#mind the a/n for content warnings | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dawn-moths · 1 month

Text

"Player, Champagne, Showtime"

CHAPTER 2

Tomura & Dabi x Female Reader

word count: 23,400+

part 1 * part 2 * …

(After your fateful encounter with Tomura and Dabi, the trio of unfortunates you’ve found yourself a part of decides to try your luck at committing a high-risk robbery on some people from Dabi’s past. The payout will be huge, if things go according to plan. But, of course, nothing ever goes according to plan, so, by the end of the night, you all just hope you can make it out alive, and if you do, well, you might just have to start considering yourself a pretty good team.)

disclaimer/content warning: 18+ content! minors dni! quirkless au, pretty plot heavy this chapter (no smut, but trust me, there will be plenty later down the line), violence and descriptions of gore, drugs, mentions of human trafficking, threats of sexual assault, reader gets hurt on purpose, once again the title is taken from the lyrics of “365 Fresh” by Triple H which this fic is based upon.

*ao3 mirror*

***

The following morning, you’d woken early, carefully slipping from Tomura’s warm, protective grasp on the couch and tiptoeing toward where you thought you might be able to find some water. Though, when you turned the corner, expecting to find the little cubicle room empty, you came face to face with the tattooed man who was becoming less of a stranger and more of a reluctant acquaintance with every passing hour.

And, the following morning, you’d finally learned his name.

“They call me Dabi,” he remarked after you’d pressed him about the matter in the makeshift kitchen. He leaned against the barely functioning mini fridge and studied you for a moment then, his crystal clear blues scrutinizing, as if testing you in some way.

“They?” you lightly scoffed. “And who are they?”

Dabi chuckled to himself, a hum of amusement accompanied by a grin that might’ve actually been genuine and soft, if such words were allowed to be used to describe someone like him. Then he pushed off from the fridge, causing the appliance to wobble on its uneven base for a couple shallow sways before migrating closer to you. “They…” he emphasized, leaning down to be right at your eye level, so close you could see your reflection shimmering in all that bright sapphire. “They’re the ones who we’re gonna make pay.”

You gaped at him, looking into a malicious vortex of cruel cerulean, cold yet burning with such an intense revenge it was startling. But then, just before the stretch of silence between the two of you could become suffocating, Tomura popped his head around the corner and asked, “What’s for breakfast?”

Dabi shot him a scathing glare, as if offended by the sound of his voice alone, and straightened back to his full height, replying with an irritated drone as he strolled past, hands shoved deep into his pockets, “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. Though, I can’t promise any of it’s still edible…”

“Where are you going?” you asked, sauntering over to stand next to Tomura, who scratched absentmindedly at a red patch on the side of his neck. For now, you resisted the urge to reach over and clasp your hand with his to get him to stop, but later you knew you’d be applying some of the cheap lotion you kept at the bottom of your bag to it while he hissed at the sting of the salve soaking into his irritated flesh.

Dabi smirked and pulled a plastic baggie full of little white pills from his pocket, pinching it between his fingers and dangling it before him as if trying to entice you with it. “Just some extracurricular activities. Why?” He quirked an inky eyebrow, faking innocence for only a moment before that smug expression returned. “Wanna join me?”

You rolled your eyes, leaned back against Tomura, whose hands quickly found purchase on you for support. “You wish,” you scoffed. “Just don’t get so high you forget your way back. We won’t be coming to look for you.”

Dabi coughed out one loud, sardonic, “Ha!”, his mouth stretching into a too wide smile before dropping back to the general disinterest he usually carried about him, turning on his heel and stalking the rest of the way to the heavy metal door that led to the hallway painted with the glowing blue inferno. The only indicator you had to know he’d really left was the slam as the door closed behind him, leaving you and Tomura in the warehouse alone.

“Well, I guess we should see what he has in the fridge…” you muttered, spinning away from Tomura’s grasp and swinging open the rickety door of the minifridge, clicking your tongue in annoyance when you saw there were only three things in there— half a dozen eggs that were who knew how old, a six pack of some cheap beer, and half a gallon of milk that was nearly empty, likely drank straight from the jug.

You opened the crumpled cardboard carton of eggs, feeling a little optimistic when they still looked to be in pretty good shape, then peered over your shoulder at Tomura, who was rummaging through a plastic bin that served as Dabi’s pantry.

“Find anything?” you asked, coming over to check things out for yourself.

Tomura held out a half-full bag of some stale cereal hastily rolled at the opening in a failed attempt to preserve it longer. “Other than flamin’ hot cheetos and wasabi peas…” he muttered, sounding slightly defeated, “not much…”

“Wasabi peas?” you repeated, nearly laughing.

Tomura plucked up the plastic container of the little green and white morsels and gave it a playful shake, like a maraca, and then cracked a crooked, puzzled smirk. “Guy’s got some fuckin’ weird taste.”

You took the bag of cereal from him, unrolled it and reached in to see if the little niblets were too far gone or if a splash of some back-washed milk on the verge of expiration could save them. After an indecisive taste test, you handed the bag back to Tomura and said with a sigh, “Alright. I’ll see if I can find a frying pan. See if you can find any kind of bread anywhere, y’know, so long as it’s not moldy. Maybe we can make some egg sandwiches.”

“And the cereal?” he asked, reaching in to toss a handful of the sugary grahams into his mouth and seeming a little more satisfied with them than you were.

“If you’re willing to risk ingesting whatever state what’s left of the milk in there is in…” you shrugged, setting the eggs on top of the fridge while you began scavenging for anything you could use to cook over the rusted old hotplate, “then the cereal is all yours.”

Unable to find a bowl, Tomura settled for pouring the cereal straight into the milk jug and taking crunchy swigs, chewing before swallowing it down. He sort of winced a little upon the first gulp, but didn’t further elaborate on whether the milk had gone sour or not, almost like he himself couldn’t even quite figure it out, then proceeded to finish what was left, so you figured it couldn’t be that bad. Meanwhile, he also searched the other bins and tubs that held an unorganized array of varying food items until he managed to find half a loaf of bread, only three pieces left that weren’t infected with furry green spores.

“Ah! Found it!” you happily announced as you pulled a tiny, scratched up teflon pan from beneath a pile of dishes in the sink. It looked like it had been scratched to hell and back with the end of a metal fork, but you figured it would still do the job just fine.

“Still want eggs?” you asked, finagling with the faulty dial on the hotplate’s temperature gauge before finally getting it to turn on. Tomura nodded, taking a seat at the tiny table, only one folding chair topped with a thin, frayed cushion available, the other seat consisting of a couple empty wooden crates stacked atop each other, though it wasn’t much of a surprise to you that Dabi didn’t make a habit of keeping company.

Especially after what he’d said earlier.

They’re the ones who we’re gonna make pay.

By the sound of it, he had far more enemies than he did friends. In fact, you were starting to wonder if you and Tomura were the only people currently on semi-decent terms with him, and even considering it that was generous…

“Hey,” Tomura spoke, pulling you from your Dabi curiosities. Your gaze darted to meet his and he gave a cursory glance down at the eggs in the pan. “I’m no expert, but I think they might be burning…”

You turned your attention back to breakfast and swore under your breath as you quickly flipped them to the other side, a thin veil of smoke wafting up from the pan accompanied by a satisfying sizzle.

Luckily, the eggs had been saved in time thanks to Tomura’s warning, all six successfully scrambled— three for you and three for him, courtesy of Dabi’s current obligations to his drugs. Using two of the three slices of bread, you fashioned yourself a sandwich which, despite being a little soggy once the eggs soaked into the untoasted bread, wasn’t half bad, while Tomura tried his best to eat his opened-faced on the last slice on account of already having finished all the cereal.

You hadn’t even realized how hungry you’d been until you’d wolfed the whole thing down, suddenly craving more. “You said you found cheetos earlier?” you inquired with Tomura, whose eggs had fallen into a mushy mess on his plate, carefully picking up what he could with his fingers so that none of it would go to waste.

He paused mid-bite and his eyes widened a fraction as he spoke from one corner of his full mouth, “Yeah…?”

You cracked a mischievous grin, licking a couple of your fingers before saying, “Go get ‘em,” prompting Tomura to rise from his seat and retrieve the entire snack bin, dragging it across the dirty concrete floor to sit beside the cramped table.

As you dug out the flamin’ hot cheetos, along with some crumbling chocolate chip cookies, laying an array of other snacks across the table for you and Tomura to choose from, you rhetorically asked, “Think he’ll mind?”

Tomura scoffed, unable to hide the crooked smirk that pulled up one corner of his chapped lips as he tore open a bag of salt and vinegar chips. “His fault for telling us to help ourselves anyway.”

And so the two of you feasted on a smorgasbord of all things salty and sweet, fattening and processed, all the while trading flirty banter and off-handed comments about everything else that had led you two to end up sitting at the uneven little table in this repurposed warehouse.

When there was a lull in conversation, both of you drifting off into the full-bellied aftermath of an oncoming food coma, you asked Tomura, “Do you believe in fate?”

He seemed to take a moment to think about that, all the while staring at you, tracing the features of your face with his eyes as if trying to commit you to memory, to resurface any shred of a glimpse he may have caught of you in a hypothetical previous life. “No,” he finally answered, paired with a minute shaking of his head. “No, I think fate is a bunch of bullshit. I think we make our own destinies. At least, I’d like to think that.”

“So you think the good things that happen to us are because we worked for it and the bad things that happen to us are because we deserve it?”

“Not necessarily,” he elaborated. “I just think that nothing is predetermined. One decision leads to an outcome and so on and so forth. It’s as simple as that.”

You lazily rested your cheek in your palm, slouching over the tabletop a little more, considering him with a teasing look. “Sounds like you got life all figured out, huh?”

Tomura flashed a nervous smile, beginning to scratch at the irritated spot on his neck again, his skin becoming more inflamed there with every passing hour. “I just think, if there is a God, he’s got a cruel sense of humor.”

“Bet he’s laughing at us right now,” you remarked, low, almost under your breath, wearing a sad smile as you lowered your head to rest atop your arms on the table. Then, glancing up at Tomura through your lashes, you concluded with, “Though, if it’s a show he wants…” You nudged Tomura’s foot under the table with your own, entwining your ankles, bare feet turned cool from the chill creeping up through the concrete. Tomura watched you carefully, as if trying to anticipate your next move and beat you to it first. But as your foot traveled up his leg until it was just barely brushing against his inner thigh, his expression darkened into the intense hunter’s stare of a predator about to capture its prey, hungry and confident.

“Yeah?” he tempted, replying to the unspoken request your actions were currently insinuating.

You nodded, returning your foot back to your side of the table, standing and offering him your hand. “Yeah,” you confirmed, and as Tomura swallowed your hand within his own, he was once again reminded of that hazy, haloed image he’d seen of you the very first night you’d met on those dark city streets.

He’d asked if you were an angel back then, but as you guided him towards the beat up old couch, straddling his lap the moment he was seated and beginning to kiss him like you couldn’t breathe without his air filling your lungs, he knew you must be something way beyond that, the feeling of your body pressed against his transcending heavenly.

“Think he’ll mind?” you playfully asked through a quiet, breathy chuckle, your lips hovering just above Tomura’s, letting him taste your words on his tongue.

He smirked, shifting you to lay on your back as he crawled over you, kissing you again, deeper, harder, enough to have you gasping for air by the end of it. “Fuck what he thinks,” he remarked, a raw edge to his raspy voice.

And if Dabi could’ve seen you two like that, shamelessly fucking on his couch, he probably would’ve killed you both.

But he was too busy making his own slow, sweet sentiment to his beloved painkillers on some rooftop halfway across town, sulking under a greying sky with a half-smoked cigarette caught between two lazily curled fingers, staring at his tattoos until the high made the inked images bend and sway.

***

Low thunder grumbled from far in the distance, the vibrations purring in Dabi’s chest as he watched the storm rolling in over the shiny high-rise buildings of the city’s center, soon to soak the gleaming metropolis down to the bone.

The wind was always stronger from up here. In the humid summer months, it felt good. In the winter, it was almost unbearable. And during a storm…

During a storm it felt electric, as if he could breathe in the invisible sparks bouncing through the air, tiny firecrackers lacing through his blood and making him feel invincible.

The painkillers helped dull the sharp, barbed edges that always seemed to splinter back to life inside his brain, temporarily alleviating the tension that corded through his muscles and wove its way through his lanky, wraithish frame, chasing the worries away, if only for a little while. The nicotine got his wheels turning again, the ritualistic practice of inhaling the smoke and holding it in his lungs for as long as he could before breathing it out acting as a countdown until his next notion of how to strike.

Sometimes he came up here without his addictions tagging along, even if just to stare at that shimmering oasis of a city spiking up in the distance, the skyline like an irregular heartbeat on an EKG, and remind himself why he still wanted to burn it all to the ground.

He was also reminded why he was so afraid to go back.

But what Dabi found himself pondering over on this particular afternoon was a rather unexpected development in his most recent schemes. Because, of all the details he’d overlooked or ignored in previous, criminally-inclined, chaotic plans, the last thing he’d thought he’d have to worry about was catching feelings for someone like you.

He’d never admit to it out loud, but Dabi was well aware why his stomach twisted every time he saw you and Tomura too close to each other, why he had to force himself to look away when you two stared into each other’s eyes like you were actually in love and not just two fucked up slum rats just like him, only way more chemically attratched to each other than a murderer and a suicidal had a right to be.

He was the odd man out. The third wheel. The silent reject. And for what?

All because he’d gone and kicked you both out of that stolen car, practically delivered his current predicament to your doorstep and wished you well as he sped off down the desolate midnight streets with only an ear grating tire screech to remember him by.

“So stupid,” he muttered to himself, leaning back against the roof, staring into the blotchy void of the greyscale sky, stormy winds causing the clouds to race across the view overhead. He cupped a palm to the back of his neck, closing his eyes as he took a final drag of his cigarette, flicking the remains down onto the street below, bringing his other hand to join the one that was already cushioning the back of his skull. Then, again, through a forlorn, tired sigh, “So fucking stupid…”

He wondered how he always seemed to sabotage himself in hindsight, whether by getting hooked on the little white pills that he’d sworn “would only be for a little bit, just until I get out of here and put this city far behind me”, only to get roped up in a couple gangs gone wrong and end up losing every last penny he’d scrounged up in order to escape the hellhole of the slums. Or the time he’d been a homeless teen skulking around the streets, trusting all the wrong people despite his intuition warning against it just because they’d offered him some food and a corner shielded from the rain to sleep in.

And now there was you, perhaps the only girl in the entire prefecture he had a chance with, and what had he done?

He’d gone and said all the wrong things, done all the wrong things, and fucked it all up.

But then, as the charcoal clouds covering the city center began to drift closer to his part of town, little sparkling flashes of lightning laced throughout the mass of black and grey, a new perspective occured to Dabi. Because, yes, while his own choices had led him to become a hopeless, orphaned addict, he’d still found a way to survive.

Through all his hardship and loss and misfortune, he’d learned how to still come out on top in the end, even if he was bruised and battered and barely standing.

So why couldn’t he apply the same rules to winning you over?

Doing something to remove Tomura from the picture was the obvious answer, but with how quickly the two of you had become attached, it would also be obvious who was at fault if the scrawny, silver-haired boy went missing or turned up dead somewhere, even if he had tried to kill himself during your original meeting.

No, simple problems required simple solutions, so going to all the trouble to lure Tomura out and dispose of him would just end up being too much work. Dabi would have to get you alone with him, make some attempt to get to know you better, get to know your secrets, your weaknesses, convince you that you were better off with him, that he had more to offer you than Tomura.

As the first fat droplets of rain speckled the rooftop, darkening the concrete of the street below with watery freckles until the steady drizzle morphed into a full on downpour, drenching everything in sight, Dabi rose from the roof, climbed down the fire escape, and navigated the maze of alleys back to his hideout, several different schemes now cooking in the back of his mind.

