bite of the katsu she prepared for you.
And maybe groaning tacitly because, fuck, was it good. Astounding, otherworldly, you would bet easy money that no 5-star restaurant could compare to Granny’s cooking.
Eventually, she spoke again, albeit puzzling you. “It’s no wonder you caught their attention. You are a beautiful, bright young woman.”
Your chopsticks hovered mid-bite. “‘Their’?”
“Mhmm,” the older lady nodded and tsked fondly as she grabbed a hand towel and wiped down a portion of the already spotless surface under her hands. “There’s two of them.”
A pin could drop in the room and it’d be deafening with the silence created by your shock. “There’s two Gojo’s?”
Her amusement turned into full blown laughter. “No, but there might as well be.” she corrected herself. “Those two are stick at the hip–”
The jingle of the bell over the door and the call of someone cut her off. You turned to watch as an attractive woman with mid-length brunette hair stepped into the room, carrying a box in her arms. Were all the people in this town contemptuously stunning? “Granny, I got the–” she stopped promptly upon seeing you. “You’re new.”
You nodded and your pseudo-grandmother introduced you.
“I see,” the brown-haired girl said with a nod. “Well, nice to meet you. I’m Ieiri Shoko, your local doctor and mortician. Just call me Shoko.”
So, this was the doc– wait, what?
Your eyes widened. “...Mortician?”
“Correct,” Shoko grunted as she dropped the hefty box on the floor with a grunt. “Which means you shouldn’t do something stupid or piss me off unless you want to end up in my morgue.”
Now you had two reasons to fear her, counting Satoru’s warning. “Duly noted.”
Your gaze followed her as she reposed against the nearby wall, crossing her arms over her chest. “When’d you get in?”
“Last night.”
“Helluva place to settle,” she commented. “What brought you here of all options?”
Settle.
I’m not so sure about that.
You chewed another piece of katsu and swallowed before answering. “Population. I’m not a very big people-person.”
A smile lifted her lips and she exhaled through her nose. “You and me both, girl. If you wanna be as far away from mass civilization as possible, this is the best place to be. Second only to going nomad and living in a forest alone like a witch.”
She sighed wistfully, and you had the sneaking suspicion that part of her yearned for that kind of lifestyle. “Looks like you’ve thought about it before.”
“I have, but this town is full of idiots that need me, or they would have died a long time ago.”
“Shoko, be nice,” Granny scolded half-heartedly, though you could spot the amusement in her eyes.
“What? I’m not wrong,” Shoko averred as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
Just as she went to open it, Granny swatted her hands and gave her a scathing glare. “Not inside, Shoko. Really, go outside, at least.”
The doctor/mortician grumbled as she stuffed the box back where it came from, giving Granny a weak stink eye. “Anyways, welcome to this miniature province of ours, girl.”
“Thanks.”
“Mm,” she acknowledged, then began a lecture. “Avoid the west trail that goes past the village boundary and up the mountain. Nothing bad there, just has this weird smell to it. Probably haunted by some shit,” Shoko informed you. “Also muddy half the year. Grandma Ai can and will talk your ear off if you stop for more than a second. Good luck getting away from her if she ever catches you.”
You munched slowly as you listened to her advice intently. In any of the cities you stopped by, there weren’t really any communities – not like this, anyway – so you were fascinated by the dynamics these people displayed.
Yes, you were wary, sure, but learning about the town’s intricately interwoven families and neighbors didn’t mean you were getting close to anyone. If anything, it meant you could avoid attachments.
…Right?
Yes. Right.
“–Wednesday is trash collection day, but you might have to bring your trash closer into town if you’re too far out. Oh, and don’t go to the park on Thursday nights–”
You blinked yourself back into full awareness. Your safe haven the park was off limits now? “Wait, why?”
She humbled you with a deadpan that had you straightening your back, imploring you to obey. “Aoi and her boyfriend like to fuck there on Thursday nights.”
“Tch,” Granny clicked her tongue, glaring at Shoko. “Don’t be so crass. We have a guest.”
“Ah, don’t worry,” you waved off her concern. “I don’t mind. I appreciate the forewarning. Besides,” your lips curled into a playful smirk aimed towards Shoko, “I like when people are straightforward.”
She returned the grin with a sly one of her own. “You and I are gonna get along well.”
Similarly to Satoru, speaking to Shoko was easy. It felt like you were reconnecting with old friends – friends you knew when you were unfledged and barely remember anything about, but the link was there.
She nodded as your conversation concluded and pushed herself off the wall, evidently needing to return to where she came from. “Well, if you need me, you know where to– ah, wait, you don’t.”
Shoko patted down her body, presumably in search of her phone or a notepad, but you reassured her hastily. “No, it’s fine! I do, Gojo showed me around earlier.”
Her head whipped up so quickly, you worried she might have snapped it when you heard it crack. “Oh, god, you already met that idiot?”
The short laugh you let out was undignified. “Yep. He’s very noticeable.”
“You can say that again,” she grumbled. “Please don’t tell me he did something dumb and embarrassed himself, or weirded you out. Don’t pay attention to him, he’s just like that.”
“Well, he said I could stay at his place since the house I got is in…less than favorable condition.”
She stilled on the spot, her brows slowly coming together in a visage of utter confusion. “...What? He said you could stay with him?”
“Is he a murderer?” You questioned, only half joking. “I knew it.”
“No, no, he’s not, he’s just…” She turned her gaze to Granny. “Did you know about this?”
“I’m as surprised as you are,” Granny responded.
Your tummy shifted uneasily. “Is…that a bad thing?” You knew Granny said it wasn’t earlier, but you had to ask again.
“No, not really…” Shoko was not easing your nerves whatsoever. “Just unusual.”
“How come?”
She pulled her lips to the side in consideration. “Gojo Satoru is someone who…likes to hide things.”
“Oh, so he is a murderer.”
She demurred at your conclusion. “Last I checked, no. Regardless, he can be kind of a dick sometimes, so don’t take any of his more outlandish shit to heart, yeah?”
You bobbed your head loosely, your mind already off creating heinous conspiracy theories about your benefactor. “Yeah. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Mm, it’s no problem,” she approached you and held out her hand. “Gimme your phone, I’ll give you my number. You can text me if he tries to pull some shit with you.”
Getting a strong sense of déjà vu, you handed her your phone and watched as she punched in her number, then called her phone to get your number as well. Yours was back in your hands in record time, contact set to just her name.
“There. I gotta head off for now, it was nice to meet you, girl,” Shoko waved to you and Granny as she disappeared through the door.
Soft huffing from behind you had you peek at the woman. “What?”
“It’s nothing,” Granny appeased. “Just seems you’ve had an eventful first day here, no?”
“No kidding,” you mumbled, pouting when you saw that you had finished your food. She took the empty box from you, pleased by it being practically licked spotless. “Thank you, it was really delicious.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed your meal,” she nodded. She must have put a lot of effort into it.
A thought occurred to you then. “Granny, do you know where I could possibly get a job?”
She raised a brow at you. “You want to work?”
“Well, yeah,” you scratched your cheek. “I’d try to find a job online, or the city, but I don’t really know what kind of work I can get with the first option, and I don’t have a car or anything for the second one.”
Her fingers cupped her chin in consideration. “How about you work here?”
“In your store?”
“Yes,” Wait, that easily? “I could always use more hands here. I’m getting up there in age, and my hands ache often. You’d be helping me a lot.”
“Are you sure…?” You gave her a concerned mien, subconsciously flicking your eyes down to her hands. “I don’t wanna take from you more than I already have.”
Granny merely brushed away your worries. “Nonsense. I could use the company, too.”
Okay, now you were starting to get suspicious. Things were lining up too well.
Well, you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but considered keeping your guard up.
“Alright,” you agreed, if somewhat hesitant. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Granny’s expression was heartwarming. “Wonderful! How about you take a week or so to settle in, then you can come start when you’re ready?”
“Well, I can start sooner. If you need the help anyway.”
“How about a few days?”
Stubborn old lady, you loved her already. “Fine, a few days,” you conceded, soughing. “Thanks again for the food, Granny. And for the job. I should probably get my stuff from my place and bring it to Gojo’s. You’ll be okay?”
“Don’t worry about me, dear,” she shooed you away with her fingers. “Go on, now. I’ll see you soon.”
The warm air raised goosebumps up your arms as it swept over you upon leaving. It smelled distinctly sweet, a natural fragrance you quickly became fond of, enjoying it wholly during your walk back home. It had been shorter this time, the transition from defined road to coarse, packed dirt closer to town than you remembered it being.
What you were not fond of was your house, however. Your spite towards those stepping stones leading to the door growing worse as you avoided tripping over them again. The stench upon opening the front door also blew you back, making your entire face scrunch up.
“Why did I do this to myself,” you grumbled as you cynically walked in. Daylight made your perception so much worse. Every flaw was practically highlighted in bright, blaring white.
You mulled over convincing Satoru to just let you live with him and forget this damn thing ever existed to begin with.
Discovering your luggage where you left it, you cringed. It just kept getting worse. The floor was sticky everywhere. With what? Who knows. Did you want to know? Abso-fucking-lutely not. It took you less than a fraction of a second to decide to abandon your sleeping bag where it was.
Like hell were you going to peel it off the tacky wood, let alone use it again. Not like you needed to if you had somewhere to stay anyway, right?
Since when did you become such a wastrel?
Ugh.
With a shake of your head, you rescued your suitcase and luggage bag, letting them feel the same fresh air you could. It was the little things in life that made you so grateful for this pristine oxygen. And the bigger things in life that made you extra grateful, like Gojo Satoru and his stupidly large house.
Bless him for giving you the opportunity to sleep in an actual bed, rather than suffering in the outdoors. Him being a sneaky skunk notwithstanding.
Welp, here goes nothing. You tapped his contact, then the bubble under it. You were just going to assume he knew who was texting him.
This is the start of your conversation with ✨❤️Satoru❤️✨.
You, 16:24
Yo
Got my stuff
Alright, now you just wai–
✨❤️Satoru❤️✨, 16:24
(＾▽＾)
give it 10
The fuck.
Emoticon aside, the instant reply caught you off guard. Didn’t he say he had things to do? The day was just full of wonders, huh?
Ten minutes went by fast when you pulled up some random bad fanfiction to scroll through mindlessly. Your attention was drawn away from the half-written mess when a black sedan rolled up in front of your property, and you whistled low.
Why the hell was a rich boy like Satoru living in the sticks and not in some penthouse in the middle of Tokyo?
A spindly figure climbed out and bowed at you politely, hands clasped together in front of him. His voice was wispy, light and reserved. “Pleasure to meet you, miss. My name is Ijichi Kiyotaka, Gojo-san requested I bring you to his residence.”
Ah, he seemed so nervous. Poor guy.
You nodded, choosing not to comment on it. You were intimate with the feeling and didn’t like others pointing it out, you figured he wouldn’t, either. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I’m sorry for the trouble.”
He shook his head as he popped the trunk and helped you tuck away your luggage. “It’s no trouble at all. Though, admittedly, it is nice to not have to drive far out this time.”
“Oh?” You questioned as he opened the back door for you and oh, my, were those leather seats? The car was lavish both inside and out, and probably cost more than you and your shoddy lil’ shack combined. You waited until he got into the driver’s seat, taking the extra few seconds to admire the car that you definitely should not have been in as it was clearly too high class for you, before continuing. “Do you usually have to drive to the city?”
