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#medical root words
er-cryptid · 1 month
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Skeletal System Orthopedics Abbreviations
AKA = above the knee amputation
anti-CCP = anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide
AP = anteroposterior
BKA = below the knee amputation
BMD = bone mineral density
C1 = cervical vertebra 1
C2 = cervical vertebra 2
C3 = cervical vertebra 3
C4 = cervical vertebra 4
C5 = cervical vertebra 5
C6 = cervical vertebra 6
C7 = cervical vertebra 7
Ca = calcium
Ca²⁺ = calcium ion
CDH = congenital dislocation of the hip
DEXA = dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry
DXA = dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry
DIP = distal interphalangeal joint
DJD = degenerative joint disease
ESWT = extracorporeal shock wave therapy
Fx = fracture
L1 = lumbar vertebra 1
L2 = lumbar vertebra 2
L3 = lumbar vertebra 3
L4 = lumbar vertebra 4
L5 = lumbar vertebra 5
LLE = left lower extremity
LUE = left upper extremity
MCP = metacarpophalangeal joint
NSAID = nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug
OA = osteoarthritis
ORIF = open reduction and internal fixation
ortho = orthopedics
P = phosphorus
PIP = proximal interphalangeal joint
PT = physical therapy
QCT = quantitative computerized tomography
RA = rheumatoid arthritis
RF = rheumatoid factor
RLE = right lower extremity
ROM = range of motion
RUE = right upper extremity
S1 = first sacral vertebra
T1 = thoracic vertebra 1
T2 = thoracic vertebra 2
T3 = thoracic vertebra 3
T4 = thoracic vertebra 4
T5 = thoracic vertebra 5
T6 = thoracic vertebra 6
T7 = thoracic vertebra 7
T8 = thoracic vertebra 8
T9 = thoracic vertebra 9
T10 = thoracic vertebra 10
T11 = thoracic vertebra 11
T12 = thoracic vertebra 12
THR = total hip replacement
tib-fib = tibia-fibula
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seventh-district · 7 months
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it’s finally getting cold enough that i can bring my cardigan collection back into rotation without feeling like i’m gonna melt into a puddle the second i step outside!!!
#Seven.txt#my face#i have rematerialized back out of the void to once again make my once-in-a-blue-moon selfie & life update post#i’m running on 4 hours of restless sleep and the single banana i ate for lunch earlier today. let’s do this#hrrrrg i hate the lighting in my bathroom but i refuse to take pictures in the absolute Mental Illness Disaster Zone™️ that is my bedroom#anyways. got diagnosed with Mystery Pain Syndrome at the dentist today. so now i take ✨steroids✨#the less funny explanation is that my tooth still hurts with pressure nearly a month post-root canal and That’s Not Good#so we’re trying some new medications to see if that fixes it. and if not then who knows. root canal pt.2 the sequel. or extraction. sigh#and so the Dental Saga continues. todays visit went quite well in spite of the unforeseen mystery pain delaying the tooth-shaving plans#we had some time to kill so he managed to fill some of my other tiny cavities while i was there today so that’s good#okay moving on. what else. uhh. OH they finally came out and ran the fiber to the house last week!!! now i’m just waiting on one more-#-guy to come and finish the interior install and the long awaited fast internet will finally be mine eheheheheeeee#now i can feel my hours upon hours of unedited gameplay footage breathing down my neck :)#man i’ve got so much stuff piled up right now. i’m drowning in Tasks and it’s a lil overwhelming but i’ll handle it all! eventually#uhhhhm my current writing project is coming along well! i’ve never put so much time and effort into a oneshot before in my life#its a labor of love though and i think i’m gonna be really proud of myself (and the fic) once it’s complete#even if no one reads it bc it’s so goddamn self indulgent and kinda lowkey throws canon out the window but like. fuck it!#if i want Astarion to write a song on piano and perform it for me while mentally taking me on a trip down memory lane. then so be it#fr though i’ve never written anything quite like this and i rlly want to do it justice. even if its unrealistic i still want it to be Good#in other news i received word that one of the chickens i sponsor at my local Gentle Barn has passed away so i had a lil cry abt that#i feel so bad for his little tiny chicken wife. they obviously loved each other and it’s like. so sad when one half of an old couple dies#like. she pulled him out of his depression after his 1st wife died. now who’s gonna be there to pull Her out…#anyways let’s not get all sad about that again. in happier news my cat who i presumed died/got killed has returned home uninjured!!!#after that huge stray dog chased her into the woods i thought we’d never find or see her again#but then the morning after i started grieving her she showed back up hungry as hell yet completely unharmed like the enigma that she is#so that’s one definite highlight from earlier this month. uhh what else. rapid fire summary of the past few weeks let’s go-#Jersey turned 10! Bullet turned 10! my 6 year Veganniversary happened! i’m approaching 700 days on DuoLingo!#i’ve written more than 20 thousand words! i’ve been facing some fears! fighting my OCD! taking care of myself! (kinda!)#anyways things are far from being all sunshine and roses around here but i’m trying to focus on the good stuff for the most part#for now tho i have a headache and have reached 30 tags so it’s time to go shovel some mashed potatoes into my mouth :)
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troonwolf · 1 year
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something I find funny is when i explain the endo situation to singlets or people not involved in the online system community, and describe it as a cult, they immediately agree. there is no question to the unbiased viewer that this is a cult
it’s always people within the syscourse community who want to clutch their pearls and be like “oh b b b b but we shouldn’t call them that!! that’s such a big mean word :(” even when a cult survivor is out here like “btw I recognise all these tactics from when I was raised in a cult and I can actively give you lists of examples of these things happening right now.”
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scientia-rex · 28 days
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For the most part, my approach to prescribing hormones is “sure,” but I will note that the one thing I lean HARD on patients about is smoking. If you’re transgender, and you’re on hormones, the number one thing we want to protect is your cardiovascular health. That’s frankly the number one thing I want to protect in all my patients, but anyone taking exogenous hormones is at higher baseline risk. And the best thing you can do for your heart is DON’T SMOKE. It’s a bitch to quit, and I didn’t even smoke much or long before I quit in my late teens, and I STILL didn’t enjoy quitting and had smoking dreams for years. It’s harder to quit than just about anything else up to and including crack and heroin, and that’s coming from a patient of mine who recently passed in her early 60s who’d done all of those things—for years and years—but eventually was able to quit everything except smoking. And that killed her. She developed severe COPD and eventually called to say her blood oxygen saturation was dipping into the 70s, which is incompatible with life. She was lucid enough to decline medical care, including refusing to call 911 or go to the ER. A week later, after both I and one of our outreach nurses had contacted her to ask her to please go to the ER, I got a notification that she’d been found dead. She had been so frustrated that she wasn’t a candidate for a lung transplant.
One of my oldest trans patients is in her late 50s. She’s had blood clots that went to the lungs. Repeatedly. Smoking raises that risk. Estrogen raises that risk. She’s a veteran with PTSD; of course she smoked.
These aren’t theoretical. These are humans I’ve cared for over years of their lives. I have been rooting for them—my beloved former addict, who spoke without shame about her years of homelessness and drug use in the city; my queer elders, who are slowly trading in their motorcycles for power scooters. I want everyone to live their fullest, best life.
Smoking doesn’t fit into that. Please don’t smoke. I don’t want you to die like that—not now and not later. I want you to have the future that you may not be able to see yet, but exists.
Since I moved home as an out queer, word got out, and there’s a whole apartment complex of lesbians in their 60s to their 80s who come see me—sitting next to their wives in the office, nagging about blood pressure meds, tattling about not having gotten the shingles shot they said they would. To be clear, when I was growing up in town, I knew no lesbians. Not one. I knew one gay kid in my class, which eventually turned into two. We were it. To see these women living decades with their wives and being able to squabble like any couple in my office over who was supposed to bring their home blood pressure cuff in for us to check it… it means the world to me.
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ellemj · 6 months
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Needs & Wants - Sex Pollen Trope Pt. 1
Bucky Barnes x Reader
Summary: When you're both exposed to an unknown chemical in the field, things go from bad to worse.
Warnings: prelude to obvious smut, talk of masturbation, talk of unprotected sex, profanity, use of y/n, MINORS DNI, 18+!!!
Feel free to comment and let me know if this requires more warnings.
Word Count: 2.8k
Author's Note: Just messing around on here and seeing where I end up. I want to write an absolutely filthy part 2 but if this doesn't get anywhere I may scrap it lmao.
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            Every. Damn. Time. Something goes sideways every damn time. You want to blame Fury for making the two of you partners to begin with. What the hell did he see between the two of you that made him think missions would ever end in anything other than the two of you butting heads? You sigh deeply and rub your temples with the pads of your left thumb and middle finger, squeezing your eyes shut as you will yourself not to kick Bucky clear across the lab. You know what Fury saw between the two of you, and as much as you hate to admit it, when you’re in absolute life-or-death situations, you and Bucky work together better than any other partner you’ve ever had in the field. Even Nat.
            Dropping your hand from your face and opening your eyes, your gaze lands on Bucky. He stands at one of the lab benchtops in the center of the room, his eyes narrowing as he examines an array of monitor screens before him. You can make out an organized table of data along with a few charts on the monitor to his left, but that’s not what draws your attention. The second monitor, the one right in front of him, displays a few words that have you on edge.
            Confirmed nitric oxide stimulant capabilities. New formula contains increased quantity of aqueous extract of dried tuberous roots of C. borivilianum.
            Shit. This can’t be what you think it is, but with your medical background and your old medical microbiology classes from before joining SHIELD and the Avengers, you know that there’s a very slim chance that you’re misinterpreting what you’re reading. You step forward now, gently pushing Bucky’s arm to move him away from the monitors so you can get a better look at the data. He begins snapping pictures and immediately sending them back to the team. You can feel his eyes on you as you study the graphs and tables. He’s not used to you being this quiet, he knows something’s up.
            “What are we looking at?” He finally speaks up, his gaze drawn to the colorful graph displayed on one of the monitors.
            “I don’t know.” You lie straight through your teeth, reaching for the keyboard that controls the monitors. You press the right-facing arrow key and the page that said something about nitric oxide disappears, quickly replaced being replaced by a row of video clips, each one titled with a trial number and date. It looks like HYDRA was running trials in this experiment for months.
            “Bullshit. Why won’t you tell me what it is?” Bucky asks. His tone is sharp, impatient. He isn’t used to being the one who doesn’t know what’s going on, and it’s bothering him. He gnaws on the inside of his cheek and waits in silence for you to say something, to say anything. You hover the cursor over the first video clip, dated three months ago from today, Trial #1. Everything in you is screaming not to watch it, not to click on it and confirm your suspicions, but you’re here for a reason. You have an easy job here today: break into the HYDRA facility, collect samples and any data that goes along with what they’ve been working on for the past few months, and then destroy the facility on your way out. Sam and Torres planned it out so perfectly, making sure it would be vacant for the next 13 hours so you and Bucky could slip in and get the job done under the radar. They planned it for two months, doing recon and coming up with contingency plan after contingency plan. You need to confirm your suspicions and get as much evidence as possible before blowing the place to bits.
            You glance over your shoulder at Bucky, and his blue eyes meet yours with a hint of concern. He hates when you’re quiet like this, he hates those rare moments in the field when he can’t read your mind. What the hell are you thinking? What aren’t you telling him? He knows you well enough to know that you’re nervous about whatever you’re seeing here.
            You click the video link and a slightly grainy image of a padded square room fills the screen. The floor and walls are gray and there isn’t any furniture in the room, only what looks to be a set of shackles on the back wall. A shiver runs down your spine and you pull your phone out, typing up a message to Bruce Banner while you wait for something to happen on screen.
You: A chemical compound that stimulates NO and uses aqueous extract of C. borivilianum…is it going to be what I think it is?
            As your message sends, Bucky reaches around you, his chest brushing against your back, and he uses the mouse to fast forward the video until people are appearing on screen. You watch as presumably a HYDRA agent shoves a woman into the room, obviously an unwilling participant in the experiment. She doesn’t fight much as she’s placed in the shackles on the wall, but it’s obvious that she’s weak and likely drugged. The HYDRA agent briefly steps out of view of the camera, before returning with a second captive, a man this time. He’s large, muscular, and has a dark look in his eye. You feel Bucky stiffen up behind you, realizing at the same time as you that this man is a super soldier. Your phone vibrates in your hand and you steal a look at the response from Banner.
Banner: Yes.
            Fuck. The next two minutes of the video are pure horror, even though nothing particularly horrific happens before you slam your hand down on the spacebar, pausing the clip abruptly. You both watched on as a cloudy vapor was pumped into the room through vents, and then watched on as the super soldier became more and more restless, sweaty, and crazed. As soon as the female captive began whimpering and pulling against her shackles, with her eyes trained on the super soldier a few feet to her left, you couldn’t let the video play any longer.
            “Tell me what it is.” Bucky says evenly from behind you. You swallow hard and reach into one of the pockets of your tactical pants, pulling out a device similar to a USB and plugging it into the computer before you. As all of the data and video clips begin to transmit through the device, back to Sam and Torres, you turn around and face your partner.
            “HYDRA hasn’t been able to recreate the super soldier serum. They haven’t made any progress at all since Zemo killed Dr. Nagel.” You say slowly, choosing your tone and words carefully. You don’t want to say too much and leave Bucky as terrified as you are right now, but you also know you can’t keep this from him. Not when you need him to understand how fucking careful you’re both going to have to be from now until the end of this mission.
            “I know that. What are we here for, y/n?” His tone is growing more and more impatient, his jaw ticking as he stares down at you. God, he can’t ever just shut up and listen. You put your hand on his chest, shoving him a few steps back and walking across the lab, to the glass refrigerator in the far corner. It’s full of vials of a clear liquid, each sealed at the top and marked with a label full of scientific terms.
            “They got desperate, and turned to even more barbaric methods of creating super soldiers. They started experimenting with chemical compounds that induce a primal need in those exposed.” You explain carefully. You pause now, turning to look back at Bucky once more. You see realization spread across his face and he quickly comes to understand what you’re saying. It’s a fucking sex pollen.
            Static crackles in your in-ear briefly before Sam’s voice reaches you both.
            “Banner and Stark just finished reviewing some of the data you shared. This is not something that either of you want to be exposed to.” Sam advises, and you can hear Torres in the background typing away on a keyboard.
            “Yeah, no shit.” You mutter, retrieving a pair of nitrile gloves from a box on the benchtop nearby and setting up the small lockbox that you brought for samples. You open it to reveal a padded interior, with enough room for three vials. The rest will have to be destroyed.
            “Just grab the samples, rig the place to blow, and get the hell out of there. I don’t want you in there any longer than you have to be.” Sam’s orders spur Bucky into action, and he starts setting up explosives around the corners of the lab while you get ready to retrieve the samples from the fridge. If only you’d known that HYDRA was one step ahead.
            It happened so fast that you didn’t even have time to try to protect yourself. The moment that you pulled open the small door to the fridge full of samples, that same cloudy vapor you saw in the video clip began to rush in from every air vent in the lab.
            “Shit.” You mumble, reaching into the fridge and grabbing three vials. You quickly place them into the lockbox and seal it, knowing that you’ll definitely need samples to test now that you’ve both been exposed.
            “Sam, we’ve got a problem.” Bucky is as calm as ever, though his voice comes out slightly annoyed. Of course he’d sound annoyed in this moment. He’s been exposed to a sex pollen alongside the partner that he can only get along with when they’re staring death right in the face. He heaves a weighty sigh before stalking over to you and snatching the lockbox from the benchtop. He quickly slides his backpack off, shoving it inside, and then heading for the exit, without checking to see if you’re on his heels or not. You strip off your gloves and bound after him. The gravity of the situation hasn’t hit either of you yet, but oh, it will soon enough.
--
            Bucky weaves his motorcycle in and out of traffic almost recklessly, with your arms clutched around his abdomen. It’s only been fifteen minutes since you were both exposed but you swear that you’re starting to feel the effects. Your cheeks are hot and flushed under your helmet, your hands are shaking as adrenaline courses through your veins, and your heart is racing. If you hadn’t been on the back of a motorcycle with Bucky so many times in the past, you would’ve chalked your symptoms up to this experience, but it’s definitely not that.
            “Loosen up, are you trying to do the Heimlich on me or something?” Bucky spits out, his voice playing in your helmet. You do as he says, loosening your hold and taking a deep breath in. You don’t say anything in response, which furthers the tension between you both. It’s been fifteen minutes of stressful silence and Bucky’s losing his damn mind. He wants you to give him shit like you usually would when a mission goes sideways. He wants you to lash out, tell him to stop driving like an ass, he wants you to say anything so he knows you’re okay. He can’t fucking stand the silence.
            He guides the bike down the long dirt road to the safe house you stayed in last night, and you hop off before he’s even put the kickstand down. He watches as you rush up the steps of the small cobblestone house, yanking off your helmet in one swift movement before you key the code into the door and force it open. You’re feeling the effects of the chemical pulsing through your veins, you’re feeling it and you’re trying to keep it from him.
--
            “It’s a very complex compound. A nitric oxide stimulant, utilizing both natural and man-made components. It’s basically a super soldier version of Viagra and ecstasy all in one.” Bruce says, addressing both you and Bucky through the video call. Concern and stress are etched into his soft features as he stands in the lab of the Avengers compound, his arms crossed and glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. “You’re going to have to look out for the negative effects, which from the video clips of their experiments, are extremely strong. Take the side effects of ecstasy and multiply their intensity by a hundred.”
            “So, sweating, hypertension and tachycardia, jaw pain…” Your voice trails off as you list off the side effects of ecstasy that you know from your previous pharmacology classes. Bruce nods slowly.
            “Basically, you’ll feel like you’re having a heart attack, unless you’re able to relieve yourselves.” He summarizes.
            “What do you mean relieve yourselves?” Bucky questions. He’s seated on the couch next to you, his brow is furrowed and a sheen of sweat is becoming apparent along the side of his neck. You try not to look at him for too long, already feeling yourself longing for touch and physical contact of any kind.
            “If you’re able to achieve a postcoital state, you should have temporary relief of your symptoms. You might have to achieve that state more than once, until the chemical is out of your system.” You can almost hear the wheels turning in Bucky’s head as he works out what postcoital means. You have to reach an orgasm to feel any relief, but bless Banner for trying to put it in a more professional way.
            “Have you tested the half-life of the chemical yet?” You ponder, wanting to know exactly how long you’ll both be suffering through this. You wipe a bead of sweat from your brow with the back of your hand.
            “Yeah, it seems like it can last anywhere from eight to ten hours in a non-super soldier, but it was designed specifically to work in conjunction with the serum, so it lasts eight to twelve hours in a super soldier.” Bruce’s words are starting to jumble together in your head, adding to the slightly throbbing headache that’s forming behind your eyes. You squeeze them shut and rub your temples just like you did in the lab earlier, zoning out as Tony and Bruce both start discussing the pharmacokinetics behind the compound currently wrecking your body.
            “What are our options here?” Bucky asks quietly, directing his question to you alone. You turn to look at him and see his cheeks flushed like yours now, his pupils dilated a minute amount, and his hands clasped together over his knees. There’s no hiding that it’s affecting you both now.
            “I don’t know. The only thing I can think to do is lock ourselves in different rooms and try to ride it out.” You say, rubbing your aching thighs through your tactical pants with the palms of your hands. Your bones are starting to hurt in a deep, consuming way, and all you want to do is give yourself a few doses of propofol to knock yourself out for the next eight hours. It’s going to be hell trying to get through this without having sex, especially if pain is setting in only an hour after the initial exposure.
            “Okay, so we do that. We each lock ourselves in a bedroom and fight it.” Bucky sounds sure and resolved, like he has total faith that your only plan available will work out fine. All it took to bring out his optimistic side was being doused with a sex pollen and stuck in a safe house.
            “I want to monitor both of your vitals through the night.” Bruce calls out, gaining your attention again.
            “No.” You and Bucky both speak firmly at the same time, quick to reject the idea. You don’t need a medical record showing how aroused you end up being tonight, you don’t need Bruce or any of the SHIELD lab staff watching your heart rate increase as you touch yourself, watching your blood pressure spike as you near your climax alone. Bucky is thinking the same thing, shit, his heart rate is probably already through the roof as it is, just from sitting next to you. He tries to focus on whatever else you, Bruce, and Tony are discussing but his jaw is clenched in pain and he’s fighting the urge to rip off his tactical suit right there. It feels like it’s fucking ninety degrees inside. The only thing he catches in the last bit of the conversation is from Tony.
            “There’s a chance you won’t find any relief in an orgasm alone, Y/n. Bucky will, because his body won’t know the difference between finishing himself off vs. finishing inside of a fertile woman, but this compound is meant to make your reproductive system go into overdrive. You won’t feel relief until your body thinks it has a chance of reproducing, until semen is introduced into your system.”
            “Fuck.” You inhale sharply, doubling over in pain both at Tony’s unfortunate conclusion and at the cramping sensation you’ve suddenly felt deep in your stomach. Fucking hell.
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cuprohastes · 4 months
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The humans said "We sent our very best to the stars."
Well we looked at what they sent: And thought, if that's their best, what are their worst like? They were scavengers and opportunists, fast talking con artists, barely restrained psychopaths with mayhem on their mind.
Honestly we were expecting the worst: That 'human' would be a curse word, that we'd have to root them out painfully and banish them back to their dirty heavy world.
But they cleaned up Antichor. They dredged the oceans, got the ecosystem back up, cleaned the mine lakes, remediated the sludge swamps, turned the hulks into gleaming ingots.
"We knew how. We had the experience." They said.
The humans started showing up in the weirdest places. Conflicts of all sorts... and they always had questions. "Why are you doing this? What if tehy did this. What if you did that?" And it was so odd - Within weeks of the Humans showing up, common ground would be found, or reasons to get along would appear.
"Well, we're used to it. We know how to deal with conflict." They said.
And the human liars, dressed in bedazzling clothes, singing and laughing... They spun lies! For entertainment! Of better worlds, and drama, of excitement, of adventure. Thay made such spectacles - Fire in the sky of a thousand colours - smoke and lasers, costumes and music, feats of synchronised movement the Civil Worlds had barely imagined could be performed by any being let lone these strange humans...
"We know how to have a good time!" They said.
When there was a nasty little war of expansion over on the Veran worlds, we thought we'd be barely in time to document the mass graves and the scraps of planetary genocide. Expansion wars are the worst of crimes but what can you do? The settlers who are squatting on the graves of the people who came before aren't usually the ones who ordered the invasion or carried it out. And there's always some justification that can be argued over for centuries: none of which brings the dead back.
We were horrified to find the Human fleet there. Finally proof that the Humans were the worst sort of mercenary.
But the ships had aid: Shelters and food. Medical personnel. And those that did fight did so under strange rules that allowed for surrenders and retreats in good faith.
The Verans talked of the Arnath Invasion fleet: Unstoppable, claiming thier worlds before they even landed, their leaders ranting and cursing those who lived there - But then the Humans arriving like heroes of legend, in flame clad dropships, spending their lives hard, making the Arnath throw incredible effort to get nowhere... Of the mighty Rangers, each one a hero. The Bulwark infantry who wouldn't yield a single step until the civilians had been evacuated. The Medical teams as caring as any, who'd stand and fight as hard as a soldier to protect their patients.
And even before we arrived, the Arnath were losing - Humans arriving on their world and asking "Why?". Arguing with the Archons with the skill of philosophers, litigating on behalf of the Verans with cunning arguments. The clowns and entertainers with unexpected savagery, showing the population their own "heroic" soldiers burning crops and firing on children, turning the population against thier bloody handed leaders.
The soldiers returning, not hailed as heroes, their crimes documented.
"We know these crimes. We won't stand for them." The humans said.
And we started to wonder... what else did they know?
What we know now is... you can always ask the Humans, because they always send their best.
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evergreenfields · 21 days
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A Helping Hand
Captain Price uses his deft fingers to help you take out your menstrual cup.
Pairing: Captain Price x Female Reader
CW: descriptions of female anatomy, digital penetration, fluff, swearing. MDNI.
Words: 2.7k
You didn't mean to swear so loudly in the toilet cubicle but you were sweating, your hands were hurting and your thighs were burning.
You could not, for the life of you, take out your menstrual cup.
After a gruelling CQC training session, your hands were cramped and now slick with blood. You surprised yourself at how far you could fit your fingers inside yourself without even reaching the inch long handle of the cup.
"Sergeant?" A gruff voice called through the door.
"Fuck." you whisper, "yes sir?" You call back, sitting back down on the toilet in defeat, staring at the tiled floor.
"Everything alright in there?" Captain Price is closer to the door now. Of all the people! You thought of him in his far-too-fitted top tucked into his far-too-snug combat trousers, all pressed and neat. Earlier in the day he had patted your shoulder for a job well done and you hated how you could still feel his eyes on you after you walked away.
“Yes captain, all good here." Ending it abruptly, you wait for him to leave.
Getting back into a squat position, you try again. You swear again.
Another knock at the door.
"Sergeant. Do I need to call someone for you?" Concern laced his gruff voice.
Something in you falters. You think it's stupidity, you think it's the opposite of courage, you consider it vulnerability. Either way, your mouth and mind move in different directions as you pull your trousers up, wash your hands and walk the short way to the door.
“Have you seen a period cup before?" you say quietly through a small gap in the doorway, looking past your Captain at passers by, looking anywhere but at his deep-set blue eyes.
He looks at you with knitted brows and answers "no. But I'm guessing it's not coming out." He enunciated ‘out’ with his trademark back stretch.
"Precisely." You get redder and try to quell it. He knocked, he asked, maybe someone else could help me, a female medic, but the thought of gloved hands felt clinical and made you tense. The pause was palpable.
"Right, let's get you to your quarters," he steps back from the door, straight as a board, and you slip out past his hulking frame.
Filling what you thought was an awkward silence you said you had training with Simon and “it's not usually this difficult, usually it pops out easily." Accidentally making eye contact on the “pop.”
"Right." Price says and you think you saw him swallow a smile. You arrive at your quarters and open the door.