He definitely had more to offer you. Or at least he liked to think he did. But, truth be told, none of you really had anything to offer each other at the moment except some twisted form of solidarity between rejected members of society. But you had the most to lose. Because Dabi did know one of your secrets. He knew you were a murderer, and, while he’d figured the guy had probably deserved it, that didn’t change the fact that the cops would likely see it otherwise.

You knew Dabi was already trying to lay low from law enforcement from how he’d acted in the diner that day and— well, there was also the fact that he stole and pawned off a car.

And Tomura, well, other than trying to commit suicide and drag others unwillingly into it, Dabi didn’t know what else he was guilty of, though the fact that he knew someone like Spinner— a man who could procure all sorts of illegal and nefarious goods— said it was probably worse than he’d let on.

So, the first step for any of you to have a chance at making it out of this place, whether it was all together or just you and Dabi, if he got his way, was finding a way to make some money.

The rain beat down hard on anything not hidden beneath cover, Dabi included by the time he had to make a run for the last stretch of his journey back to the warehouse. But the adrenaline was aiding his brain in working double time, skin prickling with needles of cold and heart racing until he swung open the door and found himself in the comfort of his painted hallway, the blue flames glowing through the dark after a few seconds and welcoming their artist home.

And it was then, in the vortex of the cerulean inferno, as cold water droplets raced down his neck and chest and stirred a shiver in his bones, that the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

Dabi smirked to himself, a malicious, mean smile that made him look a little crazy as the blue light cast dimly over his face.

There was no way it could be that easy. There was just no way.

But, it’s like people always said…

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

***

A camera flash bathed the crime scene in blinding white light, there one instant and then gone the next like a ghost.

Just like the perpetrator, Keigo thought to himself, peering over the photographer’s shoulder and scribbling down some theories on his notepad, pen scritching across the page quietly as he listened in on the testimony of one of the establishment’s employees, his back facing her as he pretended not to eavesdrop.

“—still can’t get in contact with her,” a young woman explained, sounding distressed. She was one of a few hairdressers at the rundown barber shop. Besides her, there was only one employee left that the police hadn’t yet spoken to about the owner’s sudden and rather gruesome death—

You.

“Could you give us her number?” the other officer asked, in the middle of taking his own notes.

The girl shrugged, pulling her phone out from her bag. “Yeah, I mean, sure, it’s just…” She pulled up your contact info, turning the screen around to show it to the cop. “She rarely ever picks up, even if she does know the caller. I doubt you’ll be able to reach her, but if you do, please let me know. We’re worried about her…”

The officer thanked the woman for her cooperation after jotting down the phone number, heading off to exchange notes with another investigator, which is when Keigo swooped in to do what he was best at…

Charming the rest of the truth out of someone who might know a little more than they were letting on.

“Excuse me, miss… Mind if I ask you a few more questions?” he inquired politely. At first, your co-worker looked annoyed, finally about to be able to go home after over an hour’s worth of questioning, her back turned to the new detective. But when she turned around and saw those lovely umber eyes and all that wavy, golden hair, she reconsidered rushing off.

“Sure,” she smiled, dropping her phone back into her bag and readjusting the purse strap over her shoulder. “But then I really do have to get going. I promised my sister I’d pick up her kid from daycare since she’s working a double today.”

“It’ll only take a moment, I promise,” Keigo assured her through a carefree chuckle, knowing full well he’d snagged her hook, line, and sinker the moment she blushed and began playing with her hair.

“So, this co-worker of yours… The one you can’t seem to get in contact with…” he began. “When’s the last time any of you actually saw her?”

The woman took a moment to recall that information, then nodded to herself and answered, “We were working together the morning before the mur—” She caught herself about to use a word that might’ve been perceived as harsh, even if she, as well as everyone else who worked at that barber shop, couldn’t care less if your awful boss had been gutted and bled dry like the pig he was and left to rot in the alley, then cleared her throat and quickly amended with a slightly more sensitive, “The morning before the incident… I left a couple hours before closing to head to my other job, and she said she’d close up by herself so I wasn’t late— I’m kind of already in trouble with my other boss for cutting it too close too often…” She gave a nervous chuckle and kept twirling a ringletted strand of hair around her manicured finger, sneaking coy glances at Keigo through her false lashes.

“So she was the only one in the shop when the murder took place?” Keigo asked, though it was more to himself than to your flirty co-worker. Then, after quickly scribbling something down among his patchwork web of notes, he muttered in a low, almost menacing growl, “Interesting…”

“I think one of the other girls called her yesterday morning. We all got a call. Y’know, after poor Himari walked in to open and found all that blood and the body and…” She chewed at her bottom lip, worrying the thick gloss away with an incisor, clearly still bothered by the image of such a massacre even if it was of someone she hated.

“I see…” Keigo continued, circling your name among the list of employees, condemning you as the most likely suspect in black ink. “Do you happen to know where she lives?” he asked next, then rephrased the question as, “Or rather, have any of you been by her place since this happened? You know,” he cracked a sympathetic smile, giving a flash of perfect white teeth, “just to make sure she’s ok.”

“Ren said that, when she called her, she said she wasn’t feeling very well and had the rest of her appointments canceled or something like that…” your co-worker recalled. “I don’t think anyone went over to check on her though.”

Just for good measure, Keigo asked if she would mind giving him your address. And, while all of you usually knew better than to give out each other’s personal information to anyone who asked for it, no matter how handsome said anyone may be, she figured nothing bad could come of sharing it with a kind detective just trying to do his job.

Plus, it’s not like she thought you had been the one to finally do that horrible man in.

Unfortunately for you though, while she could cut and style hair like a master of the craft, she’d never been the brightest among the group of you that worked together when it came to common sense.

So, after obtaining your apartment’s address, Keigo wished the girl a good day, reminding her he’d be in touch if he needed any information reconfirmed or followed up on.

“Just gimme a call if you need anything,” she said, giving him a wink over her shoulder. “You know where to find me.” After that, she was gone, leaving only Keigo, the forensic photographer, and two officers lingering at the scene.

After exchanging some last minute details, they decided to call it a day and head back to the precinct. The others seemed to think this was going to be a troublesome investigation, more so because there had been no witnesses and it was in the part of town none of them really wanted to make a habit of traveling to if they could help it, not really seeming to care that a man had been killed using a straight razor.

They’d say things on the ride back like, “Stuff like this happens all the time in this part of town. I don’t get why the Chief insists on us going down there unless one of them comes to our part of the city to stir up trouble first,” and “Some old guy got slashed. So what? It’s only interesting if it’s a pretty young girl or something. Can’t believe we have to do overtime to solve a case that doesn’t even have the concern of any next of kin,” but Keigo knew that, if his hunch was right— and, let’s face it, it usually was— then this case was going to end up being more than any of them originally bargained for.

Maybe, if he was lucky, it might just turn out to be entertaining in the meantime too.

But first thing was first.

He had to find you.

Because you— little miss missing in action, the ghost of closing— were the first key to finding where this case led.

Actually, fuck the key. You were the whole damn door, lock and all.

***

“I told you to help yourself to whatever was in the fridge,” Dabi growled as he surveyed the damage to his secret snack stash, colorful wrappers and torn, metallic plastic packaging littering the kitchen table leaving blatant evidence of you and Tomura’s raid. Then, under his breath he complained, “God… Now I’m gonna have to start robbing the local Seven Eleven again… And I know they got me on CCTV last time…”

All the while, amidst Dabi’s rambled tirade of passive-aggressive complaints, you and Tomura were sitting atop the uneven counter, watching the inky-haired member of your hodge-podge trio with gaping stares and furrowed brows as if he’d left the warehouse with one head and returned with two.

Then, finally, after swiping the shredded remains into an already half full trash can (one that was likely stolen, as the logo for a local cafe was stamped on the front in white spray paint), Dabi whirled around to face you two, looking more than miffed as he snapped out a short-tempered, “And get the fuck off my counter!”

You jumped down, tiptoeing a few short steps towards him, Tomura sliding ungracefully off the counter a few seconds after. “Dabi…” you began, cautious, as if trying to talk someone off the ledge. Then you asked, as if this was the most distressing factor of the current equation, “Why are you soaking wet?”

Just seeming to register this to himself now, Dabi’s tense shoulders sagged, weighed down by heavy, soggy clothes, raven spikes matted flat to his head (you thought you saw a few droplets of diluted black race down his face but figured it could just be a trick of the light) and let out a defeated sigh.

“‘Cause it’s fucking pouring outside,” he said, adding on as his eyes squinted into a slight glare, “Maybe if you two wouldn’t have been crunching on all my shit then you would’ve heard it beating down on the roof.”

“Look, man, we’re sorry, it’s just—” Tomura began to apologize, actually sounding sort of heartfelt, but was cut off when Dabi shot him a scathing look.

Before things could begin to escalate between the two of them, as they so often tended to do, you stepped in, drawing closer to Dabi, and in a tone far too caring and soft for someone like him, you sighed and said, “Where do you keep your towels? You’re going to catch a cold if you stay wet like that…”

Dabi glanced from you, to Tomura, then back to you, his expression melting from hostile into something much more tired. And how he wanted to take you by the hand and lead you to his makeshift bathroom, give you one of his raggedy old towels that was frayed at the edges and eaten through with tiny holes and tears, sit on the edge of the grimy old tub and just let you work the fabric over his head, drying his hair and his face before peeling off his drenched clothes and letting you pat the water from the rest of him, if you’d be so kind.

But that kind of intimacy— that kind of care— was so foreign to Dabi, so long forgotten, that the thought of the emotions that might follow terrified him more than the need to be taken care of enticed him.

“I can do it myself,” he scoffed, all those sharp edges and harsh lines etching their way back into his voice and features. Then, right before rounding the corner of the kitchen cubicle, he peered back over his shoulder and said, “Oh, and, meeting in the living room in ten minutes…” The smirk that curled on his lips then caused a spark of fear and excitement to flare in your chest. It was the kind of smile only the totally insane or arrogant could wear. It was a smile that said, “I know something you don’t,” and, in this case, you hoped that something would play in your favor.

“Meeting?” Tomura asked, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms, not looking too thrilled at the vague order. “Meeting about what?”

Dabi turned around the rest of the way, leaned against what served as the cubicle’s doorway, and simply stated, “I think I have an idea. And it just might be crazy enough to work.”

***

Your apartment had been easy to find. Even easier to break into, since Keigo was well versed in picking the old, cheap locks used to provide a false sense of safety to anyone living in the rundown old buildings this far from the city’s sparkling center.

Because, despite the fact that the agency’s newest golden boy looked, sounded, and acted like he’d been raised in the privileged lap of the city’s luxury, Keigo was and always would be, to some degree, just another kid raised among the rats of the slums.

Sure, he hadn’t called the maze of narrow alleys and crumbling architecture home in over a decade now— he had the foster family who’d taken him in at thirteen and decided to keep him once he proved to hold some form of talent and intelligence to thank for that— but he could still remember what it felt like to navigate the dark tunnels and cramped spaces woven throughout the downtown area.

The only thing that had really changed, Keigo had thought to himself as he’d struggled to squeeze through a tiny opening on his journey through the cluttered side streets, was him. No longer was he the malnourished, spindly little kid with scraped knees and dirt-smudged cheeks who could slip through any opening, steal what food and supplies were needed to survive, and slither out in a flash, sprinting back to his little tarp-tent covering spread out at the end of an adjacent alley like a cobweb hanging loosely in the corner of an attic.

Now he was bigger, stronger, still lean and lithe but in a way that spoke more to health than starvation. But, most importantly, he was smarter, more cunning, blessed with the carefully studied and learned ability to talk his way into or out of any situation the job called for.

He’d already had a whole spiel rehearsed on the off chance he knocked on your door and you actually were dumb enough to answer. Though, of course, as was the more likely scenario from the start, you were nowhere to be found, your residency left vacant and in slight disarray. Aside from your unmade bed and a couple dishes scattered in the sink though, not much seemed out of the ordinary at first glance.

But any detective worth his salt knew that first glance meant near to nothing.

It was the digging further, the unearthing of unseen evidence, that really told you anything worthwhile about who or what a person was. And, at first, he wasn’t even entirely sure what he was looking for, but after rifling through your cabinets and drawers, flipping through your little calendar book that you’d used to keep track of things like your scheduled appointments for work or jotted down notes about items to pick up at the grocery store next payday, Keigo made his way into the bathroom and discovered the golden egg of the scene.

Balled up and tossed into the bathtub was a heap of clothing— your clothing— and, with hands gloved as to not leave any fingerprints or evidence of his own behind, he carefully tugged one article free from the pile. It was a shirt— your shirt— and it was covered in what was unmistakably recognized as the dark, dried remains of human blood.

Too much to be your own, Keigo figured instantly, and upon taking a closer look at the skirt that had been tangled with a tanktop, he could tell that, whatever had happened, it had been a rather messy affair.

It all added up— you disappearing right after your boss turned up dead, the blood on your clothes belonging to the man you’d most likely killed with one of the razors found around the barbershop— but yet, Keigo got the sense that there was far more to this than currently presented itself.

He wasn’t so much troubled by the likelihood of you— a young, attractive girl who’d been unfortunate to end up in the darker parts of town— killing your boss— a man whose lost life hadn’t been mourned much if the way his next of kin had sounded when they’d received the news over a phone call the morning the body was discovered. In fact, Keigo didn’t even really care why you’d done it. Again, he was familiar with the kinds of people who crawled between the cracks in this section of the city. He had a pretty good idea.

It was more so this feeling, this unrelenting intuition that, whatever you’d gotten yourself roped up in, it was far from done.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket then, interrupting his chain of thought for a moment as he peeled off a glove and clicked the answer button, one of his co-workers back at the precinct on the other line.

“Hey, so I know it’s technically your day off—” he began, and Keigo already knew where this was headed, preemptively rolling his eyes. “But we just got some new evidence on that other case you were working on and before we go any further the chief is insisting you take a look at it…” Keigo held the phone between his shoulder and his cheek, slipping the other glove back on before kneeling down to shift through whatever you had under your bathroom sink but finding nothing of particular interest. “So do you think it would be possible to just stop by at some point today? All the other guys are gettin’ pretty restless with the whole thing. Plus, you know they look up to you, Hawks—”

Keigo bristled slightly at the nickname as his co-worker continued to ramble on. He closed the cabinet, pulled the shower curtain three quarters of the way across just the way he’d found it, and strolled back into the main area of the studio, standing between your bed and the partially sectioned off kitchen area.

He checked his watch. 12:45 PM. He’d really wanted to drop by the new noodle place that had just opened up around the block from his own apartment in the city center, maybe catch a late afternoon showing of one of the 80’s action movies they were currently rerunning at the theatre, then have a nice, relaxing night before the whirlwind of work resumed the following morning.

This time though, his guilty conscience got the better of him, so he cut in before the guy on the other end of the call exhausted himself from trying to convince him and said, “Alright. I can be there in half an hour,” before getting a much relieved thank you in response. He hung up the call, just about to leave before remembering what he’d been about to do right before his phone rang.

Pulling the shower curtain back open to reveal the bloody clothes in the tub, Keigo snapped a few photos on his personal phone before returning everything to its previous, hastily yet lazily hidden state, then slipped back out of the apartment, making sure to relock the door, tossing the gloves in a rusted dumpster down the block from the building.

Even as he worked on sorting out and discussing the newly discovered details from the case he’d been called in about, a piece of his mind was still turning its wheels about you. So much still seemed— felt— uncertain.

But he was onto you.

All he had to do now was figure out where you went.

***

Black water sloshed against the edge of the docks, night turning it dark and oil-slick as is caught shimmering reflections of the hooked moon hanging overhead, salty air corroding away at rotting boards that creaked underfoot with the threat of breaking every time someone was brave enough to tread over them.

Located on the very edge of the city, there were only two types of people who ventured out this far— people looking for a place to hide or people who already had something to hide.

But, in this case, that was going to work in your favor. Because, like most crimes committed beyond the formally recognized city limits, if there was a case of breaking and entering, theft, or even murder, most times it wasn’t taken seriously, if even investigated at all.