“Yes,” Ijichi confirmed, starting up the car with a smooth purr that you barely heard. Leave it to the wealthy to find the best of the best in any category, uncaring of prices. “I’m normally just a chauffeur for the Gojo household.”
You bobbed your head in understanding, peering out of the tinted window to watch everything move by. The traditional architecture was beautiful, something you admired. It made your house stick out a bit like a sore thumb, considering the more western design; you pondered why it was built like that.
The twisting road leading up the mountainside began and ended all too soon, the whole trip lasting less than 5 minutes total, your destination completed with Ijichi parking outside of the mansion.
Ever the gentleman (though, he might have been resolute in helping you with your belongings directly due to fear of some kind of punishment looming over his head), he took your things and led you into the house. “This way, please. I’ve already set up your room for you.”
“Oh, thank you,” you murmured, taking this chance to gawk at everything more properly. Frankly, it smelled rich inside, you didn’t want to think about how expensive even just the vase on the coffee table was.
The sliding of a door signaled your journey’s end. Ijichi bowed and ushered you inside first, though you kind of wished he went in before you, because you were positively floored and most definitely seemed like an idiot with your jaw hanging open. What the fuck? Satoru said this was a spare room? You were expecting maybe, oh, I don’t know, normal guest room things?
Not the epitome of a deluxe hotel for fuck’s sake. The room was at least twice the size of the one you slept in yesterday, the bed was glamorous (queen size, too, Christ), the bedding laid so nicely that you debated sleeping on the ground a second time, just to avoid messing it up. Especially because the fluffy rug at the foot of the frame was so downy, you wanted to drown in it.
There’s no way this was real. Someone had to have been playing a joke on you. You spun to watch Ijichi as he carefully set your suitcase and bag against the wall by the door, waiting for him to rip the proverbial, and likely not fluffy, rug from under your feet.
Instead, he bowed once more, eyes closed. “Should you need anything, you may call for me. The restroom and bathroom are on the right when you exit. Please, feel free to bathe, if you wish. Make yourself at home. Gojo-san is out right now, but will be back by evening.”
You barely stuttered out a semi-coherent thank-you as he left, sliding the door shut behind him and leaving you in this splendor.
Surely this was a joke. You dreaded the inevitable turn, expected the door to open to a cackling Gojo Satoru as he wheezed his lungs out and pulled some ‘I can’t believe you fell for it!’ bullshit.
But it didn’t happen.
For however long you stood there, staring holes through the closed entrance, nobody came to reveal this was all an elaborate joke, with you playing the unsuspecting and dumb victim. You laggardly let out the breath you had been holding and poked around the room with cautious hope. It really was spectacular, but you truly wondered how long Gojo would let you stay here.
By the gods, you were tired of thinking, though, and a shower would be heavenly. You could worry about everything after you were scrubbed dirt-free.
…Assuming you wouldn’t get jumped in the shower instead of the bedroom.
“You’re being paranoid,” you scolded yourself under your breath as you opened your suitcase to grab a change of clothes. But, really, could anyone blame you? You were sure someone else would have felt the exact same way you did.
Unless they were a professional freeloader or something.
Your soap and tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner were so sad compared to everything else around you. You should have checked if Granny’s store had any bath products.
The bathroom was just as luxurious and fully stocked as everything else in this damn estate. Dark, rich wood encompassed the room; a sink was to your left with a sparkling mirror above it, an open shower to your right towards the back, and the chef-d’œuvre of it all: the sunken bathtub at the end. A frosted glass window was situated behind it, shades partially lowered to allow natural light in through the bottom.
Fuck, you were so out of your depth.
But were you going to deny enjoying such riches at least once in your life? Hell no.
You turned to set your stuff down on the counter space by the sink, glancing towards the row of very expensive bottles of different types of cleansers lined up against the wall, and the note in front of them.
Grasping it, you saw it had your name on it, written by hand. You flipped it over to see the short message left behind.
These are yours, use them as you please
~Satoru ♥
Ohoho, fancy products you could only ever scowl at forlornly at the store whenever you saw them, fantasizing about using them, though ultimately being shunned by the price tag? Fuck feeling apprehensive, you were damn well going to use those and indulge in feeling and smelling like a queen.
You’d never stripped faster in your life. You barely had half a mind to fold your clothes somewhat neatly and set them on the counter, rather than scattering them all across the floor as you stumbled out of your socks and hopped to the shower on one foot.
Even the millions of knobs and stall-less design couldn’t deter your avidity, each one subjected to random twisting until you figured it out.
As soon as the bottles were on the recessed shelf under the showerhead, you loped under the hot water and groaned, planting your forehead against the cool wall whilst it poured down your back. You practically turned into putty, all your sore and tense muscles unwinding noticeably. The shower pointed out exactly how sleeping on the floor in your own house jacked up every part of your body, because ow.
You honestly believed you could stand there forever, reluctant to leave, but that bathtub was calling to you.
So you grabbed the body wash first and flipped it over to read the label.
Oatmeal and almonds. Mmmh sweet fuck, you could dissolve into a puddle. It smelled heavenly, and you were giddy out of your skin knowing you were about to smell like that, too. It felt so silky-smooth on your palm, the perfume automatically coating you as you rubbed it in and savored the sensation. You didn’t think you’d ever be able to go back to normal, poor-person soap without lamenting the loss of this.
You can’t miss what you don’t know, and boy were you going to miss this if you had to leave it behind. Satoru did say it was yours to use and keep, though, didn’t he? Maybe you could yoink them when your place was all fixed up and you had to leave.
Suds coated your body in a thick layer of iridescent, white bubbles, flowing down the planes and curves of your figure with the water, rinsing every bit of your body to superb asepsis. Your hair had never known such extravagance when your fingers glided right through your locks, leaving them soft and addicting to touch. You understood now how Satoru’s was that fluffy.
You wanted to touch his hair, too.
Shaking your head to shoo away any very wholesome thoughts, you squeezed the excess water from your hair and turned off the shower, shivering at the sudden chill now that the perpetually toasty mist wasn’t surrounding you anymore.
Careful to avoid slipping, you tip-toed over to the tub and knelt down beside it, reaching for the handles. Hot water burst forth from the tap, rushing to fill the basin, and you noted how deep it was, contemplating if your knees would peek out from the surface if you sat with them bent. You had to be extra vigilant to prevent falling asleep in it and drowning.
You could drown after you got to take a dip in the hot spring in the backyard. Of course, you’d prefer not having to drown at all, but if you had to choose, you’d opt for the hot spring.
Daydreams of swimming in it played behind your eyes as you sank into the tub with a delighted sigh. What tranquility, lucking out like this. You didn’t know what god to thank, if any, but you’d happily grovel on your hands and knees to show your immense gratitude. Just getting a chance to live (well, bathe) in splendor for a single day was enough to fulfill some innate, deep desire you had inside.
Now that you had a moment away from the hectic day, you let yourself recount everything that happened, and question how the hell you got here.
Not 24 hours ago, you had arrived, a poor fool that nearly kicked the bucket on your own front porch, and since then, you were sort of adopted by a grandmother that fed you instead of throwing her shoe at you, met an eccentric, wealthy man who took after a deity ripped straight from mythos, and landed yourself not only a place to stay, but a place with said deity.
“What the hell…” You mumbled to yourself as you lowered yourself until only your eyes remained above the water, blowing bubbles.
How did you get here?
Was this some sort of punishment? Give you a taste of the blest, then wrench it away from you? Karmic cruel and unusual castigation?
You grumbled underwater and lifted your head back up to breathe. Of course, you couldn’t help being paranoid, all of this was way too good to be true. Like some sort of game show–
Oh, god–
You sat up pin-straight and covered your chest, scanning the bathroom ceiling and walls for any hidden cameras. You scoured every surface, squinting extra hard to spot potential blinking lights or unusually-reflective circles.
Nada.
You went boneless, lounging against the back of the tub as you exhaled heavily.
You had probably been in the bath too long. Your fingers were starting to get pruny, and your brain all jumbled up with anxiety and skepticism.
Sluggishly, you pulled yourself out and dried off while the tub drained, pulling on your clean clothes with a relieved hum. You couldn’t remember the last time you treated yourself like this, if ever.
You heard someone speaking from beyond the hallway, so after dropping off your old clothes in your room, you ventured out through the living room, where you found none other than your savior, chatting away with someone on the phone. He turned to you and instantly lit up.
“Ha-hey!” Satoru grinned and waved you over after quickly ending his call, laughing through his greeting. “You got here safe?”
“Yeah,” you nodded, moving to sit beside him at the kitchen island. “Ijichi-san is good at his job.”
The towheaded boy snickered. “Good, or else I would have flicked his forehead.”
“So, you’re the reason he looks so anxious all the time,” you scolded him, then apologized. “Sorry, by the way. I didn’t mean to drag you out of your conversation.”
“Bah,” he brushed it off. “No big deal, wasn’t anything important. So, settling in okay? Seems you already got familiar with the soaps ‘n’ stuff I got you, yeah?”
You nodded eagerly, lifting your arm to sniff at your wrist. “They smell so good, where did you get them?”
He planted his chin on his palm. “Nowhere you can afford.”
Your eyes narrowed into a sharp, unamused glare. “Wow, thanks.”
His cheeks crinkled his hues, and you realized he was still wearing his shades indoors. The glare of the sun no longer turned them into mirrors, allowing you to partially see through them, but the deep ocean hue of the lenses prevented you from deciphering the exact color of his irises.
What an abnormal choice of glasses. You knew people wore circular shades – they made them for a reason – but all the people you’d seen wearing them could never pull off the style.
Satoru was different, though. They suited him flawlessly; refined and dignified, yet boyish at the same time, just like the bearer.
“Let me know when you run out,” he said. “I’ll get you more.”
You jolted in surprise. “Oh! No, no, it’s fine! I’d feel bad using them all up, I don’t want to imagine the price tag…”
He pouted at you. “Why? You saw the note I left you, didn’t you? They’re yours, I got them specifically so you could use them.”
You worried your bottom lip. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t do anything I’m not sure of.”
Well, that’s all you needed to concede. “Alright. Thank you, I like them a lot.”
His moue instantly turned into a brilliant, cheek-aching smile. “I’m glad! Had me worried I picked the wrong stuff.”
His giddiness was contagious, making you giggle. “No! Not at all, I’m just– I’ve never seen the brand before.” It being a Japanese brand notwithstanding.
“Well, duh,” he rolled his eyes as he hopped off his stool and sauntered over to the fridge. “They don’t sell this kind of stuff in normal stores.”
“Where’d you get them from, then?”
“Made Ijichi fetch ‘em.”
You sighed heavily. “Poor guy. You work him to the bone, don’t you?”
He humphed as he withdrew something from the fridge – bento boxes, you recognized. He placed one down in front of you, and took his spot at the island back. “He’s fine. Gets paid well. It’s not like I make him go to the city for every little whim I have.”
You huffed as you pulled off the lid to your box, your mouth instantly salivating at the food within. You barely had the conscious thought left to clap your hands and murmur ‘itadakimasu’, as well as mentally slap yourself when you recalled that you had forgotten to do the same with Granny.
You were able to restrain the moan of delight this time, unlike in front of the old lady, but damn was it hard to.
“Fuck…”
Gojo cackled beside you. “It’s good, I know.”