"A nurse once told me I had a high cervix, so who knows where it's gone." You turn to close the door behind Price and you're surprised to see him chuckling, the movement in his broad shoulders and the crows feet around his eyes make you feel a way you know you shouldn't.
"Give it another go, I'll get a tea brewing," he strides past you into your tiny kitchen, knocking around your cupboards for teabags.
You avoid your gaze in the bathroom mirror as you wash your hands again and pull your trousers down, rooting around for the damned silicone cup. You were naturally more dilated as you were on your period, but pushing down with your pelvic floor muscles still didn’t get it within reach of your fingers.
You can hear the kettle going, you imagine him leaning against the counter, muscled legs crossed at his calves, calloused hands on the fake marble top.
John asks himself unanswerable questions, the exact kind of questions he hates. Why am I here? He has an inkling of the answer but it’s not absolute. He can’t deny you’re electric, an excellent squad mate and charming to boot. The chemistry is palpable between you and he knows exactly what he’s doing when he banters with you at post-mission briefings and winks at you when handing you a drink at the pub. He indulges in the flashes of recognition when he sees you around base, especially when you’re in civilian clothing.
Minutes later you're back in your kitchen, which Price manages to dwarf.
"No luck?" He says as he passes you the steaming cup, handle first. How polite.
"No luck.”
“No problem." Price says in his husky voice, taking a seat on your small sofa. He's taken his hat off, he's basically naked now. You join him on the furthest end, you're both turned half towards each other, your crossed legs are mighty close to touching his.
"Sorry, this is really awkward."
“Nothing awkward, relax yeh." He sips his tea.
"You make a shit tea." You say absolutely unprompted, staring into your cup seriously.
Price doesn't respond and you look up expectedly.
“Funny that, I couldn't find a good cup." He says with his usual dry gruff.
A beat.
You both burst into laughter, almost spilling your tea. You end up having to put it onto the table, calling him a prick in the process.
"Fuck sakes sir!"
"I had to." He continues drinking his tea, too cool for school as you settle yourself.
You decide to regale him as a way to fill the silence again, "so the cup has a stick at the end but I can't grip it, I can barely reach it. It's silicone and around an inch long." you instinctively measure it out with your thumb and index finger.
"Right."
He's killing you. You remember he's a gentleman, a professional, helping you feel more relaxed and less tense.
“It’s more than just grabbing and pulling it though-”
"So I'm going to have to break the suction first." He finally says, a mercy.
You did a double take and accidentally looked at his gloved hand. It hangs over his knee. You know they are heavily veined and strong, you want to evaporate at the thought of them touching you in such an intimate place.
"It doesn't take much.” You say dry mouthed.
"I can get someone else." Is quickly followed by you breathing "I'd rather you didn't."
Next thing you know, you're standing in your shower with only a towel wrapped around your lower half. Your captain was seated on the rim of the bathtub. It was as if you had a tipple of whiskey instead of tea, you felt drunk, giddy, nervous. There was an undeniable pulse in your clit you were trying to ignore. Price thoroughly washes his hands and you make an effort to not watch his sinewy forearms flexing.
“Are you sure you don’t wanna be laying down?” Price asks earnestly.
“No it would feel too clinical. And we need gravity on our side.” You say absentmindedly, he nods an affirmative.
“Understood.“
"I'm going to look like Winnie the fucking Pooh.” You sigh.
"Ey?" blue eyes flicker at your eyes.
"He doesn't wear any trousers. He just wears a top."
"Stop being a muppet." He dries his hands.
“Okay so you'll have to use a thumb and finger." You say, feeling flushed as you place your feet further apart, they were wet with the residual water from your shower earlier in the day.
"I’ll be gentle." He puts the hand towel under your feet for grip. You almost place your hand on his shoulder to balance yourself but you're too afraid to let go of the towel.
"Better?" He asks. You nod. His back straightens, he's in serious mode, “if it hurts at any point, say and I'II stop immediately." And he waits for your affirmative and more disgustingly, your eye contact.
"Yes sir. I will.” You nod, blink and then look away.
A pause. Silence.
You're still holding the towel over yourself. You feel like a lost lamb and you even start to hate yourself for feeling so shy. You wonder how Price is so calm and collected, you’re trying to see from his perspective but you can’t fathom how he’s so blase and annoyingly professional.
In a measured movement you remove the towel and swing it over the curtain rail. Everything feels red, you feel a flash of anger at yourself for existing. You look up past him. Blood rushes to your face and ears. Cool air hits your legs and butt. John carries on with acute focus, mentally noting you had incredible legs. He wished he was still wearing his hat so you couldn’t see the sweat bead on his forehead.
“Put your hands on my shoulders." He says, “and relax." He drawls, admittedly more to himself. “Alright I'm going to make-"
"Don't say make entry, for fuck sakes." Your voice sounds distant with the acoustics of the tiled bathroom.
"I was going to say make contact, sergeant." His tone is clipped but his eyes smile. You sheepishly look away.
“I’ve tried a few times, it’s quite… elastic, so don’t be worried if you go past the knuckles.” You chew your lips.
“I’ll be gentle.” He reiterates. You assume he knows his way around things, a fleeting thought of him with other women floats through your mind.
John knew you trusted him which is why he was here. He was very aware of what he was helping with and felt it was beyond his duty of care, kind of like how he has to decide who lives and who dies when they’re attached to a bomb vest with 8 seconds left. It was discretionary. He put it out of his mind and considered this a ‘removal of foreign body’. But with no need to staunch the bleeding. And no need to report it in the injuries log. The only thing he was staunching were any feelings towards you. Tucking them deep away like a professional, or like a pressure cooker. There was a reason he was the captain, he was measured and controlled.
With the softest touch, you feel his index finger and middle finger part your folds and fall into the valley of your hole. His fingers deftly dodged your hardened clit and he slipped in gently until he’s fully inside of you. His finger runs along your gummy walls, they are much thicker than your own digits. You scrunch your eyebrows. He’s warm and tentative. Your face is flushed red, but not entirely from embarrassment, it’s that familiar feeling you get when you’re filled. Heat rises from you. Your breathing is shallow and quick.
His left hand leaves the tub edge and holds your calf softly. You feel safety in his touch, you feel like he's entering with trepidation. You've fought on battlefields together, traversed through tight streets in war torn villages and travelled for days in cramped trucks, you trusted him with your life and by extension your body. It was as if it was all to culminate in your bathroom. You find yourself wishing you had just asked him for a coffee a week ago when you weren't on your period.
"Is that okay? Ready for the-"
"Yes sir." He pushes his thumb in gently too. You feel it breach your cunt and against your spongy walls. You can’t tell but John’s heart is hammering against his chest, but it doesn’t betray his breathing.
"You don't have to call me sir.” He mumbles.
"Yes sir.” You hold his broad shoulders and lean over him, looking straight ahead at the cheap wooden door. His fingers gently move up into you, he’s warm and you’re hot, you try to stay still and not squeeze your walls around his fingers.
You hear his breathing, it’s even. You want to look down at his lap but your line of sight is obscured by his arm, you know what you want to see and you swallow. His fingers move, you can feel the pressure but you can only guess at the direction. You feel the large knuckle of his thumb press against your innermost folds. His ring and little finger push into the underside of your butt cheek, you realise you did the same thing to yourself when you were trying earlier. There was no where else those fingers could go without being in the way.
John tries to ignore how your body feels around his fingers and focuses on pushing in with the least resistance, he has big hands so there was no doubt he’d be able to find it but he didn’t want to hurt you. Sweat forms along the back of his neck. Steady now.
"Try to relax. I know this isn’t ideal, I'll go slowly" He says, you can smell his cologne, his musk, you hold your breath but he feels that too.
"Breathe and bear down." You daren't comment about how he knows about "bearing down" but you push down with your pelvic muscles.
"I’ve got it, gonna go further to grip it." You dare to look at his face and you're surprised to see he's not looking at your mound, he's staring at your rucked up top, just above your belly button; he's concentrating. He looks adorable, mouth a little open.
"It’s a slippery bastard." He chuckles and then reels the laugh in.
"I'm so sorry about the blood." You whisper above him. He just grunts.
"Nothing we haven't dealt with before, ey?" His eyes crinkle into a smile. “Can I go further?" He says, you look at each other and you nod. You feel pressure and friction, you try to breathe and it comes shakily. You clear your throat.
"It's not hurting is it?" He stops.
"No, it doesn't hurt, it's just this entire situation-"
"Look, I know you'd do the same for me." He meets your eyes and you snort, trying not to laugh. You instead lean your forehead down to the top of his head for a moment, he can see your stomach move and your breathing change as you laugh silently. It’s strangely intimate.
John swallows.
"I got it." You feel pressure push upwards into you and then the suction disappears. With a pull and a slick pop, the cup comes out. Your body feels doubly empty. Price holds it steady with one hand, he marvels at the amount and viscosity of the blood. He then brings his other hand up to cradle it. You add both your hands around his to stop it spilling.
"Y'alright?" He carefully lets go of the cup. His left hand is on your arm, his intense blue eyes boring into yours for what feels like way too long.
"Yes." You smile.
"Right, I'II let you get that sorted.” He smiles, squeezes your arm and turns to use the faucet.
With his broad back turned, you look down at your naked lower body and bloody chalice. You see that he doesn't turn to look back at you. Such a gentleman. You cheers him silently with the cup and get to sorting yourself out.
When John leaves the room, he exhales hard. Needing something to do, he immediately walks into your kitchen. He hates that he’s clammy and not from exertion. He pushes your warmth and wetness from his mind, but he knows he’ll be summoning the memory soon, when he’s alone.
When you step out of the shower, you're in a daze. You don't know what to say when you get dressed and return to your living room. Thanks and sorry? Sorry and sorry? Let's never speak of this, but can we talk about your unwavering eye contact and those touches? You pull on your knickers and cargo trousers and wrestle with a sanitary pad.
You return to see him washing the tea cups, his gloves tucked into his back pocket, his narrow waist fanning into a broad back.
You jog into the kitchen and grab the tea towel he's hung over his shoulder.
“I got it - thank you,” you say, quickly adding “John.” As if to point out the power dynamic was left at the door. You dry the cups. You feel longing, you don't know what possesses you, you didn't want those fleeting touches, gentle words of affirmation and smouldering eye contact to evaporate into nothing. Like they usually do.
“Don’t mention it.” He says, heading for the door.
“Not even to my girl friends?” You snap back, shrugging the tea towel over your shoulder.
“Wind your neck in!” He laughs loudly from the chest.
“Consider it wound in, sir.”
“The lengths you go for my attention.” He retorts with his trademark grin, turning to face you with his hand on the door handle.
“The lengths are apparently 3 or 4 inches, sir, give or take.” You laugh back knowingly.
John pauses.
“Between us, that’s only the half of it.” He says with a wink. And with that, he leaves. Your laugh gets caught in your throat, you’re left with a feeling your next one-to-one with your captain would be a little different moving forward.
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cometkenji · 11 days
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killshot, baby
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Pairing: Aaron Hotch x Doctor!Fem!reader Cw: Fluff (for real this time), LONGING (this is literally 9k words of pure yearning idek how I did that), mentions of blood, Hotch gets shot, Jack being adorable, Jack gets injured too :(, no explicit age gap, this is just rlly cute idk it's sweet I love Hotch so much I need him Summary: When you get hired as the BAU's stand-by medic, the team leader ends up being the hardest part of your job. Disclaimer: Reader is chubby! She's always fat coded, but like usual she's not described here. Just know a chubby person was imagined when writing this <3 WC: 9k (Hotch is the love of my life I could go on about him forever) This is definitely not medically accurate, please just enjoy for the sake of the story. I LOVE HOTCH I WANNA SMOOCH HIM
As weird as it was, band aids were the thing you remembered most from your childhood. You grew up as a canvas for any sort of scrape, cut, or bruise. Any wound that made your parents feel mildly worried to utterly terrified were ones that decorated your body frequently. You never tried to assign any meaning to why you became a doctor, simply crediting it as your call to the profession - to people. If you had to, though, your consistently bruised adolescent body is the best root cause you could think of. It seemed only right that the kid who couldn’t keep her skin in tact would grow to love helping others. You liked to think that’s how you kept your head an average size. Your bosses and co-workers had raved about your abilities no matter the job you took, and after a while you had to start prioritizing keeping your humility. You had started as just a kid with bruises. 
You tended to ground yourself with those same memories in times like this. For as long as you’d worked in the hospital, you held some disdain for agents. You saw many federal ones, being so close to the HQ for divisions like Behavioral Analysis, but some locals swung by too. You’d had far too many experiences of them being snappy, demanding, and usually inconsiderate to the team of people trying to save someone. You understood the individuals you were committed to helping often got there by doing monstrous things, but demanding to talk to someone when they were bleeding out and half-conscious always forced your tongue between your teeth in an effort to stay respectful. Especially now, pushing a stretcher with 3 other workers while trying to shake off the feds trailing after him. You recognized them, Agents Rossi and Hotchner, if you remembered correctly. 
“We’ll need to talk to him immediately.” The man - Rossi, you assumed, seeing as he was going gray and had less of a charge fueling his steps - spoke quickly as the two men followed your team.
“Be here when he’s out of surgery.” You didn’t bother to look back, trying to convey your annoyance and praying they got the hint. 
“He’s killed three women and has another one hostage. We don’t have time.” The other one piped up, easily keeping pace with you.
Abandoning your previous strategy, you let your team push the man into the operating room, shutting the door behind them and whipping around to face the duo. “I understand that, sir, believe me.” You were more elevated than you would have liked, years of unease unfortunately slipping through your efforts to withhold them. “But whatever happened when you found him left him barely breathing. You can’t speak to a corpse. You’ll have your time when he’s stable. Go do your job and let me do mine.” You tensed your calves planning to turn around, but quickly felt the guilt catch up to you. “I’ll call you if he wakes up.”
“If?” 
You sighed. You hated profilers. “I’ll call you.” 
“Call the headquarters.” He was scribbling down a number on the back of a hospital business card. “Ask for Agent Hotch. We’ll be waiting.” You nodded your head once, taking the card from his hands. He started walking away as he thanked you. “We appreciate it.” Sure.
The surgery to save the man had been a trip and half. One of the bullets had internally ricocheted, and the other two were lodged next to crucial arteries. You praised your mother for giving you steady hands as you inched them out of him. It took you and your team six hours and fifteen minutes to get his heartbeat steady, you estimated he’d be knocked out all night. You should call, you thought. You had no idea how late these people worked but they were more than likely expecting to talk tonight and you didn’t know if that’d be possible. You fished the card out of your pocket, his handwriting was impressively neat for how fast he’d written the number. You heard the line ring twice before someone picked up. 
“This is Penelope Garcia with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, who am I speaking to?”
“Uh- I’m Dr. L/n down at Quantico Med. I’m looking for Agent Hotch?” Your words tilted up at the end of your sentence. The casual nature of his shortened name left a weird feeling in your mouth after you said it. “I have an update on a patient he was asking after.”
“Is this about an unsub?” 
“A what?” She lacked professionalism. You wondered briefly if he had just given you the phone number of an employee.
“I’m sorry-” she laughed slightly. “Is this about a suspect? Hotch told me someone might be calling.”
“Um - yeah it’s about a suspect. He was brought in earlier. Is Agent Hotch there? I’m sorry ma’am but I've been in an operating room for the past 6 hours and I want to go home.” You hoped she’d respect your honesty, you really didn’t have the patience to explain yourself to someone new. 
She chuckled. “I got you honey, I’ll page you over.” The line went dead for a second before the ringing resumed. Please be quick, you prayed, get me out of this fucking hospital.
“Hotchner.” His voice was rougher over the phone. You guessed the long hours started to weigh on him by this time of night. You always felt it the most around this time, too.
“Hi, sir. This is Dr. L/n from the hospital. We managed to stabilize your guy, but it’s unlikely he’ll be up before tomorrow. I know it was assumed he’d be awake tonight but it took longer to operate than expected.” Your guys put 3 bullets in him, so sorry for the inconvenience. “I’ll be here all day tomorrow. You can come by at any time and I’ll let you in.”
“Are you positive we can’t talk to him tonight? I understand the situation is difficult but this case is extremely time sensitive. I’m sure that’s not lost on you.” You cursed the man for not being more condescending in his delivery. Thinking of the poor person either trapped or dead right now due to the guy you just saved made you sick. 
“I know.” Fucking hell. “I can wake him up.” A quarter dose of adrenaline works wonders. “Be here in fifteen minutes. You won’t have much time to talk to him.”
“Thank you.” He hung up. You put your head in your hands. Just a little kid with bruises.
– 
The layout of the BAU made you envious of the workers here. You’re sure they’d dealt with atrocities beyond what the average person could stomach, but you also worked within the belly of the beast and man were those hospital hallways claustrophobic. The daylight shone beautifully through the large windows, and you asked yourself if you’d be able to cope with all the paperwork in exchange for a feel like this. There weren’t any front desks, nowhere to sign in, so you sat in one of the chairs by the door and waited to see if something would happen. You had been specifically requested to visit the building , a note signed ‘Strauss’ being left with the hospital secretary. You didn’t like being called on by a stranger, it made you nervous beyond belief. You’re sure anyone walking by assumed you were being charged with something. Sweating like a sinner in church.
“Dr. L/n?” A woman was standing near you, having completely avoided your eyesight until now. “I’m the board supervisor, Erin Strauss. Thank you for coming.” The woman was nice enough, but she seemed rigid, clearly confident in her authority. She led you to her office and gestured to the chair facing her desk.
“I’ll cut right to the chase.” She smoothed her pencil skirt as she sat down. “The BAU is seeking a stand-by medic and I’d like to offer you the position. You’re revered highly by your previous places of employment and your current boss has only good things to say. Along with a personal reference by an employee of mine, you’re certainly a person of interest. You’d be working interchangeably with three other individuals, however you would be the first one called when needed.”
That is definitely not what you were expecting. You were almost immediately ready to turn down the offer. You didn’t work well with cops. You worked well in a hospital, going into the field to patch the wounds of both good and evil was a less than appealing deal to you. 
“You’d be on call while you worked your current position at Quantico Medical, when you’re at home you can remain there, but you’ll be flying with the rest of the team when they leave. You will be entered into a federal database, and employed as a stand-in for hospitals near you when working abroad.” She went on to explain you’d be paid salary, and when you heard just how much you could add to your monthly income by doing this, you took it. You were doing fine, you definitely didn’t need the financial boost, but you had family that could use it. Your niece had been close to turning down college because of the cost, so some extra money could really set her up. 
“Excellent. You’ll start your field training next Monday.” She was shuffling papers into a hefty stack as she talked. “Come back when you’ve finished this and I’ll arrange a team meeting.” The stack was even heavier than you expected when you picked it up. It was far too early to be regretting your decision. 
The first day of training had been easy enough. You weren’t an agent, so you avoided having to learn weapons or combat. It generally consisted of learning efficiency, along with how to work properly with agents and the expected etiquette when dealing with an unsub. You had met the team only once by now. Everyone had been nice - Garcia especially - but aside from her nobody had been particularly welcoming. The conditions of your job were a bit strange, basically capitalizing on the what ifs that came with the FBI title, and that created a bit of distance between you and the rest of the team. They questioned the necessity of you, they’d survived this long without a stand-by medic with them, why did they need one now?
Above any disregard for those in law enforcement sat your stubbornness. You knew they were on the fence about you, the most logical thing for you to do now would be attend every session required of you and prove yourself through pure accomplishment. Easy in theory, much harder to execute when Aaron Hotch is the one you’re learning from. He was a good teacher - you’d give him that - he had a confidence to him that easily dominated a room, attracted eyes in a way other men couldn’t manage. You’d ignored the initial stir in your stomach when meeting him in favor of attempting to scold him and his partner. Now, it was much harder to quell the slight pound in your head or the sweat on your palms. He was just standing up front, lecturing on the importance of a team, but his attire was the only thing able to break through the haze in your mind. Every time he’d shown up at the hospital, he’d donned a suit, a slightly baggy blazer worked incredibly well as a shield to your curiosity. That had clearly changed, as he shed the overcoat when talking to the class, having just a white button up adorn his torso. You took notice of the rolled up sleeves, clearing your throat quietly to snap yourself back into focus. You had the intention of snuffing out this little thing of yours but were a living contradiction at this point, setting on the goal of avoidance while barely ignoring the sight of the veins on his arms. You pondered the thought of sleeping with some man at a bar just to get this out of your system, but remembered how little projecting attraction onto someone else helps a situation. In other words, you were probably fucked.
– 
The first mission you worked with the team had you flying to a tiny Georgia town to investigate a string of bodies being found in ransacked homes. It seemed to be a simple motive, robbery turned to murder, but the team was called down to help once the kill count hit five. You had been expecting a long commercial flight, figuring you’d need to invest in a good neck pillow and some aspirin. Nobody had bothered to inform you the Bureau utilized private air travel, or that you’d be flying in one with people you’d known for two weeks. You’re sure you looked a little out of place, looking around the plane without being obvious you were doing it and adjusting to the sight of couches on planes. The others, having had this privilege for years now, took their respective seats. You had been nervous about that, unfortunately. The unsure feeling of where to sit reminding you painfully of high school cafeterias and inferior reputations. The only open seat happened to be right next to the man you’d been ducking away from the past two weeks. Lovely. He took a moment to look at you when you sat. You were prepared to talk to him, but for now you busied yourself with rummaging through your bag looking for nothing and pretending not to see him in your peripherals.
“Do you get sick on planes?” He seemed to have a deeper motive when he asked, like you saying yes would solve a puzzle in his head.
“Not really.” You’d only been on a plane a handful of times. “Turbulence can make me nervous, but I think that’s fairly normal.” You thought momentarily that perhaps he would blame your obvious anxiety on that instead of his proximity to you. He was a profiler, you’re sure he picked up on tells for nerves you weren’t even aware you had, but maybe he’d write it off. “Why do you ask?”
“You seem…” He trailed off for a moment, looking over your face to try and categorize your expression. “I don’t know, lost?” He smiled, light and easy, and you realized he was trying to reach out to you. The comfortability in the gesture made your head spin. It was like a shot of morphine, enveloping your body in a dull elation - an escape. You wanted that comfortability, wanted him to feel weightless around you. There had been a certain tension between the two of you since you started. He was warmer than the rest, but also more awkward. Your first real interaction had been an outburst, and it left you hesitant to talk to him. 
You chuckled at his remark. “No I -” You shook your head as you spoke, as if shaking off his accusation. “Nobody told me about the jet. You’d think exclusive aircraft would be in the job predecessor.”
He nodded in agreement, holding a slight upturn on his lips. “Yes, you would.” He glances away to check the time, looking back to you quickly like you were his homebase. “Strauss has a habit of getting ahead of herself. Plus, we’re all pretty used to it by now. I have to remind her sometimes that normal provisions don’t have a TI.”
“I’m sure.” It was clear she’d worked with the unit for a while. “Even if they did, though, they’d never find another Garcia.” You thought of the woman, bright and sparkly and incredibly good at her job. “You guys are lucky to have her.”
He stared at you, losing a hint of the lightheartedness and letting a wave of genuinity intertwine with it. “You have her too, Y/n.” His eyes were like a trap, rich pools of honey just begging to tug you down in. “You’re a member of this team. Don’t think your newness makes you inferior to anyone else on it. We’re lucky to have you too.”
Fuck, you were whipped. “I really appreciate that, sir.”
He smiled, shaking his head and waving you off. “Don’t with the sir, please. It’s bad enough when Garcia does it. You can call me Aaron.” Not even the other team members called him that, a thought that seemed to strike you both simultaneously. “Or Hotch, whatever you prefer.”
You just looked at him, letting a smile rouse your lips and trying your hardest not to let the effect he had on you reach your face. “Ok.”
The first case had been good training wheels, simply tending to a vic who needed stitches and getting a feel for the life of a field agent. You’d been adjusting nicely to it, quickly getting used to working random hospitals and waiting to be needed on an active crime scene. The others had warmed up to you tremendously after getting back, opening their circle for one more, and you couldn’t be more grateful. A team like this was something you’d wanted for a while, growing more and more unsatisfied with the callous ER workspace by the day. Ironically, there was much more life in jobs dealing with murder. He had also been warming up to you. The two of you hit the status of work-place friends nearly instantly. The endearing encounter on the plane simmered inside you for a while. The memory of it prompting you to keep talking to him, always searching for a fix of the painkiller you’d felt that day. 
You weren’t a profiler, but you were unfathomably infatuated, leading you to never miss his tone getting softer with you, or any one of his touches that lingered for just a second too long. It just barely bypassed the line of friendship, but you never lost sight of that linear barrier, so it was incredibly prevalent to you when he breached it. You scoffed at the idea of any reciprocity, brushing off every remark made by a coworker or the one horrific time you heard JJ refer to the two of you as ‘mom and dad.’ This wasn’t a plausible thing. This was a stupid workplace crush that was more of a hindrance than anything. The growing closeness between you and him would have it’s effects properly restrained to the confines of your head, only permitted to express themselves once you were away from the man. It was an odd dynamic, but Aaron wasn’t an obvious guy, so trying to define the edges of you two would only draw attention to the fact you had been looking at all. No thank you.
“Shit.” The team was sitting around the table going over their files. You were mainly there for support, as you were never a part of the lead up to the catch, the chase. You heard Hotch mumble the exclamation under his breath and looked over to see the trouble. He was looking down at his phone, jaw resting between his thumb and pointer finger. You got up and moved to sit next to him, the motion virtually ignored by everyone else as they continued searching for connections.
“Everything ok?” You mumbled to him, trying not to disturb your friends who were nearly nose-deep in their files. 
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Jack’s sitter canceled. I wanted to stay here to go over the latest crime scene but I guess I’ll have to raincheck.” The killings of your latest unsub had been increasing. You knew the collective stress that was starting to boil within the team. Him going home would only slow them down, a horrible addition to a killer that was speeding up. 
You volunteered your night away before you even got a chance to think about it. 
“I can watch him.” 
Surprise was apparent in the raise of his eyebrows. “I appreciate it, but I couldn’t ask that of you.