As Tomura and Dabi approached the chain link fence that tried and failed to deter trespassers, they were careful to stay out of sight and keep their heads down as they navigated the dark, debris strewn courtyard. It was littered with anything and everything from cigarette butts and playing cards and coins to the remains of clothing that had probably belonged to former enemies, now decaying bodies sunk to the bottom of the bay courtesy of some zipties and cinderblocks, scattered among wooden crates and broken glass.

Because even though this territory was technically owned by the city, it had been long claimed and occupied by some of the slum’s most notorious gangs, vultures landing to pick at the abandoned corpse left to rot on the desolate outskirts.

Dabi was far more suited to traversing this kind of terrain, footsteps quick and light as he ran from one cover to the next, clearly more familiar with the territory than Tomura, who more so scuttled and jumped clumsily a few generous strides behind his reluctant confidant, just barely avoiding being discovered by whoever had been put on watch that night.

But now, with their backs pressed to the wall and awaiting their signal in uncomfortable silence, the two boys tried not to instigate any unresolved issues with each other, which was to say, Dabi tried not to instigate any unresolved issues.

“Damn, what’s takin’ ‘er so long…” Dabi eventually grumbled under his breath, leg beginning to bounce and wishing he at least had a cigarette to pass the time with right now. Then, with unbridled sarcasm, “It’s not like she has the easiest part of the plan or anything…”

“Relax,” Tomura shot back through a hiss, growing tired with Dabi’s constant nagging, especially in an already high-tension environment. “Just give her time. Plus, she has to come all the way from the other side of the docks.”

Dabi felt his whole body coiling with the urge to jump into defense mode. To shoot back with some hurtful, low blow remark or, if he really had it his way, do something to trip the guy up and leave him in the dust the next time they had to move further into the nest of nemeses. It would hardly be his fault if Tomura got shot because he couldn’t run fast enough. You’d be distraught and the plan would go to shit, sure, but at least Dabi would still earn the reward of being able to pick up your devastated pieces after the fact.

But, once he took a second to apply some logic to that scenario, Dabi realized that jeopardizing the chance to nab one hundred-thousand dollars, even for a chance at winning you over, was a fucking dumb thing to risk. Well, really only about thirty-three thousand once it was split three ways between you.

But still. That was a hell of a lot more money than any of you had ever had your hands on— ever imagined having your hands on— and all in cash at that.

But the best part of it all— y’know, besides the life changing wealth— was the fact that Dabi was finally going to be able to score some revenge against those who had wronged him. Or, at least, a small portion of those who had wronged him. If he was being honest, he’d sort of lost count when it came to the tally. But these guys had been the most recent offense, which was good enough for him.

They were the ones who’d left him beaten and bloody in the alley the night he’d met you. The night he’d stolen from them, only to have them steal it right back, and caused Dabi to suffer the beginning stages of withdrawal from his beloved white pills.

Tonight he felt sharp though. Tonight he felt good. Tonight, he felt ready for anything that could come at him. There’s no reward without a little risk, he reminded himself, trying to keep calm while he and Tomura waited, pretty much out in the open, vulnerable and defenseless. On a similar note, Tomura’s line of reasoning had been that winning big prizes required playing difficult games.

You just hoped you made it out alive at the end of it all, one hundred-thousand dollars richer or not.

And so, running like your life depended on it, tears streaming down your face, knees skinned and wrists bruised, looking like you’d narrowly escaped a specific kind of hell, you called out, voice shredded and broken as you begged for help, cries echoing across the water and hopefully reaching its intended audience.

Something in Tomura’s chest ached at that sound, body instinctively pulled in your direction as if you actually needed saving. He stopped himself, reminded that it was all just an act, but even when he felt a nudge at his shoulder, Dabi dragging his attention back to the task at hand, the look Tomura wore was almost traumatized. Let me go to her, his eyes pleaded as carmine clashed with cobalt. Please, just let me go to her.

“C’mon,” Dabi beckoned, ignoring Tomura’s pained expression, already having swiftly picked the rickety old padlock securing a thick chain around the back door of the warehouse on the edge of the water, dropping the linked metals to the concrete slow and quiet. “We only get one shot at this. Don’t fuck it up.”

***

Three days ago, the trio of you had been huddled in the living room for Dabi’s impromptu “meeting”. You and Tomura sat side by side on the couch, thighs pressed together, while Dabi paced restlessly back and forth on the other side of the scuffed up coffee table that had most likely been salvaged from someone’s curbside or stolen from a junkyard. He still had a towel slung around his shoulders, darker stains smudged against the navy blue material from where he’d roughly rustled his hair dry, now wearing a clean white t-shirt and fresh pair of jeans.

“And that’s why they’ll never see it coming!” Dabi explained fervently, still trying to get his excited madness to rub off on you and Tomura. “They won’t even be able to trace it back to me— back to us— because you two practically don’t even exist to them!”

“But…” you began, hesitant to poke holes in his master plan lest he completely lose his cool. “Didn’t they see us the other day when we were running from them in the alley?”

Dabi dismissively waved away your concern, frowning for a moment as he quickly brushed over the fact that those were, “Completely different guys. I mean, there’s a chance they might know the guys we’re targeting, but they hole up on the other side of town. Don’t do much business together except for once in a while.”

“Oh, great!” you commented, faking pleasantry and relief before your expression and tone dropped back into unamused ridicule, “So you have friends in all the darkest corners then…”

“Don’t forget that the cops are probably still looking for you because you stole a car,” Tomura butt in, to which Dabi just narrowed his eyes and hissed back at him, “Not helping.”

“What’s the plan, Dabi?” you asked, point blank. With an exasperated shrug of your shoulders and a look of incredulity you said, “I mean, what? We break into where they keep the drugs or the money or whatever and then what? We just grab as much as we can carry and make a run for it? They’ll catch us in an instant— They’ll follow us right back here and then we’ll be even more fucked because we’ll have nowhere else to hide!”

“Need I remind you I have sev—”

“Several hideouts in every corner of the outskirts,” you completed his sentence, rendering him silent for just a little longer. “Yeah, I know. You told us. But if you think the three of us stand a chance against however many of them there are, then you’re delusional.”

Dabi ceased his pacing, facing you with arms crossed over his chest, tattoos on the most display you’d seen them yet with his usual jacket absent from his form, currently hung to dry over the side of one of the cubicle dividers, and asked bitterly, “Oh and what’s your plan then, princess? Gonna waltz in there and woo them with your feminine charms?”

A scornful response was on the tip of your tongue, just about to be spit right back at him when all of a sudden, something in your mind clicked.

“Actually,” you said, “that’s probably the smartest thing you’ve suggested so far.”

Dabi raked his hands over his face, though you could still see the way he rolled his eyes from between the cracks in his fingers, and muttered something indistinct under his breath that was muffled by his dramatic display of disbelief.

“But— Hey, listen—” you went on, forcing Dabi to pay attention. “Sure, it’s not like I’m gonna go in there and get them to hand over the goods with the power of seduction or whatever, but I do know something else that might work that only I can do.”

“And what’s that?”

You smirked, the idea just sick enough that it might actually succeed. “I can make myself worth something. A bounty or a runaway or—”

“Human trafficking,” Dabi interrupted, and while he looked like what he’d just suggested was as common as a cloud drifting across the sky, you and Tomura both stared at him like he’d just uttered the most offensive thing either of you had ever heard. “Yeah…” he nodded to himself, silently working over the details in his head. “Yeah, they mark those girls so, if they run away, they can always be returned, y’know, so long as the fucker runnin’ the show can pay up.”

“Hello? Hypothetical human trafficking victim sitting right here…” You waved your hand, causing Dabi’s electric blue gaze to snap back to meet yours. “Wanna ask me how I feel about this? ‘Cause it’s definitely not good.”

“Well how else do you propose you make yourself worth something, genius?”

“Well good luck making this plan work without me you snarky piece of—”

“Guys!” Tomura shouted over you and Dabi’s argument, his raspy voice sounding raw and jagged, like there were tiny shards of broken glass stuck in his throat. Once you and Dabi were looking at him, he cleared his throat and addressed you by name, saying, “Let’s just hear him out.” Tomura put his arm around you, tugging you slightly closer into his side as if trying to comfort you. “And Dabi—” His eyes narrowed with contempt at the man in question, warning him with his gaze. “Why don’t you explain it in a way that’s a little less…” He let the sentence trail off, searching for the right word, then settled on, “A little less like, y’know. Like she’s not actually in the room with us.”

Again, Dabi thought to himself that, if you weren’t around to act as Tomura’s shield, he’d have beaten this guy’s ass up, down, and all the way around town for the audacity he had of which to speak to him with. And in Dabi’s house, no less.

But, as all of you were coming to realize— some more begrudgingly than others— this was a plan that needed three. Not two. Not one. Three.

It was the magic number and, if nothing else, it was the only thing the group of you really had going for you.

So while you and Dabi brainstormed, cooking up a plot that your targets just might buy, Tomura took to mapping it all out, having Dabi help fill in the blanks in the shoddy blueprint of the waterside warehouse, as he’d seen the territory firsthand before, and giving you all a better visual of your positions and movements throughout the entire plan, given it went accordingly.

Though, as all of you knew but none of you dared to point out, nothing ever really went according to plan, no matter how much choreography went into it.

“But how are we really gonna sell it…?” Dabi murmured, glancing from the crudely drawn map to you back and forth a few times before holding on your face, your figure, trying to decipher if your acting abilities would be enough or if these guys— pieces of shit who’d likely dealt with real human trafficking victims before— would smell the inauthenticity from a mile away.

“Well…” You began, hesitant as you forced yourself to meet his eyes, his face only inches from yours as the three of you sat smushed together on the floor on one side of the coffee table, you nestled between the two boys. You sighed out a regretful breath, knowing if you didn’t force the words out now, they’d remain lodged in your throat.

You stood from the huddle, hands on your hips as you rounded to the other side of the table. You looked from Dabi to Tomura then back to Dabi again, both of them looking at you caught in suspenseful confusion.

Then you shrugged and said, “I guess one of you is gonna have to hurt me.”

***

Dabi and Tomura had been met with a narrow hall dotted evenly with pools of cool light casted down from the flickering fluorescence after clipping the chain that had been secured around the back door.

The coast looked clear, until Dabi heard something and quickly pulled Tomura into a tiny crook in the hall as the sound of footsteps echoed in warning taps around the corner.

The two of them stood there, practically pressed chest to chest and trying to avoid eye contact, until the sound faded. The moment they were in the clear, Dabi shrugged out of the small space, nudging Tomura in the ribs amidst his haste.

“Just how many of them are there?” Tomura asked, keeping an ear out for any more unexpected visitors.

“Well, we saw at least five guarding the front,” Dabi recalled, continuing further down the dimly lit hallway, checking every corner before he turned it. Puddles of greenish-blue light pooled evenly along the floors, leaving small spaces of darkness that Dabi couldn’t help but picture someone lying in wait and ready to strike within. For a moment, he even thought he could make out a familiar face within the shadows— someone who he’d tried so hard to leave behind, who he’d escaped the moment he left home and set out on these crooked streets, yet still haunted him like a specter no matter how far he ran— his own personal, paternal monster.

“Hey,” Tomura whispered, pulling Dabi from his trance. “Are we gonna get going or what?”

Dabi glanced down the opposite hall, looked back to where he’d seen the wavy, mist-like image of his father’s face like an omen through a fog, then started down the other way. “It’s this way,” he directed, waving Tomura along after him to follow. “Stay close and don’t let your guard down.”

***

When the time came, you’d asked Tomura to do it. You had a feeling Dabi would take things too far, end up actually breaking your wrist after getting a preview of his grip strength from the time he’d hauled you up onto the roof along with him while you’d been running from your pursuers in the alley.

And Tomura hadn’t wanted to do it. Didn’t even like the thought of hurting you, despite how well acquainted he personally was with pain. But it hadn’t been up to him. You were the one that was going to have to suffer, so you got to choose who inflicted the suffering.

“Ok…” You winced, preparing yourself for what you knew was going to be an unpleasant experience. Tomura held your wrists in his grip, loose for now, but about to become a whole lot tighter. “I’m ready. Just do it—”

A high-pitched yelp escaped your throat upon the sudden pain, Tomura gritting his teeth as he dug his fingers into your tender skin as hard as he could without crushing the bone. You bit your tongue, a sob hitching in your chest and your feet stomping on the ground as you tried to distract yourself with anything that would help you outlast the pain.

“More?” Tomura asked, sounding distressed. “Or stop?”

For a second, you couldn’t answer, just hissed a sharp breath in and then panted a shaky exhale out. “Just… Ok— Ok, stop!” His grip released in an instant, you pulling your throbbing wrists into your chest, your pin-prickling hands taking turns rubbing the places where the imprint of Tomura’s fingers were already beginning to blotch in navy and violet from under your skin, dark bruises blooming bright and brutal over your flesh.

“Fuck…” you hissed, the pain subsiding a lot slower than you’d originally anticipated.

“Sorry…” Tomura huffed out, the word a wisp of air exhaled under his breath, his carmine gaze tracking you and hoping that when you next looked up at him it wouldn’t be with fear or contempt.

Just then, Dabi reentered the room with three cans of beer and an ice pack, setting the items on the coffee table and casting a somewhat nervous grimace towards your blossoming welts. “Did it work?” he asked, not sounding so thrilled about the current state of your plan now.

“I think so…” you muttered, Tomura lightly pressing the ice pack to one of your injuries, holding your wrist in his palm like it was made of the most delicate glass. “It’s just… I hate to say it, but it’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than this to be convincing.”

When you met Tomura’s eyes, he was already wearing a look of pleading worry, all that wide, bright red begging you not to make him go any further than what he’d just regretfully done, even if it had been with your consent.

“Tomura…” you whispered, only loud enough for him to hear. “It’s ok. It’s not your fault. It’s—”

He snapped his gaze away from you, jaw clenching and looking like he was wrestling with about a dozen emotions at once, a sea of memories flooding him. He opened his mouth to speak only to close it again. But you gave him time to collect his thoughts, and once he’d finally picked out the words he wished to say, he told you, “Does it really have to be you? Is there anyway it could be me instead. I mean—”

“Tomura…” Lightly, with your free hand, you reached over to cradle his cheek, trying not to flinch when you bent your wrist a little too far under its current state. In that moment, it felt like it was just the two of you in that room, Dabi torn on whether to stay and express his disgust with your openly displayed affections or leave again and give you the room.

“It’s ok. Besides, this is the only way this works. Once we have the money we can go anywhere, right? We can go anywhere…” The thought of getting out of the city’s gutter had felt like such a far off dream to you for so long. Now, faced with the possibility of leaving the entire country behind if that’s what you so chose, well…

It was damn near impossible to imagine.

“Alright, well, if you two love birds are done making googly eyes at each other…” Dabi droned, breaking the delicate silence of the atmosphere with the sharp crack and sizzle of opening his beer, slurping the first sip noisily and making sure to swallow extra loud just out of spite, “I think we have a plan to get back to. This is time sensitive, remember? Tick tock, tick tock.”

Tomura shot Dabi a scathing glare, an unsightly sneer to match, but before another argument could ensue, you stood from the couch and said, “He’s right. We only have four more hours until we either do this or die trying…” You wandered over to an open space of scuffed concrete off to the side of what defined the perimeters of the living room, brushing away some dirt and debris with the side of your shoe. “That should be enough time for these bruises to darken.”

You looked back at the boys, both watching you with varying levels of confusion and intrigue, and then you locked eyes with Dabi, giving a short, beckoning nod of your head. “I’m not fucking around this time. Dabi. Get over here and push me.”

Dabi quirked up an inky eyebrow, beer can still raised to his lips. He finished his sip then placed the drink off to the side, resting his elbows on his spread knees. “Uh… Come again?”