“Who made this?” You questioned, hand covering your mouth as you chewed. Ijichi must have been a good chef, too.
The man gave you a cocky smirk. “I did.”
…Hah?
You regarded him flatly, disbelieving. “Funny.”
“I’m serious!” He glowered. “Is it so hard to believe I can cook?”
“A little,” you confessed around a bite of sausage. “Rich boys don’t usually know how to cook.”
His gaze pierced directly through you, brooding as he stuffed his mouth. “I’m never gonna cook for you again, just for that.”
Oh, so he was gonna do that?
Hm, might as well play along.
You set down your chopsticks and turned to face him, slapping your hands together as you lowered your head to beseech his mercy. “Please, O’ Honored One, Gojo Satoru-sama! Forgive this witch her foolish words!”
He lifted his chin, judging you through his round shades with the pretense of a king adjudicating his subject’s worth. A few seconds passed before he nodded in approval. “Better. You’re forgiven.”
“Yay,” you laughed, immediately going back to eating. “It is really good though, thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” he responded, virtually inhaling his serving – not that you were any better.
“Where’d you learn how to cook?”
He swallowed and paused, speaking a fraction softer. “My mom taught me.”
Maybe a touchy subject. You noted it as something to not approach, instead choosing to compliment them both. “She taught you well.”
The boxes were empty in the blink of an eye, and you were both saying ‘gochisousama’ with a satisfying puff.
He grabbed the chopsticks and both boxes, placing them in the sink and filling them with water. “So you did research Japan a bit, eh? Knowing our customs.”
“I believe it comes with the territory of learning the language, yes,” you hopped off the stool, reclining against the counter. You winced minutely when your spine popped.
“How long have you been speaking Japanese?”
“Ehh,” you tilted your hand diagonally a few times. “I learned it a while back. I was studying abroad at the time. Didn’t really know it’d come in handy now, though.”
He dried off his hands with the hand towel nearby and cocked his head to the side. “Oh? You weren’t planning to move here?”
“Not…really,” you shrugged and rubbed the back of your neck. You had to tip-toe this line of conversation carefully.
He grinned, leaning forward to meet your gaze head-on as if he had just hit some sort of jackpot. “So you are running from something after all.” Fuck. “Well? What is it? Mafia?” No. “Loan sharks?” No. “Robbed somethin’ big?” No. “Exes?”
…Sort of.
“Let’s go with exes.”
“You’re quite the mysterious woman,” he chuckled low, voice taking on an evil little rasp. “Makes me wanna open you up.”
You batted your eyes, your brain lagging as your cheeks heated up because what the fuck, real men weren’t supposed to be this hot, and you were not supposed to be this asthenic in the knees just because he had a handsome face and an absurdly attractive voice that decided to say the most deviant shit.
“And you’re a terrible, terrible man, Gojo Satoru,” you admonished to cover your nonplussed emotions.
“Mhm, mhm,” he nodded in complete agreement. “I’m a terrible, terrible man that decided to take you in out of the goodness of my heart.”
You sighed. “You’re going to use that against me, aren’t you.”
“Absolutely, I’m never letting you live this down.”
You stuck your tongue out at him, earning yourself a smirk hidden poorly behind an offended scoff. An oddly domestic sentiment perched in your center, just beneath your breastbone. A decent meal and the slow end to an intense day had you yawning behind the back of your hand.
He yawned after you, the action infectious, and moped like a kid that wasn’t ready to go to bed.
The emotional weight of everything was coming down on you, and you craved for nothing more than to pass the fuck out under those incredibly plush and cozy looking blankets.
“Think that’s our cue,” you grumbled and rubbed the corner of your eye with your knuckle. “Or mine, anyway. I’m ready to conk out and sleep for, like, a century.”
He chuckled lazily, the noise husky and low. It wasn’t particularly late, no, but you felt like you’d been struck with a bus filled with mental and physical tax collected over a great deal of time. He waved you off, turning to strut down the hall opposite of the one you came through, and left you with a still cheery farewell.
Finally.
You well-nigh sprinted back to your room to nab your toiletries and sped through your simple nightly routine, impatient and antsy to dive into that queen-sized mattress. It’s not that you disliked Gojo’s company, quite the opposite, actually, but you were tired.
Usually, you tried to put off sleep until your body gave out in the early hours before morning, uncaring for the dreams that inevitably spawned, no matter how little or how much sleep you got.
But now?
Those sheets were hailing you.
You couldn’t brush your teeth quick enough. Your face was practically still damp with your moisturizer as you dived under the duvet and keened. You’d never known such opulence in your life.
Your legs kicked with glee as you snuggled in, squeaking and curling on your side and clutching the fabric of the blanket tightly in your hands to ensure it went nowhere while you pranced around in dreamland. Heaven. Pure and simple. Heaven with the fragrance of new pin laundry and your body wash, that held your head on the coziest lap, that hugged your form and incontinently coaxed you under the waves of hypnotic slumbering.
Comfort surrounded you. The mattress underneath you was the ideal level of firmness, the blankets were warm without being overbearingly hot, and being in such a neat environment swiftly lulled you into a far easier and more satisfying sleep than you’ve had in a long time.
banner by cafekitsune ♥
#Tether Me#jjk x reader#gojo x reader#satoru x reader#gojo satoru x reader#satoru gojo x reader#geto x reader#suguru x reader#geto suguru x reader#suguru geto x reader#satosugu x reader#chimera writes
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I WISH YOU LOVE ! - reminiscing with gun.
(cant catch me now series). GUN VER. dg ver. goo ver
they see you everywhere. james, jonggun, joongoo. they find bits and pieces of you lying around in their pockets, their houses and memories. it depends on which one it is which scene they see you in.
for GUN, he cant figure out for the life of anyone why they would wish someone that moved on in life the best of luck. he was a selfish man. when you disappeared from him, he mutters bitterly to himself wishing curses upon your name. the tear drops on the letter you wrote to him being the symbolism behind it all.
why would he want you to do well without him? why did you have to leave him?
did you not care as much as you said you did? he furrows his eyebrow. taking another drag out of his cigarette while he watches the stupid couple on the street pick out matching items for each other.
"jonggun! jonggun! look come here! hurry up!" you hiss at him as you press your face against the glass of a window. it was the pet adoption center. a calico cat taking a nap in the window as you cood at it.
that was the ugliest cat hes ever seen. it's eyes looked a bit too similar to the one you always give him when you want him to do something ridiculous for you.
"its cute" he gruffly says. you raise an eyebrow at him and made a face "youre a big fat liar. when we grow old with joongoo and james! we should all get a cat together!"
you giggle as you wiggled your finger at the cat. your breath fogging up the glass and when you pulled away he could see a slight bit of lipgloss- or lip tint- or whatever you were wearing on your lips that left it all glossy and shimmery left on the window.
he didnt say anything about it. he probably shouldve. you left the window dirty with your makeup. the same lips he imagined himself kissing from to time.
he thinks again. gun is a selfish man. when he read the letter you gave him, he thinks to himself for a far longer period of time than what he would appreciate.
he picks up the small camera you left behind in your apartment. he kept it with him for some reason. it was to keep videos and photos of yourself so he wont forget all of the times hes had with you.
"gun stop! stop! stop- what in the world happened here?!" your voice can be heard from behind the camera. the camera work a bit shaky as you walk closer to the restaurant.
there were a lot of bodies on the floor. a lot. "did you take them all down by yourself?" you ask him. you already knew the answer. he didnt need to respond but he did "yes"
you let out a deep sigh "this was supposed to be a cute video! you just ruined it. i wanted to send my mom and dad videos of me while im still here!"
you never sent it. he almost wished you did. so your parents knew what your friends were in korea. gangsters hanging out with the most.. sane one. sane is a strong word. hed think more like you were the glue.
you held everyone together, but at the same time. you were the one keeping them in the past.
that wasnt what he thought as he read your note though.
while he reading the shaky lines with splotchy text. the tears you left on the paper made it all crumbly and the words were hard to read.
he could only wish you the worst time without him. you better not be happier than you were with him. thats how you made him feel. he felt like the vines growing around the fence around you. his growth was hindered by the boundaries you had. if you werent there, he wouldve probably never grown in the first place, but you were also the reason he couldnt get better.
even as he read the lines 'jongun, you are the one who destroyed me the most.' he felt a small smile come to his face. he really is the most selfish person he knew.
sooooo... im here. I DID THE SECONDPARTY YIPPEE 😋😋 is it messy idk
i havent proof read so im assuming its ok. if its ooc mb brother.
their personalities are hard to capture anyways live laufh love the lookism blondes <3 the hottest in the game frl
#lookism scenarios#lookism#lookism x reader#lookism fluff#gun lookism#gun x reader#park jonggun#jonggun x reader
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High school sweethearts x Billy Hargrove x female reader
7 years after everyone left Hawkins high, Jonathan and Nancy hosted a reunion for the old gang. The last time they saw you was during your rocky relationship with Billy during high school, now 7 years have passed and the question on everyone’s lips is ‘are you two still together?”
Warnings: alcohol, the reader and Billy having a slightly toxic relationship in high school, the starcourt mall incident is mentioned in detail
A/N: I’ve received my first request, I hope that you enjoy it. They requested a fic where Billy and the reader use to fight a lot in high school, there’s a reunion and the reader shows up pregnant and married to Billy, Dustin teases Steve as he used to have a crush on you. I had so much fun writing this. I’m from the U.K. sorry if it sounds overly British in some parts. Apologies for all spelling and grammatical mistakes as I’m super dyslexic, enjoy
Johnathan passed a glass of Chardonnay towards Nancy who was sat on their worn out brown leather couch, deeply engaged in her conversation with Robin.
Robin grew her hair down to her shoulders since she graduated Hawkins high, choosing to run as far away from Hawkins as she possibly could, but on her salary it wasn’t very far. She lived with her girlfriend Vicki in a suburban neighbourhood, with one of those white picket fence and all that other bullshit you see in Hollywood movies, only instead of kids they were the proud parents of a grey tabby cat called Freddy. Their neighbours adored them both, but then again Vicki knew that the way to peoples hearts was through their stomachs and her homemade brownies was a sure hit. Their neighbours claimed that they envied their friendship for they were as close as close can be, which caused Robin to splutter out brownie crumbs over Mrs Robinson’s pearly white table cloth. Robin was glad that she could live out the rest of her days surrounded by the woman she loved, far enough so that her parents don’t catch them two in a compromising position for robin’s parents seriously lacked boundaries, but near enough so she could visit (annoy) Steve.
“Thanks babe” Nancy smiled taking the glass from Jonathan’s hands, placing a tender kiss on his cheek.
The light caught the shiny stone that was placed upon her left hand, it shone brightly on the silver band it was situated upon.
“Jonathan it was about time, you had no idea how many nights I heard Nance complain about the lack of ring on her finger-“ Robin’s words that clearly didn’t pass through the filter that laid between her brain and her mouth, was cut short by Nancy shushing her cringing as her cheeks flushed scarlet red.
“Oh was she now?” He questioned, sitting beside his fiancé placing his arm around her shoulder, smirking as he brought his beer bottle to his lips.
“Erm” Robin stuttered bringing her own beer to her mouth to stop her from landing herself into more hot water.
“This dude” Argyle laughed patting Jonathan too hard on the back that it made his beer slosh around in its bottle, which caused Nancy to momentarily glare at Argyle for the last thing she wanted right now was to scrub out a beer stain from her cream carpet.