You’re fairly certain you would do anything he asked of you, but the nobility of the man in this case almost made you roll your eyes. “No, please. I offered and I would love to. I’m not helping anyone just sitting here, and you leaving would slow them down. You know what to look for here, I don’t. I don’t want another girl going missing just cause your sitter flaked. I can do it.”
He seemed mildly speechless. “I -” He paused, trying to find the wording he wanted. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll send you the address, if you’re sure.” He looked at you with more adoration than you’d ever had directed at you, so intense your eyes instinctively ducked down. “Thank you, Y/n.” He was so touched by the action it made you slightly sad to think about. Had no one ever helped him? Maybe you were raised weird, this seemed hardly beyond common decency to you. 
“What are friends for?” He exhaled a slight laugh in gratuitous agreement, but you saw the glimmer of his eyes dull slightly. The notion surely reflected in your own eyes as the words burned your tongue. Friends.
Jack was a delight. A well mannered, clearly well raised kid. Parts of his dad shined so vibrantly in him that you’re sure you’d be able to pick him out of a crowd based on mannerisms alone. Hotch had called Jack’s daycare, verifying your identity and giving you the ok to go pick him up. He seemed quiet on the way home, but rushed to give you a tour of the house, and excitedly led you to his line up of toy trains once you’d entered the place. There was a shift between you and Hotch that happened when you gave the offer. A shift that was now only just settling in you. This was his house. His space, his stuff, his place of security. He’d invited you into it, gave you permission to enter it, to exist within it, and it was strangely intoxicating. He was intoxicating, and you realized quickly how much you ached for the permanence of it. You’d made Jack dinner, played for a bit, went out for ice cream per his pleading, and wished him a peaceful goodnight when his bedtime rolled around. He’d dubbed you his ‘best babysitter ever’ and you knew as soon as the words hit your ears that you’d be watching him again. You’re sure situations like today popped up frequently for Hotch, you could be a valuable asset to him when you had free time. He would be saving money too. No need to pay a sitter when you were being paid by the Bureau every second you were there. Aaron had gotten home a few minutes past one, utterly exhausted and uncharacteristically apologetic. He was sorry for being gone so long, making you stay so late, everything and anything the man could apologize for was pouring out of his mouth. He’d welcomed you to stay, but his hair was messy from messing with it all night, and he’d ditched the suit jacket for a gray long sleeve. You’d wanted to take the opportunity, wanted to bask in the safety of him for as long as he’d allow it, but those restrained thoughts were clawing the walls of your skull with a vigor unlike anything you’d felt before. It would be abhorrent to dream about the man while in the confines of his home. You couldn’t do that - you wouldn’t. You brushed off any apology he could conjure and let him escort you out the door. His hand was on your lower back, and his voice was low from the siphoning nature of the day. 
“Thank you, again.” He looked at you. “You’re a lifesaver.” You’d expected to hear some humor in his voice. The start of banter between friends, a casual appreciation for a job well done, but there wasn’t any. He sounded rough, slightly beat down, his eyes filled with a sincerity all aimed at you. A blend of pure adoration and a deeper level of dedication. Was this a commitment? What kind?
Heat bubbled in your stomach as you made eye contact. “Please.” You shook your head slightly. “Jack’s an angel. You’re clearly as good at this as you are profiling.” You nodded in the vague direction of Jack’s bedroom as you referenced the kid. “It was my pleasure. I’d love to do it again, if you’ll let me.” 
He sighed out a small laugh and broke your gaze for a moment, looking back to you as he spoke. “I’d like that.”
You’d seen Jack a multitude of times after that. Aaron was never particularly fond of asking you, claiming that he appreciated the gesture but it was mainly Jack’s begging that made him cave. That, and your persistence. You liked Jack a lot, and more selfishly, you liked being around Aaron’s stuff. It was a little creepy, yes, but you felt better acquainted with him after being around his things. An energetic type of understanding, the type that deepened a connection without words. He was needed late tonight, and as much as you hated denying an offer to see Jack, you had priorities at the hospital. The previous sitter wasn’t able to watch him, so she gave a personal recommendation, and Jack got stuck with a stranger. You thought about him while working, probing and patching people half-focused with the desire to be elsewhere. You’d felt mildly guilty about it, but it’s not like it altered your work, so you figured it was harmless. 
You wondered slightly if you manifested the event you were watching play out. You watched in pure disbelief as a sobbing Jack was being carried into the ER by a flustered blonde woman. There was blood staining the right sleeve of his shirt, pouring out of his skin in a surplus and completely soaking through the material. A jagged piece of glass was standing at attention in his wrist, having sliced through the fabric like butter. He was marked ‘urgent,’ who knows if the shard had hit an artery or where the glass had come from. 
Most other doctors were busy, either operating or tending to patients. You’d walked to the front desk, remaining as calm as your racing heart would let you, and told the secretary to assign the case to you. “I know this one. Let me take him.” She just nodded, marking your name down as the primary doctor and allowing you to take him back. 
Walking up to the blonde woman, you assumed this had been the new babysitter. She was a wreck, trying to explain what happened through her own hysteria while simultaneously having her words drowned out by the crying child. “It’s ok, ma’am.” You’d reassured her, obviously she hadn’t intended the injury. “Let me take him, I’m a friend of his father.” You saw the calmness dilate her eyes, making itself apparent in the relaxation of her tense shoulders. You removed the bleeding boy from her arms, holding him against you and cooing at him the way you would a baby. You took him to a stretcher a few feet away and laid him down, ensuring his wounded arm stayed flat in an attempt to slow the blood. He was on the brink of passing out, his body not having nearly enough energy for the sobbing on top of losing vital fluid. “Jack.” You addressed him directly, two more doctors aiding your transfer to an examination room. “I need you to stay with me, buddy. Just a little longer, I promise. You’re gonna be just fine.” You pushed with one hand, caressing his non-injured arm to emphasize your affection. “Just a little longer.” You looked at him in between looking forward to keep the stretcher straight, seeing that same adoration from his father’s eyes mirrored in his. You felt protective, realizing you cared for the Hotchners much more than you let yourself believe. Little kid with bruises, you skimmed through your origins in your mind in an attempt to center your focus. Just a little kid with bruises.
Two hours later, Jack was stitched up and sleeping soundly. You knew his sitter had called Hotch, probably as soon as something happened, and were not surprised to find him idle in a waiting room chair. He was leaned forward, head in his hands and knee bouncing violently. He heard footsteps getting closer, a feeling within him recognizing them as yours, and he looked up. His eyes were teary, tired. The look of a concerned father.
“How is he?” You’d never witnessed this type of worry in him, heard the amount of desperation in his voice.
You smiled lightly as a predecessor to Jack’s wellbeing. “He’s fine. Glass missed his arteries. We had him patched up in around an hour and a half. Gave him a lollipop and a light sedative to get him to rest. He should be all set to go in the morning.” 
He sighed, and the amount of stress that audibly left his body made you feel a little lighter from where you stood. “Thank God.”
“Hey man, give us a little credit.” You joked, relieved when you heard the slight laugh come from his downturned head. Pity laugh, probably, but it was a cherished sound nonetheless. 
“You have full credit, Y/n.” He shook his head, raising it to look at you. “Quite the hero.”
You almost physically recoiled from the term, rushing to correct him while maintaining the lighthearted nature. “Definitely not.” You rejected the praise. “Just doing my job. I’m glad I could help him.”
He leaned back in his chair, relaxing for a second before he planned to stand up. “Noble.” He chuckled. “But you helped my son. That’s about as heroic as it gets to me, doc.”
Blood rushed to your ears at your professional title being used so affectionately. “Go check on your kid, Hotch.” You waved back towards the direction of Jack, knowing that even though he was asleep, he’d want to see him anyway. You also hoped the slight distraction would draw his attention away from your increasingly flustered state. “You’ll have plenty of time to praise me.” You weren’t entirely sure you’d wanted the sentence to exit your mouth, but it was too late to bite your tongue.
He raised his eyebrows so slightly that you scolded yourself for having noticed. Such a minuscule action that seemed to move mountains within your brain. “Oh?”
“Shut up.” You rolled your eyes at your own remark. “I’m walking away. You know what I meant.”
“Mhm.” He smiled, nodding his head dramatically and rising from his seat. “Just name a time and place, doc. I’ll do good on that promise.”
You went momentarily braindead, hoping your eyes weren’t giving away the less than work appropriate feeling pumping through your veins. You stared baffled at him for what was definitely a millisecond too long before giving a half-shocked, half-flattered laugh and gesturing him away. “Say that when you’re not obviously sleep deprived and delirious and maybe we can arrange it.” The last thing you heard was him, laughing the way you do when you’re very serious but desperately trying to pass it off as a joke. You knew it well, having done it almost every time you were around him since you started. Comfortable, witty retorts between  friends. “Have a good night, Aaron.” 
Aaron, he thought. He’d remember that.
– 
That had been the second shift between the two of you. Felt immediately by both parties and tossing you both into the deep end of whatever you’d been building with him. He’d been much more touchy, seemingly subconscious on his part but noticed by every part of your body, mind, and soul. You thought about what it could mean, then sunk even further into your incoherent mind when realizing just how subconscious the actions really were. He was just drawn to you. You had viscerally fought that conclusion as it came to you but it genuinely could not be anything else. He was touching you more because - whether on the surface or deeper down - he just wanted to, and that fact was wrecking you. You were so fucking into him that it hurt. Hurt to look at him or be in his home watching Jack or have his knee pressed against yours in the back of car during a team outing. It all hurt because he wasn’t yours. He seemed into you, too. Of course, you didn’t know to what extent. You worried maybe he hadn’t said anything yet because he simply didn’t like you enough, and that hurt more than any other factor. It was a foolish notion - one you would have abandoned instantly had you peeked inside his head - but alas, no such luck.
He’d been more relaxed, too. The two of you reaching a point in your relationship you hadn’t ever let yourself dream about. He was funny, achieving that lightness around you that you’d wanted from the start. He’d gotten riskier, amping up the dial on his remarks a bit. Starting with those like the hospital, ending with ones that made you have to take a breather in the room where they kept the coffee. It hadn’t gone unnoticed, per say, but the others were certainly ignorant to the true depth of the change. You simply couldn’t measure it by witnessing, you had to feel it. And fuck were you feeling it. 
A week or so after Jack’s ER visit, you’d asked after him. You didn’t know if the regret was immediate, but it flooded through you quickly. Aaron got nervous, shifty, like you’d touched a live wire of his and he now had to patch it up before it blew. You got concerned, asking if something happened with his stitches or if Jack was now showing some sort of trauma response to the event. Was that even plausible? You weren’t sure, PTSD wasn’t exactly your strong suit. However, he quickly stated that wasn’t the case, noting that Jack was actually in perfect health and had been relentless about wanting you over for dinner.
“He’s grateful.” Hotch was smiling with paternal reluctance, proud of his son for having such good morals but also uncomfortable with the possibility of rejection he was facing. “He wants to see you, say thank you for “saving his life.” He emphasized the last bit in a sarcastic tone, both of you knowing his life hadn’t been in danger but also knowing that fact wouldn’t deter the boy from considering you some type of guardian angel. “Would you be up for it?” If you hadn’t been so focused on snuffing out the heat rushing to your face, you would have seen that same heat reflected in a slight pink across his cheeks. 
“Definitely.” You smiled at the thought of the boy bugging his dad about getting you to the house. “When were you thinking?”
“Saturday night?” Both of you were scheduled to be off that day, and you found yourself begging whatever merciful being would listen to not have some lead to chase that day. “He’ll want the day to prepare.” He chuckled.
“Oh no.” You joked. Prepare? You couldn’t even begin to imagine what that meant. “Well, I am extremely curious to find out what an eight year old boy has to prepare for. How about seven? Would that be good?”
Aaron felt his palms start to sweat. He’d never actually been around his house when you’d been there, only seeing you on your way out. “That’s perfect.”
“Great.” You smiled, checking the time and realizing you needed to get going to the hospital. “I’m looking forward to it.” You nodded slightly as one last confirmation and headed out, suppressing a giddy smile while trying to force yourself into a headspace you could work in. 
In the meantime, Aaron watched you walk off from where he’d been perched on your desk, entirely oblivious to the man watching the scene.
“As I live and breathe.” Rossi had crept up on him, not spooking him but rather suspending him in a state of immeasurable embarrassment. “Aaron Hotcher has a crush.” The man held his shoulder, patting him there like a father witnessing his son get his first girlfriend. “She’s a good one. Quite the eye you got, Aaron.” Then he was gone, walking away with Aaron’s dignity clasped in his hands. Closing his eyes in pure mortification, Hotch simply thanked God that nobody else was around for that and walked away with the intention of fusing to his office chair to avoid ever looking at Rossi again. At least you’d said yes, he thought. He didn’t know how he’d cope with his friend watching him swing and miss.
The daylight seemed to be anticipating this more than you were, hours passing by like minutes until eventually the sun woke you up on Saturday morning. It was blazing through the cracks in your blinds, settling in slim lines across your floor, as light and gentle as snow. You’d been rehearsing your poker face in preparation for tonight. Writing safety manuals for any ungodly situation that could happen, everything from a fire to Aaron gaining the ability to read your mind and unearthing what you really thought about him. You were so happy that Jack held you in such high esteem, but your hands were shaking at the thought of sitting down with him and his father and acting like it wasn’t the dynamic you fucking dreamt about. You knew it was a good sign of compatibility if someone’s cat liked you - did their child liking you mean the same thing? You hoped Jack’s seemingly innate approval of you gave you at least a couple brownie points. Aaron had called you a hero. Swiftly ignoring the memory of what he’d said after he called you a hero, you pulled out your phone. You and him didn’t really speak outside of work and babysitting schedules, but you were pacing around your room and needed something to give you a semblance of structure, a reassurance - even if it was just for the time. You texted, asking if you were still on for tonight, then went to go make breakfast and inevitably pace some more. He’d gotten back to you about twenty minutes later, confirming the time and giving details of how excited Jack was about it. You smiled at that, praying tonight would be as smooth as humanly possible and you could walk away with an ounce of emotional control. You set an intention, this wouldn’t deepen your feelings for Aaron. Was it a pointless goal? Yes. Was it also highly unlikely to prove true? Yes. But the loose plan you worked around the resolution almost completely extinguished the anxiety that had been blazing for hours now. It would be fine, you thought. Completely and utterly fine. 
The same words were looping through your thoughts when you got to his front door. Casual - but still minorly more dressed up than he’d seen you. You’d put a little extra effort into your appearance, mainly to pass the time if you were honest, and you walked in with mild confidence fueling your steps. You did your best not to ogle him, he was in an attire that was already threatening to unravel the safety net of the goal you set. You were used to the suits hidden beneath blazers you cursed the existence of, maybe a snippet of his forearms when he rolled up his sleeves late at night. Now, though, he sported a simple black tee, more comfortable than you’d ever seen him. Domesticity was practically oozing from the entire situation. You felt the pieces slip into place as Jack ran up behind him, and you almost cried with how badly you wanted this feeling to be your normal. 
“Hey, buddy.” You laughed as he hugged you, reciprocating the act as well as you could from the multiple feet you had on his height. “How’s the arm?”
He raised up his wrist, now gauze free and proudly showed off the scar there. You played up the genuine admiration you felt for him. “That’s a pretty gnarly scar.” He nodded in response, probably feeling cool for the evidence he handled such an injury. “I don’t want to see you back in my operating room, you hear me? Scared the life out of us.” The scolding was playful, and he giggled at your words.
Aaron huffed in agreement, cocking his head to the side slightly. “You can say that again.” Jack looked between you two, smiling and seemingly thinking something neither of you could decipher. To break the moment of silence, Aaron patted his shoulder. “Why don’t you tell her what’s on the menu, buddy?”
He told you, and you hummed along to his words, commenting that it sounded delicious and actually meaning it. He ran away a second later - presumably back to whatever he’d been doing before you got there - and left you and Aaron alone. Venturing into the kitchen, you saw multiple pans and pots sitting neatly on the stove, table set and ready to be utilized. Everything was being kept warm, and you finally gained an appetite after having wrestled with nerves all day. 
“Do you want a drink?” He asked it while entering the kitchen, pausing to look at you. 
“Please.” You were desperate to calm yourself, eager to subdue the shaking of your hands. “Do you have any wine?” You weren’t the biggest fan, but you couldn’t think of a drink more fitting for the evening.
He nodded slightly. “Red or white?”
“White.”
He chuckled. “Thought so.” It was quiet, more to himself than you as he was already walking away from you when he said it. He’d thought about what kind of wine you liked, you thought. He’d thought about you. He pulled two wine glasses down from the cupboard, then walked over to the fridge. He reached above it, barely having to stretch, and pulled an uncorked bottle from the storage up there. You felt your legs tense looking at how tall he was, how sure he was of his actions. Jesus. It’s been five minutes and you were crumbling. You watched his hands as he uncorked the bottle, reading the label and realizing the brand.
You furrowed your eyebrows. “Seems a little fancy for a dinner.”
He laughed under his breath as he finished pouring the glasses, walking back over to sit next to you on the island stools. “You’re a guest of honor.” He placed yours in front of you. “I thought it was fitting.” 
You searched, but couldn’t find the humor in his tone. You raised your eyebrows slightly. “Am I?” It was sarcastic, you needed to stop the heat in your stomach from spreading. “I didn’t know doing your job earned such a title.”
He was drinking as you spoke, finishing his sip before joking back. “You’re a doctor.” He said. “I thought you knew that better than anyone.”
You sucked air through your teeth as if wounded by his words. “Touche.” You took a sip of your drink, relishing the taste. Damn, he didn’t come to play. He laughed, and you set your glass back down. “Ok, I have to know.” He drew his attention to you. “What the hell did Jack need the day to prepare for?” The question had been on your mind since he asked you.
He took a drink, chuckling with a mouthful then swallowing so he could reply. “He actually helped cook most of this.” He nodded towards the stove full of different dishes. “That was what he needed the day for. Time for trial and error.”
You grinned at the thought of Jack and Aaron spending the day in aprons, making sure everything turned out perfect. “That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He looked back towards Jack, coloring in the living room, close enough to see but far enough to miss your discussions. “He gets nervous around you.”
That surprised you. “Why on Earth would he be nervous around me?” You took your turn looking at the boy, an idea hitting you and making you feel sick. “Wait, I didn’t do something did I?”
He looked back at you, smiling. “No, no. Nothing like that. He gets nervous because he likes you. He knows who you are to me, too, so he wants to make a good impression.”
Your mind latched onto that sentence and played it like a broken record, bouncing between your ears over and over. “Oh?” Your lips were curling up at the corners, eyebrows furrowing as you got ready to hold him to that statement. “And who might I be to you, Aaron?”
Fuck. He’d let that slip past his lips without even thinking about it. So used to being in the confidential company of his son. Good thing he used to be a lawyer and could lie his ass off. “Most of his sitters aren’t also my coworkers.” He delivered it the smoothest way he could, smiling and drinking to hopefully exude a false comfortability that he certainly wasn’t feeling.
“Mhm.” You narrowed your eyes at him, trying to look sarcastic but in truth downplaying the sting you felt. What if this had been one-sided all along? You hadn’t prepped a safety guide for that.
Luckily, Jack came sprinting into the kitchen a second later, pleading with his father to eat now. Clinging to his leg and declaring how hunger was killing him by the second, dramatically threatening to wither away before your very eyes. You both shared a look, agreeing silently to put the kid out of his misery. The instinctual nature of the act hit you like a bolt of lightning. Both of you so in tune it was comical. The dinner had been lovely, and you reminded yourself to encourage Jack to keep up his cooking hobby. Maybe you could foster a professional chef. You’d talked with them both, light and the happiest you’d felt in a while. There it was, you realized. That weightless feeling you wanted to give him. You felt it in yourself too, and you could only pray it was because he felt it first. When dinner concluded, you’d help clean up while Jack resumed his coloring. His bedtime was soon, and you didn’t want him to spend his last hour washing pans. He was nearly delirious by the time 9:00 graced the clock, tired from the preparation of the day and needing to get to sleep. He’d given you a hug goodnight, thanked you for coming like the gentleman he was, and that was the last you saw of him. The rest of your time there was spent on the couch with Aaron, you both held a second glass of wine, and you noticed it manifest in the blush on his face. He was gorgeous, and you were staring. You know your eyes went to his lips a couple times as he spoke, low and rougher as the time ushered more light out of the sky. You saw his eyes slip down a few times too, this sort of unspoken, agonizing rule of look don’t touch. He’d walked you to the door, thanked you for your attendance, and then you were leaving. Sitting in your car, warm on the inside from both his presence and the anger you felt at yourself for not just kissing him. You were so incredibly needy for this - for him, and that fact just sat with you, like a raincloud constantly in a state of downpour, never letting you forget the pure fucking craving you had for him.
You think the start of your blackout was Morgan’s panicked voice over the speaker. You’d been stationed in your typical hut, equipped with medical gear and waiting on someone to need you. It was almost never your team in need of service, typically you were tending to an injured hostage or sometimes the unsub themselves, but never your friends. Your breath had been baited since you’d heard the gun go off. You knew the case was dealing with an aggressive attacker, you’d been expecting a fight, but nothing is ever more excruciating than waiting to hear who the shot was meant for. Derek crying out your name followed by a “get in here. Hotch is down, we need you in here.” had you ready to run the soles of your shoes down to dust just to make it in time. In time. God, in time for what? You’d ran past Emily and Rossi hauling out the unsub, anger evident in their treatment of him. How bad was it? How bad had he got him to have them acting like that?
The scene was bloody. Your brain switching off and forcing you into autopilot as you registered the pool of Hotch’s blood that Morgan was kneeling in. He was putting pressure on the wound, an attempt to stop the bleeding but it was flowing like a river. He wouldn’t make it to the hospital like this, you realized. He wouldn’t make it to the fucking hospital. You were holding his life in between your hands right now, the slightest tremor could sever that chord and you were feeling the pressure hard. Aaron was leaned against the wall, slumping down slightly which was only making the bleeding increase under the internal pressure. 
You looked at Morgan, putting on the bravest face you could muster and effectively seizing control of the situation. “Morgan.” You got his attention quickly. “On three I need you to lift him away from the wall. I need to check for an exit wound.” He just nodded, doing exactly as you’d told him when you reached three. You checked the area, finding an exit wound in nearly the same spot. It’d been a straight line. You sighed in relief. Thank fucking God. “Ok, Morgan, I need you to put pressure on the wound on his back. I’m going to stitch the front to give us the time we need for the hospital drive but I need you to hold it. You got me?” 
He nodded once. “I got it.” He moved his hand from the front to the back, Aaron wincing at the switch.
You took out the numbing cream from your pack, knowing it wouldn’t do much for a gushing bullet wound but hoping it would at least quell the sting of a needle. You took out the needle, threading it with hands frighteningly stagnant as the adrenaline gave you tunnel vision. You had to save him. “Aaron.” You looked at him as you prepped his skin for the procedure. “I’m gonna need to double stitch this, and it’s gonna hurt like hell. I need you to stay with me.” 
The man just nodded, exhaling in exhaustion. “Do it.”
You worked as quickly as possible, gaining hope as you listened to the ambulance approach. “There you go.” You said under your breath, at this point you couldn’t tell if you were reassuring him or yourself.  You looked to Morgan, who was still sealing the other injury. “Help me get him up. Keep your hand on there. These stitches are gonna give us twenty minutes tops. Hold his shoulders straight and walk quickly.” You counted again, both of you rising when you hit three, taking the man with you. The walk to the ambulance was the longest of your life. Aaron was clinging to his consciousness but you knew he was losing grip. Finally getting him to the stretcher and slamming the doors was a relief like nothing else. There was no time to debate anyone else going, you rushed him in and sat right down beside him, taking off almost immediately after. The bleeding had slowed, and your hand took the place of Morgan’s on his back. Since he was laying down, his full weight was on it, and you felt the circulation lessen more and more as it remained there. You couldn’t care less, you’d let the blood drain from your entire arm if it meant Aaron’s survival. He hadn’t passed out, which you thought was miraculous, simply walked the line of decently delirious. Groaning under his breath at every slight bump in the road. 
“Why am I always having to save you Hotchner men?” You knew now wasn’t the time to be humorous, but you would have done anything to deviate from the tears in your eyes, the ball in your throat. You finally understood why it was frowned upon to date coworkers - it should be illegal to care this much. 
“I don’t know, honey.” The pet name was the kicker, allowing a tear to break the dam and roll down your cheek as he chuckled. “You seem to be pretty damn good at it, though.” You laughed too, fighting the devastation you felt at the sight of him with the fact that he was clearly well enough to still be joking. “I should have kissed you when you came for dinner.”
Fuck. “Aaron, now is not the time.” You chuckled slightly as more tears fell. This is absurd.
“I know but-” He flinched as the ambulance hit another bump. Almost there. “I might as well say it now.” You wondered if there was genuinely something wrong with him. “You’ve been all I can think about since the moment-'' He paused to breathe slightly in exertion, you giving a disapproving look as his confession took it’s toll. “since the moment you started, you know that?”
“You are dying! Please, for the love of God, Aaron. Use this energy to prevent that from happening.” Your scolding was dramatic, but your actual concern shone brightly through your ruse of sarcasm. 
“Exactly.” He was being equally as sarcastic. How on Earth did he manage this with a rapidly declining life force. “Give a dying man a chance. How unfortunate would it be if the last thing I hear before I go out is the woman of my dreams rejecting me?”
“Jesus Christ.” You shook your head in pure amazement. This was by far the most goal oriented man you’d ever met. “I’ll let you take me out if you shut the hell up and save your energy.” He smiled, letting his head hit the reclined back of the stretcher. “After you get better.” You added, reminding him that his recovery took priority. “Deal?”
“Deal.” This was probably the most insufferable man you’d ever met. “Such a good motivator.”
Scratch that. Most insufferable man ever.
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er-cryptid · 6 days
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yawnderu · 5 months
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K-9 — Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader | Chapter IV
Sick as a dog, and just as vicious.