“You heard me,” you taunted, shifting on your feet. “I mean, I’ve been beaten and abused by all kinds of people, right? That’s why I had to run away? So get over here and make it real. I can’t do it on my own.”

Dabi then looked to Tomura, who offered no assurance but also no protest, before sighing to himself and pushing up from the couch, lazily strolling over. You’d been afraid of him before, still felt some sense of nervousness in his unpredictable presence, but now, looking up at him, his shadow casting over you as he looked down at you right back, those cerulean eyes damn near glowing in the dark, you felt something you couldn’t place.

It wasn’t quite fear, but the way your heart skipped a beat in your chest told you to be wary still.

“Turn around,” Dabi muttered, voice low, the three syllables not so much an order as they were a suggestion.

You abided by his request, slowly turning so that your back faced him, already bracing your hands in front of you to catch you when you went down. “Just— Just count down from three or something,” you stuttered, suddenly wondering whether you were going to regret choosing him to do this or not.

Now standing from the couch, Tomura said your name, an anxious upturn to the end of it like he was warning you of something you already knew was coming.

“I mean, I don’t know if it would be better if I saw it coming… But I only wanna do this once so—”

“One…” Dabi began, drawing out the number as if that would buy you more time before you were subjected to even more pain.

“But not too hard—!” you warned through a startled gasp, preemptively flinching. “None of this will work if I break anything. And also—”

“Two…”

“Wait! Maybe I do wanna do it myself! I mean, maybe there’s a way to—”

You didn’t even hear Dabi say three, but the moment both his hands made quick, hard contact to your shoulder blades and you felt yourself surging forward, the rest of your protest was cut off with a gasp.

You stumbled to the ground and skid a little, yelping as electric bolts of pain shot through your knees and elbows as they collided with concrete, numbness ricocheting through your bones. You didn’t even register your skinned shins and nicked palms until you felt something wet dripping down your calf and touched it, fingers coming back with the bright redness of blood.

“Are you ok?” Tomura asked, coming to your side and taking a closer look at the latest injury. Dabi stood back, not necessarily admiring his violence but— ok, maybe he was a little bit.

“I’m fine…” you assured him, voice a little strained with discomfort as you staggered to stand, Tomura helping you back to your feet on wobbly legs. “I don’t think I wanna go further than this though…” You looked to Dabi, his gaze taking a moment to move from your bleeding knees to meet your beseeching eyes. “Please tell me this is enough?”

“Something around your throat might help,” he commented, and when Tomura gave him a look of disgust that very much translated to “dude, what the fuck” Dabi just shrugged and replied defensively, “I’m just sayin’! These guys are pieces of shit! If you think they draw the line at choking a girl—”

“Alright, enough!” you cut in, starting to feel a little nauseous. “If we need to take things that far— Fuck, I don’t know, I’ll have to steal some eyeshadow from the drug store and do it that way. I’m not letting either of you do that to me.”

He considered you, looking you up and down a few times before nodding to himself in contemplation. Then he said, “I think if we add some fake needle tracks and really fuck up your hair and makeup, put you in something a little less…” He vaguely gestured to the oversized outfit you were currently wearing, which consisted of a pair of Dabi’s boxer shorts (you’d been extremely adamant that he lend you clean ones) and an old black t-shirt adorned with the logo of some underground metal band. You cast him a look in response that agreed. Enough said.

“Alright, well, that settles it then. You two are gonna have to get me some things. And you’re gonna have to do it fast. Makeup takes a while.” Dabi asked you what you meant, though Tomura already seemed to have caught on, even if just partially. “Well, I can’t risk showing my face around you two on the off chance of one of them seeing us together before the job. It’ll blow our entire cover. So, you two are gonna have to go steal me some drug store makeup and a skirt or a dress or whatever you can get your hands on.”

After listing off some more specific items you thought you would need, more so in the realm of makeup than clothes, you sent the boys off to do some shoplifting. In the meantime, you navigated your way into the bathroom and searched around the disorganized cabinets until you found a nearly empty bottle of disinfectant, setting yourself up on the couch for a little pre-plan contemplation session while you carefully cleaned your open wounds, each sizzling sting of the peroxide on your skin making you wonder just many times you could ask yourself if you were going to be able to live to regret another decision you made.

***

The cheap slip dress was a size too big and the chunky costume jewelry earrings kept smacking you in the face with every bounding stride you took sprinting across the field, your feet bare and cold, adrenaline helping you forget your staged injuries for the time being. Clumpy streaks of mascara ran down your cheeks in pairs, biting the inside of your cheek, your lip, at one point even your own bruised wrist, just to force more tears to come.

Around your neck was Tomura’s handprint branded in dark violets faded around the edges with navy— eyeshadow, that is. You’d brushed it onto his hand before having him place his palm to your throat and apply just enough pressure to leave the residue on your skin. You’d spruced up the fine details yourself to make it appear as convincing as you could, even adding a few scratch tracks, some of which had been done with your own nails.

“Every little bit helps, I guess…” Dabi had said, almost sounding a little disturbed as he’d watched you mutilate yourself from the bathroom doorway.

“Yeah, well, it fucking better,” you’d said bitterly under your breath as you applied lipstick and then smudged it across the corner of your mouth with a tissue. You thought you looked the part. Now the only question was if they would believe it too.

With every nerve in your body screaming for you to stop, to turn around, to run away from the men pointing guns at you and not towards them, you forced yourself to press on. You just had to have faith in the fact that Dabi and Tomura— or, in the very least, Tomura— wouldn’t just abandon you to the wolves.

Or, who knows. Maybe they would. You’d only known them for five days, give or take.

“The fuck…?” one of the guys muttered, gazing over the barrel of his pistol at the silhouette frantically approaching, your distressed cries ringing out loud enough for the sound to reach them, though the words were still indistinguishable.

“Dunno…” another shrugged, lowering his gun, which caused some of the others to do the same. “Stay here though. I’ll go check it out.”

You came skidding to a halt right up against the chain link fence that caged the entrance, clutching the criss-crossed steel wire in shaking hands, sobbing as you babbled incoherently, more tears streaming down your face as you shook your head back and forth, rattling the fence in a desperate attempt to get in.

“Please!” you shrieked, making sure to anxiously glance behind you a few times for good measure. You were being chased after all. Pursued. Hunted down. “Please! Please, you have to help me! They’re after me! I— I can’t go back there!”

The man who’d volunteered to approach you stopped halfway between his colleagues and the fence, looking over his shoulder at them with slight confusion as if asking for some guidance, but when offered none, simply shuffled a few steps closer, finger still resting on the trigger, and asked, “Who’s after you?”

“The last thing you need to be is logical,” Dabi had instructed you on the drive over, having hot-wired the nearest vehicle he could find unattended after smashing the driver’s side window with a screwdriver, making quick work with getting the engine started and sneaking glances at you through the rearview mirror as you adjusted the cheap dress to stay up on your chest. “The less sense you make, the more time you’ll buy us.”

“Oh, god! Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god—!” You were practically hyperventilating at this point, making yourself lightheaded in the process but hoping that only added to your acting. “Please! Please just let me in! I— I’ll do anything! I just can’t go back there! He’ll— He’ll kill me! Please! Please, please, please, please, please!”

You clutched the gaps in the fence above your head, leaned forward so your forehead could press against the wire, sobbing yourself to a point of near faintness, and feeling an odd sense of pride when you felt the beam of their flashlights shining on your form. Starting at your hands and making their way all the way down to your feet before tracing back up again, their hesitation and silence spoke to the fact that they knew exactly the kind of person you’d escaped from.

Or, at least, the kind of person you wanted them to believe you’d escaped from.

“She one of Chisaki’s girls?” you heard one of them mutter, lifting your head to show off more of your smeared makeup and watery, bloodshot eyes.

“We’d have to check ‘er for the brand,” you heard another answer, and that made your stomach drop. Of all the effects you’d applied— both special and practical— a brand hadn’t been one of them.

“Well should we let ‘er in or just call ‘im?”

“Fuck if I know, man. I mean, unless there’s a reward for returnin’ ‘er, why not just keep ‘er for ourselves?” The three of you had agreed not to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary— more so because that would take too long and only complicate things— but that comment made you wish you’d voted in Dabi’s favor for taking as many of these assholes out as possible.

“Just let ‘er in. Take ‘er to the boss. He can decide what to do with ‘er.” He looked you up and down again, eyes landing on your fake needle tracks for a while until he said, “And if she is Chisaki’s… Well…” If you weren’t so terrified then, you might’ve been able to pick up on the fear in the man’s own voice, horrified yet curious as to what kind of monster this Chisaki person must be to scare these guys so much without even showing his face. “Just don’t let anyone put their hands on her until we confirm.”

And then, the gate was being unchained and swung open. You almost forgot to keep up the act, jumping from your temporarily dazed state back into the panicked pleading and rambled thank yous of a poor drug-addicted, abused, hostage-escapee of a girl who thought she was finally being saved.

But that had been the easy part.

Now you had to clear a path for Tomura and Dabi to grab the goods, grab you, and get the hell outta dodge.

***

The place was bigger on the inside than it looked and, also equally as troublesome, a complete fucking maze.

This gang had enough guys to cover their main entrance and the goods they kept inside, but not enough to have every inch of this place on lock. Besides, back when Dabi ran with them, it had been his job to hangout and watch for stragglers who might try and sneak up on whatever shithole they were calling base for the week in hopes of finding a stray window or door unattended. Since his departure, he’d been willing to bet they hadn’t bothered finding a replacement.

They hadn’t had a reason to. They’d never been infiltrated.

At least, not until tonight.

But even so, as they navigated the crumbling concrete halls like every corner they turned could be their last, Dabi was kicking himself for not bringing a gun. Too bad he didn’t even own one. Though, maybe tonight he’d get lucky enough to change that.

“Clear,” Tomura whispered, him and his inky-haired accomplice dashing down another long stretch until they finally grew closer to the heart of this place, distant voices now registering from off in the distance.

“Not far now,” Dabi said, also careful to keep his voice low. “When we get there we’ll just have to hang tight till we get her signal.”

It shouldn’t be long now, he figured. If things went according to plan, the guards would take the bait and let you inside. Someone would inform their leader and draw a bulk of the attention surrounding the goods elsewhere. From there, Tomura would cause an additional distraction while Dabi swooped in and grabbed the duffle bag or whatever sorry excuse for a hiding place the cash was stored in. He knew it would be in whatever room they kept the most heavily occupied. These guys might’ve had more than him, but not by much. They wouldn’t risk letting their guard down in fear of losing what they’d scored.

They might as well have lit up a blinking neon sign that flashed “I’M HERE! I’M HERE!” with an arrow pointing straight to where they stashed the money. That’s how confident Dabi was feeling about this plan. Besides, he kept reminding himself, he used to run with this crew. He knew they talked big and acted tough, but at the end of the day they were just as desperate and greedy as any other slum rat trying to survive was, himself included.

“…Should’a seen the look on ‘is face, man!” one boasted as Tomura and Dabi came upon their main hangout, crouching low beneath the windows cut out in the half-finished construction job, the glass never installed before the place had been left to be scavenged by the downtown dogs. “He was all like, ‘Please, I have a family! I have kids! You don’t have to do this!’” The man let out a dark chuckle, the sadistic sound making Dabi clench his jaw. “And I was all like, ‘Well I guess you should’a thought about that before you took out a loan you couldn’t repay.’”

“And then what?” a second guy asked, sounding high off his ass with the way his words slurred and sloshed together like water threatening to spill over the edge of a glass.

“Well then I fuckin’ slit his throat, obviously,” the leader, a man Dabi knew was called Jiro, shrugged, as if killing a man in cold blood was the most uninteresting topic in the world. Dabi took the risk of slowly peeking over the edge of his cover, trying to get a count on just how many guys they might have to deal with— or outrun— if things went south.

But, from the looks of it, there was just Jiro, one guy half asleep from whatever he was high on, and a third who slouched forward from his seat on the couch occasionally to tap the ashes of a dwindling cigarette into a chipped tray on the table, his leg bouncing anxiously while his gaze darted around as if expecting a threat to pop up any moment now. But, most importantly of all, Dabi noticed, was the gun secured at his belt. Now if only he could figure out an easy way to steal it…

“What we got?” Tomura asked, growing a little restless as Dabi sunk back below cover, filling him in on what he’d seen. Then, nodding to himself, Tomura said, “So if we get rid of the leader somehow, we could just take the other two out ourselves…”

“Yeah, but only if the paranoid one doesn’t get all trigger happy on us, which, trust me, one look at that guy and I can tell, given the chance, he will. So here’s what I’m thinking…”

As Dabi laid out the next phase, Tomura was only half listening. Truthfully, he was still too antsy wondering what was going to happen— or maybe already currently happening— to you to be able to fully focus on the task at hand.

“But first thing’s first,” Dabi decided, looking a little more conflicted than confident now. “We gotta figure out exactly where in there they’re keeping it. Once we locate the cash, we’ll have a better chance at actually getting out of here with it alive.”

That was something they both could agree on, at least, and Tomura suggested they split up to try and cover more ground. From where they were currently crouched, the view inside the shoddy lounge contained plenty of blind spots. Plenty of places for a duffle bag holding dozens of wads of bundled bills to hide. So, with Dabi venturing further around the right side and Tomura beginning to creep towards the left corner, the two of them attempted to better map out the area without being spotted, the tops of their heads bobbing up and down through the vacant window cutouts for only a few seconds at a time. But the closer they came to completing the circle, the more worried Dabi became.

Because he didn’t see anything worth much of anything anywhere.

“Shit…” he swore under his breath as he sunk back below cover, defeat already looming over him like a shadow. With his back pressed to the wall, the chill seeping through the concrete soaking through his clothes, Dabi was almost ready to call it off. To just slip out before there was time for even more losses to pile up and regroup back at the warehouse.

But that’s when he heard it.

A scream.

High and loud and splintered with terror.

He flinched at the sound of it, the blood-curdling cry pulling the attention of the other men in the room, their conversation suddenly going quiet except for one muttered, “The fuck…?” from High Guy.

Dabi lifted his gaze over his cover, locked eyes with Tomura across the way, even from this far able to tell how his crimson stare widened with pleading.

Let me go to her, let me go to her, let me go to her.

But Dabi shook his head, slow and warning, the gesture advising him to stay put for now.

“Well?” Jiro snapped, causing both the other men in the vicinity to wince. “Get the fuck up and go check it out!”

There was the sound of frantic, shuffling feet rushing out of the room, Dabi’s gun escaping as the man with it secured to his belt drew it and prepared his finger on the trigger as he and his more sluggish colleague disappeared off into a deeper part of the building, nearly spotting Tomura who pressed himself as hard and flat as he could against the wall he was hiding behind, waiting until he saw the darkness swallow them completely until he dared shift his position to meet back up with Dabi.

But Dabi didn’t move.

Not yet.

Jiro’s back was to him now, not a care in the world as he reclined and rested his arms across the top of the sofa, rolling his neck and groaning as a few joints popped, the red scorpion tattooed there shifting as the tendons moved beneath his skin, the crackling echoing faintly throughout the high-ceilinged space.

The way he saw it, Dabi had a choice to make. And it was now or never.

He leapt through the window opening with more cat-like grace than most people would’ve assumed him capable of, rubber-soled boots laced tight and landing soft and soundless against the dusty floor.

Tomura popped up to try and see where his accomplice was currently at, but felt his stomach sink with dread when he saw Dabi sneaking up on Jiro, a length of stray rope that had been discarded amidst the other odds and ends of debris scattered across the floor held firm and taut between his hands.

What the fuck are you doing, he would’ve called out if it wouldn’t have meant sudden death. So instead, Tomura decided to double back and pursue his own mission, now that everyone seemed to be going rogue.

But the thing was, Dabi was still technically doing things according to plan, just with a little improvisation tossed in at the last minute. Because he’d seen something Tomura hadn’t, and while things most certainly wouldn’t be going as smoothly as you all originally had hoped, you wouldn’t be leaving empty handed if he managed to actually pull it off.