“This dude had that pretty little diamond ring kept away in his closet for months, like honestly I’m not even engaged to the beautiful Nance but I was freaking the fuck out, if he wasn’t going to ask her I felt like I should”
“Dude!”
Argyle held his hands up in defence, while Jonathan buried his head within his slightly regretting ask Argyle to be his best man.
Argyle still worked at surfer boy’s pizza but this time he was promoted to manager. Argyle liked a stress free simple life, as long as he had enough money to pay his bills and to buy weed he couldn’t be happier, plus he had access to all the pizza he could eat.
The Byers/ Wheelers high school reunion wasn’t supposed to be about their engagement but when Jonathan took his damn time to pop the question, the events almost intertwined.
“I mean it could be worse, you could be a certain you know who” Robin added swigging her bottle back, she choked on the liquid as she realised what she had just said. Her and her stupid mouth
“Robin!” Nancy hissed at her friend
——————————————————————————
Yours and Billy’s relationship throughout high school was rocky to say the least, in fact it was turbulent. You two were both at each other’s throats, it was if you both made a game who would piss each other off the most. The amount of times you both called it quits only to wind up in each other’s beds and arms a few days later, it was nauseating to witness the dizzy game of back and forth between you both.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now!” You screamed, your eyes narrowing capturing Billy in a deathly glare, your nostrils flaring as you tried not to act upon your instinct to punch him right in his fucking perfect face
The cheerleader who was momentarily against his side scurried off not wanting to be caught in the crossfire of your fiery argument.
“It’s not what you think princess”
“Oh really? Then enlighten me Billy, why the fuck was Sophie just hanging off your arm!” You spat glaring daggers into his skin.
“You’re being over dramatic princess-“
“Oh I’m being over dramatic! Fuck you Billy we’re over!” You shrieked throwing the necklace that he brought you on your one year anniversary at his feet. You turned your back to him with tears burning at your eyes threatening to spill.
Robin placed her arm around you dragging you away before you did something you’d regret, but she wouldn’t of blamed you if you planted a punch against his jaw.
“Y/N” billy called after you
“You dare step a foot near her again you’re fucking dead!” Nancy threatened turning on her heels, walking towards Robin who was comforting a very distressed Y/N.
That weekend was spent crying your eyes out on Nancy’s bed, while the girls did their best to comfort you, trying their hardest to conceal the fact that they were secretly overjoyed that you two had called it quits. Just hoping that it was for real this time.
‘Y/N you left your - oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” Nancy groaned upon seeing the all too familiar boy kissing you passionately in the parking lot
Robin gritted her teeth in such a force it was surprising that her jaw didn’t shatter upon impact, trying her hardest to conceal her frustration.
They both loved you dearly but seeing you back in the arms of that jerk really pushed their patience . Like the past weekend that they had just spent picking up the pieces he left meant nothing.
“I’m done with him and I mean it”
“Honey I love you but you say this every single time” Nancy groaned placing a soggy cafeteria fry into her mouth.
“I agree with Nance, Y/N he treats you like shit! You’re a beautiful girl who deserves the world and someone who can adore the ground you walk upon. But honey he isn’t it, I know you love him but you have to call it quits” Robin pitifully smiled towards your direction as she awkwardly rubbed her hand against your back. Really she wanted to scream at you to ditch the loser but she was trying her damn hardest to bite her tongue
—————————————————————————
“Y/N is coming tonight, dude you have to say something to her” Dustin suggested taking a long sip of his beer
“Okay A, it’s still weird that you can drink now! And B, okay just because she’s coming doesn’t mean that’s she’s available. I mean have you seen how attached at the hip she was with billy?”
“You’re kidding right? Hello her and Billy were arguing so much to the point that we all had to take a trip to the nurses office with our killer headaches. She’s now 27 I doubt she has the time for his immature bullshit. So what do you say king Stevie, you ready to save your princess from her tower?” Eddie smirked, elbowing Steve in his ribs while Dustin laughed at the sudden change in colour in Steve’s cheeks
“Shut up” Steve mumbled taking a swig from his bottle, suddenly finding the floor very fascinating to look at. Wishing that the floor would open up a wormhole that would swallow him whole, away from his friends who are finding enjoyment in his embarrassment.
“Aww is Stevie blushing?”
“You have it so hard for her” Dustin snorted which was soon cut short by Steve’s death stare
“I hate you both” he groaned rolling his eyes at the two men in front of him.
“One Rocky road please” ordered a radiant Y/N, she look awe inspiringly beautiful with her cherry coloured lips.
Steve was freaking the fuck out, I mean it’s Y/N for Christ sake. The same girl from his English class who looked effortlessly beautiful without her trying, it’s like she never had a bad day even if she tried. Now she was inches away from him, damn scoops ahoy for making him where this damn sailor suit.
“The lady has great taste” smirked Steve trying his best at being flirtatious, despite Robin telling him that his attempt of a smoulder made him look constipated.
You took the cone from his hands, about to reach into your pocket for the cash to pay-
“It’s on the house”
“Oh thanks” you smiled in disbelief over this kind gesture “you’re Steve right? I’m Y/N we have English together”
“That we do” you turned to leave, smiling at him again to thank him for the free ice cream. He watched you go cursing himself for not plucking up the courage to ask for your number, Robin is definitely going to add a line on the ‘you suck’ tally, Steve swears that he can already hear her laughing at his misfortune.
Steve felt his heart drop as he watched you from the parlour window. As who should place their arm around your shoulder? No other than Billy Hargrove, Steve’s worst enemy in the whole of Hawkins high. The one who took his keg king title away from him but now his crush too!
Steve could feel the anger burning his skin as he watched the blonde haired boy placing a kiss on your lips.
Damn you Billy Hargrove!
So Steve admired you from afar, every time he saw you walk into class wearing Billy’s jacket with a turtleneck that rolled down slightly when you leant forward revealing a hickey, feeling like a bullet to his heart as he wish it was him taking you out on dates marking your skin to show everyone that you’re his. From the fiery arguments he overheard in the halls and the time you showed up to scoops ahoy with mascara staining your cheeks while Robin comforted you in the stock room. He knew one thing, that you were too good for an asshole like Billy.
But nothing could prepare Steve for seeing you both at prom. You and Billy looked vomit inducingly cute, you wore a scarlet floor length silk dress that complimented your every curve, while Billy wore a shirt in the same colour with most of the buttons undone showing off his rippling abs. Your wrist adorned a corsage of red roses and the ring on your finger caught the light like a disco ball. Showing off to the whole school your promise ring, that you are his and wanted to spend the rest of your life with him and only him, no matter how much of the school didn’t believed in your relationship, but you did and that’s all that matters.
His arms wrapped around your waist while you had yours tightly wrapped around his shoulders, your bodies pressed close together, holding each other close while you swayed to a slow song. Soft smiles spreading across your faces.
This killed Steve as he watched from the ends of the room, watching you be happy with him was torture. But if you were happy that was all that matters, and maybe he could be happy to accept that too?
When Steve graduated his parents brought him a house on the outskirts of town, he still continued to work at family video. Steve didn’t need to work with the whole rich parent thing, but he enjoyed the routine of his job and it was a chance to flirt (failing to do so) with the customers as his quest to find someone still continues. Yes he had a few flings here and there but with his disaster of his dating life he was starting to question if love was for him.
He busied himself in his work and keeping his the friendships he made . He had Robin who practically was still attached at his hip, they had regular movie nights ending up in too much beer, getting unbelievably drunk
and him having to apologise to Vicki for having to pick up her very drunken girlfriend. Steve regularly visited Eddie at the hideout not missing a single concert, corroded coffin was really taking off, attracting a large audience and last time Steve heard they were in talks with an agent. And Dustin practically lived at his when he visited from college in the holidays .
Steve must admit it felt weird standing in the kitchen of his ex girlfriend’s house who’s now engaged to someone who once had beaten him up, but when you have spent the last few years hunting down monsters most only believed exist in fiction, weird felt almost like the norm to him.
Mike and Will stood engaged in conversation leaning against a wall, Mike throwing the occasional glance to his girlfriend El who sat in the corner playing with Jonathan’s and Nancy’s puppy Lilly. For the party was getting a little too overwhelming for her and she decided that dogs were better than people, smiling at the small bundle of fluff that was curled up in her lap. Since she left Hawkins she finally felt at peace with her powers after gaining them back and not having a monster wanting to kill her for them nearly every year, and Mike became better at communicating his love for her and never fails to remember to add ‘love Mike’ at the end of all of his letters.
Max arrived to the party with Lucas following behind her, Lucas gave his girlfriend a quick kiss on the cheek before greeting Mike and Will.
“I missed you” El beamed at Max as she slid down next to her handing her a can of soda. Popping the tab and taking a long sip. Max and El were the only sober ones of the party for El didn’t like the taste and disliked the way it made her feel, and Max refused to touch the stuff after the way her mom used to drink herself to sleep. Max recently got her license so she was more than happy to be her boyfriend’s designated driver.
“You too el” max smiled scratching the pup behind the ears that slept peacefully on El’s lap.
—————————————————————————
The clock read out 7pm you were officially an hour late. Everyone was starting to become increasingly concerned that you weren’t going to show.
Nancy and Robin felt a small pang of guilt eating away at them slowly for losing contact with you over the years. Not that it was intentional, when you left for college and then moved house as soon as you graduated they forgotten your number. It wasn’t till Nancy saw Max at the grocery store not long returning from college , she asked about you and Max said that she still had your number.
Maybe you hated her for loosing contact with you, believing it to be personal and didn’t want to show?
The knock at the door brought the pair out of their guilt induced downwards spiral.
Racing towards the door the women practically threw themselves towards the wooden frame, squealing in delight as if they were still in high school. Their old best friend was behind the door and they couldn’t wait to catch up with you over the years they had missed. Wondering if anything has changed, maybe you dyed your hair or got that tattoo you were always talking about?
Flinging open the door the two gasped when they saw you
“Oh my god congratulations!” Nancy screamed out in excitement seeing your stomach that was carrying your second child. Pregnancy suited you for you were practically glowing, you looked happy and they couldn’t be happier for you as you deserved that over your shitty high school experience.
“Thank you” you chuckled as Robin enclosed you in such a tight embrace you momentarily struggled to breathe.
“Robin careful of the baby!” Nancy scoffed slightly slapping Robin’s arm as she finally let you breathe
“I missed you guys”
“And we missed you, we promise that we’re never going to lose touch again. I’m going to be the best auntie Robin to your child” Robin joked, you couldn’t help but beam with joy at your old friends.
It has been 7 years since you last saw them both, but at this moment in time it was like you were all transported to the good old high school days. It felt like nothing had changed when so much had.
“So who’s the lucky guy?”
“My husband-“
“You’re married!” Nancy gasped, a small part of her was disappointed that she wasn’t able to attend it, but you were here now and could hopefully be able to attend hers.
“Auntie Max” called out a childlike voice, as a small girl ran into the house towards where Max was sitting
“Hey tiger” Max smiled picking up the girl and twirling her around in the air, smiling adoringly at the girl who was letting out high pitch squeals of laughter.
Wait auntie Max? That means? Wait what?
Robin and Nancy exchanged perplexed looks, their brows furrowed heavily as they tried to process what they just heard.