1 2 3 4 5
What's a Lieutenant if not someone you can use as a stress reliever
Or
Being a gifted medic comes with free rewards
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You weren't the only one catching up on some sleep. Simon was awake throughout Johnny's entire surgery despite having slept four hours the previous night, wanting to be available in case you needed his help, finally getting some much-needed rest after being practically forced by Price.
He wakes up six hours later, a small groan escaping his lips at the light entering his window. His burly arm comes up to cover his eyes, shielding them from the bright sun.
''Fuckin' hell.'' He muttered, getting up from bed and putting on a black balaclava. Shit went down yesterday, with Johnny almost dying, and Makarov is now free, able to continue killing civilians until they're finally able to catch him. At the very least, his best friend is alive and stable last time he visited.
Simon leaves his room, walking to the cafeteria to get a bottle of cold water and a few granola bars before heading to your quarters, knocking on the door softly in case you're asleep. No reply. He knows better, but... what if something happened to you? He uses the pathetic excuse to justify his actions, hand turning the doorknob carefully before stepping inside, footsteps surprisingly quiet for someone his size.
What a fucking sight. He stared at your sleeping figure for a while, taking in the details of your face when it wasn't pulled into a scowl or a bored expression, a small smile tugging on his lips at how peaceful you look before he realized how creepy he was being. He shook his head softly as if to snap out of it, putting the water bottle and granola bars before turning away to try and leave.
Try, because a much smaller hand wrapped around his wrist, almost making him flinch because of how sudden it was. He looks down at you only to find your eyes boring into his, tugging him closer by the wrist. A confused Simon followed like a lost dog before his feet rooted on the ground in front of your bed, giving you a questioning look with his eyes.
''Come lay with me.'' Your voice is much gentler than usual, laced with something he can't quite recognize yet. Simon knows better, really he does, but who is he to question the medic he's been pining on for months? He hesitantly removes his boots and climbs into bed with you, keeping a respectful distance despite his behemoth frame taking over half of the bed. His muscles tense up when he feels you cuddling up to him, being a painfully fitting piece against his body.
''What are you on bout, doc?'' You don't reply, simply examining his eyes for any hints of hesitation. You find nervousness, curiosity, doubt, and even the smallest hints of fear, but no hesitation at all. Your hand sneaks up to the bottom of his balaclava, pulling it all the way off before your lips crash into his hungrily. It takes him a few seconds of pure confusion before he kisses back, arms wrapped around your waist, and whatever questions he has on why you're doing this all of sudden pushed to the back of his mind.
Your hands grab at anything they can reach— muscle, skin, hair... anything, holding onto his much bigger body like a lifeline, his warm hands running up and down your back. He has fantasized about this moment so many times, yet the real thing is so different in a good way.
''Tell me I can touch you, bird.'' You simply nod your head and try to go back to kissing him, but he pulls away, gently squeezing your waist to make you look at him.
''Use your words.'' His words are almost pleading, wanting to make sure you want the same thing.
''I want you to touch me, Simon.'' Not a second passes before his lips are back on yours, tongues wrapping around each other's as his hands start to drift down, grabbing a handful of your ass. His touch is so desperate it almost makes you laugh, one of your hands sneaking down his shirt and feeling him up, defined muscles flexing under your touch. His slightly shaky hands fumble with the button of your jeans, breaking away from the kiss just to look at you and make sure you still want it. The half-lidded look you give him is enough confirmation, pulling down your jeans and getting on his knees, between your legs.
"Been wanting to do this since I saw ya." He confesses, too excited for his fantasies finally coming true to even feel remotely bashful about his words. He lifts up your shirt enough to reveal your tummy, gentle kisses planted on every single inch of skin his lips can reach as he slowly descends, planting open mouthed kisses over your clothed cunt.
"Fuck—" Your back arches at the feeling, eyes screwed shut as your hand goes to the back of his head, pushing him closer. His tongue is warm and wet, saliva mixing in with your growing arousal. He pushes your panties to the side, looking down at your gleaming pussy before digging in, tongue lapping the wetness before he latches onto your cunt, sucking and licking away like a starved man.
"You taste s'fucking good." He praises before going back down, the flat of his tongue moving around your cunt before slowly going inside, your whiny moans and hands gripping his short hair are all the encouragement he needs. He latches onto your clit next, long fingers teasing the entrance of your cunt, spreading your arousal all over them before he slowly enters you with one.
His fingers are thick and long, whiny moans escaping your lips as he adds a second one, making scissoring motions as he fucks his fingers deeper and deeper into you, tongue alternating between licking and sucking on your clit before hesitantly letting go.
"Sit on my face." It's not even a request, it sounds like a plea, though you quickly listen to his words for the first time ever, cunt hovering above his face as soon as he lays back down. He grabs a handful of your ass, squeezing the plush and pulling your body down to his face, eating you out like a starved man. His hands let go of your ass to unbuckle his belt, barely having the strength to pull his hard cock out of his jeans, eyes closing as he focused on the dual sensation of pleasuring you with his mouth and pleasuring himself with his hand, pre staining his fingers as his hand moves up and down his shaft faster.
"Fuck— Just like that, Si." Si. You never call him anything other than Simon. Sometimes Ghost, when you're needed during missions and hang around them in the helos, but the way you say his name... so much affection, even if it only comes from making you feel good. He's pathetic— God, he knows he's being pathetic, cock twitching in his hand at the idea of you reciprocating his complex and strange feelings for you, ropes of thick cum shooting out into his hand and stomach, a low growl coming out of his lips as he squeezed his cock dry of cum.
He focuses solely on you now, tongue swirling and flickering all over you, his clean hand coming up to rub your clit with his thumb while he assaults your dripping wet cunt with his lips and tongue. Your hands go down to his head, fingers pulling on his short hair while you use his face to feel good, getting closer and closer to the edge.
"Si, I'm gonna cum—" But he doesn't stop. Hell, his thumb moves even faster over your sensitive bud, tongue-fucking your pussy as deep as he can until he can feel your body shaking on top of him, thighs closing in on his head and squeezing as the intensity of your orgasm washes over you, his waiting mouth taking in all your juices, lapping at them greedily until you pull away from the stimulation, shaky legs managing to position yourself next to him, head against his chest.
"You hear that? Price is calling you." You lie, unable to contain the smirk on your lips as he flicks your nose.
"Piss off, doc." His burly arms wrap around you, a loud groan of protest escaping your lips when you realize you're forced to cuddle with him.
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tallulah477 · 6 months
Text
Hunting the Tawtute
Kinktober Day 19: Threesome
Pairing: Neteyam x Fem!Human!Reader x Lo’ak
Warnings: AgedUp!Neteyam, AgedUp!Lo’ak, Dark!Neteyam, Dark!Lo’ak, ***NON-CON***, Dub-Con, Primal Kink (Hunter/Prey Kink), Oral (female receiving and male receiving), P in V, Fingering, Handjob, Breath Play, Dirty Talk, Size Difference, Belly Bulge, Alien Genitalia, Slight Knife Play, Multiple Orgasms, Bukkake, Hair Pulling, Slight Humiliation, Slight Thigh Riding, Knots/Knot Play (but no actual knotting), Marking Kink/Biting
Word Count: 5.4K (of pure self-indulgent fantasy)
A/N: I don’t even know what to say about this. This one kinda like so fucking much got away from me. It’s like I went crazy, blacked out, and this happened. Hopefully some of you guys will like it too as much as I liked writing it.
Summary: When the Omatikaya raid an RDA outpost, you just barely escape the carnage with your life. You're stumbling through the forest when they find you, and the dark grins on their faces make shivers run down your spine. You try to run, but they’ll catch you - they’re little beautiful prey. 
Extra: Pretty, But Not Stupid
**PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS - DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ**
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Translations:
Tawtute -  Human
Mountain Banshee - Large, dragon-like aerial predators
Sevin - Pretty
Vrrtep - Demon
Paskalin - Sweet Berry (term of endearment)
The ground is shaking underneath you as you run, booming with the force of the explosions and gunfire racking the now nonexistent RDA outpost. You can still hear the screaming, both war cries and cries of terror, echoing through the forest as your tired legs carry you further and further away. 
You’re gasping for breath, heart feeling like it's going to pound out of your chest as you sob. You hated the RDA, they were mostly all power hungry assholes anyway, but some people in the outpost were good - innocent people who fled Earth just to get away from the horror there, only to be met with a fate possibly crueler here. All the cooks, cleaners, and medical professionals who just wanted a chance - all dead within minutes of the start of the emergency alarm that blared through the base. If not by the explosions, then currently being picked off without mercy by the Na’vi. 
You’re lucky to even be alive right now. 
You shake your head, trying to ignore how your heavy, panicked breathing is fogging up your mask and how you can barely see through your tears. You need to keep going. You can’t think about it now. Can’t think about the carnage you're running from and the people you’re leaving behind. You need to find safety. 
You run a little further, trying not to trip on any more upturned roots. You fell over one a little ways back, and your ankle protests the more weight you put on it, but the fear of being found and killed keeps you going. You quickly round another tree and stop, bracing your hand on the bark of the massive trunk and lifting your hurt ankle up a bit just to relieve the pressure for a moment. Your eyes hurriedly scan the area, trying to keep an eye out for danger you wouldn’t even be able to defend yourself against. Even if you did have some kind of a weapon (which you don’t, you barely had enough time to sprint away with your life as it was, let alone grab any kind of form of defense), you wouldn’t be able to win against the strength and prowess of one of the natives anyway.
A sharp gasp leaves your lips when your eye catches movement a few trees down from you. There’s a male Na’vi standing there, long braids still swinging around his shoulders from his abrupt movement, and he has an arrow notched and pulled back, strong muscles and chest bulging behind the bow as he steadies the arrow - the arrow that’s pointed directly at you. 
“Wait!” You yell, hands instinctively coming up to protect your face as if they could ever stop the Na’vi sized arrow. “Wait! Please, don’t shoot!”
The male stops, curious amber eyes locked on your trembling figure, and to your complete shock, he lowers the arrow. Why isn’t he killing you? The Na’vi kill humans on sight, they don’t hesitate. You should have been dead the second he saw you. But you’re not. He lowered his arrow, and for a brief moment relief and hope flood your chest. 
“I mean you no harm,” You call, voice shaking. “Please, don’t k-kill me,”
The male tilts his head at you and you watch cautiously as he puts his bow away, reattaching it to his back, before reaching up to touch his throat. From this distance you can just see the outline of a necklace. A throat comm, you think. He has his fingers pressed against the buttons and you can’t hear what he’s saying, but you see his lips moving as he talks to whoever is on the other line. 
A dark smirk curls at his lips as he speaks. He’s looking directly at you and whatever hope you had disappears as dread fills your entire being. 
You are going to die. 
You can’t stay here, staying still even as he’s watching you is a risk. If you’re going to die, you’re at least going to go down trying to live. 
You turn to run, making it just a few steps away from the tree before the canopy bursts above you, a roaring shriek piercing your ears as a large blue and purple mountain banshee descends down towards the forest floor. You scream, falling back on your ass as the dragon-like animal lands just feet from you, the wind from its strong wings beating over your body and making your hair whip around your face.
The banshee’s rider descends from its back, landing on the ground with a thud and disconnecting his neural queue from the animal. He stalks towards you, golden eyes gleaming behind a few loose braids falling in front of them, and he grins, long pointed canines biting into his bottom lip.
“Where you running to, sevin tawtute?”
With another terrified sob, you scramble to your feet. The second Na’vi’s low chuckle, despite being fairly quiet, rings loudly in your ears, and you can hear the footsteps of the first’s getting closer and closer to you each second. 
“Don’t do it,” The second warns, and you don’t even have the mental capacity to realize that he’s speaking to you in English. You’re already spinning and darting away in the opposite direction. 
You run as fast as you can through the dense Pandorian forest. They’re chasing you, you can hear their footsteps pounding against the forest floor behind you. They mock you, first just making quick yipping and whooping calls, communicating with each other in a way you would never even begin to understand. And then they switch to your language.
“Better run faster, human!”
“Getting tired already, baby?”
“Can you feel my breath on the back of your pretty neck?”
“We’re going to get you!”
Your sobs get louder, terrified as you try to push yourself harder. They sound so close, like they’re right behind you, like they could just reach out and grab you. But they don’t. They’re playing with you. They’re faster than you, their legs significantly longer than yours and more adept at running and navigating the forest terrain. They’re letting you keep going on purpose, finding glee in your terror and enjoyment in chasing their prey. 
Your ankle is aching, pain shooting from the twisted limb, and your running is quickly turning into panicked hobbling. You can’t do it anymore. Can’t do it - they’re going to get you. Without thinking, you dive under a slightly uprooted tree - the tilt of the base giving you just enough room to crawl under the trunk, thick roots caging you in and separating you from the two male Na’vi. 
The second you make it through, there’s a burst of movement as the long haired male slides in front of the opening, long arm sticking through the roots and reaching for you. You whimper when his fingers brush your mask and you try to scoot yourself further back against the dirt, but there isn’t much room. 
“Come out of there,” He says, voice soft like he’s trying to coax you out, but the underlining reverb of a growl taints the attempt. “It’s dangerous under there,”
“Yes, tawtute,” The other says, long legs visible from behind his brother’s upper body. “Much safer out here with us,”
You can’t help the anger and frustration that wells inside you as you hear the absolute lie they are trying to tell you. 
“Bullshit,” You spit.
The long haired male removes his reaching arm and peers at you through the roots, eyes alight with mirth. “Oh, you hear that, brother? Our little vrrtep has a mouth on her,”
The other male chuckles and squats down to peer at you through your self imposed cage. “And what a pretty mouth it is. Can’t wait to see what else it can do,”
Your eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. That sounded . . . suggestive. That couldn’t possibly mean what it sounded like, right?
“What do you say, sevin? Want your gorgeous lips wrapped around my cock?” He asks, playful fingers lifting up the front of his loincloth slightly as if to tease you. And then, suddenly, there’s a new fear taking over. 
They don’t want to catch you to kill you - they want you. 
“My name is Lo’ak,” He continues, lifting his hand from his loincloth to wiggle his fingers at you in greeting. Five fingers, you notice. “You know, just so you know what to scream out later when I’m fucking you,”
More tears well up in your eyes, cascading down your flushed cheeks. “P-please. Don’t hurt m-me,” You beg, wide eyes pleading with the large blue men holding you hostage to show you mercy. “I’ll leave! I promise! You’ll never see me again,”
“She begs so beautifully already,” The other male says, nudging his brother’s arm. “She’s gonna sound so good when she’s crying in pleasure. Go ahead and try it out for me, paskalin. Let me hear you say it: Neteyam,”
Neteyam looks at her expectantly, golden green eyes dark from where his pupils have nearly completely taken over. 
“Fuck you,” You hiss. You try to put as much malice and ferocity in your words as you can muster, but Neteyam only grins at your curse.
“Yeah, tawtute. That’s the idea,”
Lo’ak suddenly moves, shifting over to the side of the tree and you panic at the abrupt movement, scrambling over and pressing your back against the roots on the opposite side just to be as far from him as possible. 
“Come on out, baby,” He purrs, eyes hooded as he stares at you. “Don’t you want to take a ride? Feel some big alien cock in your pretty, tiny pussy?”
You open your mouth again to shoot some more choice expletives at him, but all that comes out is a scream when the roots behind you rip and a large hand grips at your hair, dragging your body from its hiding spot and into the dimming light of the forest.
Neteyam hauls you up on your feet, fist tangled in your hair keeping you from running and grabs one of your swinging arms, pinning it behind your back. Lo’ak steps in front of you, tall and imposing at nearly twice your height, but you still try to fight, fight for your life and your freedom, and your hand smacks as hard as it can against his hip.
It doesn’t do anything to him obviously, you’re not even sure if he felt it, but all the fight leaves you in an instant when the large knife the size of your forearm waves in your face.
“You’re gonna be a good girl for us now, okay?” He says, tapping the glass of your mask with the tip of his knife as if he were trying to boop your nose. The tip of the knife travels down your neck, over your collarbone, and towards the center of your chest. If you were able to think correctly, you would be amazed at the control he has over the blade to not let it cut you despite your chest heaving with your frantic breathing. “Stay still now,”
The knife travels towards the valley between your breasts, taking the neck of your t-shirt with it and pulling it down and down until Lo’ak just cleanly slices through the whole front of it. Neteyam releases your arm now that you're not fighting against them anymore, but still keeps a firm grip on your hair. The ruined shirt slips from your shoulders and Lo’ak brings the knife back up to hook underneath the band of your bra, slicing through the material like it was paper and pushing the remnants of that off of your body as well. 
“Such a pretty little thing,” He muses, running the flat of the blade across one of your exposed breasts, the cool metal making you shiver as it presses against your heated skin. Lo’ak twists the knife and places the very tip of it at your nipple. The sharp edge makes you gasp, the bud starting to harden immediately at the feeling and you can’t help but feel mortified when you feel wetness pool in your panties. 
Lo’ak’s nose twitches, a wicked grin pulling at his lips as his large amber eyes catch yours, but it’s Neteyam that digs the metaphorical knife deeper, furthering your humiliation and making your face burn.
“Aw, is the cute little tawtute getting wet for us? We can smell you,” Neteyam laughs, dragging your head back further so he can get a good look at your face. “Look, brother. Look how flushed she’s getting,”
“You think that flush is going all the way down here?” Lo’ak asks, the tip of the knife leaving your nipple to tease your clit over your shorts.
“Rip them off and find out,” Neteyam suggests, and you start to wriggle again in his unrelenting grasp. 
“Wait!” You shout. Your neck is still craned up towards the sky, so you only feel rather than see Lo’ak undo your button and zipper. “Wait, please. I’ll do anything,”
“Yeah,” Neteyam agrees, looking down at your pleading face. His fingers latch onto one of your hard nipples and pulls on it, eliciting a sharp gasp from your plump lips. “You will,”
In an instant, Lo’ak yanks your shorts and panties down and Neteyam moves behind you to kneel on the forest floor, one knee pressing into the ground while the other acts as a stabilizer, foot flat against the ground. Neteyam’s grip on your hair is released as he grabs you by your hips instead, pulling you up to sit on his thigh, bare pussy pressing against the bulging muscles. 
The feeling of his muscles tensing under you makes more heat pool in your stomach, and your pussy is wet and sticky already as you squirm against him. Your legs fall on either side of his and even with him kneeling your feet still can’t touch the ground, toes just barely brush against the grass and only if you’re actually stretching to reach it. But the additional stretch just makes you push your cunt harder against his thigh and you whimper, not knowing what to do or how to move.
Neteyam wraps a restraining arm around your chest, trapping one of your arms under his and grabbing onto your other bicep, his large hand practically spanning the entirety of your upper arm and pinning it down. His other hand moves up to his mouth, long middle finger sliding between his lips, licking the long digit and pulling it out when it’s wet and glistening in the setting sunlight. He brings his wet finger to your core, dipping it between your folds and circling your clit. 
“So wet already, tawtute,” He whispers, lips brushing against the curve of your ear.
You whimper as he rubs you, dipping his finger down lower to gather more of your wetness and dragging it back up to tease small circles around your pulsing nub. When his fingers trail down again, it's to press at your entrance, and you can’t help the whiny moan that escapes you as his finger slips easily inside your leaking hole.
Lo’ak’s been watching you this whole time, crouching down to get a good, clear look at your glistening pink cunt, and the sight of his brother’s finger sliding inside of you prompts him to have some fun of his own. He stands, fingers moving quickly to untie his loincloth, the material loosening and sliding down his legs, flittering to the ground below him.  
You’re distracted, Neteyam’s finger is rubbing against your gummy walls, sliding in and out effortlessly while his thumb plays with your clit, so you don’t realize what’s so wrong with Lo’ak’s body until he’s directly in front of you - naked pelvis and even more naked center only a foot away from your face. 
Your eyes widen as you look at it, confusion written all over your face as you stare at the empty, flat space where his member should be. Lo’ak laughs at the bewildered look on your face and Neteyam mouths at your shoulder to hide his own grin. 
“Don’t worry, pretty girl,” Lo’ak says. “I’ve got plenty of cock for you. It’s just hidden. I’ll get it out for you since you're a little tied up.”
His fingers reach down to rub at the empty space and you watch in fascinated awe as he plays down there, fingers pressing in harder and sliding against the hidden slit you hadn’t seen before. His fingers dip inside, eyes closing in pleasure for a moment before they flick back open, sultry hooded orbs locked on your own. 
“What the f–ahh!” You cry, eyes squeezing shut, back arching in pleasure against Neteyam as another of his fingers pushes inside you. They’re long enough on their own, the combined thickness enough to feel like a cock inside you already. 
When your eyes open again, they lock immediately on what’s happening between Lo’ak’s legs. There’s something poking out from the slit and it takes your scared and pleasure hazed brain way too long to realize it’s his cock. It’s just the head peeking out, the mushroomed lavender tip like a bright, slick beacon between his dark blue thighs. He grins when your mouth falls open at the sight, fingers dipping back into his wet slit and pulling out another inch.
Every inch of his cock has your eyes widening, the long and hard length now fully unsheathed and bumping against his belly. Blue skin and even darker stripes litter the shaft, small bioluminescent freckles scatter towards the top and lead to the light purple tip. A fleeting thought has you thinking it's pretty, the colors blending in beautifully with one another, but when you see the textured bumps decorating the entire length, the panic hits you again.
“Let me go!” You scream, fighting against Neteyam’s hold, but hold is firm. “It won’t fit! You can’t! It won’t fit!”
“That’s why we have to stretch you out first,” Neteyam mutters, mouth pressed against your shoulder. His third finger nudges at your entrance and you stop breathing when it pushes against your already stuffed hole. The stretch is intense, your small body struggling to take the invasion as his long finger pushes in beside the others. His thumb rubs lovingly at your clit, distracting you from the stretch and working up the pressure starting to build in your belly. 
Lo’ak strokes at his cock, shuffling forward until the weeping tip of it is inches from your face. 
“You wanna taste it?” He asks, his other hand gripping onto the bottom of your mask. 
You whimper, terrified at the prospect of him pulling your mask off, but can’t get out anything more than a stuttering, “P-please,”
“Be a good girl and hold your breath for me,”
There’s a loud hiss of air as the seal around your face breaks, and then you can’t breathe. Can’t even make a sound when he pulls the mask halfway up your face to free your mouth, letting the bottom of it sit below your nose as he pushes his fingers into the hinges of your jaw to pry your mouth open. 
The lavender tip of his cock pushes between your lips, the underside dragging along your tongue. You can feel every bump and ridge as it pushes in further, the texture both unusual and intimidating as it slides against the warm wet muscle. 
And then it’s gone, your mask replaced and the burst of oxygen rushing into your lungs makes you feel even more lightheaded than without having any oxygen at all.
“Good girl,” Lo’ak coos, hand once again gripping the bottom of your mask and leaning down to press a sweet kiss against its glass. 
Neteyam’s fingers are still working themselves in and out of your stuffed pussy, and you see Lo’ak’s ears twitch a second before you even hear it: the horrible squelching sounds your pussy is making as it rocks against his three fingers.
“Such a good girl,” He grins. He stands up, holding his cock steady and pulling your mask up again, the hiss of air mingling with the wet sounds coming from your drenched cunt. “Let’s go again,”
His cock pushes inside of your mouth again, barbed length sliding against your tongue and nudging the back of your throat. You gag, choking from both lack of oxygen and Lo’ak’s thick cock, and you can barely register the light and strangely sweet taste of his precum as it coats your tastebuds. 
Neteyam’s fingers are ruthless inside of you, curling and dragging against your gummy walls with skilled expertise and his thumb is practically a blur on your clit. When Lo’ak replaces your mask and air once again fills your lungs, it's only there for a second before you’re screaming and gasping, the coil in your stomach almost too much to bear as it tightens, threatening to rip you apart when it snaps.
Your screaming is cut off again when Lo’ak lifts the mask away, shoving his cock harder and deeper into your mouth until the glass of your mask is pressing against his pelvis and his cock has slipped down your throat. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as you take it, legs shaking against Neteyam’s thigh. When it's replaced this time and air is once again allowed into your lungs, Neteyam’s teeth latch onto your shoulder, sharp canines digging into the tender skin. The bite brings about a sharp pain immediately followed by a flood of intense pleasure - your body jerks in his hold, shaking violently as the coil in your belly snaps. Your pussy clenches around his fingers, gushing against his hand as your orgasm rips through you without mercy. 
“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” Lo’ak grunts, fisting his cock with one hand while checking to make sure your mask is secure with the other.
You mumble a weak reply, but the words don’t make sense, they don’t even sound like real words to your own ears - and your ‘not words’ turn into a forlorn whine as Neteyam pulls his fingers from your still pulsing pussy. 
He tilts your upper body to the side, sliding most of you off of him except for your leg still draped over his thigh at the knee while your other foot presses onto the ground, leaving you spread wide. His free hand falls behind you, somewhere around his hip where you can’t see, and then something large and round shaped is nudging between your folds and prodding at your entrance.
“No,” You mewl. “Won’t fit,”
“Shh, be quiet, ma sevin tawtute,” He grunts, pressure pushing at your hole as he starts forwards. “It will fit,”
You take in gasping breaths as the pressure intensifies, dripping hole resisting the push as much as it can before relenting to the large male Na’vi’s wishes and the thick mushroom head of his cock pops inside. Neteyam groans when he breaches you, unwrapping his arm from your upper body and gripping both of your thighs with his large hands, hauling you up and in the air as he stands up.
Your back is pressed tightly against his chest, thighs spread open and vulnerable to Lo’ak’s hungry gaze as gravity pushes you down further on his brother’s cock. You whimper loudly, hands desperately gripping at Neteyam’s forearms as he impales you on him. The bumps on his cock drag without mercy against your sensitive walls, and your right leg shakes in his grip from the overwhelming intensity. 
It feels so good, so devastatingly good inside of you, the barbs and ridges sliding just right against your gummy walls and you toss your head back with a silent scream as he bottoms out, tip nudging against your cervix.
You’ve never felt so full before. It feels like he’s all the way in your stomach, cock barreling through your important organs and rearranging your guts just to make enough room for him to fit. You chance a look down, letting out a wailing cry that’s half pleasure, half horror when you see the large bulge protruding from your abdomen. 