Because placed on top of the coffee table and currency serving as Jiro’s foot rest was a metal box with a turn dial on the side— an item Dabi hadn’t been able to tell prior was actually a safe.

Here goes nothing, he thought to himself right before he slipped the rope over Jiro’s head and pulled it tight across the man’s throat. When the struggle started to look like it wasn’t going to turn out in Dabi’s favor, he growled out a desperate, “Tomura! A little help!” but was met with nothing except Jiro’s continued grunting, choking sounds and a fist colliding with his cheek.

Dabi went to just put the man into a headlock but Jiro threw his head back and cracked Dabi in the nose, blood gushing and temporarily spotting his vision with white. Dabi loosened his grip, giving Jiro just enough space and time to throw his assailant off of him and swivel around to look him in the face with wild, wrathful eyes.

“You—!” Jiro began to accuse, reaching for something inside his jacket, but Dabi was faster, barreling towards him and tackling him, both of them crashing through the coffee table before they hit the ground, the safe sliding across the floor until it went under one of the gaps of the wooden shipping crates stacked atop each other off to the side.

“Fuck—!” Dabi yelped, feeling his elbow crack down on the concrete with a sickening crunch, pain lancing through his bones like a lightning strike before his arm went numb from elbow to fingertips, which was probably for the best right now.

Because he didn’t have time for wincing and whining. Not when Jiro was already halfway to standing and wearing an expression of blind rage and bloodlust.

And then, reaching back into his coat, instead of pulling out a pistol like Dabi had originally anticipated, instead Jiro drew out a blade. An eighteen inch machete that gleamed in the dull, yellow light, freshly sharpened and hungry for its next victim.

And Jiro— Jiro was laughing.

He was laughing like a man who already knew he’d won.

“Gotta hand it to ya, kid…” he taunted, voice gravelly and strained from where the rope had bit into his throat, a rough, red mark rubbed raw across his skin. Dabi went to stand, but Jiro kicked him in the ribs hard, knocking the wind from his lungs. Then he pressed a grimy boot to Dabi’s chest, effectively pinning him in place, and concluding with a sinisterly amused, “You sure don’t know when to quit.”

Suddenly, Dabi was sixteen years old again, scrappy and weak and all alone. His hair was still snow white and his pale skin was unmarked, not even having gotten his first tattoo yet. He was hungry and desperate and all he had to his name was a black t-shirt, a pair of jeans, some combat boots, and a pocket knife.

He’d chosen the wrong guys to steal from loads of times during that first year, been beaten within an inch of his life too many times to count, and that had begun even before he’d fled to the streets, so what was one more time, right?

Only, this time, with the blade resting under his chin, Jiro intent on taking his sweet time making Dabi squirm before he made him bleed, Dabi had a feeling he wasn’t coming out of it alive.

So close, he thought with regret, both hands gripping Jiro’s ankle in his fists and attempting to lift some of the pressure from his bruised chest, but all that seemed to do was make the man stomp down harder. I was so fuckin’ close…

And that wasn’t just about the money.

“Now, here’s what’s gonna happen…” Jiro said, voice lowered to a ruthless hush. “I’m gonna handcuff you—” he gestured with the machete, “to that refrigerator over there. Then, I’m gonna go get the other guys ‘cause I’m sure they’d be just fuckin’ elated to see you again—” Dabi tried to twist free with one quick, harsh jostle, but to no avail. What Dabi had in height, Jiro had double of in strength. He knew he didn’t stand a chance. “And after that,” Jiro continued, ignoring Dabi’s growing despair like he was nothing more than a fly slowly buzzing about the room, the threat level only warrenting a light swat, “we’re all gonna take turns teaching you what happens when you keep try’na bite the hand that fuckin’ feeds…”

Dabi remembered his days serving as one of Jiro’s yes-men cronies, seventeen years old and halfway to a full sleeve of ink etched into his right arm, hair a fading blueish-black. He remembered the grueling hours, the shit jobs left especially for him because he was the newbie, yeah, let Dabi do all the things no one else wants to. He remembered the way his ribs began to show stark through the t-shirt he was outgrowing, could still feel the sour pang of starvation twisting just below his sternum. The headaches. The disorientation from going five days with nothing but a heel of stale bread and half a can of some other guy’s beer. Always left to beg and scavenge through the meager scraps of the packs’ provisions like the outcast runt of the litter.

Holding a scream back behind clenched teeth as he felt the pressure on his chest feel like it was soon to splinter ribs, Dabi spit, “When did you ever even try to feed me, motherfucker—” which in turn only earned him more agony. But if he was going to die tonight, he might as well hold nothing back.

And for what, Dabi wondered, eying the safe which taunted him from just a few short yards away under the crate, Just for a fuckin’ chance at a life out of the gutter…

All he’d have to do would be to reach under there and grab it.

Pathetic.

“Enough chit-chat. Just be a good boy,” Jiro teased, pressing the blade’s edge harder against Dabi’s craning neck as he reached into his back pocket and produced the set of steel cuffs that clinked and clacked against each other as they were dangled before him, “and don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

***

They took you into the building, caged you in the center of their tight formation, guns still held at the ready, and led you to a room in the back filled with more dangerous looking men.

You felt your stomach flood with dread the moment all their heads turned in unison to the opening door, four new sets of eyes landing on your disheveled, abused, and terrified state with varying degrees of confusion and eagerness.

“That don’t look like pizza,” one man huffed with sarcasm, his lips splitting into a smirk and causing the scar that ran through one side of his mouth to pull awkwardly. Then, turning back to his buddies, all of them holding playing cards close to their chests, occasionally darting their glances down to a growing pile of money wagered at the center of the table they were gathered around, he asked, “Any of you order an appetizer beforehand without tellin’ me about it?”

They all laughed, their mockery of you and your situation— or rather, the situation you were pretending to be in, which still made you just as sick knowing real victims were probably passed through their hands as regularly as a slice of pepperoni and cheese, by the sounds of it— causing you to begin shaking with fear, your entire body trembling like a rabbit surrounded by pack of salivating wolves.

“We found her by the front fence,” one of the men who’d led you through the building explained, and while he sounded a little more sympathetic than the new group you were faced with, if things began to escalate you doubted he’d do anything to stop it. And then, leaning in to speak quieter to the man with the scar, he said, “She might be one’a Chisaki’s girls…”

The man with the scar set his cards facedown on the edge of the table, pushing up from his seat with a sigh and strolling over to take a closer look at you. He leaned down to be on your level, his face only inches from yours as he studied your smeared lipstick and running mascara. He asked you, voice lowered to a quiet growl, “You one’a Chisaki’s girls? And don’t lie to me now, because, y’know that if you are, we don’t really have a choice here, right?”

He noticed you were shaking, your stare still spread wide with trauma and your jaw clenched shut as you felt tears begin to well in your eyes. You weren’t acting anymore. You didn’t have to. Not when every bit of this suddenly felt all too real.

“Shit…” he exhaled, seeming to come to his own conclusion as he straightened back to his full height, running his gaze up and down your bruised body. He seemed to be considering something, the room filling with an eerie, anticipatory silence, until he nodded to himself and said to the group that had guided you in, “Did you check for the brand?”

You felt your blood run cold.

Slowly backing away, as if intending to make a getaway and escape from eight armed men, your tears spilled over the edge, a few sparkling droplets racing down your cheeks in pairs as your back met something solid behind you.

His hands took hold of your shoulders before you’d even finished turning around to look at him, and you gasped when you looked back in front of you, the scarred man having closed the gap that had grown between you in barely a second.

“We’re really gonna need ya to cooperate, sweetheart,” he said, gravelly, condescending tone laced with a heavily implied command. “Or else we’re gonna have’ta hurt ya. And I don’t really think you would like that, would you?”

“Please—” you breathed, trying to twist free of your captor’s strong hold. You swallowed hard and then attempted to speak louder, fear crackling through your voice as you frantically stammered, “I— I don’t have a brand! I’m not one of Chisaki’s girls! Please, just— Just let me go. I swear I’ll—”

“Let you go?” the scarman repeated, clicking his tongue and flashing you a look of sarcastic concern as if to say “it’s so cute that you think that”. His friends were flanking him now, a wall of them stretching out before you with the others guarding the exit behind. He said, “Nah, sorry, hon, but that’s not how this works…” Before you could even get out one more syllable of a bargain or a plea, he nodded towards you and instructed his friends with two simple, condemning words. “Check ‘er.”

The hold on you vised tighter, another one of them coming to assist as your struggle increased, holding you in place as you thrashed and kicked and tried to get away. Your foot made contact with one of their thighs and you heard a growl of impatience right before a hand wrapped around your throat, squeezing just enough to scare you at first, then hard enough to choke you until you settled down.

“So that’s how you want it to be then?” Scar sighed, sounded disappointed with you. All activity to “search you” ceased for the moment as the others awaited his approval to continue. He reclaimed his original seat, looking rather bored with the whole ordeal now, slouching back and crossing one ankle over his knee. Then he snapped at the others, “Well the fuck are you waiting for? Hurry up and see if she has the brand!” Then, more so to himself, “If not, I call first dibs.”

You were crying. You were begging. You were writhing as several more sets of hands joined in the effort to try and rid your clothing from your body in search of Chisaki’s brand— the identical mark he had burned into all his whores to make sure no one else could try and claim them for their own. And while you had no idea who this Chisaki man was, just knowing he was notorious for such things made you feel like you were trapped in a vicious nightmare.

Before they could get your dress past your waist though, you let out an ear-piercing shriek, a kind of razor-sharp wail, stunning the men around you for a second before one of them went to clap a hand to your mouth, but he miscalculated slightly and allowed you the perfect opportunity to sink your teeth deep into the space between his pointer finger and thumb, clamping down until you felt a burst of bitter copper hit your tongue, coating your mouth in nauseating warmth.

You didn’t hear the man yelp over the pounding of your own panicked heart, though weren’t able to hold on for long as a thick, sharp-knuckled fist collided with your temple, causing you to fall slack for a moment as your head spun with vertigo and pain.

“Fuckin’ bitch—!” you heard someone swear through the muffled ringing that ran between your ears. You coughed out a pathetic sounding groan as your head lolled slightly to the side, your eyes fluttering and rolling as reality sloshed inside your vision like a fishbowl rocking back and forth on the edge of a shelf, just about ready to tip. “God— Bit me fuckin’ hard!”

“Oh shut up and finish it already!” the scarman barked, but when the others hesitated, too distracted with watching the blood well and spill down their friend’s wrist in fat red rivulets, a few drops already dripping down onto the floor and staining the dirty concrete, he pushed up from his seat and marched over, roughly hiking your dress up the rest of the way and quickly scanning for the telltale mark. Unable to find it on the front or back of you, he yanked the thin fabric back down to cover your body, completely uninterested in whatever ideas he had for you prior, and then decided, “Y’know what, fuck this. Bring her to the boss and have him decide what to do. She ain’t worth the trouble.”

You were just sort of coming back to, though tried to stay as silent and still as possible for now, hoping it might buy you some time. You heard someone say, “C’mon man, wouldn’t be the first time we had a biter—” but was cut off by a distant crash-and-shatter sound that drew their collective hivemind attention in the direction that it came.

“What the fuck now?” Scar grumbled, and then, “Y’know what— Ok, you four, go back to guarding the front. If the boss finds out we left this place unattended he’ll have all our heads. You two, go see what that was all about, and you—” gesturing to the one you’d bitten, “fuckin’ tie her up or some shit until all this chaos is resolved and Jiro can decided what to do with ‘er.”

“And what about you?” one of them asked.

“I’m goin’ out for a smoke. And I swear, if any of you fuckers so much as even think about peekin’ at my cards, I’ll shoot you in the face myself. Reconvene in an hour—” A chuckle, the sound almost playful, teasing. “And don’t think I intend on lettin’ any of you off easy. I’m still gonna rob you blind at the end of the night.”

Some of them laughed. Some of them scoffed. All of them then went off to do as they’d been told, leaving you alone with Bitten-Hand, who kept mumbling passive-aggressive complaints under his breath about how he was always left cleaning up everyone else’s mess.

You let him drag your limp body to another corner of the room, fought the urge to jump up and run right then and there. But it wasn’t until you heard him shuffle a few feet away from you, cracking your view open to see him struggling with some zipties, that something inside you said, loud and bright, now.

You sprung up and dashed for the door, nearly stumbling over your own feet but surged with adrenaline again, which helped with the pain that was currently reduced to a faint throbbing behind your eyes and, well, almost everywhere else on your body at this point too.

You heard Bitten-Hand call out a more-desperate-than-angry, “Hey, wait!” just before you threw yourself against the door and came barreling back out into the hall. You didn’t look behind you to see if he was following. You knew he was. The sound of his boots hitting the concrete further down the long stretch of hallway behind you told you as much. But you didn’t stop running. Didn’t slow down.

You felt your eyes welling with tears again, your chest heaving with ragged, panting breaths as you neared the next corner. Maybe you could lose him, find some vacant room to slip into or some bit of cover to dive behind. But the moment you rounded the turn, you felt yourself getting yanked off to the side, a new palm covering your mouth as the other arm wrapped around your waist, submerging you both into the thick black darkness once again.

***

It hadn’t been easy, but Jiro had, in the end, gotten Dabi handcuffed to the busted old refrigerator. And no matter how hard he tried to yank against the pull handle the cuffs were liked around, the damn things wouldn’t give.

The room was empty, Jiro gone off to fetch his cronies, and the safe lay still as a stone where it had slid from the broken coffee table to underneath the wooden shipping crates. Dabi tried to force himself free once more, but it was no use. Plus, he was exhausted from everything that had led up to this too. He pressed his forehead to the cold steel of the stolen fridge and just breathed out a wobbly, defeated, “Fuck…”

He didn’t even have it in him to be pissed off at his own shitty life decisions for landing him here right now. What he was really angry about was how he’d roped you into all of this. Sure, the original plan had benefited from the part you had to play in it, but right from the start Dabi knew he should’ve just done this himself. It might’ve been riskier, taken him longer, but he was willing to bet he would’ve at least come out of it with something in the end. Either way, all it would’ve taken was one fuck up, but at least it would’ve just been his consequences to suffer.

Tomura was probably already shot dead and bleeding out in a hallway somewhere, he figured. That didn’t really bother him that much, given the fact that, because of Tomura’s abandonment, Dabi was, regretfully and beyond irritatingly, handcuffed to a fucking refrigerator and basically waiting to get the shit beat out of him before he was murdered as the grand finale.

But you…

God, he’d never forgive himself for that.

So be it, he thought. Let them kill me. I fucking deserve it at this point anyway.

And so he waited.

Dabi stood there and waited to die.

***

The grip around you flexed slightly as you began to struggle, though, unlike your last encounter with people who wished to do you harm, the more of a fight you put up, the looser the hold on you became.

It wasn’t until you whirled around and let out a terrified sob that you caught a glimpse of silver amidst the shadows and a quick flash of those crimson eyes.

“T-Tomura…?” you squeaked, entire being beginning to shake with relief rather than horror now.

“Jesus— Are you ok?” he whispered, hands cautiously hovering about you like he was afraid even a single touch would make it worse. “You’re all—”

“Wait—” you cut in, pushing him back against the wall of the small closet of a room, pressing yourself against his chest until you heard Bitten-Hand’s running footsteps pass your cover and disappear down the next hall. You let out a shaking sigh, resting your forehead against his chest and trying to catch your breath, feeling a panic attack coming on but fighting to keep it at bay.

Slowly, and somewhat hesitantly, Tomura gently wrapped his long, spindly arms around your shivering form, holding you against him but in a way that made you feel safe, not trapped. And you were crying again, you think, your sobs muffled by his shirt and his skin as he stroked the back of your tousled hair and just kept on repeating in a low murmur, “It’s ok, I’m here. It’s ok,” until you were able to calm down enough to feel like separating from his grasp wouldn’t completely shatter your world.