The commotion attracted the attention of the three men in the kitchen, who all looked just as bewildered as Robin and Nancy. That means that you’re still together with Billy, you were actually married to him and not only had one child with him but two!
It really should be obvious as little Kelly had the same sandy messy curls as her farther, completed with his piercing ocean eyes. But everything else resembled about her a mini you, for she shared your nose and face shape, she was the perfect combination of you both.
“No fucking way” Eddie whispered with wide eyes as Billy appeared from behind you gently kissing you on the cheek.
Billy hadn’t aged a day since he graduated high school, you both packed and moved to California where he worked part time as a mechanic at the local garage, and weekends he taught people how to surf. Determined to provide enough for his family and to be the farther he never had to Kelly and to baby Dean who was on the way.
While you taught English at a high school, quickly becoming your students favourite, as they said in their own words that you made the boring dusty books that the curriculum required you to teach actually fun. Well at least you did before you took maternity leave, now you were back in Hawkins to stay with Max and Lucas for a few days which subsequently led you to be invited to the Byers and Wheelers high school reunion.
You felt the anxiety bringing up the bile up your throat on the car ride there, every little thing was making you nauseous nowadays. Last week it was Billy’s cologne which ended up with him buying a new one which didn’t make you want to projectile vomit all over the place, pregnancy was the most rewarding and yet the worst thing you ever had to experience. All you wanted was the chance to be able to not have these raging headaches and to relax with a glass of wine sitting in your favourite jeans before they stopped fitting you.
“It’s going to be okay” Billy soothed placing his hand on your thigh rubbing small circles to calm your racing mind, which felt like it was racing at a dizzying fast speed.
“I love you”
“Love you too princess”
——————————————————————————
Robin, Nancy, Eddie, Steve and Dustin all gathered in the doorway between the lounge and the kitchen all looking at Billy in complete bewilderment. From what they last remembered of Billy was that he was quite possibly biggest asshole that they ever had the displeasure to have met, a rude, arrogant dick who had a habit of hurting their friend at any given opportunity. Now he was sitting on the couch with the three year old on his knee, she was giggling at her farther as he was dancing her bear in front of her face talking in silly made up voices. Safe to say that they were all utterly speechless, who would of thought that Billy Hargrove would be such a doting farther?
Kelly was very shy over so many new faces, so she wanted to be close to her dad. She definitely was a daddy’s girl.
“Hey” Argyle softly spoke capturing the three year olds attention, she looked at the new face with a timid smile. Argyle has a warming loveable presence which enticed the small child. “I’m Argyle what’s your name sweetie?”
“Kelly” she spoke shyly
“What a rad name”
In a few minutes Argyle pretty much adopted her like he was her fun uncle, leaving Billy and Y/N to actually catch up with the people attending the party.
—————————————————————————-
Having your body controlled and your life nearly snatched away in a matter of seconds made Billy realise a lot of things. One of them was that he couldn’t lose you, for you are the best thing to have ever happen to him. He acted like a dick to you but in reality he was scared of how much he loved you, it was easier for Billy to turn to his default setting of anger rather than to show this foreign emotion that felt almost uncomfortable to show.
But seeing you clutch his body so close to your heart that felt like it was breaking as each second passed by. You thought that you were going to lose the love of your life.
“Don’t you dare leave me, hang on baby please” you begged, your voice breaking into a strangled cry. Not caring that his blood was staining your clothes, for you needed to hold him close to you. Praying to whoever was listening to save him for you couldn’t live if he was gone.
They say that before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, Billy saw all the times he hurt you, all the tears he made you cry over the way he treated you. He couldn’t let you have these memories of him to live on when he was long gone, deciding in that moment when his lungs tightened slowing down his breathing, if he was going to make it he was going to do whatever it takes to make things right as he couldn’t lose you.
Billy started to break down his many walls that protected his damaged heart around you, he started to communicate his feelings and not hold them in till they burst out and he says something that he later regretted. Once he was out of the hospital he started to see the school counselor, he begrudgingly dragged his ass their every week, he hated attending every damn session where he was forced to talk about his shitty upbringing but Billy is doing whatever it took to make your relationship work. He was determined to do whatever it takes not to fuck up again as much as it scared him to say he loves you, he truly loves you and couldn’t afford to let you go.
Billy knew that you were going to be the one he was going to marry since the first day he laid eyes on you , yes you still fought but at least it was about small menial things that could be easily talked through, but now your relationship was stronger than ever.
Now there was no good and bad, it was just good and you both couldn’t be happier. Billy adored the ground you walked upon, he cared for you in every way he possibly could. He brought you flowers every Friday and you felt truly loved and adored by him, not this bittersweet lustful romance you experienced in high school. This now was true love, Billy was a great farther and a great husband doing all the old romantic cliches but you loved him for it.
Everyone in the party once didn’t believe in your relationship, thinking and wishing that it’d all be over soon to save the heartache for all of you. But seeing the way he looked at you with doting eyes, like you were the most beautiful woman ever created, they all admitted that they were wrong for it was clear to see that he loved you and you loved him.
A/N: I had so much fun writing this and I hope that you liked it , my requests are always open is you want me to write a fic based on any idea you have. Also Argyle gives me fun uncle vibes and El definitely would befriend the host’s pet.
@kayleigh--23
#stranger things fanfic#stranger things fanfiction#stranger things imagine#stranger things billy#billy hargrove#billy hargrove x you#billy hargrove imagine#billy hargrove x female reader#billy hargrove x reader#billy hargrove x y/n
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Pranks
(Content Warning: Transformation, Birth, Egg Laying)
“Stop being such a wimp, it’s a harmless prank!”
My friends stood across from me, smirking. This was something we’d been planning for months, and yet now it seemed… wrong, dangerous in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Oh sure, it has been easy, fun to talk about. All a big joke, but in my head I could still tell myself it was all just a big game. I could reassure myself, think it was just a thought exercise, nothing anyone else really wanted to follow through with.
Now though… we were really in front of her farm. The one people talked about in whispers, the one ran by the old ugly woman that was only seen in town around the fall seasons. She never hired any help, never came to the farmer’s markets, never seemed to socialize. All the old farmer would do is glare at everyone she hobbled past, jabbing them with her walking stick when they got in her way, paying for various supplies with money nobody knew how she got.
Of course such strange, hostile behavior would lead to rumors. It didn’t help that nobody had ever seen her working her fields, and yet always had incredible yields come harvest. With becoming a local myth comes a certain degree of people like us wanting to poke the tiger, to discover the truth, certain we’d be ok, find something nobody else had.
The plan was simple. Sneak onto the property, make our way to her barn. Throw some paint over some of her animals as a “costume” for halloween and then get out. And if we looked around for some clues as to how she was managing the farm all on her own, what was the harm of that? And really, what could she do? The cops wouldn’t do much even if she called them, and its not like she would shoot us.
Terra rolled her eyes and walked toward the low fence marking the boundary of the old woman’s farm. “Seriously, you all are so lame sometimes, I don’t get why I hang out with you.” With that, the blonde girl hopped over the barrier with little effort, turning and holding her arms out to show that she was alright. “See? I didn’t evaporate or explode or something. Now come on, lets get this over with.”
Eve was the next one over, a little less gracefully but still without any injury. “Come on, Becca! We don’t have all night, the longer we take the more likely we’ll get caught!” I couldn’t deny the logic of that. Pushing my glasses up my nose, I exhaled slowly, and then hoisted myself over the fence to join my friends. This was it. I was really doing my first real prank. There was no going back.
We crept as quietly as possible with our bag full of paint, wincing at the occasional dull clunk, until we were just outside of the large barn. Quickly, Eve moved to the door and heaved it open enough for us to slip through. She’d always been the biggest of us, sort of the brawn of our trio to my brains and Terra’s beauty. She grinned excitedly as we all entered, and she pulled the door shut behind us.
The bags landed on the ground with a clunk, and Terra clapped with delight. “I can’t believe we’re really doing this!” she whispered, before grabbing a can and carrying it toward some of the sad-looking livestock. One of the cows forlornly moo’d at her, blinking slowly as she approached. “God, look at them. So bloated and gross. Only good for pushing out babies and making milk. Could you imagine having to live as one of them?”
I forced a chuckle, trying not to seem as nervous as I was as I began to look around. “Personally, I think chickens are worse.” I said, only half paying attention as I saw a stall that didn’t have any animals in it and went to investigate. It was right by the front, it’s odd that she’d just keep it completely empty. Maybe supplies? “All they do is lay eggs. Even if it’s not as painful as, like, birth, I can’t imagine how awful it would be. And their cloacas are so gross.”
I drew closer, pulled the stall door open. There was a desk littered with papers, words and pictures jumbled all over. “Pigs.” Terra smirked, grabbing a can of her own. “Nasty, smelly, stupid little hooves. Not strong, not fast, not good looking. The worst of every world, seriously. The only way Pigs aren’t average are all the ways they suck extra hard.”
This was weird. Most of this stuff wasn’t in english, in fact it seemed to be a lot of runes and such. This didn’t make any sense. There was a splash and a distressed bellow from a cow, followed by another gush of liquid and upset squealing from the porcine victims. The paint can for me was left unused as I continued to try to understand what I was looking at. Circles and pentagrams, ingredient lists, strange steps to lengthy rituals. Things labeled “Grant Fertility” and “Animate Plant”. Hand signs, chants…
I stepped back, eyes darting around, my spine tingling with sudden fear. “Uh… girls? I think… something is wrong here.” I turned, walked out of the stall, turning toward my friends. “This isn’t normal. All this stuff… it’s like she’s some kind of sorceress, or enchantress, or…”
“Witch, actually, is what I prefer. Thank you very much.”
I spun around as my friends jumped. There, in front of the door, it hadn’t even moved. She was hunched over, elderly, grinning wide. She made a hand sign, whispered a phrase in a language I didn’t understand, and then… darkness.
) —-------
Everything felt wrong.
My skin was tingling as my eyes slowly opened. I whimpered at the discomfort as I rolled over, finding myself in a large bare patch of the field, nothing but dirt under me. Well… dirt and symbols, coating the ground in a strange dark substance around me. They ended at a wide circle, surrounding me but giving me room to be laid on the ground without touching the edges. To either side of me, making their own pained moans of waking, were Terra and Eve, contained in their own strange circles.
I opened my mouth to answer, but all that came out was a moan as I held my middle. Something was happening, a pressure building inside me. I whimpered, panting, my body feeling overheated as, under my palm, I felt my pubic mound growing firm. Starting to round ever so subtly, barely pressing out before it went away.
Judging from the confused sounds and whimpers of discomfort from nearby, my friends had just gone through similar growth spurts of their own. This didn’t make any sense… my mind was putting pieces together but I refused them, wouldn’t let myself accept what I’d just felt.
“Ah, you’ve woken up. Good, good. I always enjoy it when they’re awake for the good bits.” The tone was filled with malicious mirth, the voice creaky and cold. Looking up, I saw her. The… the witch. God, this was real, wasn’t it? She really was a witch. Could she have done something to us?
“I noticed you seem to have been curious about my livestock. My spells were all shuffled around, thought I wouldn’t notice, did you? I won’t bother asking who you are or who sent you. I’m sure you’ll deny it, lying and insisting you don’t know what I’m talking about. ‘We’re just from the town, we were just exploring, please let us go home!’ Oh yes, I’ve heard it all before. And that suits me just fine, if I’m being honest. You see, I can show you everything you could want to know!”