“Fuck,” Neteyam moans. “She’s so tight,”
Lo’ak grins mischievously as Neteyam lowers his mouth to the side of your neck, pressing gentle kisses there as he starts to rock into you. One moment he’s in front of your face, sending you a cheeky wink when you gasp as the cock inside of you hits just the right angle to brush against your special spot, and then the next he’s crouching down, textured tongue lolling out of his mouth and licking against your swollen clit. 
You squeal at the feeling of his rough tongue, textured similarly to that of a cat’s, lapping at the sensitive nub. 
“T-too much!” You cry. You can’t close your legs, Neteyam’s hands holding them firmly open as he thrusts harder inside you, and your hands push against Lo’ak’s head, but he doesn’t budge - large head staying put while his tongue continues to swipe against the sensitive bundle of nerves. 
When Lo’ak decides he’s had enough, he lifts his head, trailing kisses up your stomach starting just above the disappearing and reappearing bulge in your belly and up your chest, tongue laving over the swell of your breast and latching onto your nipple, sharp teeth nibbling on the hard bud as you yelp.
His lips wrap around it, suckling on it for a moment before pulling off with a pop. 
“You taste so good, baby,” He murmurs, reaching down to play with your clit. “Like the sweetest little treat,”
“Feel so good, paskalin,” Neteyam grunts, lifting your body up and slamming it back down on his cock to fuck into your harder. “Snug little pussy squeezing me so well. You were made to take Na’vi cock, weren’t you?”
“Oohh my goooooood,” You moan, eyes rolling back into your head from the overwhelming stimulation. “C-can’t t-take i-itt,”
“Sure you can,” Lo’ak teases, face so close to yours that in your haze all you can see is his bright golden eyes. “Didn’t you hear what he just said?”
Neteyam’s thrusts are getting sloppy, moans and grunts a constant source behind you, and he hisses a quick “Fuck, take her,” at his brother. Before you know what’s happening, you’re suddenly pressed against Lo’ak, chest pressed tightly against his and Neteyam releases one of your thighs in favor of gripping your hip. Lo’ak’s hand cradles your released thigh instead, keeping you steady against him as his brother uses his new found leverage to pound into your tight cunt. Your arms instinctively wrap around Lo’ak’s neck, holding on for dear life as you moan and whimper loudly with the cool glass of your mask pressed against his collarbone. 
You can feel the knot in your belly tightening again, and you can’t think about anything other than how impossibly full you feel and how good the ridges and bumps on his cock feel as they scrap and drag inside of you. Neteyam’s grip turns bruising, fingers digging into your hip and thigh as he fucks you harder. 
“Who’s pussy is this?” Neteyam growls, mushroomed tip pounding into your cervix. “Go on, tawtute. Say it!”
“Neteyaaamm,” You moan. “Please, please, please,”
Distantly, even through your hazy, fucked out brain, you can feel something thick and round prodding at your entrance, bumping and stretching you out even more with each thrust. You cum, sobbing as you contract tightly around him, body shaking in Lo’ak’s hold as his large hand rubs up and down your back soothingly. 
Neteyam pulls out of you with a tortured groan and your eyes flutter shut, pussy still contracting and squeezing and wanting - wanting his long, hard length inside of you again, wanting it splitting you open, and now that it's gone, you can’t believe how empty you feel.
Lo’ak lowers you gently to the ground, resting your exhausted body on the soft moss. You feel the way he pulls your thighs apart again, settling himself between them, what’s left of the setting sunlight filtering in behind your eyelids getting blocked as he hovers over you. 
“Stay awake, vrrtep,” He says, smacking your thigh lightly to wake you back up. Your heavy eyes peel themselves open, watching as Lo’ak braces one hand above your head while the other guides his cock to your core. You whimper as he drags the head of his cock through your dripping folds, teasing the tip against your clit before running it down your slit and lining it up with your entrance. “It’s my turn,”
The slide is easier this time as he pushes in, but still no less intense. Your tired and overstimulated body tenses at the intrusion, tightening around him as he spears you open with his thick girth. 
“Such a pretty demon,” He moans, pleasure shooting through his veins at the feel of your tiny body hugging his cock like it never wants to let him go. “Tempting us the way you did,”
His hips start up a gentle tempo, rocking inside you to help you get used to his size and letting you feel the pleasurable drag of his barbs against your oversensitive walls. 
You whine, denying his comment. “D-didn’t do anyth–”
He silences you with a sharp snap of his hips, upping the rhythm of his thrusts and leaning down further so his pubic bone grinds against your clit with each thrust. Already you can feel another orgasm barreling towards you, threatening to rip you apart the same way his cock is splitting you open. 
“Fuck!” You squeal, back arching as your pussy squelches between your bodies. “Oh my god, fuck!”
“Say my name, baby,” Lo’ak grunts. “Wanna hear you moan it,”
“Looo’aaaaak,” You moan, bliss clouding your judgment as your hips buck into his in return. 
Out of the corner of your eye you see Neteyam, standing just to the side, watching as his brother fucks your very soul from your body as his hand strokes along his raging length. Your eyes catch on something unusual towards the base of his cock -  a thick, round bulb that shouldn’t be there and he smirks as he sees you gaping at it, hand stroking down to the base and squeezing the thick engorged knot of tissue tightly, moaning at the sensation.
Lo’ak thrusts in you harder and you feel that same thick, round ball bumping at your entrance that you felt when Neteyam was fucking you. The same bulbish ball of tissue that must be the same as the one you're looking at right now.
“Great Mother,” Lo’ak groans, face scrunched up in pleasure. “I wanna knot you so fucking bad,”
“Don’t,” Neteyam growls, jerking forward as if to pull his brother away from you, but Lo’ak curls his body around yours protectively, a deep hiss of warning ripping from his throat as he bares his teeth at his brother. 
Neteyam freezes, hands up in surrender but he glares at the brother inside you all the same. “Don’t. We don’t know if her body can take it yet.”
Lo’ak grunts, resuming his thrusts. “I know. Just back off,”
His cock pounds you relentlessly, kissing your cervix and his hand reaches down to caress the bulge in your belly. He presses down on the bulging bump firmly at the same time that his teeth sink into the still unmarked side of your neck, making you scream, the blissful agonized cry echoing through the forest as you cream all over his cock.
He pulls out, groaning woefully like his brother did, and fists his cock furiously, aiming the leaking tip directly at your puffy, spent pussy. Neteyam does the same, crouching low and close, stroking his cock beside you as he aims for your chest. 
They cum within seconds of one another, shooting hot, thick stripes of pearly bioluminescent cum all over your body, covering your chest and lower half with their release. 
You can barely feel your body anymore, can’t move a single limb on your own, and, despite not having any use of anything, your body won’t stop shaking - oversensitive and overstimulated and completely satisfied in a way you never thought you could be. 
“Ready to head home, sevin tawtute?” Neteyam asks, breathing heavy as he recovers from his orgasm. He just came but his eyes are still dark and sinful, looking at you like he wants to eat you whole. Your exhausted eyes flick to Lo’ak only to see the same desirous expression. 
There’s a feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach as you close your eyes, listening to their dark chuckles as your body forces you to rest. The last thing you hear before you drift off to sleep is a low, deep voice say . . .
“You’re ours now,”
Extra>>>
**Special thanks to @pandoraslxna for the prompt!
Taglist: @eywaite @loaksulluyswife
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mrs-weasley-reid · 13 days
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Say Don't Go
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Spencer Reid x bau!reader
Summary: Nothing hurts more than the fear of losing you.
Warning: Angst. mentions of death, blood, gunshot
A/N: I wrote this in haste, literally ten minutes ago, while listening to Say Don't Go (Taylor's Version) by mother Taylor Swift. It's definitely not perfect but I was definitely in the zone when I wrote it lol.
— ✿ — ✿— ✿ ✿ ✿
A gunshot.
Everything fades into a muffle. You blink once, twice, thrice... A wince connects your brows. As if you're figuring out if the oozing feeling on your abdomen should be causing you pain or ease.
Suddenly, Spencer's running to you. You think he's screaming. You hear nothing. There's only ringing in your ears. A thin, high-pitched ring that pierces through your brain.
You drop on the precinct's carpet floor, caressing your stomach like it's enough to stop yourself from bleeding out. You look at Spencer, "When'd you get here?" You ask, disoriented. You instantly pay attention to his watery eyes. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?" You reach to cup his cheek. You are shocked when you see your hand covered in red, smearing the liquid on his skin. Your eyes widen, "Oh, my god?! You're hurt! Spence—" You try to sit up, but a wave of stinging pain makes you fall back in his arms.
"WHERE'S THE MEDIC?!" Spencer's voice echoes in the entire place. He turns to you, unsure if he is even allowed to have you in his arms. He doesn't dwell on it as he holds your hand on his cheek, squeezing it. "Hey, hey! Breathe for me, yeah? Stay with me." He swallows a sob, placing pressure on your abdomen. "Please, stay with me..."
"I'm hurt?" Stupor begins to steal you out of consciousness. You blink. A bright light blinds your vision.
Once you open your eyes, you're back in Spencer's apartment. He's standing across the room while your feet are rooted at the door. He doesn't look at you. No. He's afraid to look at you.
His hands are buried in his pockets. He's wearing a nice suit. Fitted just for him. His tie is a dark shade of purple. You gave him that tie for his birthday last year. It's loose. His hair is a mess. And his face... it's wet.
He's crying.
You're crying.
"I think you should go," Spencer takes a gulp as he stares at the floor. Like it'd kill him if he looked at you.
You inhale deeply, sniffing as you wipe a tear with the back of your hand, "We don't have to do this, Spence. You don't have to do this."
"Yes, we do!" For the first time in what feels like forever, he finally lifts his gaze at you. His hazel eyes are rimmed with red heat, overflowing with tears. He's hurt. He's hurt, too.
"Is it really that horrible to love me?" You sob. You can hear your heart slowly shatter. Pins and needles knock on your chest. You wonder if you're still breathing right. "Am I that ugly—"
"You know that's not true, sweetheart." You hate that the nickname gives you butterflies. How his words, awful and insensitive, still made you attentively listen. How his voice still makes you want to hear more. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever met."
"Then why?!" You felt like a child throwing a tantrum. "Why are you putting a distance between us?" You bite your lower lip to stop it from quivering. "Why is it such a crime to be together?"
Spencer shifts his gaze to somewhere else. He runs a hand through his hair. You notice the coffee stain at the cuff of his sleeve. Then, you see the smudge of red lipstick past the line of his lips. Your red lipstick. He bought that lipstick a few months ago. No reason. Just for the fun of it.
Is it bad that you think he still looks handsome under the sun's setting light? Even when his hair is arrayed in different directions? Even when his face is drenched with his own tears?
He breathes deeply, audibly, "We're in the same line of work. You know better than to think we're going to work. News flash, sweetheart. It won't. It's not worth it." He can't look at you. He's ashamed to look at you.
"Not... worth it?" You blink. You stare at him with disgust, "So— So what? We're nothing, but we fuck? We're nothing, but we flirt? We're nothing, but you love me? Please, explain it to me because I'm having a difficult time understanding the stupid shit of a point you're making."
Spencer gulps for the nth time, "You love me."
"What?" You regret wanting to meet his eyes because now that he's staring at yours with such unfamiliarity, it hurts.
"You love me. You said you love me. I never said anything."
You're definitely not breathing right.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
"Inhale, exhale... Yeah, that's right, sweetheart. Just follow me." Spencer holds your hand tight as the paramedics do their best to stop you from bleeding out. His voice sounds heartbreaking.
His voice...
You blink. Your hearing's back. You do as he says, inhaling and exhaling as he does. You feel lightheaded, like you're floating on a cloud.
Spencer keeps his and your hands intertwined. He follows while the paramedics roll you into the ambulance. "Hang in there, sweetheart. Please, hang in there." His face is a mess. He doesn't stop crying, swallowing his sobs.
You smile into the oxygen mask, blinking. You're on the verge of dying, and yet you find humor in knowing Spencer's tells. "You swallow when you're scared... don't be scared, Spence." You say it in broken words and in an almost soundless voice.
"I'm not," He denies, wiping his tears aggressively. He is. He's scared to the bone.
"The bullet shattered to her chest," The paramedic who inspects your chest claims, looking at her partner with worry.
"W-what?" Spencer stutters, stealing a glimpse down your neck. "No, no, sweetheart. Stay with me. Stay with me." He sees the way you flutter your eyes, fighting to stay conscious, listening to his pleas. And how you suddenly stopped, never opening your eyes back up. "Don't— Don't close your eyes! Sweetheart, please don't go. Please, don't—" He looks up at the sound of your vitals plummeting. He quickly looks back at your face, saying your name like it's a prayer.
The machine flatlines, and the paramedic pushes Spencer aside to perform resuscitation. "Sir, let us do our job." One of them says, two inches deep as she manually restarts your heart.
Spencer shoves himself in the corner of the ambulance. He wraps his arms around him. "Please, don't go..." His voice cracks and transitions into writhing sobs as he watches your body go limp with each surge of electricity that shocks your skin.
Then he thinks of that night.
He thinks of the image of you standing by the door. You don't want to go. He doesn't want you to go.
But you have to... because if you don't, he'll run to you and never let you go. So, he tells you to leave. You protest.
So stubborn. He cries in his head, wishing that you hadn't made things difficult for being so beautiful even when you're crying.
"You love me. You said you love me. I never said anything." His body shakes on the spot. His mouth goes dry. His chest compresses. He lies through his teeth.
Spencer saw the way your face turned into a ghost. He's done it.
He broke you.
He hurt you.
No turning back. No way of fixing it.
"Ah..." You say softly, nodding. "Checks out." You add without a sign of sarcasm. You stare into the air for a minute. You let the silence hover and hunt Spencer for a moment. You let him realize the pain, the stupidity of it all. "I think I should leave..." Your eyes say otherwise.
Please say, "Don't go." Tell me not to leave. Run to me... please.
You wonder if he knows it or chooses to ignore the way you held your tears. If he caught on all your tells. Because you knew he wasn't true. You knew he knew that you could read him like the back of your hand.
"Yeah," Spencer straightens his back, "I think you should."
You purse your lips into a thin line and nod, "Okay," You turn around. You take three seconds to grab the knob, but when the time has run out, you are out in a heartbeat.
"Spencer."
JJ appears in Spencer's vision. "Spencer, are you okay?" Her face was covered with worry as she placed two hands on his shoulders. She exchanges looks with Derek and Aaron.
They were there when it all went down. When the unsub came out of nowhere and started shooting. You were the first shot.
Spencer cranes his neck around. He's in the waiting room. He doesn't remember when or how he got there. All he remembers is the defibrillator jolting your unresponsive body more than once. His eyes widen. He says your name in haste as he stands up, "Where is she? Where— Where..."
Derek holds him back, "She's in surgery, Reid. Did you forget?" He asks, gently pushing Spencer back onto his seat.
"She was dead for three minutes... They couldn't find a pulse for three minutes." Spencer announces at a loss. He looks down at his hand, at the cheap friendship bracelet around his wrist. The one you made in your first year with the team as a last-minute birthday gift. He breaks into a sob, covering his eyes as if to push them back inside his tear ducts.
"So?" Derek catches Spencer's hands off his face, "She's been in surgery for thirty minutes. Her heart started beating again, and it had been for thirty minutes. She's fighting, man. At least fight with her before you wallow like a ninny."
"Morgan," Aaron warns but silently agrees.
You're fighting for your life, so they should, too.
You're not ready to go.
You don't want to go.
Spencer nods and wipes his face. He sniffs and takes a deep breath. He glances at the door to the operating room like he has x-ray vision, "Don't go."
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scientia-rex · 4 months
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Hey. HEY. We aren’t good at understanding how bodies work. I spent five years in undergrad (I was indecisive; graduated with six years’ worth of credits), two in my terminal master’s program, four in med school, and three more in residency. I know a whole lot about how bodies work. I am qualified to tell you that we don’t know a lot more than we do know.
This means that, when you encounter a claim, you need to weigh it against what you have experienced.
I have met doctors who were sure fibromyalgia, or “muscle hurty disease,” from the roots of the word, was just women being crazy. Turns out it’s probably at least partly due to autoimmune dysfunction. Or maybe not! Sure would be nice if we knew! But I sure as shit know it’s real, because I have it and so do the women in my family. Our bodies don’t work right, somehow. They don’t work like other people’s bodies work. I experience more pain than I “should” based on what stimuli other people find painful. I have less ability to build and maintain muscle strength. This has not kept me from doing what I love most in the world, which is have opinions, to the point where I went through the horrifically awful process that is medical training in the US just so I could have opinions all day long and get paid for it. I gain nothing from saying I have it, and in fact risk the opinions of my professional peers if I do admit to it, since it is still seen as a disease of mental or moral weakness. I’m perfectly qualified to self-diagnose, as a board-certified family physician.
And yet I believed people in positions of authority for a long, long time who said it was a mental illness and not a bodily one. As if those even can be distinct, when our brains are part of our bodies and our experience of reality is filtered through their circuitry. But I believed that I was somehow to blame for being in pain.
Life has been better since I accepted that I just need to do some things differently. If I lift weights, I need to use machines, I need to start on the lowest possible setting, and I need to increase very gradually. If I do cardio, I need a low-impact model like an elliptical trainer; running outside, every time I have tried it in my life, results in incapacitating shin splints, even if I try to work up slowly. I no longer buy laundry bins that don’t roll. My home is all on one level. I go to physical therapy. I stash freezer dinners that contain (shudder) vegetables, my least favorite thing, so that when I do feel like shit, I have an alternative to starving (or eating a block of cheese that upsets my stomach).
Accommodate yourself. This society isn’t going to help much, if at all. In your good times and days, be the person whose help you’ll need in your worst days.
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abtrusion · 1 month
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Tranny Tango
There's a man on the sidewalk, looking over, then up to see me walking past. He stops in his tracks and stutters back and forth, his read || reaction to me flickering between upstart woman // taller man || hold ground // make space, glitching him in place. When I step off the sidewalk and into the grass, he sheepishly passes me by without a word.
I'm interested in the everyday glitches, the double-takes, the way "everybody is just a little bit disgusted by you," what Susan Stryker calls 'monstrosity' and more than that, the casual experience of being a gaping hole in the gendered world. Stryker attributes this monstrosity to the idea that medical transsexuality, more than any other form of transgenderism, "represents the prospect of destabilizing the foundational presupposition of fixed genders." She takes anti-trans feminists at their word, assuming that their hate stems from some abstract gender trouble that transsexuals pose to female spaces, and her solution is a near-complete identification with that trouble. We can do better. This monstrosity, this glitching, is not just a downstream consequence of spectacular interruptions to some abstract 'fixed genders.' It is certainly not dependent on some unique threat posed by medicalization. It exists through instinctive disgust and constant little glitches in the social infrastructure that is gender, an uneasy response to an uncanny bricolage of the building blocks of gendered life.
Escaping the Cisgender Gaze
The classic trans encounter is to see a visibly transfeminine person out on the street, or as an escort, or in some carefully-curated performance piece, and to realize that gender is a lie. This is part of the utility of transmisogyny, which renders people both constantly accessible and utterly exemplary, and in turn this casts transmisogyny itself as spectacular exclusion instead of a slow social and economic death that sometimes spikes, particularly with multiply marginalized subjects, into horrific violence.
This singularization of transfeminine life and oppression (particularly with trans women of color) through suicide and murder statistics renders both trans life and pain spectacular and implicitly places one as a 'natural' consequence of the other. We need to seriously inspect the many interactions between non-passing transfem people and cis people which do not end with one of them dead. One way to start is Sandra Lee Bartky's understanding of hegemonic femininity as a disciplinary practice.
Femininity as Disciplinary Practice
As the lesbian separatists of the 1970s and 80s intensified the work of rooting out patriarchy from their spaces, they began to discover that nothing was sacred: nearly all everyday social activities were shaped by gender. As Bartky argues, the 'imposition of such discipline on female identity' influences every second of every day:
Iris Young observes that a space seems to surround women in imagination that they are hesitant to move beyond: this manifests itself both in a reluctance to reach, stretch, and extend the body to meet resistances of matter in motion—as in sport or in the performance of physical tasks—and in a typically constricted posture and general style of movement. In an extraordinary series of over two thousand photographs, many candid shots taken in the street, the German photographer Marianne Wex has documented differences in typical masculine and feminine body posture. Women sit waiting for trains with arms close to the body, hands folded together in their laps, toes pointing straight ahead or turned inward, and legs pressed together. The women in these photographs make themselves small and narrow, harmless; they seem tense; they take up little space. Men, on the other hand, expand into the available space; they sit with legs far apart and arms flung out at some distance from the body. Most common in these sitting male figures is what Wex calls the “proffering position”: the men sit with legs thrown wide apart, crotch visible, feet pointing outward, often with an arm and a casually dangling hand resting comfortably on an open, spread thigh. …in a way that normally goes unnoticed, males in couples may literally steer a woman everywhere she goes: down the street, around corners, into elevators, through doorways, into her chair at the dinner table, around the dance floor. The man’s movement “is not necessarily heavy and pushy or physical in an ugly way; it is light and gentle but firm in the way of the most confident equestrians with the best trained horses.”
Bartky concludes that, between behavior and makeup and skin-care, these disciplinary practices "produce a 'practiced and subjected' body, that is, a body on which an inferior status has been inscribed,” and that "the practices that construct this body have an overt aim and character far removed, indeed, radically distinct, from their covert function;" that is, she claims that gender is everywhere, that it is power, and that cisgender women are structurally made unaware of this connection.
What does this mean for transfeminine experience? First, as seen in the sidewalk example we started with (so chosen precisely because of how fucking boring it is), the abstract 'genderfuck' of transfeminine existence congeals into actual examples in the context of gender-as-infrastructure. Gender is a crossing-guard, a gatekeeper, a reviewer -- it performs social functions, all the time, which glitch and shake in our presence. Transmisogyny is not necessarily vitriolic rage at 'boundary-breakers,' it can also just be the passive exclusion of a person whose existence causes a few too many little frictions.
As we've noted, the singularization of transfeminine life makes non-spectacular trans life impossible for cis people to understand, leading to a constant current of disgust/disdain that accompanies their more exciting bouts of transmisogyny. One major inlet to this current is social friction, the way that non-passing transfems are structurally prevented from using social/visual gender infrastructures to do everyday things. The second inlet, which I will discuss in the next section, is the unease provoked by the negotiations transfems take to navigate gendered systems despite this breakage, making small corrections which are ignored, must be ignored, leaving only the horrible lingering fear that they're better at this gender thing than you.
Gender work
Because transfemininity makes no sense from a vulgar gender-power perspective, cis people generally view transfeminine people as either unwitting 'dupes' of gender or as spectacular hyper-aware gender predators, as seen across the HSTS/AGP split, the dead tranny/serial killer media split, the 'scheming eunuch' archetype, and the binarization of transfem identity in queer spaces. But because cis people also generally want to assume that they're talking to someone that isn't an evil serial manipulator, personal interactions encourage and enforce the good tranny archetype, which demands absolute suppression of any sort of informed gender negotiation. This archetype is impossible to fulfill because of the systematic failure of social gender-power infrastructure to account for transfeminine people, which demands some degree of semi-intentional gender work to fill in the gaps.
Fortunately, this work will basically never be understood as such by well-meaning cis people because of transmisogyny, so you don't have to be /super/ subtle about it. Unfortunately, ignoring this transfeminine gender work takes a lot of effort on the part of cis people, particularly if they also have had to perform reparative gender work because of trans-adjacent conditions (divorce, infertility, lesbianism, PCOS). The invisible work cis people must make to keep themselves separate from transfeminine people is then associated with our presence, most clearly articulated in Janice Raymond's lament that transsexual lesbians are feeding "off woman’s true energy source, i.e., her woman-identified self" -- our proximity alone demands intense effort to keep cis gender negotiations distinct from trans ones, growing frustrations that feed the slow current of transmisogyny.
Even if a cis person successfully suppresses their understanding of transfeminine gender work, for folks within queer & women's spaces, this itself leads to a horrible looming anxiety because people in these spaces usually pride themselves on having a full consciousness of gender, and we're a pretty notable exception to that. These anxieties are then channeled into a constant fear of the bad tranny, manifested in the horrible trans woman that your cis queer initiators will tell you to stay far away from. But there is really not much of a difference between the shadowy machinations of the bad tranny and the gender work transfeminine people have to constantly perform to even exist within queer spaces, so transfeminine people are rendered constantly precarious.
What's so deliciously ironic about all this is that this is just a shallow repetition of the cis man // cis woman dyad! Archetypes like 'the poisoner witch' or 'the gossip' or 'the slut' have always been used as a reaction to negotiating power gained via the kitchen, or cloistered social activity, or sex, all routes that men could never understand as a direct consequence of their own gendered power -- so in response to this fear, these roles pilloried exemplary women to structurally terrify the population, but just as importantly to exonerate the rest of the female population, to let men pretend that these weren't tools that everyone was using, to pretend that heterosexual relationships were pure! Just as transfems serve the role of gay best friend^2 in gay mens' films, they serve the role of women^2 in queer spaces, constantly performing gender work which is simultaneously unknowable and terrifying to the cis majority, forcing periodic purges to pick out 'the bad ones' which temporarily exonerate the rest, letting the majority believe that the 'good tranny' actually exists: that mythical trans woman who is not semi-intentionally managing their gender presentation around you, the one you can fuck without worrying if she's just faking it, the one who is good and pure and radical and really, really boring. I have never met a non-passing trans woman like this, but I'm sure plenty of queer people have.
Conclusion
So there are two main forms of everyday experience that express and constitute transmisogyny. The first is the social friction inherent in being freak-gendered in a world that relies on gender to make people move and talk and shit correctly. The second is the friction between the gender awareness demanded of transfeminine people (none) and the practical result of transgendered living in the world. If you want to take some of this back to cis womanhood, I've been trying to reframe the marginalized position of womanhood in terms of articulation work -- that while women have always worked, that work has generally been rendered unreal, always carried out with a dream of not existing, turned into stage-setting for the real boys to grow up and come in and be breadwinners. In this context, our components look like 1) do gender work and 2) don't let it show, and the framing of transfeminine people as socially useless outcasts despite their constitutive role in social life via flexible labor starts to sound a lot like the making of a super-woman, like the mujerísima sometimes invoked in Latin American travesti activism. That sounds just about right. I will become a witch of witches, the lurking terror that eats astrologers, always and ever a little bit too real.