And the next words out of your mouth were ones that shocked you both. Because where you’d meant to say, “We need to get out of here,” instead what came out was, “Where’s Dabi?”

Tomura stammered for a second, stalling, and then just admitted, “I don’t know.”

“Well we need to find him and get the fuck out of here,” you stated, panicked severity working back into your tone. “Forget the money. We just have to go.”

Tomura opened his mouth to protest— whether it was the idea of going back for Dabi or forgetting the money, he didn’t know— but then he registered the suffering in your eyes, the suffering that was written all over your body in bruises he knew he or Dabi hadn’t given you in preparation for this whole robbery-gone-wrong, and then bit back his reluctance, nodded firmly, and said, “Ok. But stay close to me.”

You didn’t intend to stray from his side. In fact, more often than not you found yourself clutching his arm as you both navigated your way back to the room where Tomura had seen the third member of your crew last, a few times almost causing him to trip.

“Should be just down this hall,” Tomura told you, checking to make sure the coast was clear before lightly pulling you along behind him. Oddly, you hadn’t seen anyone else in a while. You’d tried to compare notes, Tomura saying there had originally been three in the room you were doubling back to, you saying there had been five at the front but only four had led you inside to the room where another four had been waiting. Making it twelve you’d seen so far.

“But I bet there’s more than that skulking around this place,” Tomura muttered. He was willing to bet the total count was somewhere near double that, given how big the place was and the fact that you guys had only really traversed about half of it. Then, irritated, “Fuck, this whole thing was just a big fucking mistake…”

“Tomura…” you spoke, almost sympathetically. Then, figuring you probably didn’t have much else left to lose, you said, “Y’know, for what it’s worth, I’m really glad we hit you with the car that night.”

And when he looked at you, you were actually smiling. The expression was far softer or sweeter than you had a right to wear, given the current situation, and yet…

Tomura smiled too. “I’m really glad you hit me with the car that night too,” he said. “And even if—” He had to stop himself, finding the words even if we do die tonight to be a little harder to admit to than usual. He cleared his throat, then started from scratch. “Well, I just want you to know that spending the last few days with you has probably been the highlight of my entire life.”

And, god, how you wanted to just reach up and kiss him in that moment. To twine your fingers through his fluffy white waves and taste him one last time. And maybe you might’ve, just shrugged and thought, fuck it, before making one more bad decison before you all died here. But you didn’t get the chance before another figure turned down the long hallway, stopped in his tracks as he registered two unknowns before him, a long blade gleaming in the low light from where it was clutched in his hand by his side.

Jiro didn’t bother asking any stupid questions or attempting to monologue his sinister schemes that time. Instead, he just started straight for the two of you, not in a run, but a fast-paced walk that somehow made things seem all the more dire.

“Fuck!” Tomura gasped, already pulling you back down the hall from whence you’d just come before you could even figure out what was going on. You didn’t remember to ask, either. You just tried to keep up with Tomura as the man with the machete approached closer on your heels, all of you sprinting now.

Tomura must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere though, because suddenly he slammed to a halt and looked around with certainty as an even more worrying, “Uhhh…” escaped his chapped lips.

This was a part of the warehouse none of you had seen before, a wide room filled with all kinds of stolen goods— cars, appliances, pills, handbags, jewelry, you name it— sort of similar to Spinner’s contraband museum but nowhere near as glamorous or organized, but luckily, just in the nick of time, you and Tomura ducked behind a stacked display of tires that looked like they belonged to eighteen-wheelers, trying to cease your heavy breathing and hope Jiro didn’t know the ins and outs of this place too much better than you did.

“Wanna know the best thing about this place?” Jiro’s voice rang out as he began to navigate through the tightly packed space, hunting for you. “There’s only one way in and one way out, so…” He jumped up into the bed of a rusty old pickup truck, one foot propped up on the edge as he scanned the cluttered chaos, looking rather satisfied with himself. “All I really have to do is wait.” You and Tomura exchanged looks caught between despair and panic.

You could now consider yourselves officially trapped.

“I have an idea,” Tomura whispered, “but it’s gonna require us to split up.”

Instantly, you grabbed onto him, eyes gone wide with terror as you frantically replied, “No— We need to stay together until we get out of here!”

“Just trust me, it’ll only—”

“Don’t leave me again—” You were near sobbing now, bloodshot eyes welling with a fresh film of sparkling tears. You covered your mouth to try and contain the sounds that threatened to hitch in your chest, lest you give away your current position and alert Jiro, all the while mumbling incoherent pleas that all pretty much roughly translated to the same thing.

“Alright, just— Listen.” He placed his hands on your shoulders, felt you trembling beneath his palms. It took a few tries to get through to you, but eventually he had enough of your attention to explain, “We won’t have to go very far. Basically, each of us will take a side of the room. We’ll take turns making distractions to lure Jiro away from the door. Once we’ve got him far enough we can just sneak out and—”

“But what if—” What if something went wrong. What if Tomura was caught or you were caught and then you were killed. What if. What if. What if. What if.

You couldn’t get past the image of that machete buried into the side of one of your necks or sticking straight up from the center of your chests.

Taking a steadying breath, you tried to calm yourself down, then came to the conclusion that this was your best shot. “Alright,” you agreed, though every fiber of your being was fighting against the thought. “I’ll take the left, you take the right. But Tomura…” You looked into his eyes, searching for something, and then, in your moment of hesitation, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours. It was a chaste kiss. Quick. Over before it really had the chance to begin. But it was enough for now. It was the promise for more once you made it out alive.

“I’ll be careful,” he said, cracking a tiny smile, as if he’d read your mind. “And don’t worry, I’ll pull him further to my side so he doesn’t get too close to yours. Just keep your head down and don’t let him know which one of us is which.” You weren’t feeling too confident, gazing down and off to the side as you worried your bottom lip between your teeth. As soon as he spoke your name though, tone sweet and soothing, you glanced back up at him. “You can do this,” he told you. “We can do this.”

Somehow, even if they were simple words that might turn out to be completely untrue, hearing them gave you the resolve you needed to participate in this plan. So off you went, carefully weaving your way through fishtanks full of broken jewelry and plastic bins of prescription drugs. Once you reached the far back corner, your eyes landed on some kind of big, blown glass sculpture, the art speckled through with a rainbow of color. It stood almost as tall as you did, and as you considered it you wondered why, and how, these guys had managed to bring it back to their base in one piece. Maybe it was worth a fortune, but it wouldn’t matter anymore, because with both hands placed against its side and a good push, it tipped, fell to the ground and shattered.

Jiro perked up from where he was still perched in the truckbed, tightening his grip on the machete’s handle as he swiveled around to face the direction the sound had come from. He chuckled darkly, the taunt echoing faintly throughout the room, and then jumped down from the truck with a heavy thud, starting in the direction of the crash.

“Ready to come out and play?” he provoked, a husky, off-key sing-song tone to his words, his footsteps scuffing closer your way. When he passed a severed car door, passengers side, from the looks of it, he scraped the end of the blade against the steel, a grating screech reverberating closer to where you tried your hardest not to cower in the corner.

And honestly, Jiro hoped he’d find you first. He hoped he’d get his hands on you, get to feel you writhe and squirm and struggle under his hold. He would relish in the look of horror that filled Tomura’s eyes as he was forced to watch your throat part with a thin red smile, deeper, darker crimson soon spilling out and soaking the front of you until you choked on your own blood and fell limp and lifeless to the ground.

Then he’d go for the scrawny, scraggly, scratch-track streaked boy before he even had a chance to register the scene unfolding before him. He’d make a gorey mess of him too, only allowing you two to lie together one last time right before he had his boys drag your mangled corpses out back and burn the remains, scattering them into the bay before daybreak.

And Dabi…

Well, he figured he might want to force Dabi watch his friends’ bodies go up in flames right before he joined them in the grave too.

“Y’know, for what it’s worth,” Jiro began, his voice now way too close to your corner for comfort. For a moment— as much as you hated to even consider the idea— you began to fear that Tomura had merely been using you as bait, allowing you to take the fall while he made a quick and easy getaway. “If you guys had done this without Dabi, you might’ve stood a chance. I’ll admit, I didn’t see it comin’…” You were getting antsy now, ready to bolt off in any direction that wasn’t Jiro’s.

“And you…” His voice was practically hovering right above you now, all of your limbs suddenly locked with prey-like terror. Jiro’s ugly mug came into view from over the edge of your cover, his beady gaze colliding with your wide, terrified one, reminding you of your boss, the same perverse hunger glowing at the center of them. Shark’s eyes. “I think I might have a little fun with you first after a—”

Your body lurched with a sudden jolt, more tears spilling from your eyes and rolling down your ruddy cheeks to meet under your chin and drip onto your chest as you saw Jiro’s eyes glaze over and then roll, his sentence reduced to a thin, feeble whine for but a moment as his entire body stiffened and then went slack, dropping to the floor like a bag of rocks.

The machete slid from his grip and when his head smacked against the concrete, it left a rorschach smattering of red there, the back of his skull blooming with a hemorrhage.

You opened your mouth to let out a scream, but all that escaped was a distraught, animal moan.

You didn’t even notice Tomura’s figure looming like a shadow behind where the man’s body had just stood, a crowbar still raised with vengeful intent as if he thought the man he’d struck down would rise and try again. You were too busy watching the blood well and spill into a puddle on the floor.

“Are you ok?” he was saying to you, but all his words were muffled by the blood singing through your ears, everything around you feeling like it was swaying, body becoming lighter, head growing dizzier, until Tomura wrapped his arms around you, tucking your face into his chest to hide the view beyond him from your sight. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just— I saw the opportunity and I took it.”

Reality came crashing back over you like a violent, white-rimmed wave. You felt like you were going to be sick.

“It’s ok now,” Tomura kept on repeating, hugging you close, almost hard enough to crush you. “Let’s just go. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

You couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. So you just let Tomura help you to your feet, grabbing up the machete on his way, as your team was severely lacking in weapons, and guide you towards the exit.

“Wait here,” he told you, still speaking quietly, afraid raising his voice any louder would destroy what little was left of you. “I forgot to get the keys.”

“The keys…?” you muttered, but Tomura was already gone.

Luckily, the journey to Jiro’s corpse and back was a short one, Tomura a little more familiar with the layout of the room now. He unhooked the ring that jingled with at least twelve different keys from Jiro’s belt loop, thumbing through them and hoping at least one of them would be useful to you down the line. He’d played enough games to know that sometimes even the smallest of items could be the difference between clearing the level and game over if left behind.

When he returned to you, you were curled in on yourself, arms wrapped around your shivering body with your forehead resting on your knees.

How much had you been through, up until now? And how more would you have to endure before all this suffering and trauma could finally come to and end?

“Hey…” He extended a hand toward you, feeling a little bit of the weight of his worry lift when you looked up at him, now appearing more tired than terrorized. “C’mon,” he said. “It’s time to go.”

“Dabi—”

“We’ll get him,” he promised, though didn’t sound so sure. And then, repeating more resolutely, “We’ll get him.”

Whether Dabi was even still alive, there was no way to know. But, for your sake at least, as much as Tomura was still caught between despising and respecting him, he found himself hoping that the third member of your trio had somehow survived.

***

It was sort of eerie, Dabi was beginning to think, that no one— not a single soul— had been seen or heard within his vicinity since Jiro had left him alone.

Hadn’t he gone off to get the others? Y’know, gather everyone ‘round for a good ol’ fashioned torture party?

But it had been too long. The place was big, but not that big. And the fact that none of the others had returned, even just out of coincidence, curiosity, or boredom, was weird too.

And what about you and Tomura?

Were you two even still alive, or had you just escaped without him, left him here to die?

All of them sounded like likely options, but still, the little sliver of hope that lodged itself in Dabi’s heart like a thorn told him to wait just a little bit longer before he started mourning the first real friends he could’ve had.

But even if you guys did come back for him, there was still the whole handcuffed to a refrigerator dilemma to deal with. You might have no choice but to leave him to be devoured by the wolves anyway.

“…Down here I think…” Dabi’s head lifted from where it rested against the side of the fridge, the rough, whispery voice dangerously familiar only for the fact that it made that slice of hope inside him twist like a blade. “Are you sure you can walk? You can always get on my back and I can carry you…”

“No, I think I’m ok, thanks…” Dabi’s heart fluttered at the sound of your voice. It made him wonder if he had dozed off and was dreaming, or if maybe somehow he was already dead and this was his own fucked up version of heaven.

And then there you were, looking like hell but still alive, one arm slung over Tomura’s shoulder, who also looked a little worse for wear but then again, didn’t he sort of always?

“Oh my god—!” Dabi barked out an incredulous laugh, the sound sharp but full of light, like the sun reflecting off of broken glass. “Oh my fucking god!”

“What the fuck?” Tomura asked once he registered Dabi’s current predicament.

It was then that Dabi’s disposition suddenly shifted, a deep scowl etched into his inky brows. “Yeah, what the fuck, Tomura?” He roughly jangled the chain linking the cuffs together against the handle of the fridge, as if he needed to further accentuate his point.

Tomura helped you down onto the nearest couch, leaving the machete by your side, and you were grateful for the rest and the weapon. Then he approached Dabi, slowing to a halt a few feet away and staring at him, hands shoved into his pockets like he was wracking his brain for a solution. Dabi stood, trying again, and failing, to yank himself free.

“Shit won’t budge!” he stated with an irritated shrug. “And I’m not too fuckin’ keen on dislocating my thumb.”

Tomura let out a sigh. You stared at your ravaged reflection in the gleam of the machete. Dabi shook the cuffs against the stainless steel just for the hell of it.

Then, finally, Tomura said, “Yeah, well, that guy who’s their leader or whatever is dead.”

In that moment, something made you look over and lock eyes with Dabi, his piercing blue gaze boring right into you, and then, you realized, the machete.

“Jiro’s dead…?” he repeated, though it was hard to tell whether he was shocked or devastated. Maybe a twisted mix of both. A crooked, deranged smirk then began to break out across his face, a maniacal chuckle bubbling up from deep within his chest until it became a full blown bout of hysteria.

This could’ve gone on for ten seconds, or it could’ve gone on for several minutes. Time seemed to shimmer and sway like sand through an hourglass, ungraspable, uncountable. It wasn’t until Tomura had had enough of all this madness, oddly enough, that he pulled out the ring of keys, the gentle jingle of them shutting Dabi up like a door slammed closed.

“No fuckin’ way!” Dabi exclaimed, his surprise genuine and almost endearing. Before Tomura even had a second to act or respond he blurted out, “Well— God, hurry up and unlock me already!”

You heard Tomura shifting through the keys, mumbling something to himself while Dabi craned his neck forward to try and pick the right one out. But the more they passed that weren’t the right one, the more anxious Dabi started to become. Until finally, the second to last key—

“Oh, oh!” Dabi called out. “That’s it! Hurry, hurry!”

Tomura put the small silver key into the cuffs’ tiny keyhole and turned it, the cuffs clattering to the concrete with a satisfying clank.

Dabi let out a stuttering sigh of disbelief, rubbing his wrists and relishing in his unexpected freedom for a moment before remembering the safe.

Perhaps this nightmare of an evening wouldn’t end up as a complete waste of time after all.

“Alright,” Dabi declared, strolling over to reach under the crate and swipe up the safe, tucking it snugly under his arm. “Let’s split, while we still can. We just have to—”

A loud bang immediately followed by a high whistle sang through the air as a bullet whizzed by and struck one of the crates directly behind Dabi, missing him to the left by only a hair. Tomura yanked both you and him behind the cover of the fridge as several more attempted to strike you, more guns firing from just beyond the cage of crumbling concrete you were now trapped within.

“Shit—!” Dabi swore under his breath, clutching the metal box to his chest like it would shield him, like it would save him.

“What now?” Tomura barked impatiently, having grown tired of all the mishaps this mission had brought several mishaps ago.

“Do we just run for it?” you tossed in, panicked.