I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her she had it all wrong. Instead, I grunted, gasping as sweat beaded on my forehead. Once more, the skin of my palm pulled away from the center, and I whimpered as my middle started to push forward, slowly, subtly, once more. “What’s happening to me?!” Terra begged, voice watery with panic.
The witch cackled, eyes gleaming in delight. “Oh darling, you’re to be congratulated! You see, you’re expecting, all three of you! Buns in the oven, such a magical experience!” Eve grunted, gritting her teeth, before saying “I can’t be pregnant. Never had sex. Oh god!” Her rebuttal was stopped by another growth spurt from inside, my own burden seeming to react. My skirt was too tight, digging into my expanding midriff, the pressure of unwanted life developing rapidly within only getting worse.
“We can’t be pregnant… I can’t have a baby!” Terra sobbed, panic taking hold. It was impossible, yet… my chest was aching. My hips were sore. I definitely FELT pregnant. I could only assume, as I looked down at the belly slowly peeking out from under my shirt, and seeing how far along my friends were, that I looked pretty pregnant too. “You really can, dear.” the crone smirked, delighting in our distress. “Just a bit of magic to help your body along, and these little ones took root just fine. You’ll be in labor within the hour, if even that. Can you believe it, girls? You’re going to give birth soon. Oh, I wonder how you’ll scream and cry, especially considering the little surprise that’s going to come with it…”
Heat coursed through me. The growth came in surges. All I could do was try to endure, painting and whimpering in discomfort as I rapidly gestated a child I was nowhere mentally prepared for. I was going to have a baby… Did this make me a mom? Did this count as rape? Nothing made sense. This couldn’t be real, it couldn’t.
My friends endured their own conditions much less quietly than me. Terra was melting down, trying to burst out of her circle, only to find an invisible barrier there. She slammed her fists against it, begging to be let out, even as she hunched forward, groaning as another spurt took her, the moans seeming to slowly get lower, deeper. Eve, meanwhile, kept grunting, the sudden surges of gestation apparently painful for her as they got more guttural and rippling. She just knelt, watching her belly swell in helpless horror. She’d told me years ago that she had been terrified at the idea that someone could just… make her pregnant, if they wanted to, if she was unlucky. Now that nightmare was coming true.
I, meanwhile, watched my little bump continue to grow into a fertile swell. Strechmarks began to form near the back, my navel was nudged into an outie. The others whimpered and gasped, talking about sudden kicks from inside, but I didn’t feel anything. Just ever more pressure. Maybe it was because my belly seemed to be growing slower than the other two? Poor Terra seemed huge, barely able to move as her feccund orb just wouldn’t stop growing, and Eve was noticeably larger than me as well.
“Wonderful. It’s almost time. You are quite the lovely group of mother-to-be’s. You should be proud of yourselves, you’re about to have your very first babies. Isn’t that wonderful?” The witch couldn’t hide the cruel glee in her voice, seeing how her words only upset us further. It’s not like we could do anything about it. We were trapped, as much by our own unwanted fertility as her magic. This was happening, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
Another surge took me, different than the others. My eyes went wide as my womb squeezed, contracting. The pressure spiked horribly, and then released. To my shame, fluid ran out of me, soaking my panties. My first contraction… my waters… I knew what that meant. It was time. I was going to give birth for this horrid woman, no matter how much I hated it.
“Oh God no, no no, I can’t, I can’t do this!” Terra cried, the crotch of her jeans dark and a damp patch of dirt under her. “Please no… I don’t want a baby, please don’t make me have a baby!” Eve in turn whispered, the terror of her impotence, the delivery inevitable washing over her. I wanted to comfort her. To tell her it was going to be ok.
The contraction took me as I opened my mouth to speak, and all that came out was a cry of agony, the need to push slamming through my mind, washing almost everything else away. Just the need to bear down, and… the feeling of wrongness on my skin. No… not on it. In it. And as I parted my legs, leaning back on my hands, feet curled under me as I bore down… I felt something else coming out. Something that was even worse than this burden I’d been forced to carry.
I could feel that this labor, my giving in and pushing, was giving it power. Making it even worse. But I couldn’t resist, couldn’t stop. Whatever this twisted essence was doing to me, it was just as inevitable now as me giving birth for the witch. “Hmmm, here it comes… oh, I wonder who will realize first…” The cruel magician smirked, delighting in our pain and violation.
Something slipped down. Moving inside me. Firm, smaller than I feared, but larger than I could believe. I gave in, pushing with the pain. I was in labor, and every fiber of my being just needed whatever life I had been growing inside me to get out, as fast as possible. Yet, as I pushed… Something else came. My fingers hurt, throbbing, burning, along with my toes. I fell forward, onto my hands and knees.
Tears blurred my vision, but I still saw it. As I pushed, my fingers twitched of their own accord. Pushing together. Pressing into one another unnaturally hard the more I felt whatever was inside me inching down, toward my damp opening. Then, before my eyes… on my right hand. My middle and index fingers. They just… melded. It hurt so much. The flesh searing, feeling like my hand was melting. The skin glistened with sweat, and yet it was impossible to unsee. There were four fingers on my right hand now.
Another contraction came. I screamed with effort, shaking my head in denial, panic rising in my throat as those four fingers painfully became three. MY feet burned, throbbed inside their shoes and socks, and I could feel the bubbling, popping agony of my left foot losing a toe to whatever was happening to me.
“My nails! God it hurts!” Terra moaned from next to me. Looking over, I saw something similar, but different was happening to her. Her fingernails had turned a deep black, and seemed to have thickened. Even as I watched, another contraction came, and as she pushed it seemed that the dark mass almost seemed to be… expanding. Pushing back into her fingers, further than normal.
Eve let out a squeal of horror. “My back! It’s so bad! Make it stop!” I turned, and saw the poor girl’s jeans starting to bulge. Something else was coming, the strain was too high to be her vagina, the magically created baby starting to crown against her will. No, this was somehow more distressing, something impossible. “It’s pushing! This can’t be happening!”
I felt the need to give birth crash over me once more, resisting it for even a second impossible. I pushed, giving my all to getting this thing out of me, and to my horror my right hand screamed in pain as the rest of my fingers melded, nails clacking to the ground, a formless lump of flesh on the end of my arm. My left foot throbbed, my ankle screaming as it felt like the bone had somehow broken, pressing at the skin from inside, threatening to tear out.
There were mere moments to catch my breath, and then I lost myself to the pain and urgency once more. I watched my mutated hand widen, flatten… my elbow starting to ache… the skin itching, burning, until… Something sprouted. Tiny little wisps pushed out of the skin, growing and unfurling into…
“Feathers!” the witch crowed in delight. “Oh my, can you put together the pieces now? You seem like the smartest of the bunch!” I shook my head, not because I couldn’t figure it out. It was all too obvious. No, I shook my head in denial of the horrifying reality. Not wanting to believe this. Not wanting this to be my inescapable fate. I felt a scream bubbling up my throat. It was so big, so much… I couldn’t hold it back, even though I felt like I had to.
The next squeezing cramp it. I threw my head back, pushed with all my might as I felt my vagina bulge, pressing into my soaking wet panties, my firstborn just behind my lips. I had to let it out. I had to let it happen. I opened my mouth to scream.
“Buh-GAWK!”
A shudder ran through my body. That sound… I had just broken some kind of seal. Given into something I had needed to fight. I had just made this inescapable, I could feel it. There was nothing I could do now, and deep down I knew it was my fault.
By leting that bestial sound free, I knew I had made it so I would live the rest of my life as a chicken.
There would be no cure now. No fixing it. No going back. Ever. It was coming out of me, taking over my body, my life, and I would be trapped forever. I let out a choked sob, feeling what I now knew, beyond any doubt, to be an egg, a chicken egg, pressing into my underwear. The first of many.
My vagina burned as I began to crown. Feathers ran down my transformed arm, pushing painfully out of the skin, my bones cracking painfully as they hollowed, began to bend and twist into new shapes. Becoming a wing. A chicken’s wing.
Terra screamed. She held her hands in front of her face, horrified. Her nails. They had grown more, overcoming her fingertips, eating back into her hands. Her fingers had seemingly begun fusing together, and I could hear the crunches and pops of her bones beaking, being crushed and absorbed by this mass.
“No…” the blonde girl panted, placing her hands on the ground. “Noooo…” she groaned, seemingly bearing down with her next contractions. “N-n-noooooo, please…” she managed, as her feet bust out of her shoes, a mangled dark mass of her former toes being warped into their new, permanent shape. “M… M… MOOOOOO!!!”
I saw the soon-to-be cow’s eyes go wide. She knew now, just as I did. That she was about to give birth to an ugly calf. That her body was about to agonizingly mutate into a cow. That she would never escape this life. The one she had mocked before, said sounded like the worst possible thing.
Likewise, grunting and squealing came from Eve. Her curly tail ripped through her pants. Her hands crunched and snapped as they turned into delicate trotters. Her voice began to change as, slowly, her nose began to curl up, nostrils widening, skull starting to elongate.
My own shoes began to bulge, and on the next contraction, they split. A blood-covered toe extended from my mangled ankle, while only three remained on the front. I couldn’t stop pushing, but to my relief, the first egg slipped out of me, bulging into my panties. I felt it slide down, over my sensitive vagina, nudging my clit as I shuddered. I’d just laid an egg. This was my baby. I felt so wrong, so violated, even as my other hand began to meld together.
Another animalistic bellow from Terra drew my attention, and with a smirk the witch twitched a finger, the poor girl’s shirt tearing away. Her breasts were exposed, and it was easy to see they were sinking lower as another pair began to bulge into existence just above her waistband. “That’s right… You’re growing an udder… and a tail… You’re going to be an ugly cow. I do so love ruining the pretty ones…” the vile farmer grinned, loving the misery she’d caused.
The new breasts fused with the old ones as they reached her groin, engorging into a grotesque pink sack, bulging with milk. “Good girls… mmm,none of you need these silly things, do you?” With a wave of her hand, the witch banished our clothing, leaving our warped, twisting bodies utterly vulnerable. “Just let the changes take you… push out your babies so you can join the others in the barn, I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you…”
I wanted to curse her. I wanted to tell her to go to hell. Instead, another shrill “BAWWWK!” escaped as I threw my head back once more, feeling, to my horror, as my girlhood began to move. It pulled back, further and further, directly between my legs, then further still. It burned, throbbed, as I felt it beginning to merge with my rear. The muscle and skin searing as the two openings became one humiliating, disgusting hole.
I could barely pay attention to the others, as my next egg slid out of me and plopped softly onto the ground, my legs starting to turn scaly and crunch their way up into my abdomen. I saw Terra’s increasingly thick, leathery vagina bulging, little hooves starting to peek out from inside her. I saw Eve’s face extend into the snout of a pig, her ears growing floppy even as mine vanished into my skull.
My eyes became small and beady as Terra’s became large and sad. My teeth itched, and I screamed in horror as they fused, a beak bulging out from the inside of my mouth as my nose fused into the rest of my face, glasses falling into the first alongside the eggs that had been sliding out of my foul, sore opening. One piglet slid from inside my porcine friend, tears running down her face as it nuzzled up to her and latched even as its unwanted sibling began to crown.