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leclerc-hs · 26 days
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tachycardia! pt. 1 - cl16
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pairing: doctor!charles leclerc x nurse!reader (alpha/omega au) summary: in which you don't always get along with the arrogant alpha doctor warnings: LIGHT a/b/o dynamics, angst??, none really (yet!), badly translated french, NOT PROOFREAD word count: 1.7k author's note: hi so this is the first part!! I'm thinking about turning this into like a "blurb" series, like i'll do a bunch of parts with them but they won't be toooooo long. emphasis on the LIGHT a/b/o dynamics because i am STILL leaning all about it but I'm sure the more I write the better with it I will get. I def will discuss more about it during smut scenes. let me know what you guys think and what else you would like to see happen between them!! don't be shy!!! xoxo
✦ .  ⁺   . ✦ .  ⁺   . ✦ ✦ .  ⁺   . ✦ .  ⁺   . ✦
IT WASN’T HATRED, per se, but more so the fact that you both knew how to get under each other’s skin so easily. 
The amount of time it took for Doctor Leclerc to make some sort of asshole comment as you entered the doors of the hospital was little to none. It was almost a predetermined ritual at this point. So common that you should’ve been more concerned with the premise that he might’ve memorized your schedule just so it’s his face you see first thing every time you arrive to work. 
You had made a solemn vow to yourself long ago never to become romantically involved with a doctor. Any doctor for that matter. The allure of dating a doctor might have seemed appealing in theory, but they tended to exude an air of pretentiousness, rudeness, and arrogance that left a bitter taste in your mouth. 
Doctor Leclerc was what you would consider the living embodiment of this, a constant reminder of the vows you made in the first place. Yet, the fact that he was probably the hottest fucking man you have ever seen, made it hard to not want to blur the lines sometimes. His chiseled features and commanding presence were sometimes a magnetic force, no matter how much he annoyed you.
So, you wonder why, even as you’re leaned against the nurse’s station with an elbow propped on it, you can’t help but stare at the muscles of his back poking through his scrubs and white coat, as he pours a cup of coffee into his mug. His massive shoulders rising and falling as he picks the coffee pot up and places it back down.
-
“Did he say something to you?” You ask as you press a tissue into the hands of one of your co-workers, April. You didn’t know that well, but nurses stuck together regardless.
“I’m fine,” she says, but the tears welling up in her eyes, made you know better. “I just need to stop being so sensitive.” The words hang in the air, a fragile façade masking the turmoil within, and you recognize the weight of her emotions despite her attempt to downplay them.
“He must have been a proper douche,” you remark, the water from the bathroom sink running over your hands as you meet April’s gaze through the mirror. “What did he do?” Your tone carries a mix of concern and frustration.
Her hesitance to disclose wasn’t rooted in desire to withhold information, but rather in a reluctance to escalate the situation unnecessarily. Aware of your tendency to stand up to Doctor Leclerc, she treaded cautiously. You turned back around to face her, an eyebrow raised as if you’re saying spill the beans already.
“Well,” she begins, her grip tightening on the crumpled tissue in her fist, “all I did was ask if the symptom the patient was experiencing was a common side effect of the medication we prescribed her, just to be sure.” You cross your arms over your chest, you can feel the agitation growing in your chest. “He wasn’t mean in front of the patient, but he pulled me aside after and told me how unprofessional it is to be questioning in front of a patient.” Her voice wavers with a mix of frustration and hurt.
Your lips press into a thin line as she recounts the encounter. “He then told me that I should’ve paid better attention in school and then maybe I would know the answer,” she emphasizes, tinged with a hint of bitterness. The word “maybe” lingers in the air, weighted with insinuation, as if Doctor Leclerc’s implication stung deeper than mere criticism.
“What an alpha asshole!” you exclaim, your frustration evident in the forceful wave of your hands. “Don’t listen to him.” You offer her comfort, a smile of reassurance accompanying your words, a silent vow to stand by her side.
April’s lips curl upward into a small, grateful smile, her eyes softening as she murmurs a heartfelt “thanks”. In that moment, her expression speaks volumes, conveying both appreciation for your support and glimmer of relief.
-
You saw him before he saw you. 
As you step through the doorway into one of your patient’s rooms, a pang of exasperation washes over you, accompanied by the silent question of what you did to deserve this particular form of punishment. It feels like a cruel twist of fate to find Doctor Leclerc attending to one of your patients, whom had just recently had a coronary angioplasty and a stent placement. Despite the urge to roll your eyes, you summon all your professionalism and force one of the biggest smiles onto your face. It’s a façade of warmth and cooperation, masking the internal tension brewing beneath the surface.
There he stood, a figure of authority on the opposite end of the bed, his arms folded across his chest as he chuckled at whatever anecdote your patient shared with him. His laughter, though genuine, seemed to echo with a hint of superiority. You can’t help but notice the subtle flex of his jaw muscles as his head tilts back briefly. The sight of his scruff and the contours of his muscular neck send a tingling sensation coursing through you.
You need to snap out of it! You repeat to yourself, a silent mantra echoing in your mind. You were so preoccupied with convincing yourself that Doctor Leclerc wasn’t unbelievably attractive that you failed to notice the scrutiny of two pairs of eyes now fixed upon you. The sudden realization jolts you back to the present, and you redirect your focus to the patient.
You didn’t need to glance at Doctor Leclerc to sense the presence of a smirk tugging at his lips; it was almost palpable, a silent acknowledgement that he had caught you staring at him. Distracted by him. 
“Glad you can join us, mon lapin.” My bunny.
You narrowed your eyes at him, a flicker of irritation igniting within you. That forsaken nickname—he just couldn’t resist. Ever since your first day, when you innocently showed up with a tote bag adorned with colorful bunnies, he had taken great delight in teasing you with it.
“Ne m’appele pas comme ça.”  Don’t call me that.
The patient looked up at both of you, eyes full of delight in entertainment.
His verdant eyes look at you for a few seconds, contemplating something, before looking back at the patient. “I’ll make sure you’re out of here in no time,” he assures the patient, his voice full of warmth. “I just need to check your vitals, and hopefully we can have you out here in a few days.” His words are reassuring, delivered with a blend of confidence and empathy that contrasts with the earlier tension in the room. Despite your reservations, you can’t deny that he provides great care for his patients.
“How has your medication been? Still uncomfortable?” You inquire, while Doctor Leclerc listens intently to your patient’s chest with his stethoscope.
“A little bit,” your patient murmurs in response, pausing between deep breaths as instructed by Doctor Leclerc.
“I’ll make sure you get another dose of aspirin to help ease the pain.” You promise with a tight-lipped smile as Doctor Leclerc removes the stethoscope from his ears.
“I think we need to reconsider the dosage,” you assert, meeting Doctor Leclerc’s gaze.
“We don’t want to risk any adverse effects.” His eyes, a much darker hue of green now, narrow at you, like he can’t believe you’re telling him what to do. “I’ve already adjusted his medication. It’s within the recommended for his condition.” 
He shifts his focus back to the patient, the darkness and annoyance that once clouded his eyes now dissipating. “Everything is looking great! I’ll check on you tomorrow morning,” he reassures the patient with a warm smile before bidding his farewells. As he turns to you, nodding toward the doorway, his demeanor shifts, and a lethal glare meets your gaze. Without a word, you follow him out the room, bracing yourself. You refuse to cower, meeting his glare with a steely resolve of your own. Each step you take alongside him is a silent assertion.
His touch on your elbow sends a jolt of tingles to your stomach as he swiftly turns you around, your back now pressed firmly against the wall. His gaze pierces through you with a lethal intensity. 
“Que pensez-vous faire?” What do you think you’re doing? He pinched the bridge of his nose in between his pointer finger and thumb, with his eyes scrunched as if he got a splitting headache in the span of one second. Like he was in pain. Did you know how strong you scent was? He wondered mindlessly, almost forgetting why he was so mad at you in the first place.
You thought nothing of his actions, too busy feeling the anger swell in the pit of your stomach.
Your eyes roll in exasperation, and your eyebrows knit together in annoyance at the audacity of this man. 
His eyes meet your again and can’t help but think how beautiful you look, even when angry. How he would just love to bend you over his knee and remind you who is in charge.
“Je veille sur mon patient.” I’m looking out for my patient.
He rests his hands on his hips, stealing a glance at his beeping pager before fixing his gaze back on you. His eyes, nearly black, pierce through you. “Non, tu essaies juste de provoquer une dispute comme d’habitude,” You’re just trying to start an argument as usual. He grits through clenched teeth. “His medication is completely fine, et tu le sais!” And you know it!
So, maybe you were trying to start an argument with him. Especially after April’s crying face came to your mind.
He’s so close that you can hardly think around his scent. It’s almost intoxicating.
“Don’t ever make April cry again.” You jab your finger into his shoulder, reminding yourself why you’re here in the first place.
He blinks, and you catch the glimmer of recognition spreading across his features. “Elle n’a aucun courage” She has no spine. He remarks before continuing, “She should learn from you. You probably have spare spines.” He steps back from you before striding down the hallway in opposite direction of the nurse’s station.
No matter how annoyed you were, you couldn't peel your eyes off his muscular back until he was completely out of sight. You scoffed at yourself. How pathetic am I? You questioned yourself repeatedly until you take in his last words to you.
Did he just make a joke?
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lostfracturess · 17 days
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symptoms and causes | ch. 11
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x pairing professor!gojo x med student f!reader (medical au)
x summary he's arrogant, self-centered, and he's your professor. renowned for his brilliance in neurosurgery and infamous for his allure. too bad you have to work with him on this research team. now you're stuck with dr. satoru gojo, delving into the complexities of both the brain and the heart—and of how far you'd go for a love that could destroy not only him but you as well.
x wc 13.5 k (enjoy your meal lol)
x warnings [18+] this story contains substance abuse/addiction, overdosing, (rough) smut, mature themes, self-destructive and abusive behavior, manipulation, (heavy) angst, mentions of death / illness / blood, graphic medical procedures. reader discretion is advised.
x author's note hey loves!! thank you so much for your patience, i know it's been a while. buckle up, because we're taking another trip inside satoru's mind, so yeahhh. it's gonna be wild, oh and we're continuing right were we left off in the last chapter. this chapter is again in satoru's pov!! i've also updated the trigger warnings, so please take a look before reading (might be spoiling tho). and lastly, credit to the fanart in the cover, if you know the artist, pls let me know!! can't wait to hear what you all think & thanks for sticking with me!! ♡
series masterlist + playlist + ao3 + wattpad
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They say before you can love someone else, you have to love yourself first.
And there lies the damn problem. 
I don't know how. 
Never have.
Why am I thinking this now? 
I knew this was right. 
Right for her. 
But then why does my heart feel like it's being ripped out by the fucking roots?
Suguru will take care of her. He always does. That's the only thing that keeps me from screaming, keeps me from chasing after her.
I trust him, damn it, but it shouldn't be him.
It should be me holding her. Me, who knows how she likes to be held when the panic claws its way up. Me, holding her until the world feels less sharp, less cruel.  
Me, who knows that she doesn't want to talk about it. Me, who knows to give her space. She needs space. My strong girl needs space first. 
I hope he gives her space.
But he wouldn't know any of this. He couldn't comfort her in the ways I instinctively knew how. 
Me, who knows how to soothe the invisible wounds, the ones even she denies exist. Me, who knows the soft words she needs to hear after it passes.
It shouldn't be him. 
Sorry. 
It shouldn't have been him.
Past tense. 
It all might be past tense now.
And the thought is more than I could bear.
Shattered. 
Was that the word?
Was there even a word for what I felt in that moment?
How could I ever convey this suffocating agony that's tearing me apart with mere words?
Words are meaningless in the end.
Meaningless when they couldn't be spoken to her, couldn't reach her, couldn't make her understand, couldn't heal the wound I'd carved into her heart.
So, yeah, maybe shattered is the right word. 
The wrong word.
The sterile air was acid in my lungs. Each ragged breath felt like sandpaper against my throat. I held my breath, a desperate plea for the world to stop spinning, for the clock to rewind, for a chance to undo everything.
But time doesn't care. 
It marched on, relentless, while I stayed trapped in this hell, drowning in the mess I made. 
My lungs burned. My vision blurred. I waited until she disappeared. The world seemed to tilt sideways, losing all color and shape, leaving only the sharp, agonizing realization that I'd made her walk away.
I didn't want to breathe anymore.
Not in a world where every breath ached without her.
"Dr. Gojo?" A voice, distant, muffled. 
Irrelevant.
My gaze flickered to Sukuna. He watched, a predator savoring the kill. 
His twisted smile fueled rage within me. But there would be no fighting this. No grand defense. Not when her life was the bargaining chip.
So, I lied. 
Each word a nail in the coffin of the connection I craved more than life itself.
Each word a drop of poison forced down my throat. A self-inflicted wound, a desperate mutilation of the only thing that had ever felt real.
Her eyes, those beautiful eyes I loved so fiercely, wide with confusion and horror. The strangled gasp, the way her body went limp in Geto's arms — a haunting image that would forever be etched on my heart.
Muscles screamed, a silent protest against my own pathetic stillness. But I remained frozen. 
This was my punishment. 
I had to watch her leave, had to sear the pain into my very being, an endless penance for the choices I'd made.
The door clicked shut behind them.
That simple sound, final, absolute.
My lungs filled with air, a betrayal. Oxygen I didn't deserve, didn't want. 
My own body, this treacherous thing kept going, kept me alive against my will, kept me tethered to this cruel reality.
The room swam back into focus, the judges' accusing faces nothing but a blurry backdrop. The sounds of their inquest washed over me like meaningless noise.
"Dr. Gojo? Can we continue?"
I nodded.
They pressed on. More questions about the research, her involvement, their accusations of favoritism.
How stupid.
Of course, I favored her. 
How could I not? 
She is everything.
Oh, sorry. Forgot. Past tense.
She was everything.
Did I regret it? 
Did I wish I could go back and treat her with the same damn indifference I afforded everyone else?
Yeah, maybe.
A familiar craving stirred my senses, the desperate need for the numbing escape that would mean failing her even more. My fingers clawed at my forearm, trying to replace the hollowness with physical pain. It wasn't enough.
My responses were rote, mechanical.
Yeah, I favored her. 
Yeah, I let her into the OR because of it.
Yeah, and she outshone every damn surgeon twice her age. 
No, she didn't know I'd set it up. 
No, she never asked for special treatment. She just worked until her eyes were bloodshot, pushing harder than anyone else.
And hell no, she didn't do a single thing wrong.
Except maybe — maybe loving me. 
After what felt like an eternity, the judges seemed satisfied, or perhaps just exhausted by my robotic replies. 
They painted me the arrogant professor with a weakness for a young student, who abused his power, who played favorites.
Whatever they wanted to believe, fine.
Didn't even have the energy to care anymore.
Let them drag my name through the mud, tarnish the reputation I'd worked so hard to build. 
Because the title, the position, the facade of success meant nothing when all I wanted was to rewind time, to undo the damage I'd done to the one person who truly mattered.
I didn't feel anymore.
I was done.
─── ·✧· ───
I burst out of the courtroom.
I needed escape, not just from this sterile prison of a room, but from my own traitorous flesh.
That itch.
It was a wildfire beneath my skin, a thousand insects gnawing their way to the surface. My fingers twitched, claws desperate to tear, to bleed out the poison of this relentless craving.
My legs moved without conscious thought, pushing me towards my office. Somewhere. Anywhere I would be able to breathe again. The guilt was a serrated blade twisting in my gut, each movement slicing me open anew.
Her terror-stricken eyes seared into my very soul.
The walls of my office closed in, the familiar space suddenly too small, too suffocating. 
My fist slammed into the desk. Papers scattered to the floor, a meaningless sea of white against the dark wood.
They didn't matter. None of it mattered.
A half-finished coffee mug followed. Porcelain shattered. Dark liquid splashed against the wall. 
My blood roared in my ears. 
Across the room, my framed diploma. I ripped it off the wall. Glass smashed. Sharp edges bit into my palm, drawing blood. But it wasn't enough. I hurled the frame against the wall.
Blood, hot and slick, coated my hands, the pain nothing.
In the shattered frame, I caught a glimpse of myself — wild eyes in a sweat-slicked face, a man on the verge of collapse.
It was a stranger.
I was across the room before I even registered the decision.
The drawer.
My fingers ripped it open. 
There, like a coiled viper, the amber vial gleamed, a venomous promise of oblivion.
Don't —
Don't come at me now. 
Did you really think I wouldn't keep a backup?
My hand reached, then hesitated.
The world lurched to a sharp halt as a knock pierced the chaos. My breath hitched, the vial a burning brand in my bloodied hand.
The door creaked open.
And there he was. Sukuna. 
He leaned against the doorframe, that sickening smirk plastered on his face. It was like a lit fuse to a powder keg. The rage that had been gnawing at my insides, tearing me apart, finally found its target.
Before a single rational thought could form, I was on him. Fist to jaw, heard the crack, felt it in my knuckles. He stumbled back, the smirk finally wiping off his face.
I pinned him against the door. Forearm across his throat, crushing his windpipe. His eyes widened, but even then, there was that damn flicker of amusement.
"Well, well," he choked out, "this is a nice welcome back."
"Funny to you?"
He coughed, a harsh laugh scraping out of him. "C'mon, Satoru, relax. I did you a favor," he sputtered. "Your precious little student, she's better off now. You know I'm right."
Every muscle in my body tensed.
He was right. 
In his twisted way, he was. 
And that's what made it all so much worse.
My grip on his throat tightened. But there was nothing, no satisfactio, no release in the violence.
Sukuna saw it, the hesitation. His mouth twisted into a smirk again. "See, you get it. Sweet thing doesn't belong in this mess, does she? It's not for her, Satoru. It's for us."
His words scraped like nails on a chalkboard. 
Yes, she was safer now, untouched by the rot that festered within me. Some desperate, logical part of me clung to that. But how could I hold on to that when my heart was screaming for her closeness?
"Or maybe," Sukuna drawled, pushing the knife deeper, "maybe you wanted to see where this goes. Stain her a bit, make her just a little bit more like you."
My breath hitched. For a split second, the floor vanished beneath me.
"Hit a nerve, did I?"
"Shut the hell up!" I couldn't face it, couldn't face the ugly truth as it would tear me apart. "You twist everything. Play with lives just for your own sick amusement."
This was his game.
Sukuna thrived on chaos, on exploiting pain. 
He knew my guilt, my fear for her, and wielded it like a scalpel, laying bare the raw nerve of my fragile sanity.
"Perhaps. But ain't I right?  You needed to end it, but you lack the guts for it. Waited a bit longer, it'd be a total disaster."
I hesitated, then my grip on him slackened. I stepped back.
"You know I'm right," Sukuna continued. "You know how this would have ended. Suspension. Scandal. She'll be doomed forever for getting involved with her professor for favors. You wouldn't destroy her like that, would you? You're not that cruel."
"I'm not so sure." I ran a hand through my hair.  It had taken everything in me to push her away. 
But I can't deny that an ugly part of me wanted to keep her close. Drag her down with me. 
See her drown.
"Damn, you hit hard," he said, rubbing his jaw. "Go beat up some students again, not me."
"Stop giving me reasons to punch you."  Exhausted, I slumped into my desk chair, burying my face in my hands. My head pounded, the infuriating itch worsening with each damn moment. "Was this your plan all along?"
"What?" he scoffed.
I lifted a single eyebrow at him.
"You think that low of me? Honestly, Toru, a bit of credit, please. It was your pathetic indecision that made this entertaining. You basically gift-wrapped this mess and handed it to me."
"Besides," he continued, "let's be honest, you were holding her back. Now maybe she'll have a chance to become someone who might surpass you one day. You wouldn't deny her that, would you? No thanks needed."
He was right, and I hated that more than anything.
Sukuna sank into the chair across from me, a picture of smug satisfaction despite the visible bruise. "Damn, that punch still stings."
I opened my desk drawer and wordlessly tossed him the bottle of opioids. His eyes widened in surprise, before he gave the bottle a knowing shake. "Still on the hydromorphone?"
I didn't answer. The sound alone threatened to shatter what fragile control I had left. The itch was unbearable, each nerve ending screaming for relief.
Sukuna observed me, a predator watching its prey struggle. "Withdrawal never suited you," he said, popping a pill. "You always get so—" he paused, savoring the word, "—tense."
"Yeah, real supportive of you."
"Actually, I'm being incredibly supportive. I'm leaving for a little research trip overseas—four months. Ethics committee can't meet without me, so—" He leaned back in his chair, his grin widening. "Gives you time to get your shit together. Isn't that nice of me?"
"Shut the hell up."
"C'mon, I put in a good word for you too. No suspension for now. You can keep teaching, just no surgeries. Yaga really hates my guts, doesn't he? But hey, at least you're not totally screwed."
"You expect a thank you?"
"Relax, Toru, the show's over," he said. "Trust me, they don't want a scandal, let alone lose their star surgeon. When I get back, a slap on the wrist, maybe a semester's suspension, then you're back to the boring old grind."
A bitter laugh escaped me. "Last I checked, you were the one pushing for a scandal."
He rolled his eyes. "Someone had to do it. Knew you'd drag this out forever, playing the tragic hero. Needed a villain to get things moving." He gave a mocking bow. "At your service, my friend."
"Also," he continued, leaning forward in his chair, "the focus is off you now. The committee's sniffing around those implant engineers. Funny, isn't it?" 
Sukuna paused, savoring the moment. "Honestly, never thought there was anything wrong with your surgeries. You wouldn't make that kind of mistake. Tech malfunction more likely."
Of course. 
The bastard never doubted the damn research. It had all been a game to him — my career, my sanity, her — just pieces on his chessboard.
It should've made me furious, lash out, pound his face in again — but all I felt was a bone-deep exhaustion, a weariness that seeped into my very soul. I was too tired, too hollowed-out to do anything but swallow the bitter truth.
"That supposed to make me feel better?" 
"A little," he said, tossing the opioid bottle back. "This, though? That'll do the trick even better."
I caught it, my fingers clenching around the plastic.
He rose, stretching with a theatrical sigh. "Well, time to go. Remember, you owe me big time. You should take one," he gestured towards the pills, "you look like shit."
My grip on the bottle tightened. I looked up at him. "When all of this is done, I never want to see your damn face again."
He laughed. "We both know that's a lie. You and me? We need each other."
"The only thing you need is some damn therapy."
"Ah, Toru," he dismissed me with a smirk, "you'll come crawling back soon enough. We both know how this works."
With that, he was gone. I was left alone in the echoing silence, the pill bottle a burning weight in my hand. The world seemed to sway around me, my eyelids growing heavy.
The will to fight simply wasn't there anymore.
─── ·✧· ───
Cruel. 
Cruel how one little pill can undo everything. 
Cruel how one little pill can silence everything. 
Cruel how one damn pill can soften the world, make it — bearable, almost.
Unfair. 
It's truly unfair.
The screaming under my skin, that relentless itch — it's still there, but it had dulled to a faint hum, pushed back by the familiar numbness.
Finally.
Oh, finally some fucking silence.
I let out a shaky breath. It wasn't peace, not really. I knew that all too well. Borrowed time, each second ticking closer to the inevitable crash, the return of that relentless screaming in my head.
But for now, it'll have to be enough.
I collapsed on the couch, smoke curling lazily before my eyes.
I knew I shouldn't mix opioids with cannabis. That's something they teach you within the first year of university. What I used to teach students within the first year of university.
What a hypocrite I am really.
Another drag — harsh, burning down my throat. 
The urge to close my eyes, to sink into oblivion, was almost overwhelming. But sleep wouldn't bring respite. Only nightmares. I knew that only too well.
So, I lay there, staring up at the ceiling.
It really came down to me failing again, huh?
What was it now?
Attempt number five? 
Six?
I started losing count.
Maybe this was my fate.
A broken record, stuck on the same damn track.
Deep down, under the chemical haze, guilt gnawed at me. It was a dull ache now, no longer the searing pain of earlier, but a constant, insidious reminder. 
She were out there, her life forever marked by my choices, while I was — here. Hiding in a haze of pills and smoke.
God, I hoped Suguru was looking after her. Making sure she ate, making sure she was safe — that she didn't hate me too much.
I brought the joint to my lips again, the smoke curling up towards the ceiling. It left an acrid taste in my mouth.
I watched my hand for a second.
Bloodied earlier, the wounds had scabbed over, the blood dried. It was perfectly still now, the trembling smoothed out by the chemicals in my blood. 
I clenched it into a fist, then unclenched, watching the movement like it belonged to someone else.
Traitor.
This body was a traitor — betrayed myself, betrayed her, betrayed everything I held dear.
Weak. 
Broken.
A pathetic mess.
Was that it?
Living as a slave to these chemicals to patch up my crumbling sanity one day at a time? 
Chained to pills, each dawn a ticking clock until the next dose, until I could silence the screaming for a few damn hours?
My eyes locked onto the half-empty vial on the table. 
Took too many, didn't I?
I knew that, even through the haze. But a cold certainty twisted in my gut. There'd be more. Always more. Until there was nothing left.
Before I could think, I threw another down my throat. Bad idea, probably, after a few clean days.
Suddenly, the haze warped, twisting into nausea. Bile rose in my throat.
I lurched to my feet, the world tilting precariously with each step. Surfaces rippled, the bathroom light stabbing into my skull.
I barely made it. My stomach heaved. Each retch wracked my body, leaving me gasping, weak.
Too many. 
Way too many.
How the hell did I forget? Forget my body's limits? Somehow, I felt like some reckless student again, stumbling through experiments, blind to the consequences.
Stupid. So damn stupid.
Darkness swam at the edges of my vision.  Another wave of nausea, and I was back, hunched over the toilet. 