“Uhh…” Dabi stalled, his own trepidation beginning to bubble up to the surface. More bullets struck the steel of the refrigerator, pinging off but approaching your cover with more and more accuracy, warning of the fact you were all about to be closed in on. Then, seeming to regain himself, you saw those cold blue eyes ignite with surety as he declared, “On the count of three, we all scatter. Meet back at the car, whoever gets there first, be ready to fuckin’ floor it once they get close enough to hit the tires—”

“No, wait— What about—” You began to protest.

“One—”

You weren’t going to make it out of this alive.

“Jesus, man! Just hold on a fucking second!”

They would mow you down the moment you showed yourself.

“Two—”

None of you were going to make it out of this alive.

“Oh, god! Please don’t—!”

Dabi flicked his gaze to meet yours. Held it as he said, “Three!”

And then you all ran for your lives.

Their aim followed in a tight trail at your heels, threats and shouts echoing behind you as you and Tomura bolted off in one direction and Dabi in another. He’d said for all of you to split up, but you hadn’t gotten the lay of the land like they had. You were lost without Tomura, though, honestly, he could only do his best to retrace his steps without Dabi around to lead the way.

But then he pulled you down the long stretch of hallway that Tomura now recalled being the first one he had walked down, the space narrower, the fluorescent lights flickering pale puddles against the scuffed cement floor.

“It’s this way,” he said, voice low but urgent, just on the cusp of disbelief that at least you two might have a chance at escape.

Dabi, on the other hand…

He’d been stuck with taking the long way around, several more guys in pursuit of him given he had what they valued most. And there’d been a fleeting moment where he wondered if there would be anything in the safe at all once he cracked it open, but with how desperately the others chased after him now, he knew it must be the whole damn lot.

And once they found out Jiro was dead, then what? Which one of them would rise to the top to take his place? Or would they all just end up killing each other in the end, fighting over their leader’s scraps like starving wild dogs?

Dabi skid around another corner, pulling down an empty metal shelf as he rushed by that was leaned against the wall in hopes that the slight obstacle might buy him a few more seconds of time. He felt a bullet graze his calf, bit his tongue at the sting of it, but forced himself to keep running. Soon he was around the bend to that telltale hallway, the final stretch, his chest heaving, lungs burning with the effort to travel as fast as his legs could carry him.

When he burst through the doors, the cool night air flooding his senses, he felt himself begin to slow his pace, entire body buzzing with adrenaline and relief all in the same breath. But then he heard another gunshot from the other side of the heavy metal push-doors and was shocked back to reality, which was that he wouldn’t be truly in the clear until he made it back to his warehouse, which meant he first had to make it back to the car.

He frantically searched the immediate surrounding area, looking for something, anything to block the door with. He found an old wooden rake and slotted it between the door bars. It wouldn’t hold for long, especially not with the force of at least four men trying to bust through on the other side, but it would be enough to at least gain the distance he needed on them.

The first slam-retract of the doors attempting to be broken past came when he was only about four yards away. Another by the time he was six, and after that, he stopped paying attention.

Because there was the car, sitting dark and patient off in the distance, two figures he recognized as you and Tomura hopping in, Tomura in the driver’s side and—

Dabi nearly halted in his tracks when the grinding, squealing horror of an engine that wouldn’t start pierce through the sloshing ambiance of the nearby bay. He heard a crash behind him, the handle of the rake splintering in half, a barrage of armed men racing his way.

“Guys—!” Dabi shouted, now close enough for you to hear him. You popped your head out from the passenger side’s rolled down window, dried tears still streaking your mascara smeared cheeks, hair a tousled mess and clothing all askew in the frenzy.

“It won’t start!” you half sobbed, half shrieked.

Tomura turned the key in the ignition again, earning the same, blood-chilling result.

“Fuck— Move over!” Dabi snapped, practically yanking Tomura out of the driver’s side as he tossed the safe into the back seat. Tomura didn’t get angry or wait for Dabi to solve the problem. There was no time. He jumped into the backseat to join the safe, and after one final, miraculous try, the engine purred back to life and Dabi slammed the door shut behind him, flooring it away from that nightmare as more bullets hit the ground just inches from your tires, one bursting through the back window as he swerved hard, nearly throwing you from the car as you scrambled to put on your seatbelt, and disappeared from the edge of the outskirts with nothing but a cloud of dust and the smell of burning rubber to remember him by.

***

You were not happy when you returned to the warehouse.

You were not giddy and curious enough to stay awake while Tomura and Dabi tried to crack open the safe.

You might’ve felt relieved to be alive, if not for the growing ache in your bones, flesh tender with bruises and the ghost of forceful hands that had grabbed you. Mainly, you just wanted to wash this day from your skin, to soak and scrub every last inch of your body until you felt like yourself again.

But instead what you did was find the quietest corner of the base to collapse in and fell asleep.

***

The following morning, early, when the sky was still pale with dawn’s soft, lulling light, you were awoken by the jittery mumbling of hysteria.

“…Holy shit—”

“—can’t fucking believe…”

“No, no, hold on…”

“…think we could just…”

“…not a good idea, it’s probably—”

You rose from your slumber, limbs heavy and aching with the night before, slowly rising to stand with a groan. You pulled the blanket further around your shoulders, a slight chill skittering up your spine, the slightly-too-big silk dress you hadn’t changed out of still clinging around your legs like a veil of cold as you slowly shuffled your way closer to all the hubbub.

“If I had a dollar for every time I…”

“Dude, it’s not even—”

“Sure it is, but only if you know the right people…”

The voices were getting clearer now, words spoken hurried, but hushed.

“She’s gonna freak when she sees this—” Dabi.

A raspy chuckle, and then, “Should I go see if she’s awake?” Tomura.

You rounded the corner of patchwork walls, some of the dividers a little leaning or lopsided in places, and announced with a sleep-rusted tone, “I am awake.” You cleared your throat, looked from the boys to the table in front of them, eyes widening when you saw the array of cash spread across the chipped wood, so much of it that it covered the entire surface and still left Dabi and Tomura clutching bundles of it in their hands.

“Holy shit—” you gasped, rushing over to kneel before the table, scooping up some of the bills and cradling them in your hands like they were delicate enough to turn to ash at just the slightest flex in your grip. “Is this really— You guys got it open?”

Dabi plopped down on the sofa across from you, Tomura opting for a seat on the floor, always needing to be closer to you, though whether that was out of necessity or habit now was lost to you both.

“Wasn’t fuckin’ easy…” Dabi drawled through a smirk. “But yeah. About half an hour ago.”

Your smile was widening, slowly but surely, like a flower blooming up through a crack in the concrete, hope fighting its way to the surface. “Oh my god…” You felt like maybe you were still dreaming, like you’d blink open bleary eyes and find yourself curled up under a frayed old blanket all over again like the day had reset itself. “How much is—”

“We’re still counting it,” Tomura cut in, handing you one of the thick wads of cash to thumb through, letting the bills fan through your fingers like one of those flip-books that made little doodles look like animations. “But we think it’s somewhere around fifty-thousand.”

You looked up to gaze upon their faces. Dark bruises hung under their bloodshot eyes, the most obvious sign that they hadn’t slept. They’d been up all night trying to crack the safe, desperation skittering like ants through their veins until success had brought them the catharsis of feeling like they’d earned their much needed rest.

“We decided…” Dabi began, leaning forward to set his stack of cash on the cluttered table, elbows perched on his knees as his fingers laced loosely to dangle before him. “Each of us will count it individually.”

“All of it?” you asked, eyeing the money-flood that drenched the table.

Dabi nodded. “All of it.”

“That way we know, when we all come up with the same amount, that the split will be even,” Tomura further explained, scooting closer to you still.

“And then…” you uttered absentmindedly, still in a daze.

“And then,” Dabi replied, “we can all go our separate ways…”

He leaned back to lounge against the couch, one hand cradling the back of his skull while the other remained bent awkwardly across his lap. His elbow was definitely fractured and he’d sustained a slight concussion, but for now, he figured, that could wait.

“Or…” he continued after a few beats of heavy silence, a tangible uncertainty hanging between you and Tomura as if you’d thought you’d heard him wrong.

“Or?” you pressed.

“Oh, I dunno…” Dabi sighed. “I was just thinkin’, we make sort of a not-so-terrible team—”

“You mean, besides all the shit that went wrong and nearly got us killed back there?” Tomura posed, unamused.

Dabi resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He was too tired to argue right now. “I mean, despite the odds, we still came out on top. And it wouldn’t have worked without the three of us— y’know, aside from you abandoning the plan halfway through—”

“I saved your life—” Tomura cut in.

Under his breath, Dabi muttered, “Don’t know if I’d go that far, but—”

“Oh, I’m sorry—” Tomura, on the other hand, still had some fight left in him. “Next time I’ll make sure to leave you handcuffed to a fucking refrigerator so those guys can use you as target practice—”

“Ok! Ok—!” You called over their useless bickering, hands held out as if trying to keep them from advancing on each other, despite neither of them looking even halfway to making any kind of physical move. “Enough! None of that matters now. Next time, we’ll all stick to the plan, and make sure there’s a plan B just in case.”

“Not to mention,” Dabi continued, still droning with his I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude, “technically, Tomura, you shouldn’t even get the same cut as us since you didn’t really contribute as much—”

“Oh, fuck off!” Now Tomura stood, looking ready to throw a punch.

“Kidding—! I’m just kidding. Jesus…” Dabi was quick to remedy. Tomura relaxed a little, slowly lowering back to his seat beside you as you grabbed his hand and pulled him back to his senses.

“That’s another thing,” you said. “No matter what, if we do this, we all get the same share. No exceptions.” You locked eyes with Dabi, held his striking sapphire glare until you feared you might crack and shatter under the intensity of it. But then, begrudgingly, he clicked his tongue and agreed.

“Fine,” he said. “But if either of you ever leaves me without backup again, I’ll make sure none of us gets anything.”

“Whatever, man…” Tomura mumbled, cheek resting in his palm, the exhaustion trying to ambush him.

“Well, same goes for me,” you pointed out. “I mean, was it even ever really in your plan to come help me out if things went south on my end?”

Dabi opened his mouth to defend himself, maybe protest, but then closed it again when he realized you had him on that one.

“Dude,” Tomura snapped, his grip tightening around your hand protectively. “What the hell? You said—”

“I know what I said!” Dabi shouted over the accusation. Then, simmering down a little, raking a shaky hand through his inky hair, “Fuck, just… I didn’t think it was gonna play out like that. I really didn’t. I mean, I knew it was risky, for all of us—” You shot him a bitter glare, causing him to backtrack with, “For you, especially, ok. I knew that. But I really thought—” He pulled his tattooed hands down his pale face, brain on its way to short circuiting from lack of sleep. “I never would’ve asked you to do it if I really thought those guys would…” But he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. To finish the thought.

“Ok…” you exhaled, figuring that was as close as you were going to get for an apology. “So, now what?”

“Now…” Dabi stood from the couch, boots dragging over the concrete floor as he slowly circled around to you and Tomura’s side of the table, sitting on the other side of you. “Well, now I guess we start counting.”

***

(Well… two years later and I’ve finally managed to finish chapter 2. In truth I’ve been wanting to get back to this series for a long, long time now, but knew it was going to be a big commitment (especially given how much more involved it became shortly after beginning to dive into this chapter) and due to some personal/life stuff I just didn’t have the time. Originally, this series was supposed to only be three chapters, but now it’s looking like it’ll end up being somewhere between five and ten, so please be patient with me while I write it.

But I’m happy to report that, this year, I really want to put a lot of focus into this series. I have some big ideas for it that I’m excited to share, especially the scenes that have literally been living in my mind rent free for over two years now lol. So please look forward to that!

As always, a big thank you so much to everyone for reading! I’ll see you next time! Byyyyyeee~)

28 notes · View notes

pangolinsandnewts · 11 months

Text

A zombie, a ghost, and an oni walk into a bar...

(pspspsps you wanna reblog my art you wanna reblog my art so bad)

130 notes · View notes

mangatxt · 1 year

Text

title: 🌱phototropic🌱 (5.6k words, complete)

fandom: mob psycho 100

relationship: no romantic relationships, serizawa & his mother, serizawa & suzuki, serizawa & reigen

details: rated t, character study, 5+1 things, hurt/comfort, canon compliant, healing, personal growth, angst with a happy ending, serizawa-centric

collection: written for serizawa week 2023

summary: Five times Katsuya couldn't control his powers and one time he could. [Serizawa Week 2023 Day 4 - Emotion / Control]

#mp100 #serizawaweek2023 #serizawa katsuya #mp100 fic #fic updates #my fic #mob psycho 100 #5+1 fic #please mind content warnings in the a/n #sorry guys this one is sad #and also a mess #with a happy ending though #posts this and runs away

34 notes · View notes

charliespringverse · 10 months

Text

rewatching house led to me infodumping at my mother about ao3 and gen z purity culture and honestly . if she didn't want these things to happen to her she shouldn't have had children with a man so incredibly neurodivergent

#there was a logical progression to the infodump . but i fear it was only logical in an adhd way #bc my friend went ''u can rlly tell this is early 2000s bc they wouldn't let him say things like that today''#which led to the ''they Could theoretically make it but like . toned down and also no character would ever be able to agree w him''#which led to the thing of how audiences seem unable to separate depiction from endorsement #like the whole ''if a character is transphobic and nobody in-world calls them evil and wrong then the creator must be transphobic'' thing #which led to the tag system on ao3 and the proship/anti thing abt whether the existence of the archive warning system means they're —#- endorsing/supporting works that contain 'problematic' themes and content #which led to me ranting abt the reasons Why ppl create dark media (eg a story abt csa could be written by a nonce or a survivor)#and my mother was just Sat There like 🧍🏻‍♂️ bc she's a 60 yr old woman and doesn't care about fanfiction or proship/anti discourse #i do this rant/infodump a Lot tho like it's on my mind very often . i love rambling for nearly an hour abt stupid internet culyure #also the quote i think best sums up my entire stance on the proship vs anti thing is from sarah z's video on it #''i am a tax paying adult woman not a member of a fucking fandom war sports team'' which is so me except that i'm a man n i don't pay taxes #((i'm not a tax evader i just don't meet the threshold to pay them))#anygay . i get on a plane in like 15 hours and i need to sleep #jay screams into the void

14 notes · View notes

fairiegardens · 11 months

Text

Read recently

#n #Maame was really really lovely. I loooooved Maddie as a character #I loved the way it ended #Big Swiss is a new all time fav it was absolutely a hoot AND a holler #major content warnings mind you. Greta is such a good one. such a good one #Taste. was unexpectedly tender and moving. of course we all enjoy Stanley tucci but I was! so emotional by the close #it’s very ‘written as he would speak.’ I took my time and read it in the sun. saved a lot of recipes #particularly the cheese stock and bolognese + his wedding menu stand out to me #adored A burst of light. ADORED. it was so wonderful and I was very patient with it #took my time went sloooowly to really soak it in #House of Cotton I enjoyed a lot! def going to keep a pin on this author for the future #I loved Magnolia as a protagonist loved the atmosphere. the plot was terrrrrrifying. adaptation !!???#you already know I loved don’t fear the reaper. SGJ beloved beloved #I’m still marinating in the last few chapters. still sitting on it

5 notes · View notes

gojorgeous · 3 months

Text

"creature of myth."

pairing: vampire!gojo x fem!human!reader summary: when you receive an offer of marriage from a mysterious wealthy lord, it’s too good a deal for your family to turn down. but nothing could be so perfect... right? content: MDNI (18+ ONLY), dark content, nsfw, gets dubcon/noncon in some spots, yandere behavior from gojo, implied death/k*lling of a character (not reader or gojo), arranged marriage, victorian au, plot that ends with porn lmao, spooky dooky vibes, blood, blood sucking/eating, praise, biting, unprotected sex, creampie, virgin!reader, discussion of virginity, cherry popping, pain, pet names (princess/love), reader is highkey clueless about sex, discussion of masturbation, ideas of masturbation as “sinful”, very minor religious themes, fated “mates”, gojo is highkey insane, coercion and manipulation, like SO much neck kissing, ooc gojo??? (had to alter his character to match a victorian vampire lord LMAO). a/n: PLEASE READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS. THERE IS DARK CONTENT AHEAD. is this a gojo fic or a twilight fic?? Going back to my roots fr fr. straight down to the “SAY IT, SAY IT”. this fic is also way too long my apologies bbs. i hope you like a hefty side of plot with your porn. parts of this fic feel way too cheesy to me but sometimes i eat that up, yk?? this fic was inspired by this amazing work by @rice5x ! and, finally, thank you all for the support on my most recent fics. i'm just getting back into being active on this blog and it's been amazing reading each and every comment/reblog/ask. they genuinely fill me with so much joy. keep them coming hehe. anyway, i hope you enjoy and remember, ALL AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED. credits: dividers by @cafekitsune. banner art by @ndsoda on twitter. wc: 11.6k (sowwy)

You remember perfectly the way your mother’s jaw dropped when Satoru Gojo proposed to you. You’d never seen the man, and you still hadn’t. He’d asked to marry you via messenger, a simple letter delivered by hand with a list of all the things he’d be willing to pay for your hand. Offers of money, land, protection, connection- anything so long as he got you. You’d thought it was a joke. Your father nearly took a shovel to the head of the poor messenger, thinking the letter was some kind of cruel prank, some sort of targeted disrespect. You’d only started to believe when you really looked- saw the Gojo crest embroidered on the man’s suit, the fine leather of his boots. If it was a prank, somebody had spent a great deal of money and effort to pull it off.