With a desperate bellow, the now fully cow felt her first calf slide unceremoniously out of her and onto the ground, head hanging low in shame as it came and suckled at her humiliating udder. The others were done as I shrank, my fleshy comb bubbling up from the feathers… I couldn’t stop, the eggs just kept coming. I couldn’t stop pushing, delivering, each one hurting just as much as the first.
This was going to be my life now. All our lives.
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Frameless Glass Fencing Spigots The Best Way to Secure Your Pool.
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Shadow Monster w/ Duff McKagan
She stuck to the shadows because who would want to see her in the light of day? Her face was a reminder of a bad thing that had happened to a good person. A scared little girl who had gotten attacked by the big bad wolf. His claw marks tore open her pale skin, leaving jagged scars on her face that people stared at for too long or flinched away from.
Once upon a time she was pretty. But now she was a monster. So she stayed in the shadows to avoid becoming someone else's nightmare.
As much as she stalked in the inky void of shadows, trying to avoid being the prey to someone else she had a predator following after her. His eyes hunting her as she moved along in quick bursts to escape sight, sticking to alleyways and fence lines that blocked her from view.
But he saw her.
He always saw her.
“Found you little darkness.” he threw down the cigarette, his car creeping along as she moved, headphones over her ears, hood pulled up to block out anyone from seeing her.
But Duff saw her. He always saw her.
They dubbed her little red riding hood in the papers. The girl with strawberry hair in eyes so big, brown with gold specks that stared at whoever had snapped the picture outside of court. She was only 18 years old and her eyes were endless pools of broken promises and pain. Duff had seen her, the case had taken over the media. Her mother had married someone who was more monster than man. He had attacked her, chained her up and beat her within an inch of her life. She had escaped through a window in the basement that had been broken by neighborhood kids playing a game of baseball. But as she tried to crawl out of the jagged broken space he had caught her ankle, dragging her through the sharp glass.
Her screams caught the attention of the kids hunting for their baseball. One of them had a cop for a father and she had been rescued within minutes after months of dark, dank basement.
Her freedom should have made her happy but Duff watched his obsession shrink and shrink, lurking with the nightmares in the dark. He had some sense of need to protect her, an obsession some would say to follow her around. Make sure she made it from the small boutique back home. Make sure her library books were returned on time. Change out the milk in her fridge so she didn’t eat anything bad, add a few boxes of pasta to her stash, replace the butter because she hates red sauce. Small things she noticed and appreciated but never questioned.
She thought she was crazy because even though she stuck to the shadows she was still afraid of the dark.
Duff waited outside her apartment, watched the light come on and her shadows moving around the place, checking for monsters that he had already cast out, before he climbed up the fire escape, taking up his perch outside her bedroom to peek in and make sure she was all set.
He had been bolder today.
And he watched her notice. Watched the way her hand touched the yellow tulip with the tip of her finger, stroking its petal with a look of confusion on her face. He had wanted to bring a little sunlight to her gloom. Give her a gift.
Once he had approached her on the street, tried to talk to her and introduce himself but it’s hard to let someone scared of showing her face let her know she’s the most beautiful girl in the world.
So he had to do this. Small little things to make her know that she was his soulmate.
Her fingers touched the card he had left for her, her eyes reading line by line.
‘I’m here when you’re ready’
Her hands trembled, the hood falling from her face as her scars came into view. Duff watched the way she sat hard on the bed, her back to him so he couldn’t see her beauty.
“Are you here?” she asked into the empty room, looking at the closet like he was going to come out of that. But he had boundaries. He wasn't going to come in uninvited when she was awake.
“Yes.” he whispered but it was loud enough for her to turn, sharply as she raised her hood, hiding from him as their eyes met through the window.
Her breathing was heavy, watching him like a caged animal waiting for him to attack her but Duff was here to love her, not to scare her anymore. He held up his hands, waiting for her to make a move.
She stood, moving towards the window, not opening the glass but it was so thin he could hear her from between the panes.
“You’re the man from the library. The one who said I was…” she couldn’t say the words.
“Beautiful.” he answered, not taking his eyes off of her. “You’re beautiful, Amara.” Her eyes blinked, her hands on the hood as she looked at him, trying to make sense of what this man was doing here.
Doug. Dan. Dally.
What was his name?
He was stalking her. She realized that. ALl the little things that had made her feel insane starting to make sense as this blonde man with eyes that were too kind stared through her window. He had called her beautiful before and he wasn't flinching away as he called her beautiful now.
Maybe she was a fetish to him.
She lowered her hood, watching the way his eyes stayed on hers. Not the scar. No flinching. Just her.
“Why me?” she whispered. She had fallen into the attention of a man who was supposed to protect her and love her mother. Had been hurt by the attention of someone else before and now here this stranger was, following her as she tried to hide in the shadows. Trying to bring life and light to her darkness.
“Because the first time I saw your picture and looked into your eyes I knew you were it for me, little darkness. I knew that I never wanted to see another bad thing happen to you. I wanted to be the sunshine to your rain, the stars to your night, the light to your life.” He wasn’t scared to tell her how enraptured he was with her, “I’ve followed you to make sure you’re safe. I’ve changed your smoke alarm batteries, made your bed when you forget in the morning, and even took the mouse out of the trap before you saw it. I just want to be there for you.” His hand reached out, touching the window glass.
Would she let him in?
“Do you watch me when I sleep?” He didn’t look away as he nodded his head, not ashamed of it. “WIll you watch over me tonight? I’m tired and scared.” She admitted it to him as he watched her, licking his dry lips as he nodded.
“I’ll always watch over you. You’re safe.” She nodded her head, kicking off her shoes as she climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over her, eyes on Duff’s as she watched him.
Her stalker.
Her eyes started drifting closed.
Or maybe he was the nightlight she needed to feel safe to sleep at night.
#duff mckagan imagine#duff mckagan fluff#duff mckagan x reader#duff mckagan fan fiction#duff mckagan fanfic#duff mckagan fanfiction#duff gnr#duff McKagan#guns n roses fan fiction#gnr fan fiction
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White Light | Part VII
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Pairing: Ghost!Aaron Taylor-Johnson x Black!Reader
Warnings: Language, mentions of previously un shown sex, mentions of blood and death
Word Count: 2K
Summary: Some questions get answered. But what comes next?
[Part I] | [Part II] | [Part III] | [Part IV] | [Part V] | [Part VI] | [☁Masterpost ☁] | [♫The Crimson Zombies Mixtape ♫]
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
It was nearly one in the afternoon, and you were just waking up.
You couldn't remember the details of the dream you had. You just remember darkness and the eerie sound of shallow breathing. You couldn't quite place where it was coming from. It felt like it was all around you, no matter how much you turned.
And then you felt kisses trailing down the valley of your back. You could hear the chirping of birds and peeked open one eye to bright sunlight peeking through the blinds.
In the back of your mind, you could still hear the shallow breaths. But they were quickly pushed away by the feeling of calloused fingers gently tracing circles into your shoulder blades.
You felt your cheeks warm up at the memory of the night before. Two thoughts crossed your mind at once: First, you crossed a major boundary and you knew there would be consequences. Nature would have your ass on a platter. Second, you felt so much weaker. It wasn't quite the same level of hungover you felt the last time, but you felt like you could barely move. Like all the energy had been pulled from you.
You remembered hearing his heartbeat. You felt his pulse thrum under the delicate skin of his throat when you pulled him in for a deep kiss. And you could remember the grip of his hands on you when he got down on his knees and buried his head between your thighs. You glanced over at the windowsill, noting the lonely wine glass and chipped paint and acknowledging the macabre irony of fucking a man in the same spot he died.
You felt...off.
"How did you get this scar?" Aaron suddenly asked. His voice had a subtle gruffness to it, like he'd just woken up from sleep.
"I cut myself on a fence when I was a kid," you explained after clearing your throat, "I was riding a scooter and I fell into the fence wiring."
He sucked air between his teeth, empathetically.
"Ouch." He paused for a beat and then said, "I remember seeing kids and their Razor scooters riding all over the city. Started outnumbering skateboards at one point."
You giggled, "You sound like an old man."
He ran his fingers along your back as if they were the strings of an acoustic guitar, pausing only to chuckle at your teasing.
"I'm supposed to be an old man, technically." You turned just in time to watch as Aaron stretched out beside you on your bed like he'd worked a 12 hour shift and hadn't slept in years. Your eyes lingered on new scars that you hadn't noticed before, decorating his elbows and fists. You noticed a few birthmarks along his torso, and you reached out to touch them.
He felt warm.
It was fascinating watching the way he seemed to navigate the space like nothing was wrong. Like he wasn't permanently stuck in 2003, and like he hadn't died at all. Maybe it was all an illusion. A trick of the mind. Or you were dreaming.
"Do you ever think about the fact that there was period when we were alive at the same time?" You suddenly said.
He didn't say anything, but he let out a low hum in thought. It was the first time it ever occured to either of you that you could've crossed paths at least once before.
"I'd like to think that in another life," he admitted, "you'd probably run into me in the street somewhere."
You couldn't help the grin that pulled at your lips, "You'd probably be an absolute DILF in that alternate timeline."
He laughed. It was the liveliest laugh you'd ever heard from him which surprised you, but caused a giggle to bubble out of you. His bright eyes crinkled in the corners, and you swore you could see joy radiating from every inch of his face.
"What's so funny?"
"I just didn't expect you to say that."
You reached over to push his hair away from his forehead, "I'm just surprised you know what the term DILF means, considering you're old and all."
Aaron rolled his eyes, "I know what MILF means. I can use context clues. I'm not that old."
You yawned, tucking your hand under your cheek on your pillow, "Okay, grandpa."
He watched you curiously as you meandered around the apartment over the course of the day. You looked exhausted. You had a muted exuberance about you that concerned him. And as he reached out to rub your shoulder, he was surprised at cool your skin was.
"Are you alright?"
"Mhm," you mumbled, "just tired."
It'd been well over an hour since you slowly pulled yourself out of bed and started your day. You seemed completely out of it. You pulled your book and laptop from the shelf and slowly shuffled back over to your bedside desk. He wandered to the window, leaning against the ledge and looking you over with concern.
"So are we just not gonna talk about what happened?" He asked, crossing his arms.
You rested your head in your hand, keeping your attention on your notebook.
"We fucked," you said plainly, "I don't know how it happened. But it did. Somehow you're corporeal form is quite real here. Maybe I did some mystical...fucking...necromancy with my vagina. I don't have the answers. I'm trying."
You swallowed hard. He could see concern on your face, but deep down he felt a little hurt and confused by the sudden switch in demeanor.
"You regret it."
"No," you immediately countered. When you finally looked at him, he could see exhaustion and fear in your eyes, but also the flicker of something else entirely. "I'm sorry. I'm just...I don't know."
"If you do, it's okay."
"I don't," you said firmly, "I just don't know what happens next. I feel like there's a guillotine over my head. I don't know what to do here."
He glanced down at the painted wood under his hands and absentmindedly picked at the chipped paint while you spoke.
"I don't regret it either," he admitted, shrugging, "I'd do it again if I could. But not if it hurts you."
This conversation felt so childish, he thought to himself. Like two teenagers who fumbled around in the backseat and got caught. He would laugh if the circumstances weren't so dire.
"I felt a heartbeat," he said, pulling a large chip of white paint off of the wood, "Did you feel it too?"
"Kind of."
"You were way too calm about it."
"I was kind of distracted."