I hauled myself up, hands shaking, clinging to the sink. In the mirror, a stranger stared back. Eyes bloodshot, a sheen of sweat coating his skin.
This wasn't me anymore.
I splashed cold water on my face, trying to wash away the acid burn. Didn't help. Drops of water ran down my face, felt like they were melting the damn skin off.
My knees buckled. I slid down the wall, my head heavy against the tile wall. 
The bathroom light, needles in my brain moments ago, seemed impossibly distant now. Each breath was a ragged gasp, each pulse a dull throb in my temples.
I waited for it to pass, the nausea, the haze. But as minutes crawled by, a new, searing pain gnawed at me.
My fingers trembled against my abdomen, pressing into the tender spot. Liver, of course. 
Wrecked it, just like the rest of me. I'd known the risks, had ignored the warnings, and now my body was demanding payment.
How pathetic.
Darkness gnawed at the edges of my vision, pushing back against the stubborn spots of light. My head felt heavy, detached from my body. Arms and legs useless.
Each breath a battle I wasn't sure I'd win.
Time warped. Stretching, then snapping, leaving me floating in nausea and pain. Then I heard something — muffled, distant. Footsteps, getting closer.
My eyes struggled to make sense of the shifting shadows.
Then, a voice. Soft, achingly familiar. I couldn't make out the words, but the warmth of it—
I knew that voice — would always recognize it.
Cold water hit my skin. Hands, gentle, but firm, on my face. I strained to focus, to see her, to soak in the sight I needed, yet feared more than anything.
Oh, how desperately I needed to see her. Needed her to be real.
But my eyes betrayed me.
She must be so beautiful. She always was.
Then, a touch on my outstretched leg, a flash of metal — was that a scalpel?
Agony ripped through me, shattering the haze. I jerked back, my scream ragged against the tiles. My head slammed back with sickening force.
Before I knew it, a needle pierced my skin.
The room spun as whatever she'd injected battled the comfortable blur of the pills. Nausea churned in my stomach, the numbness receding with terrifying speed.
Groaning, I shifted on the floor.
My vision sharpened, my senses returning with brutal clarity. 
The first thing I noticed was the metallic glint of the discarded syringe beside my leg. 
Then the cut, a ragged gash through the fabric of my dress pants where she'd stabbed the needle in — the unnecessarily deep and brutal cut — but in the chaos, I let it slide. Didn't even register the pain as I watched the blood drain from the cut. 
I reached for the syringe and read the label. 
Adrenaline. 
Smart girl. 
But as I turned it over, a frown creased my brow. Two fucking milliliters? Was she trying to give me a damn heart attack?
I lifted my head, the question burning on my tongue. But the words died unspoken as my gaze locked on hers. 
She stood there, just a few feet away, her breath ragged, her eyes — those pretty eyes.
Terror. 
There was raw, unadulterated terror etched in her eyes. But I was right. She looked as beautiful as ever. Even with those terror-stricken eyes she was breathtaking.
She stumbled back, slumping against the wall opposite of me with a choked gasp, pulling her knees up. I didn't move, couldn't move, my gaze locked with hers.
The terror faded slowly, replaced by a weariness that was far worse. 
For a fleeting moment, I saw a flicker of that familiar defiance, the spark I both loved and feared. But even that felt strangely muted now, as if even the energy to fight had been drained out of her.
She simply watched me. In silence, in that devastating silence.
How I hated her silence.
Because her silence was far worse than anything she could have screamed, any insult she could have hurled my way. Her stillness, her silence, was the most terrifying weapon she'd ever wielded against me.
And for the first time in a very long time, I was truly afraid.
Time stretched, then I choked out, "You're angry."
Her answer was blunt, devoid of emotion. "Oh really? What makes you think that?"
I glanced down. Blood still seeped from the gash in my leg. With a trembling hand, I fumbled for a towel and pressed it against the wound. "Your cut is kinda deep. Was that on purpose?"
She didn't say anything.
It probably was on purpose.
My gaze fell on the syringe. "Where'd you get that?"
"What happened to your hand?"
"I asked first."
"Don't try to play games now, Satoru. You're walking on thin fucking ice," she snapped.
"Shattered some glass," I said after a pause ", and punched Sukuna."
"Stole it from the hospital."
"What?"
"You think I'd date an addict and not have adrenaline on hand?"
My lips twitched into a weary smile. Oh my beautiful, brilliant girl, always prepared.
"But you know, two milliliters is a bit much." I moved my leg slightly to check if she had cut any tendons, which would complicate the healing a bit. "Or are you trying to kill me?"
Her gaze pierced me, colder than any scalpel. "Looks like you're doing a fine job of that yourself."
My smile faded.
Silence.
Oh, that cruel silence again.
She didn't say anything. Maybe I should be thankful for that, because if she said anything now, I'd probably crumble completely — if I haven't already.
Ironic, wasn't it? 
How much power this woman had over me. 
Yet it was me who destroyed her.
She dropped her head, ran a shaking hand through her hair, then looked at me again. "How much did you take?"
Huh?
Why would she ask that?
Didn't she see that it's over?
That I'm too far gone?
It was unbearable.
It was unbearable, how she could still look at me and see someone worth saving. It was unbearable, knowing she believed in me even when I didn't. 
Almost pissed me off, how stubbornly she clung to that stupid hope. Because seeing that hope in her eyes — it made me hate myself even more.
I wouldn't change, couldn't. Not for her, not for anyone.
"Doesn't matter. It's over."
"Satoru, please," she choked out, pain raw in her voice, the pain I caused, "cut the crap and tell me. Now."
"It doesn't matter," I repeated, my voice cold. I couldn't bear the flicker of hope, couldn't bear to fail her yet again.
Then, the first tear rolled down her cheek and my heart shattered, the fragments piercing me from within. 
I'd never wanted to be the reason those beautiful eyes filled with pain, the reason her sweet lips trembled. Every fiber of my being wanted to pull her close, erase the hurt I'd caused.
I would have given anything, sacrificed anything, if only I could make it stop.
But I couldn't.
Because I was the problem. I was the poison.
She buried her face in her hands. "I'm tired, Satoru."
"I know."
"I'm so fucking tired," she whispered through tears.
"I know, love."
My eyes burned as I watched her fragile body shudder. Each sob of her driving a stake deeper into my already bleeding heart. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. 
I hated myself, hated myself, hated myself, hated myself, hated myself because — because I was the reason for all of this. 
She'd never wanted this, never wanted to fall in love with me to begin with, but I dragged her into it anyway.
Because I was selfish. 
Knew how it would end.
And now, I could only watch — only watch in this unbearable silence as the woman I loved wept over the man I hated. 
"It's for the best, believe me—"
"No," she cut me off.  "You're sacrificing me for this—this reputation of mine you think matters. It doesn't. I don't want any of it without you. I don't want a future where you're not in it."
She looked up then, eyes red and filled with unshed tears. "Because I love you, Satoru."
What?
The words turned my blood to ice.
After everything — the lies, the ways I'd hurt her, the desperate attempts to push her away — there it was, the confession I'd craved and feared in equal measure.
My heart was being ripped apart and stitched back together again in that very moment — vulnerable and yet so unbearably full. 
She loved me, she said it.
She loves me.
She loves me.
And I love her.
God, how I loved her. More than I thought possible.
I've never once loved in my entire life. 
Not until her. 
Not until she changed me completely. 
What is that, anyway? Love?
How can I possible describe the type of feeling I feel when I'm with her? How can I ever convey the words when they are not even clear to me? 
How cruel it is. How utterly cruel the type of feeling is, that she makes me feel.
Because how could I ever live without it.
Not when she showed me how to breathe.
How to live.
How could I ever go back to what I was before her — was there even something before her?
Not when she showed me how to breathe.
With her.
For her. 
Because she is the air that fills my lungs.
The pulse that keeps me alive.
And nothing can ever change that. So how could I ever go back to what I was before? 
Oh, how she tortures me, tortures me with feelings I rather not feel, tortures me with her love that I deserve so little. 
Nothing. 
I deserve nothing and yet she gives me everything.
Why can't I give it back? What chains me, binds this rotten heart? Why does it fail me so cruelly to love her the way she deserves? 
Because she does. 
She deserves everything. 
She is everything. 
Yet there is only my own failure in loving her. I'm failing her again and again. I hurt her again and again. I hate myself, hate myself for the pain I cause her.
Still—
How can I let her go, when she's the only good thing in my life? 
It is selfish, selfish to say the least, to want to keep her close when all I do is fail her.
Her tears were molten iron searing my insides. But I clench my jaw, refusing to let them break me. If she saw weakness, she might hesitate. Might stay and continue to be broken by me. 
Every fiber of my being wanted nothing more than to reach out, to comfort her, to tell her it would all be okay.
More lies for a heart that deserved nothing but the truth. So I swallowed down the love threatening to spill from my lips. 
I would give her anything, my life, the last shreds of my sanity — except the one thing she asked for, the only thing she ever ask for. 
Because loving her, truly loving her, meant letting her go. Even if it destroys me.
"I spare you," I rasped.
"No." She slowly shook her head. "You're killing me. Can't you see?" There was a cold edge in her voice now. "You're killing me."
"I can't change. Love isn't enough. I can't stop."
"You're the only one who thinks that." Her reply held a flicker of her old, beautiful defiance, a defiance I loved so dearly. "I'd follow you anywhere, Satoru. Even if you can't get clean, then so be it. I don't care. I won't leave you."
The sincerity in her voice was a blow, a beautiful, terrible blow. Complete, unwavering acceptance of who I was, in all my brokenness.
And in that moment, I finally realized. 
It wasn't about saving her. It was about saving myself from the terrifying vulnerability her love demanded. From the weakness that threatened to drown me if I let her in.
Perhaps I'm just a coward after all.
My heart was too damn small, too messed up. Of course I had to push her out, deny her the love she offered so freely — because it terrified me.
Her love terrified me.
"I can't do this to you," I choked out, the words scraping my throat raw. "You deserve—" I swallowed, the words catching in my throat. "You deserve better." 
"Better?" She leaned forward slightly. "You are my better."
Oh, love, that's not true.
You are my better. I'm your worst.
I wanted to say that, should've said that.
But I remained silent, unable to say anything. 
"Say something, Satoru." 
I couldn't, simply couldn't. Because mere words were too hollow, too insignificant against the depth of her pain.
"Say something, damn it!" 
"It will get easier someday," I chocked out. Each word felt like a stone I was forcing down my own throat. Each word empty — we both knew it.
"Is that what you hope for?"
"I have to."
She closed her mouth. Her silence more devastating than any scream. She didn't explode, as I half-expected. Instead, she straightened, her movements slow, weary.
I watched her, unable to move, unable to look away, as a horrifying realization bloomed across her face. It wasn't anger, wasn't sadness — it was a terrible understanding.
She knew. She always knew.
Perhaps that's what I hated about her the most.
"That's it?" she asked.
"That's it."
She watched me.  Not in anger, but with chilling detachment. Her eyes, usually so filled with warmth, were now as distant as those of a stranger. 
Still, I burned the image into my soul, knowing it might be the last time.
Then, without another word, she turned. And walked away.
When she finally disappeared from sight, a wave of crushing despair washed over me. It wasn't just the loneliness. It was the terrifying certainty that there was no going back from this. 
I had destroyed the best thing in my life — a sacrifice she didn't even ask for.
But then again, my sacrifice is really only an illusion after all, masking a desperate, terrified selfishness.
Because I'm selfish.
I do love her.  Gods, how I love her. 
But my fear was stronger.
And I was too damn weak to fight it.
─── ·✧· ───
Four weeks.
Was it four weeks?
I can't remember.
Time — it didn't tick or flow anymore. 
It was a shapeless thing. Punctuated only by the empty thump of my heart in this wrecked chest.
Those first days — or weeks, who knows? — they melted together in a haze. After she left, I was — raw. One giant exposed nerve.  
Each damn breath without the pills felt like scraping sandpaper across it, a reminder  of what I'd lost — no, what I'd destroyed.
So I was barely sober.
My body didn't even protest. At first, it was almost — nice? The rush, the way it wiped out not just the pain but any thought at all.
But the crash was always brutal. Mornings, if you could even call it that, I'd wake up shaking, sick to my stomach, and terrified of — what was I even terrified of? Somehow of everything and nothing at all. But I knew the fix for that. 
It was a sick, relentless cycle.
The phone rang, vibrated with messages. Suguru mostly. His messages growing more urgent with each unanswered text. Liver issues. Treatment. Something about irreversible damage.   
It was all white noise compared to the screaming in my head.
Her name, though, cut through the haze.
There were nights — or was it days? — when a desperate, clawing need to hear her voice, to see her face, would rise up in me. I'd reach for the phone, fingers hovering above her name. Then the fear would crush that impulse. 
I knew that reaching out to her would be the final act of cruelty.
So I stumbled on, each day collapsing into the next. 
Until the next semester started and I remembered I had an actual job.
─── ·✧· ───
I stood in the corridor outside the auditorium.
My fingers fumbled with the familiar pill bottle. Just enough to numb the edge, get me through the lecture. With a bitter swallow, I tilted the pill into my palm, chasing it down dry.
Four weeks. Four weeks of barely holding it together, four weeks since I almost OD'd, four weeks since she left, and the weight of it all threatened to crush me at any moment. 
Yet, muscle memory took over.
I limped slightly as I walked into the auditorium. My leg still hurt after she basically cut my muscle in half. 
She definitely did that on purpose. She was too smart not to not know what she was doing.
The usual chatter died down when I walked in.  Old routine. Time for the performance. Pretend I'm the professor, pretend like this whole thing isn't ripping me apart, piece by piece. It should have been comforting. 
Once, perhaps, it was.
Wordlessly, I grabbed a marker, scrawled my name on the board. Like they didn't already know who I was, right? 
Everyone on campus knows, especially after this summer's mess.
With a sigh, I turned towards the class.
And there she was. 
My breath hitched, the marker clattering to the floor. My lips parted, but no words came.
Of course.
Of fucking course. 
Second-year lecture. 
How the hell could I forget that?
She was here, after everything, right in front of me. The pain of the past weeks, that suffocating emptiness — it all melted away, replaced by a pounding headache in that one instant.
My eyes clung to her, unable to look away, drinking in the sight of her. That stubborn tilt of her head, the pain in those beautiful eyes — God, how I'd missed her. 
Yet with every beat of my yearning heart came a fresh wave of guilt. I longed to reach out, to apologize, to tell her how much I'd missed her. 
But I knew it was wrong. 
Then, it hit me. Every eye in the room was on her, following my gaze like a spotlight burning into her. Damn it.
Still, she didn't flinch.
Endured it like she has always endured everything.
Clearing my throat, I managed to speak as I adverted my gaze. "So, uh, let's start the lecture."
My voice echoed in the now tense auditorium, words tumbling out in a forced attempt at normalcy. The lecture blurred. My own words were just noise in my head. I pushed through the lecture. Don't even remember what I lectured about.
It was routine, should have been easy, but — not with her there. Never with her. 
Every damn minute, my eyes flicked towards her, drawn like a magnet. I couldn't help it. Because all I could see was her. But she avoided my gaze.
Should've expected that.
Shouldn't make me angry, right?
Still did.
Finally, thank god, the bell rang. 
I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.
I remained behind my desk and gathered my notes. Students surged towards the exit, a faceless blur of motion. My traitorous gaze remained locked on her as the auditorium slowly emptied.
She and her friends passed by me. Before I could even think, the words tumbled out, "Wait, not—not you, first-year."
Silence. 
Her friend's chatter halted abruptly. I hadn't meant to say it, hadn't thought before the desperate need to speak to her had short-circuited my brain.
Now, it was done.
Her eyes, those beautiful eyes, met mine. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. 
Her friends exchanged glances. I could feel Zenin glaring daggers at me, didn't even need to look. She'd always been fiercely protective.
"I'll catch up later," she said then to her friends, a strained smile plastered on her face. 
They left, leaving us alone in the vast, suddenly suffocating auditorium.
Silence again.
My heart hammered against my ribs, so loud I feared she could hear it.
Finally, she spoke. "You know I'm not a first-year anymore."
I rounded the desk, the wood rough against my fingertips. "Yeah, right. Sorry." Leaning against it, I crossed my arms.
"Didn't you get suspended?"
"They postponed it."
She watched me for a moment, those beautiful eyes drilling into me. Her eyes held a coldness I've never seen before. For a sickening moment, I thought I might throw up.
"How are you?"
"Don't," she snapped. "Don't ask me that. Don't you dare pretend to care after—" 
She stopped herself, the silence louder than any accusation. After everything you did. After you pushed me away. After you nearly killed yourself.
She didn't need to voice it.
My hands clenched into fists against the edge of my desk, nails digging into my palms in a futile attempt to ground myself. Needed to maintain this thin illusion of control.
I do care. Dammit, I care more than you'll ever know. 
I wanted to scream it, to tear open my chest and show her the bleeding wound she'd left behind. But the words stuck in my throat. 
Pointless now, anyway.
Knuckles turned white, nails digging deeper.
She stepped closer. Her hand darted into her bag, then shot out, palm open. Keys glinted in the harsh light — the keys to my apartment. 
I watched them for a second. Should've expected that. Shouldn't hurt me. Still did.
"You don't have to return them. I want you to keep them."
"Why? I won't need them anymore, will I? Or are you planning on overdosing again?"
Each word was acid on an open wound.
I deserved this, the anger, the contempt, it was all on me. But why the hell did it make me so fucking angry?
"Have you ever thought about how I felt when I found you?" she snapped, her voice rising. "How terrified I was when you wouldn't respond? When you couldn't even recognize me? When I thought you'd die on me?" She took a shaky breath. "Fuck Satoru, I held your face in my hands while you were barely breathing!"
I tried to speak, but she cut me off.  "Don't. You. Dare."
"Four weeks," she went on, her voice sharp, laced with a fury that cut to the bone. "Four weeks of silence. Ever think I might be drowning, haunted by what I saw? Or were you too busy numbing yourself with pills? Hell, I didn't even know if you'd overdosed for good this time!"
Her words hit me cold, but they weren't the storm tearing me apart. It was the image of her, terrified, holding my barely-alive body, that ripped my insides out. 
Those eyes — her eyes filled with a terror that was all because of me. The guilt choked me. Seeing my near-death through her haunted eyes is twisted a knife in my gut.
It was the look of someone who'd had a piece of her soul ripped out. 
It was the look of someone who loved me.
"But then again, you never cared about me, did you?" she added, the raw hurt bleeding beneath the anger.
My stomach twisted. "Don't you dare say that," I rasped, the words ripping from my throat. "I care so much it damn near killed me. You were the only thing keeping me alive, the only reason I fought at all! Don't you dare say I don't—" I choked, the pain unbearable.
The room seemed to tilt, my anger threatening to consume me. 
I took a step towards her, closing the distance in one move. We were so close, I could smell her damn shampoo. "Every damn thing I did, every stupid decision—it was all because I care about you too much."
Her eyes widened. But only for a second. Then, that cold defiance was back, and it cut deep. 
"You're really pathetic, you know that?" she spat. "You talk about caring, but in the end you threw everything away. Because you are too terrified to let yourself love me. Because apparently your own damn peace is worth more than me."
Her words were knives, finding their mark with cruel efficiency. 
"Shut up," I whispered. "You know nothing."
"Oh really?" She glared at me, "then let me paint the picture for you—the minute things got difficult, the second you had to face actual consequences for your actions, you used it as an excuse to back away. Shut yourself down."
She moved closer still. "Convenient, wasn't it? Pushing me away, destroying us—it absolved you from having to confront anything real."
Her accusations hit uncomfortably close to home.
And I didn't want to hear it from her lips.
Not from hers.
"Shut up," I growled.
"Don't you dare tell me to shut up," she snapped back, her voice rising. "You don't get to play the victim here. You did this. You ruined everything."
Fury ignited, not at her, but at myself. 
Blindly, I reached out, my fingers gripping her jaw so tight it bordered on violence. I forced her to look at me, my eyes burning into hers. "Shut up, or I swear to god, I'll make you."
Her chin lifted, eyes narrowing. "I dare you."
The words set me on fire. Every rational thought, every vestige of self-preservation was devoured by a sudden, desperate need. My gaze fell to her lips, slightly parted, a vulnerable target I craved to claim.
Without even thinking, my hand went to her waist, fingers digging in as I pulled her impossibly close. My other hand tangled in her hair, forcing her head back. Our eyes locked, some kind of messed-up challenge.
I could feel her rapid breaths on my skin, smell that damn perfume of hers that I'd always loved, but now was driving me to the edge of control. Her heart pounding against mine.
Everything in me screamed to close the distance, claim those lips that had haunted me, haunted me for weeks. 
I wanted to claim her, to silence her, to lose myself in her, but my last shred of sanity held me back.
Because pushing her further into my nightmare was the ultimate act of cruelty. 
"Uncomfortable, isn't it? Getting confronted with the ugly truth?" she whispered against my lips.
My grip on her tightened. She really didn't know when to stop, or maybe she simply wanted to watch me burn. Perhaps both.
"Don't push me."
"Why? Scared of what you'll find if you let yourself be honest for once?" Her head tilted. Her gaze was fire, and I was already ash. "You run, Satoru. From everything, but most of all, from yourself."
"And that," she leaned closer, almost brushing my lips, "is what makes you the most pathetic person I know."
Oh, she could be so viciously cruel when she wanted to. So disgustingly cruel. It was one of the things I'd fallen hopelessly in love with. Even now, as it tore me apart, I still loved it. 
But I also wanted nothing more than to fuck that attitude out of her right then and there.
"You're right. You're always right. Maybe that's what's terrifies me about you so much."
"You're not terrified of me," she whispered. "You're terrified of yourself."
The air between us crackled. Every rational thought in my brain begged me to stop. Still, I couldn't resist. I inched closer, helpless against the force that binds and burns us both.
My hands tightened their hold as I took a sharp inhale. Her eyes fluttered shut, lashes trembling. 
Our lips hovered, almost touching, two aching souls suspended in that impossible space. So much unspoken words, so much hurt, and the destructive pull between us that had always tethered us together.
Then, the auditorium door creaked open. 
Her head snapped towards the sound. But I couldn't look away, wouldn't miss a second of her. Because this, right here, was all I had left.
Had to be Suguru anyway — anyone else would be screaming their heads off by now.
After a pause, she turned back at me. "You know, I'm still waiting."
"For what, love?"
"For it to get easier."
I looked at her, the woman I loved, and guilt clawed at my insides. That hurt, that anger on her face — I deserved it all. Because it was the consequence of the pain I'd caused.
"You said it would get easier," she added.
It was a lie. Nothing about this was easy. Nothing ever would be again. Suddenly, the room felt too small, the air thick and unbreathable.
"I don't know if it ever will."
Perhaps I was only meant to love her in silence.
In distance.
Because at least then I couldn't hurt her anymore.
Suguru cleared his throat. He stepped into the room, breaking the moment.
Reluctantly, I let go of her. She stepped back, eyes holding mine for a second, something flickering there that I didn't dare try to read. Then, without another word, she turned and walked away.
I watched her go.
Suguru approached me, stopping close by. He didn't say anything.
I leaned against the desk, running a hand through my hair. The adrenaline from that almost-kiss crashed, leaving behind a hollow ache.
The sound of the door slamming behind her echoed in the empty auditorium, way too loud.
Suguru's hand landed on my shoulder. 
"You really have a thing for bad timing," I muttered.
"Bad timing," he echoed, "or good timing to stop you from doing something stupid?"
I didn't answer. The memory of her, so close, choked every thought out of my mind.
"You know it was the right thing to do. With everything going on, letting her go was the right decision."
"I know," I said, pushing off the desk and rounding it to gather my things. I couldn't meet his gaze. "I'm trying to remember that."
Suguru then started placing pill bottles on the desk with a serious expression. The first clink of plastic on wood cut through the silence. 
"Prednisone for the liver inflammation." Another bottle. "Lactulose for the hepatic encephalopathy." Then another. "Vitamin B and K for the nutritional deficiencies."
"But you know the first step would be to—" he paused for a second then placed another two bottles in from of me. "Methadone, to manage the withdrawal and craving. And Naltrexone, to block the euphoric effects of your opioids."
Hesitantly, another bottle appeared. "Clonidine, in case you feel like you're dying."
"Suguru—" I began, but he cut me off.
"Satoru, you have to get clean. The pills won't do a damn thing if you keep wrecking your liver."
"Yeah, it's a little late for that, don't you think? It's the only thing keeping me sane right now."
He sighed.  "You're the absolute worst patient ever."
"Aw, come on, I thought you liked a bit of challenge. You're the best doctor, you'll figure something out."  I rummaged through my bag, pulling out a folder.
"Even the best doctor on earth can't help if you don't—"
I shoved the folder across the desk, cutting him off. "What's this?"
"It's a patient. An anyeurism. I'm still not allowed to do surgery, not until this thing with the ethics committee is over."
Suguru opened the folder, flipping through the pages.  "You want me to do it?  Is there something special about this patient?"
"I want you to take her with you," I said quietly. "She likes aneurysm clippings."
Suguru looked up, that familiar crease between his brows.  "She'll figure it out. Sooner or later. Latest when you're in the hospital waiting for a liver transplant, not lecturing anymore."
Silence stretched. My eyes fell on the pill bottles lined up on the desk. 
I sighed, then gathered them and crammed them into my bag.  "Let's go. I need fresh fair," I said as I brushed past him, putting the withdrawal meds back into his hands.
Without another word, I left the auditorium.
─── ·✧· ───
My eyes snapped open.
I sat upright, a strangled gasp tearing from my throat. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat threatening to burst right out of my chest. 
For a disorienting second, the world was a blur. Sweat drenched my skin. My lungs screamed for air.
Damn nightmares. 
Another night of that shit. 
I clutched at my chest, trying to quell the frantic pounding. Cold sweat made my shirt cling to my skin. The room spun. My pulse thundered in my ears.
I fumbled for the lamp, the sudden brightness stinging my eyes. But it didn't chase away the image seared into my brain. Her face, cruel, beautiful, cruelly beautiful, twisted in absolute terror. My stomach twisted.
My fault. 