You said nothing else, but he could tell that the gears were whirring in that pretty head of yours. He heard the rapid click of the keys and the scribble of pen on paper.
He scraped more paint off of the windowsill when something caught his eye. Etched under layers of paint, he noticed a small arrow carved into the wood. He pulled more paint off, exposing another arrow intersecting the first. If he could feel his heartbeat again, he knew it'd be thrumming like crazy. He jumped down from the ledge, fingering the etching with a shaking hand.
"Wait..." he suddenly said, mumbling to himself, "Wait, wait, wait....wait. No, that's...that can't fucking be it."
"What is it?"
He rushed to the kitchen, grabbing the sharpest knife he could find and rushed back to the windowsill to find you standing there, staring like he had 6 heads.
"Are you really about to carve up my window?" You groaned, "I won't get the deposit back."
"No, babe look." He excitedly pointed at the arrow carving in the wood panel that he'd exposed after lifting the paint. "That thing. That carving. It--I did that. Me and the boys did that."
You looked mildly intrigued, but didn't fully understand the excitement. You raised your brows and gave him a tired smile.
"Oh!"
You weren't getting it. He started rapidly lifting more chips of paint, forming a small pile on your floor.
"Listen, me and the boys did this thing--it was a stupid thing, but listen we were all sloshed and just did dumb things--but if I'm right about this--I think I know why I'm stuck here."
You still weren't fully understanding where he was going with this, but he rapidly pulled off the paint like a madman.
"What do you mean? What thing?" You were mildly irritated enough as it was, but you wanted to understand where he was going with this.
You peeked over his shoulder to see that he'd been rapidly peeling off half of the paint off of your windowsill. Your initial thought was how much you'd hate having to put the paint back on, but you watched him work anyway.
"We spent a ton of nights just being fuckin' plastered and the old guy downstairs hated us because we kept being loud. So we used to do stupid shit because we couldn't be arsed to make him like us. We just stopped trying. He used to try to get us kicked out for drugs and shit, but--look, my point is we had this plan to put all of our shit in this secret hole just in case they tried to find our stuff."
His mouth was going at a mile a minute, and you tried to follow through the excitement of the conversation. But, again, you were lost.
"Aaron, slow down and tell me what you're looking for."
"We had a secret thing in this window. I completely forgot about it and I thought they found it and fixed the hole but..."
He was about to speak when you heard the subtle clicking of a loose wood panel that was covered over by layers and layers of paint.
"Yes!" He shouted, pumping a fist in the air. As he wedged the knife under the panel to loosen it, a thin slab of wood popped up revealing a small treasure trove of junk.
A few coins. Some unidentifiable pills. A piece of string.
A dark lock of hair held together by a small paper clip.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me." He whispered.
You felt like he was having a conversation with himself.
"What is that?" You asked, grimacing. He repeatedly reached to try and grab it, but it slipped through his fingers. It was the first time you'd seen that happen to him within the confines of the apartment. He huffed in frustration and tried to pick it up again, but it phased through his hand.
"It's mine. It's my hair."
Now you had more questions and even less answers. Starting with:
"Why is there a lock of your hair buried in the window ledge of my apartment?"
He stared at it, working his jaw. The physical reminder of his living body while his dead one was thousands of miles across the ocean seemed to weigh heavy on his mind for many obvious reasons.
"We thought it'd be a funny time capsule. We were also stupid." He mumbled.
You both stood in silence at the simplicity and the irony of the situation. But was it that simple? It couldn't have been that simple.
When you passed him to look at the loose panel, you noticed extra etchings in the wood. Some initials and vulgar images. Some acronyms you didn't understand. As your eyes followed the old wood, you noticed something else peaking out beneath the paint, just past the wood panel.
It was a stain.
Your stomach dropped.
Without another word, you took the knife from him and started to pull more paint off of the windowsill.
"What the hell is that?” you whispered, revealing more and more of the fading stain hidden by layers of white paint.
There it was, no bigger than your thumb but very obvious nonetheless.
You dropped the knife and stumbled back like you’d been punched in the chest. Your ears started to ring and you couldn’t breathe. He stood a some distance away, staring at the stain with a glazed over look in his eye. When you opened your mouth to speak, you tasted pennies in your mouth and your vision started to go dark in the corners. Your eyes dropped to the floorboards that'd been painted a darker color that didn't seem to match the wood in the other apartments, and you felt your knees buckle.
They painted over his blood.
#aaron taylor johnson x reader#atj x reader#jaelle writes#aaron taylor johnson x black!reader#atj x black!reader#black reader
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Pool Fencing Gates In Auckland | Gates For Swimming Pools In Auckland
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#Pool Gates In Auckland#Pool Fencing Gates In Auckland#Gates For Swimming Pools In Auckland#Glass Fencing Boundaries Auckland#Auckland Glass Fencing Boundaries
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Please tell me you have a middle name- final chapter
“What exactly are we doing here?” I ask him, sitting down on the blanket he brought. “I thought you said you had to clean the ovens today.”
He gives me a bashful look, as he sets himself down as well. “I did it already. My lunch break. Peeta helped, too.”
“What did you do to convince him to do your work? Blackmail?”
He laughs heartily, throwing his head back and eventually laying sprawled on the ground.
“Trust me, Peeta is like a golden retriever. He works better with rewards than threats.”
“What did you reward him with?”
He keeps looking to the sky with such intensity I end up laying down next to him, to see what it is he’s so focused on.
“Nothing. Just the joy of a possible happy ending. Peeta’s a sucker for those.”
He turns his head towards me for a few seconds, before focusing on the sky once more.
“You know what’s best about the sky?” He asks me. He doesn’t wait for my answer. “No fence.”
I look to the blue strip ahead of us and catch a bird mid-flight out of the corner of my eye. Rye 's right. The bird is free to come and go as he pleases, no boundaries, no fences. No district twelve, just the sky.
My mind immediately flies to my Aunt Maysilee’s mockingjay pin. I’m supposed to keep it hidden at all times. Father wanted to get rid of it; it was bad enough that a member of our family was caught in treason and executed for it. Keeping a symbol of the rebellion is just plain reckless.
I know he saw it. When he had dinner with us at the mansion, I made him sit with me on the piano and listen to my entire Bach repertoire. The pin was placed on top of it. I always like to keep it around when I’m practicing; the pianist girl and the singing bird. I ended up leaving it there, forgotten, only noticing when we sat down.
“Do you talk about birds often?”
I turn to him alarmed. What are you doing, Rye? Our arguing on the butcher’s bench was dangerous enough, and we did nothing but talk about transportation policies.
“Not much.” I tell him. “Not everyone likes to talk about birds.”
“I’m willing to listen, if you ever want to talk.” He turns his face sideways again, a grave look on his face, his eyes as blue as the sky above us.
“We should be cleaning ovens, not talking about birds.” I tell him, averting my gaze.
“Well it’s a good thing that you’re my favorite person to do both things with.”
I eye him carefully once more. It came as a surprise how passionate he was about district policies and the possibility of freedom of circulation for Panem citizens. Not what one would guess would be on a simple baker’s mind.
“Are you serious?” I ask him.
“About what?” He says, turning his face towards me again. “Talking about birds or you being my favorite person?”
His eyes soften this time, with just the hint of a smile. There’s no denying it, he’s the handsomest man I have ever seen. No wonder I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him.
“Both.” I say, as I keep watching him. His hair is short, and I briefly consider if it would curl too if he grew it longer.
“Yes. Double yes.”
He points to the sky again. There are now two birds flying together, in synchrony.
“Every bird needs a partner. Particularly if she has her mind set on a big adventure.”
My heart stammers in my chest wildly. Surely he doesn’t mean what I think he means. How could he know? Nobody knows besides me and Haymitch.
"Let 's eat. Are you hungry?” Immediately he changes the subject and starts taking things from the basket he brought. “I’ve got lemon iced tea, if you’re thirsty.” He says picking up a bottle and two glasses.
“Yes, please.”
He pours a glass for me, careful enough not to spill anything on the blanket.
“I also have something else for you.”
“It better not be cake, because if I keep up at this rate, I’ll gain at least…”
I stop mid sentence when I notice the small container of strawberries.
“Where did you get this?” I ask him, but I know they must have come from the woods. The general store never has strawberries for sale, and the bakery only uses frozen berries, never fresh, as they are too expensive.
“Much to my displeasure I tracked Hawthorne down this morning and asked him to sell me some.”
He shouldn’t have. This must have cost him a fortune. Surely a couple of days of work. I’m about to tell him so, but my mind goes in another direction.
“You spoke with Gale?”
“Hated every second of it, too.”
It’s no secret Rye and Gale dislike each other immensely. Their rivalry is legendary, with Gale even giving up Wrestling all entirely when he lost a match to Rye in seventh grade.
“Why did you?” I ask him in utter confusion.
“Because I like you more than I hate him.”
He bites his lip and my mind is immediately thrown to that last kiss we shared on my doorstep. Up until then I thought those kisses meant nothing for him. Just a thrill.
“You spoke with Gale?” I ask again.
“Yes, and please keep it down. No need to broadcast it.”
“You asked him a favor?”
“I did. And now I have to live with it, so those strawberries better be good, and you better eat them all.”
I hug him, burying my laugh against his neck. It takes him a few seconds to catch up but once he does, his arms encircle me with such steadfastness I have a hard time letting go.
“I want this.”
I finally tell him, just a whisper in his ear. He responds with a joyful laugh, and next thing I know he’s kissing me.
“Me too. My soulmark is black again.” He says at once, his lips still grazing mine.
“Mine too.”
He laughs again, and scatters small pecks on my lips, on my face, hundreds of them.
“Seriously?” He asks “all that talk about birds, and the strawberries did the trick?”
I hug him again, basking in the sweet scent that surrounds him. My baker. My soulmate. My mockingjay in disguise.
“Shut up, Rye.”
THE END!
(who am I kidding I still have an epilogue left. Plus I wanted to keep it open in case I ever want to go back to this universe and write the whole rebellion storyline which would be Rye/Madge centric).
big thanks to everyone that kept up with this story. Thank you for each kudos, each comment, reblogg (your tags kill me everytime 😅) your theories about what was going to happen. Thanks for voting for what you wanted to see in the coming chapters that’s was so fun and interactive!
Stay tuned for my district thirteen story! Be well, be kind!
(you better still go and write a comment on ao3 even though I posted the whole chapter here, because you know writers get paid in reviews right?!
#peeta mellark#everlark#the hunger games#everlark fanfiction#thom x delly#katniss x peeta#peeta x katniss#thg#thelly#katniss everdeen
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It’s been more than 11 years since dad died, and nearly 18 since started learning to place health boundaries. I still need these reminders, though, so I’m putting them here in case they help others, too
• Boundaries are about my actions, not others; they are to protect what I value, not to get others to value the same things as me.
• My boundaries can be flexible: they don't all (even when some deffs do) need to be 40ft concrete walls. Sometimes a picket fence or a wall with a door is what's needed. Sometimes chicken-wire like a farm fence or screen-wire like a sliding door is what I need; sometimes a line in the sand, sometimes bulletproof glass, and sometimes an international boarder with a moat & armed guards.
• Even though it's been years since I started practicing boundary setting, I'm still learning.
• Just like on a farm, where fencing is almost an ongoing job; or like on bush blocks where firebreaks need to be regularly cleared: my boundaries needs maintenance and checking for ongoing appropriateness.
image from Unspash
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