Always my fault.
I couldn't breathe right.
Sleep was a lost cause now. First decent rest in a week, and my brain decided to torment me again. Exhaustion was its own kind of hell, but it was nothing compared to this. That, more than anything, was the real torture.
I slumped forward, scrubbing a hand over my face.
I'd hurt her. 
I'd hurt her, the one person who meant something.
Every day, it felt more like I'd made the biggest mistake of my life. Letting her go, pushing her away, I—
I hated myself. 
Hated the way I ruined everything.
Hated the way I ruined every chance at something good. 
It was like a damn curse.
Nothing good ever lasted for me. I should've known that by now.
Damn it, I knew it was wrong. But how the hell could it be wrong when it'd felt so damn right? When she was the only thing, the only person, that cut through the crap, made this whole mess seem like it might have some sort of meaning?
How could that possibly be wrong?
Guilt ate at my insides. Had I been a damn coward? Too scared to fight for something that made me feel, really feel?
Perhaps.
Easier to push her away, sabotage the whole damn thing, than risk actually letting her in. Letting anyone in. Losing control. But it didn't matter now, did it? 
It was over. 
I needed out. Out of my head, out of this apartment, out of my own damn skin. 
The silence was unbearable.
I pushed off the bed, muscles screaming in protest. I slipped into running clothes, the routine automatic. As I laced up my shoes, a sharp sting shot through my leg from the still-healing cut on my leg.
That bitch. 
The more I thought about it, the more sure I was she'd done it on purpose.
Good thing I was addicted to painkillers, huh?
I drowned a pill — no two, for good measure — before stepping outside into the pre-dawn chill. 
Cold autumn air bit at my skin. Each step echoed on the empty street. The pills kicked in, dulling the sharp pain in my leg. Good. Long as the cut didn't split open, I didn't damn care.
I pushed myself, needing the burn in my muscles, the ache in my lungs, to drown out the constant echo of her voice, her name, in my head.
The world blurred. Streetlights, shadows, it all melded together. The only reality was the ache in my body, the cold air forcing its way into my lungs. My mind, for once, was mercifully blank. 
No nightmares, no guilt, no memories of her haunted eyes — just the simple focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
I didn't set a goal, didn't choose a destination. 
Just moving, pushing, escaping.
Sweat dripped, but I barely registered. With each mile, the crushing weight eased. Not gone, hell, not even close to forgotten, but  — manageable. 
I ran until the city was a smear of lights, until my legs burned and my lungs screamed. 
Finally, gasping for breath, legs threatening to give out, I stumbled to a halt. The neon lights of a Seven Eleven cut through the pre-dawn darkness. My throat was sandpaper. I pushed through the door.
Inside, the harsh lights stung my eyes. I grabbed a water, my body on autopilot as I shuffled toward the register. The bored-looking teenager behind the counter gave me a sidelong look as I fumbled for my wallet.
"Rough night?"
"Something like that." I glanced down at my leg, the still-healing cut a visible red line. Wincing, I shifted my weight, favoring the uninjured side. 
I pulled out my card to pay, but then a flash of color caught my eye. Beside the cashier's register, stacked in a gaudy pyramid, was a display of energy drinks. I starred at them for a second, the name oddly familiar.
I knew why the name was so familiar.
I reached for a can and placed it on the counter. "And this."
Outside, I downed the water in a matter of seconds. Then, I cracked open the energy drink. The first sip hit my tongue. Surprisingly, it didn't taste half-bad without a shot of stale coffee to ruin it. 
But the taste wasn't the problem, wasn't it? 
Memories flooded back. Her, hunched over a massive anatomy textbook in the dim library, those beautiful eyes ringed with exhaustion. Beside her, half-empty, a mug of coffee — spiked with the sickeningly sweet energy drink I currently held.
Just the thought of that awful mixture made my stomach turn.
Still, a smile tugged at my lips.
Dammit, I didn't want to think about her. But to be fair, thinking, not thinking — it was all the same. The dull, constant ache of her absence throbbed beneath it all.
I chugged the rest of the energy drink, crushing the can in my hand.
Ah, fuck it.
Before my sanity could interfere, my legs were in motion.
I knew this was wrong. Knew every step took me closer to more pain. Knew all along this was stupid, reckless — inevitable. 
I couldn't stop.
The pull towards her was too damn strong. I needed to see her, to confirm her existence, to know she was real, to fix — what? What the hell could I fix? What the hell did I even think I was doing?
Finally, gasping for breath, I stumbled to a halt outside her apartment building.
A glance at my watch confirmed the hour — well past 3 am. Insane. I hadn't expected her to be awake. Just needed the pathetic reassurance of her presence. But as I looked up, my breath hitched. 
In a second-floor window, a flicker of warm light spilled into the darkness. And there, etched against that warmth — her silhouette. Unmistakable.
A heavy exhale escaped my lips. 
She was there.
Here.
On this same cursed world with me.
My heart pounded against my ribs. I knew, I had no right to be here. But god, I needed this, needed to see her.
She sat on the windowsill, book in hand. My future wife. Even in the dead of night, she was studying. How I loved her.
My gaze traced the familiar curve of her shoulders, the way the soft lamplight painted her skin with warmth, highlighting the strands of hair escaping her messy bun. 
In that stolen moment, I could almost convince myself that things were different, that my actions hadn't irrevocably shattered something precious.
But then, she moved. Rising from her seat, she stretched, drawing the fabric of her shirt upwards. Before my mind could catch up, she was at the window, pushing it open. I froze.
She was staring down — right at me. 
Shit.
I held my breath. For what felt like an eternity, we simply stared at each other. A muscle in her jaw twitched. Then her gaze dropped, breaking eye contact.
"You're bleeding."
I glanced down. The edge of my shorts was soaked through, a fresh stain of crimson spreading. Damn it. The cut had reopened.
"Yeah," I said, looking back up at her, "I'm a mess."
I braced myself for whatever was coming. The anger, the disgust, the righteous fury — it would all be justified. I deserved it. But she simply watched me. Her gaze was steady, devoid of emotion. 
"You know where the entrance is," she said finally, then leaned back into the soft glow of her room and closed the window shut.
Before my brain could catch up with how wrong this was, I walked toward the apartment building.
─── ·✧· ───
I sat on the edge of her bed, she on a chair in front of me, her hands already on my leg as she pushed the fabric of my shorts up. "How could you not notice that?"
I opened my mouth, but she cut me off, "Wait, forget it." 
Yeah. Now she remembered.
With practiced efficiency, she began cleaning the wound. Her touch was surprisingly gentle, considering how pissed she must be. 
The silence was heavy, broken only by the rustle of bandages and my occasional  sharp intake of breath when the antiseptic hit a raw spot.
My eyes wandered. Her space, even small and half-finished, felt warm, lived in. Smelled like her. Books spilling everywhere, papers scattered on a desk, a yoga mat forgotten in the corner — the organized chaos was so perfectly her.
Then my gaze landed on the half-unpacked boxes stacked against the wall. She really still didn't fully move in. Occupied with my mess, huh? 
Guilt flooded me. I didn't deserve this, didn't deserve her gentle hands on me, not after everything. 
Yet, a selfish part of me wanted nothing more than to stay exactly like this, wanted nothing more than to keep her hands on me.
With a sigh, I sank back against her pillows. Exhaustion seeped into my bones. Pain returned as the effects of the pills wore off.
Her fingers brushed the reopened cut. I winced, throwing an arm over my eyes. The relentless pounding in my head threatened to split me open, spilling all the ugly thoughts onto her pristine sheets.
"You've had nightmares again, haven't you?"
Huh? 
I lifted my head a fraction, struggling to meet her eyes. She glanced up briefly, her eyes guarded, then focused back on my leg.
"Yeah, something like that." My head thumped back onto the pillow. "Hard to sleep when your head won't shut up."
"What dose?"
"You really don't want to know."
"I asked because I do," she countered. The sharp tug as she tightened the bandage around my leg was enough to make me speak.
"Ten milligrams," I admitted, wincing. "The usual."
She scoffed, then another, even sharper, tug had me gritting my teeth. "Ngh—fuck," I moaned. 
I really needed a pill now.
She stood, gathering the first-aid supplies. "Heals slowly, doesn't it?"
I knew it.
I popped myself up on one elbow, raising an eyebrow at her. 
"Don't give me that look. You know damn well you deserved it."
I let out a dry laugh. "You really are a bitch sometimes." I dropped back onto the bed, my hand reaching for my throbbing head. 
I needed two pills now.
"You've got some damn nerve. You show up here in the middle of the night, injured, high—"
"I'm not high—"
"Save it," she spat. "You know what your fucking problem is? You can't stand being alone. Alone with your thoughts, with yourself. So you run. You run to pills, to whatever distraction you can find, anything to fill the void."
Yeah, how the hell am I supposed to want to be alone after feeling what it's like to be with you, stupid.
"You're too damn scared to face your fears," she continued, her voice laced with a bitter edge, "and when someone threatens your artificial peace, someone who might actually force you to look in the damn mirror, you panic. You sabotage it, push them away before it all gets too real, too close."
She stepped closer. "Because it's easier, isn't it? Safer to stick with the misery you know than risk having to face that void."
Every word stung, but I couldn't deny it, couldn't lie anymore.
"You're right. And I'm sorry—"
"Don't." She rose a hand at me. "Don't pretend you care, Satoru. You've made it clear how little I matter."
How little you matter? 
Oh, love, you couldn't be more wrong.
A harsh laugh escaped me. 
"You find this funny?"
"No, love," I said, pushing myself up. My leg throbbed in protest, but I ignored it. Everything narrowed down to her. I moved closer, a strange recklessness fueling me. "Quite the opposite."
Something flickered in her eyes — surprise? wariness? — but the anger remained.
"Keep going," I insisted, moving closer. "Let it out. Yell at me, tell me how pathetic I am. Make me feel something, anything other than this damn emptiness."
She hesitated. Her eyes searched mine, and for a breathless moment, I hoped that her fury, her anger, would burn away the numbness, making me feel something, anything.
Because even her anger was better than her indifference.
I couldn't stand being indifferent to her.
Might as well make her hate me.
"You want me to yell at you?" Her voice rose, the first hint of the storm I craved. "Fine! You wanna be a pathetic mess? Go ahead! Piss away your career, your life, whatever the hell you care about, I don't give a damn anymore!"
Each word hit me, but there was a desperate relief in it. Finally, she wasn't looking at me with that chilling indifference, that cold pity that twisted a knife in my gut. 
Her rage, it was fire — scorching and brutal, but alive. And I loved it.
Because it was prove she still cared, even if it was just to hate me with every fiber of her being. It was better than the void, that terrible chasm that had opened up between us after I'd pushed her away.
I closed the distance, enjoying the anger in her eyes. She flinched, but didn't back down.
"More." I grabbed her waist, lifting her with ease, and hauled her towards the bed.
"You're weak!" she spat, pushing against my chest, her voice rising with each word.
Yeah, so damn weak for you, love.
"You're selfish! So consumed by your own self-pity you can't see how you hurt everyone around you!"
Her words should have hurt. They probably would have, under different circumstances. But right now, I couldn't care less.
"Keep going," I rasped, my pulse pounding in my ears. I forced her onto the bed and hovered over her, my body trapping her between the mattress and my own. "C'mon, love, let it all out."
"You don't deserve me," she continued. "You don't deserve anyone who gives a damn, because you only know how to destroy things."
Each word was a knife. Yet, with each insult, the suffocating hollowness inside me eased a fraction. I wanted her anger, the full force of it, wanted the burn only she could inflict on me.
"More."
Her breath hitched, eyes narrowing. "You keep breaking my heart over and over, then come crawling back when it suits you, like it doesn't matter!"
"You're right." I leaned in, my thumb brushing over her bottom lip. The thin fabric of her shirt did little to hide her shivers. "C'mon, love, give it to me. I know you can do better."
In one swift move, I ripped my shirt over my head, tossing it to the floor. I leaned down again, my breath ghosting over her lips. "Hate me." My hands went for the flimsy waistband of her shorts. "Tell me how much you despise me."
Her breaths came fast, quick gasps against my skin.  I could see it all over her face — the rage, the fear, and maybe — yeah, maybe that darker edge, the same desperation burning in me.
"I fucking hate you, Satoru. Hate that you made me care, made me fall for you, then crushed it."
"Don't stop," I said, my voice a hoarse rasp. "Say it again." Before she could react, her shorts were down, exposing her to the night air. My own pants followed hasty, desperate. "Say you hate me."
"I fucking hate that you treat me like I'm just another damn plaything to fill whatever void your messed-up mom or whatever left you with!"
Okay, now it gets personal.
"I fucking hate that you act like you can control me," she hissed, but her body betrayed her, shivered running down her skin as my hands gazed her collarbone. "Hate that you make my choices for me, decide what's good for me, like you got to have control over something when you obviously can't control yourself!"
Damn, Freud himself is on to something tonight, huh? She really doesn't know when to stop.
"You're a fucking hypocrite, you know that?" I leaned closer, my mouth close to her ear. "You hate who I am, but you crave this, don't you? Giving up control, being at my mercy. Admit it."
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She lifted a hand, as if to slap me, but I was faster. I caught her wrists and pinned them above her head, pressing them hard into the mattress.
"You know it's true," I pressed, relishing the way she struggled against my hold. "It's hard always being the composed one, isn't it? The responsible one. It's draining. Maybe that's why you're drawn to me. You love the thrill as much as I do, don't you?"
She stared at me, silent, her lips a tight line. 
"Prove me wrong, sweetheart. Call me a liar, and I'll show you just how wrong you are," I leaned in closer, my voice a harsh whisper against her lips. "We're the same, you and me. We feed off each other. Even if you hate to admit it, I fill that emptiness inside you same as you do for me."
"You arrogant piece of shit!" she spat, twisting and bucking against my grip. "You think you know everything, control everything!"
"Don't I?" My grip tightened, feeling her pulse throb against my fingers. "Seems I've got you pinned pretty damn well, wouldn't you say?"
"You know it's true. You love this. Makes you feel something your books, your fancy grades never could."
"Screw you, Satoru," she hissed, venom in her voice. "We're nothing alike."
"You really are a fool, for wanting to fix something so broken it'll cut you to shreds the moment you get close and then you cry afterwards—"
Her spit hit my face. I closed my eyes for a second, then a smile twisted across my lips. 
My future wife just spit in my face — what a good anecdote on our wedding day.
"That's my girl," I rasped, shoving her legs wider. "Tell me how much you hate me. Scream it."
"I fucking hate you Satoru, I hate you—"
Her words died on her tongue as I thrust forward, filling her completely. I closed my eyes, letting my head hang heavy for a second. 
My god, the things this woman's body could do to me. I could feel her body trembling beneath me, her heart racing as she arched her back.
How treacherous a body can be, huh?
"Hate you, Satoru," she managed to say before she closed her eyes, biting down her lip as I thrust deeper still. Her thighs spread further apart, inviting me closer, urging me onward. 
She's so damn beautiful.
I grinned, my hands still holding her wrists in place over her head. "I know you do, love. But you know what?" My lips were only a breath away from hers. "I hate you, too. I hate how you make me feel, how you expose every broken piece of me, how I crave you like I crave another fix."
Hell, I might just be addicted to this woman.
I pulled out fully, before thrusting back into her. Her head fell back, pressing into the mattress as a strangled moan escaping her lips.
She felt incredible.
Pulling back slowly, I watched her body react to the absence, her eyes flickering open to meet mine. Those pupils dilated with need, mirroring my own hunger for her. 
In that moment, nothing else mattered. Not our fight. Not our problems. Not our insults that had left our lips moments before. Just us — two halves coming together in a perfect whole. 
I pushed back into her, deeper, harder.
With each thrust, I felt myself sinking deeper into her, losing myself in her. Fuck, if there was anything better than this — well, I hadn't found it yet.
This woman owned me — plain and simple.
It was madness, this pull towards her. 
Insane, perhaps.
But it was also undeniably real. So real that even though dawn threatened to break soon, stealing away whatever remnants of darkness remained, I couldn't help but chase after that high only she could provide.
Even knowing full well that when morning arrived, reality would crash down upon us, forcing us back onto opposite sides of the divide.
"Look what you've done to me, love. You're making a fool of me." I whispered against her lips without touching them.
Weren't together anymore after all.
Kissing would be too much.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly beneath me. Her nails dug into my skin where my hands gripped her wrists. With each deep thrust, I watched her face contort with pleasure and pain, her features illuminated by fleeting streaks of moonlight seeping through the curtains.
I loved that look on her face.
I wondered if I could make that look even more pathetic.
I pulled out, dragging the tip of my length across her clit before pushing back in. She squirmed underneath me, arching her back. But I denied her, keeping my unhurried pace. I wanted to draw out this sweet torture for as long as possible.
Hours passed — or perhaps mere minutes. I couldn't tell anymore. All that mattered was this woman writhing beneath me.
Groaning in frustration, she attempted to break free from my grip. "Dammit, Satoru. If you won't finish what you started, then get off me!"
I smirked. "Why so eager, love. Can't handle the wait?" I leaned in to kiss down the side of her neck. She shivered beneath me, her breath hitching as my teeth grazed her skin. 
With my free hand I reached down, running my fingers down her quivering stomach, relishing in the shivers that coursed through her body. 
She glared up at me, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "Stop calling me 'love'. I don't belong to you, not anymore—" 
She gasped into my mouth when I found her clit. Slowly, deliberately, I began to circle it with my thumb, feeling her surrender to me. I plunged deeper, thrusting into her mercilessly.
Let her hate me all she wants. She can't deny the chemistry between us — a spark that refuses to fade, no matter how hard either of us tries.
She must have hated this — hated how she surrendered to me, even with all that anger. Made me wondered if I could rail her up even more.
"You think you're so much better than me?" I rasped. "So strong, so selfless, always putting others first? It's a lie, and you know it. You're just bored."
"You fucker!" Before I knew what was happening, she broke free of my grasp and had flipped us over so that she was now straddling my hips. 
Without warning, she reached forward, gripping my throat with surprising strength as she leaned down, her hair falling like a curtain around our faces. I couldn't help but smile.
"Don't project your bullshit on me," she seethed, her face inches from mine. 
Her words sent a chill down my spine, stirring up a fresh wave of desire within me. Damn, this woman was infuriating — and captivating in the worst way possible.
We glared at each other like enemies preparing for battle. 
"Aren't you a little tired? Pulling up that act all the time?" I choked out, feeling her fingers dig in further. "Deep down, you're just as bored as me, you're just too righteous to admit it."
"Shut up," she hissed, pressing harder, choking the words out of me.
This was madness. Destructive madness. But for this one desperate moment, I didn't care. It was exhilarating, addictive. Because love, our twisted, broken love, wasn't supposed to be pretty.
It was messy, chaotic, and borderline abusive. But sometimes all you need is a firm grip around the throat to remind you that you're alive.
"Harder, love," I gasped, a laugh bubbling up in my constricted throat. "Come on, make me feel your rage."
Slowly, deliberately, she began grinding her hips against mine, setting a maddening pace that left me reeling. Fuck, I think I love it even more when she hates me.
"Ahh, shit," I gasped, clutching at her thighs as she rode me mercilessly. "That's it."
Eyes squeezed shut, my head rolled back. Chills prickled my skin, possibly due to the cool breeze drifting in from the window. Or perhaps it was merely her.
She rode me with increased speed, and I could barely contain the overwhelming sensations coursing through my body. Every fiber of my being screamed for release. 
My knuckles on her thighs turned white from the force. "Oh, shit, you're going to kill me," I moaned between choked sounds that escaped my lips. 
My lips twisted into a smile again. "Admit it. You love the chaos as much as I do. The thrill, the way it makes you feel alive."
"You're wrong," she said, increasing her pace making my cock twitch inside her. "We're nothing alike."
"Keep telling yourself that," I replied, struggling to catch my breath, as she made me lose my mind. "But I know the truth—we're two sides of the same coin."
"You really believe that, don't you?"
"Why else would you be here, like this, with me?" I countered. "Face it, we're addicted to each other—the highs, the lows, the constant push and pull. It's exhilarating, isn't it?"
"You're the only addict here."
"Liar," I rasped.
Her muscles clenched around me, drawing me deeper inside her. She was close. Each contraction of her pushing me further towards a peak that I knew would soon shatter me.
But I wasn't ready yet. Not quite.
I shifted our positions, sitting upright before spinning us around so she was now beneath me on the mattress. I positioned myself behind her, forcing her down onto the mattress.
I slowly slid my hand along her spine as I pushed her further down, feeling her tremble beneath my touch, the softness of her skin beneath my fingertips. 
It was intoxicating to watch her submit to me.
"Fuck, you'll be the death of me."
Leaning down, I pressed my lips against the small of her back, feeling her shiver once more. My hand continued its descent, stopping just short of where she needed me.
"Satoru," my name fell from her lips.
Oh, how I loved it when she breathed my name like that. I couldn't resist her — could never resist her. I was at her mercy. Even now.
She arched her back, silently pleading for me to continue. I slid my hand between her legs. "God, you're so fucking wet," I murmured, slipped a finger inside her, then another. She was so tight, so warm. 
I couldn't wait to be inside her again.
She gasped, pushing back against me. "Don't stop."
Curving my fingers, I searched for that spot that I knew would drive her mad. When I found it, she cried out, her hips bucking against my hand. Her hands scrabbled at the sheets, grasping for purchase as I started to move inside her.
"Yes, fuck," she moaned, spreading her legs wider. "Right there."
Oh, love. I know you like that.
I smiled, relishing the fact that I knew her body better than herself. I knew every inch of her, every freckle, every scar, every sensitive spot that made her squirm. 
"More," she begged.
I happily obliged, adding a third finger and thrusting deeper. She was soaking wet, her juices coating my fingers as I fucked her with my hand. Her moans grew louder, more urgent. She was close, so close.
I increased the pace of my fingers, pumping them in and out of her as I used my thumb to apply pressure to her clit. 
However, as her moans reached a fever pitch, I withdrew my fingers, denying her release.
She gasped, glanced over her shoulder at me, her mouth open, but said nothing — probably out of breath. 
I brought my fingers to my mouth, savoring the taste of her. It was so uniquely her. I couldn't get enough.
Leaning in, I pressed my body against hers from behind, my hard length probed at her entrance. 
I leaned down over her, my hand snaking into her hair. I grabbed it tightly, forcing her head up to meet mine. "I love you, first-year," I murmured against her ear.
She trembled, but her defiance remained strong. "I hate you."
I sighed — always so fierce, makes me wonder what it takes to fuck that stubborn attitude out of her. 
"It's alright, I love you enough for both of us."
With that, I pushed her head down into the mattress. Her cry muffled by the sheets beneath her as I thrust into her once more, bottoming out inside her with a groan.
I began to move in and out of her. Faster now, harder until the headboard slammed against the wall. Her muscles clenched around me, drawing me deeper inside her. She clawed at the sheets beneath her, her moans muffled by the fabric.
As her cries grew louder, I quickly pushed her face further into the mattress. "Quiet, first year," I murmured as I angled myself to rub against her G-spot, making it harder for her to keep quiet. "Wouldn't want to disturb anyone in the middle of the night, would we?"
Neither of us spoke a word — not that she could but — perhaps because there was nothing left to say. Instead, we communicated solely through our actions, saying everything that needed to be said without opening our mouths.
I increased both the pace and pressure. Nearly causing her to fall forward hadn't I held her in place with one hand on her waist and one sill in her hair. Her breath hitched, her entire body tensed as she approached her breaking point.
Oh, how I loved feeling her tighten around me.
Bringing her closer to the edge was a thrill like no other. Watching her lose control, hearing her cries and moans, feeling her body tremble beneath me — it was intoxicating.
I could feel myself getting closer to the edge, my balls tightening as I approached my own release. 
Her cries grew louder, more urgent, until finally, she shattered around me, her orgasm triggering my own.
With a final thrust, I emptied myself inside her, filling her completely. Her contractions milked every last drop from me, her body still quivering around me. 
I stayed inside her, savoring the feeling. It might be the last time.
I was panting, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I tried to catch my breath. My cock was still twitching inside her. Reluctantly, I pulled out with a low moan.
I stayed behind her for a moment longer, admiring the curve of her waist, the sheen of sweat on her skin in the sliver of moonlight. 
Don't know when or if I'll ever see that again.
Time seemed to stand still, suspended indefinitely as we tried to find our breath again.
Then she turned her head. "You're a fucking idiot," she finally said.
"Tell me something I don't know."
She shifted to face me, her expression serious.  "Promise me something."
"Anything you want, love."
"Promise me, you won't kill yourself with your pills."
I swallowed hard. That's not what'll get me, I thought, as I felt a sharp pain lancing through my right side.
I moved closer, cupping her face with my hands that trembled slightly. For an insane moment, I wanted to kiss her, but I knew I couldn't — couldn't ever again. "I promise," I rasped.
The words heavy with a lie we both knew.
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author's note: wooooaaa, another insane!gojo chapter lol. this chapter really killed me, was crying, screaming, throwing up while writing.
i'm equally scared and excited to hear what you think about todays chapter, ngl. originally i didn't plan a smut scene in this chapter, but you know, somewhere down that line gojo just happened and here we are. 
also like, i think now both their's darkest secrets are now out — in the worst way possible. also because i keep getting messages regarding how much chapters are left of the story, idk i write form chapter to chapter. we're down somewhere the 60—70 % line with the story i guess, but we'll see. still more to uncover of gojo's past and all that.
also sorry for the people asking of for more fluff and happy moments, ehhh, there will be some in the future?? also i'm still sticking to the plan of a happy ending, so don't worry!! gojo fucked up big time and the next chapters will center about him trying to fight his fears and get shit together — let's see if he can do that. curious myself.
so thank you so so much for sicking by with the story. sending kisses to all of you lovely people seeing me messages, leaving likes, comments and reblog stuff. it really makes my heart happy everything i see a notification. love you all sm!! ♡
okay my last note, just so you know, i'm going on vocation soon, so the next chapter will be a bit delayed again, sorraaaayyy!! wishing you a great day or night and an awesome weekend ahead! ♡
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