You’d asked for proof nonetheless, and you’d gotten it. Documents signed and sealed with a well-known waxen crest, gifts that could only have been purchased by a wealthy lord. The one thing you never got was the lord himself. He refused to see you, to come down from his mysterious castle on the hill. It didn’t surprise you. He rarely deemed town worthy of his presence. He had a reputation as a recluse, as a man who only ever liked to see and never be seen. What little glimpses people got of him were usually through the dark window of his carriage. Still, his appearance preceded him. White hair, light eyes… “haunting” said those who had the luck to see him. Those who went to work for the lord tended to return… changed— if they returned at all.

You accepted, of course. How could you not? You were a peasant family with no status or wealth to your name. The promises Lord Gojo had made would make your parents into aristocrats all on their own. But that left you wondering… why did he want you? You offered him no benefit. If anything, you sullied his bloodline. The question scratched at the back of your mind. It came to you while you ate breakfast, while you washed your clothes, while you weeded in the garden. Some part of you told you that you needed the answer before you ever stepped foot in that castle. You needed that answer, but you’d never get it.

Your wedding wasn’t even a wedding- just a piece of paper that had already been signed and witnessed, once again delivered by a familiar messenger. You signed at your dining room table and… that was that. You were married.

Later that night the carriages arrive. Men flood your home, all dressed in blue velvet, the Gojo crest embroidered on their chests. They seem puzzled when you tell them you’ve packed all your belongings into a measly three bags.

You say a quick goodbye to your parents, drawing them into stiff embraces. You love them, and they love you, but you can’t bear to see their faces as they send you away to a man who couldn’t even show his face for your wedding.

The carriage ride is somehow longer than you’d thought it would be- apparently, the castle’s size makes it seem deceptively close. The trip is rocky and twisty and altogether unpleasant as you steadily make your way toward the castle gates. By the time you reach them you think you’ve probably dozed in and out of consciousness at least half a dozen times.

The castle is even more intimidating up close. Spires that swirl into the clouds, sculptures that stare, doors that look more suited to being locked than opened. It’s… terrifying.

When you finally roll to a stop, you move for the door. When you swing it open you get your fair share of strange looks from your attendants and remember that you should have waited for the footman. Your face heats as you climb out anyway, unwilling to subject yourself to the further humiliation of waiting for assistance.

Your feet hit gravel and all you can do is stare- up, up, up, to where the castle’s peaks disappear into the fog. When your eye flashes to a window on the east side of the manor you think you see a swaying curtain. You tuck your arms around yourself and shiver, but it’s not from the cold.

You nearly stumble over your feet on your first step inside. The entrance hall is larger than your former house, with ceilings that stretch so high you can hardly make out the figures on the frescoes that adorn it. Silver and blue drape everywhere, the Gojo family colors. You swallow when you see a chair that is most definitely worth more than your family’s annual income.

The floors are marble and when your worn heels clack against it, you only feel reminded that you don’t belong here. That question pricks in your mind again as you pass portraits of every Gojo heir to have lived in the last three hundred years. Why me? Why me? Why me?

Your footman deposits you in your room, a place more lavish than you’ve ever seen. You have a four poster bed with a canopy of blue velvet, a window that overlooks a sprawling estate, and more square footage than you’ve ever dreamed of.

“Pull this if you need any sort of assistance, ma’am.”

You turn to see your footman referencing a silver cord at your bedside. You assume it’s one of those contraptions that rings a bell in the servants’ quarters. You try to hide your amazement- you’ve never seen one in real life before.

You clear your throat and give your most ladylike nod. “Thank you, um-” you pause, your brow furrowing. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I asked your name.”

Your footman appears stunned to silence, like he’d never expected you to care about his existence, much less his name. He recovers quickly, though, and forces a small smile. “Thomas, ma’am.”

You smile and it’s genuine. “Thank you, Thomas.”He bows and makes a beeline for the door, but you have one more question. “Oh, um, Thomas-” He freezes, turning slowly on his heel to face you.

“Yes, my lady?”

You cringe at the title. The sound of it creeps across your skin, foreign and… wrong. Why me? Why me? Why me?

You clear your throat again. “Do you know, um, well-” You shift, trying to word your question properly. “Do you know when I might see the Lord?”

There is a pause, a moment of tension and silence, and then an answer. “No, my lady.”

Thomas does not stick around for more questioning. The door clicks shut behind him and then you're left with only the sound of retreating footsteps.

You’re stunned to say the least, mouth still halfway open, more questions on the tip of your tongue. Should you seek him out? Was that proper? Would he come to you? Would he meet you for dinner, perhaps? Surely he would come to your room tonight to… consummate. Would that be the first time you lay eyes on him? When he’s over you?

You sigh. There’s nothing much to be done about it now. You find your way to the bed and sit down hesitantly. It feels like a crime to rumple such primped and polished cotton. You do it anyway- it’s going to happen sometime, right? You fall back against the mattress and don’t fail to notice how utterly comfortable it is. The silvery patterns on your canopy swirl and bend together. You’re tired. You didn’t sleep much last night, anxious for the morning… and it’s only mid-afternoon now. You had time for a nap, right? Your eyes are closing before you can convince yourself it’s a bad idea and then you’re swept away into a world of warm darkness.

You wake with a start. Your first thought is that it’s dark now. Your room is pitch black except for the stream of moonlight passing through your stupidly large window. Your mouth feels dry and your skin is cold, like you’ve just woken from a nightmare. If you have, you don’t remember it. Perhaps that’s a blessing.

You sit up, combing a finger through your hair and laughing pitifully when you realize that you left your shoes on as you slept. You hope Thomas didn’t walk in to find you in yet another unladylike position. A glance at the foot of the bed reveals he might have. Your bags have arrived- all three of them. You eye them with a combination of longing and contempt. They don't match this place. They’re worn and used- everything here is shiny and new. Still, they’re all you have, and all you have left of your life before. All you have left of home.

You stretch your arms above your head, nearly groaning at the burn in your muscles. The carriage ride did your body no favors and you suspect you’ll be sore for many days to come.

You rise, no longer content to lie in bed. You’ve had your rest and, from the state of darkness outside, you suspect your new husband might be joining you soon. The thought twists a certain tightness into your gut, but you push it aside. If that was the price you paid for all he gave your family… then you’d pay it gladly.

You start with candles, finding a box of matches at your bedside. You light every candelabra you can find. The room, the castle, seems so perpetually… black- like it soaks up every ray of light it touches. Even when you’ve finished it doesn’t feel like enough. You make a note to ask Thomas for more in the morning.

You find a meal, carefully prepared and preserved, on a table near your dresser. Judging by the fact that it’s still warm, you conclude that it can’t be much past mid-evening. You originally intend to pick at the food as you unpack, but one bite has your mouth watering. It is the most delicious thing to ever touch your lips, complete with dessert waiting on the side. You clean your plate before moving onto your bags.

You lay your clothes out on the bed. A few dresses, riding pants, undergarments, an assortment of ribbons and bows. At one time these items had been the finest things you owned- now you owned a castle.

You find an armoire that looks like a master sculptor carved its edges and grab a dress, intending to hang it. Instead, your dress hits the floor when you part the doors to find the hangers already full. Your lips part. Luxury dresses of silk and satin line the rack, fading into some that appear more casual outfits of cotton and linen. You stretch a hand out, curious and utterly… amazed. To think your new husband had gone to all the effort… Your hand brushes purple silk and-

“Do you like them?”

You screech, jumping to face the voice at your back. It takes a moment for your eyes to find him, leaning casually against one post of your bed. Your breath is stolen for a second time. Snow white hair, piercingly blue eyes, pale soft skin… you know who he is even without looking at his dress, at the air of authority he claims. He’s your husband… and he is the most devastatingly beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

He laughs, then, and it’s a warmer sound than you’d thought it would be- rich and full. A sound that seeps into your bones and settles in your soul.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, but the twinkle in his eyes makes you think that perhaps that’s a lie.

Your heart pounds and your eyes flash to the door. It’s shut. You didn’t hear it open, nor did you hear it close behind him. You also didn’t hear footsteps, didn’t hear breaths, didn’t hear him.

He follows your gaze and laughs again, though it sounds a bit… strained?

“I have a habit of being unintentionally lightfooted. I apologize.”

Your heart is still pounding but you find it in yourself to have some decorum. You snap your jaw shut and bow your head slightly in respect. “You must be Lord Gojo. Forgive me for my insolence.”

There’s a beat, and then footsteps– ones you actually hear this time. You clench your jaw when he stops before you and then nearly gasp when he takes your hand and brings it to his lips.

“Satoru, please,” he winks and you think you might stop breathing. “I am your husband after all.”

You force yourself to nod, to swallow, to act normal. But how can you in the presence of a man that looks like… that? There’s something too unreal about him, too perfect. It’s almost… unsettling.

“Of course… Satoru.”

He straightens and shows you a close-lipped smile that digs a dimple into his left cheek. You have to look away to avoid stumbling over your own feet.

“So, do you like them?” Your brows furrow- “The dresses,” he clarifies.

“O-oh.” Your features relax into an easy smile. You turn back to your armoire, running a hand along another gown. You don’t think you’ve ever touched something so… finely made. “I like them very much. I don’t know how to thank you.”

There’s a little chuckle as you turn to face him again and you have to steel yourself before you meet his eyes. He’s mesmerizing, too mesmerizing. You think you could probably lose yourself in those eyes forever…

“No need to thank me. If they don’t fit, we’ll call for the seamstress in the morning.”

You nod softly, still lost to the situation. There’s a beat of silence in which your husband does nothing but… look at you. His eyes roam freely and the hair on your arms stands under his gaze. He traces the lines of your nose and jaw and lingers on your pulse. Can he see just how fast your heart is pounding?

“Did you… get dinner?” It’s a stupid question, you know, but you don’t think you can bear another second of that look he’s giving you. “I fell asleep and found a plate. I hope I didn’t prevent a proper meal…” You trail off. Perhaps you shouldn’t have pointed out your own shortcoming?

He gives you another smile and you swear he inches just a little closer. “You did no such thing. I’m… perfectly satisfied.”

You nod, glad that he doesn’t seem upset at the very least. Your lips press together, unsure of what to do or say. You’ve never had a husband before. Wasn’t he supposed to just sort of… put you on the bed and… do it?

Your eyes flit to said bed and your husband must see because he hurries to continue.

“Well, I’ll see you in the morning then, hm?” His eyes flit to your armoire and back again. “Wear the blue dress with the lace to breakfast, yeah? Been dying to see it on you.” He chuckles like he’s just told some sort of amusing joke.

Your brows furrow. That was… not the topic you’d been expecting. “You’re not…” You feel your cheeks heat and tighten your jaw. “Not staying the night?”

His lashes lower a fraction and those eyes pierce you again. You don’t think you could move even if you wanted to, even with him prowling closer, each step eating up the space between you. He doesn’t stop until you’re nose to nose and you can feel his breath fanning over your cheeks. It’s cold somehow, chilling, and you shiver. He smirks.

“Not tonight.”

His head dips and for a moment you think he’s going to kiss you, but then he’s bypassing your mouth altogether and- his lips connect to your pulse. His mouth is cool, just like his breath, and you shiver uncontrollably under his touch.

His touch is just a fleeting moment, just a wrinkle in time, and then he’s gone. His footsteps are quiet brushes on the hardwood and the creak of the door even seems tamed in his presence.

“Goodnight,” is all he says, and then he’s gone.

You climb into your bed an hour later wondering what in the world just happened.

You do wear the blue dress to breakfast and you can only gape in the mirror when you realize that it fits perfectly. It has you second-guessing yourself. Had you sent your measurements in advance and forgotten about it? No, you’d only sent a handful of pieces of information to the Lord prior to your marriage and you remembered all of them very clearly. Everything had gone through a messenger, everything had been clear and direct– you would have remembered sending your measurements– you didn’t. So had he just… guessed?

That seemed impossible with how everything fit you like a glove, but it was the only explanation you had. The only one that made sense.

When you join Satoru for breakfast it’s in a sitting room as lavishly decorated as the rest of the castle, but perhaps organized to be a bit more… liveable. He has no plate in front of him, only a tin cup that hides the contents of whatever he’s drinking. You assume coffee or juice. Perhaps he’s just not a breakfast person.

“It fits!” he says. His hands clasp together in front of him and he smiles again, dimples and all.

You nod and fight the heat that bubbles beneath your cheeks as you take your seat. “Yes, perfectly.”

A plate is set before you and a glance up reveals it’s Thomas serving your breakfast. You smile, hoping for some acknowledgement from him, for a small piece of comfort. Instead, you get his averted gaze and quick retreat. Your brows furrow, but before you can say anything, Satoru is back to speaking.

“I hope Thomas treated you well yesterday?”

You glance up, but Satoru’s eyes aren’t on you, they’re on your footman. His smile is bright, but it’s anything but friendly. You fight a shiver.

You glance at Thomas. He’s perfectly still, perfectly straight, but you think you see a muscle clench in his jaw. You clear your throat. “Y-Yes. Thomas was very helpful.” When Satoru keeps staring the boy down you add, “-and very respectful.”

That seems to satisfy. Satoru breaks his stare and some of the tension in the air instantly eases. He shoots you another dimpled smile, this one with a little more warmth. “Perfect.”

There’s a beat and then he’s standing, draining whatever he has in his cup and then straightening his jacket. “Well, I have some work to do. I’ll see you for dinner?” He’s grinning again, like it’s so normal for a man to abandon his bride on their wedding night and then again the morning after. All you can do is nod. He chuckles. “See you then, princess.” And then he’s gone.

If this is to be your life you don't know how you will survive it. You spend the day milling about. Through the gardens, through the castle, through the stables. Thomas is never far behind, but any attempt at conversation is nipped in the bud by hit shortness. It’s like he fears coming too close. He’s never closer than a couple paces except when he has to bring you something, only to retreat again as soon as possible. The other servants barely pay you any mind apart from giving you a respectful greeting and then immediately averting their eyes. There is no work to be done, no guests to be had, no parties to plan… and no Satoru. You don’t see your husband once on tour around the grounds. You ask Thomas where his office is only for him to vaguely point out a window in the east tower. You don’t see so much as a ripple in the curtains.

Dinner comes around at the pace of a snail. When it’s finally time to get dressed a lady’s maid whose name you don’t even catch arrives to help you lace your dress. As soon as your corset is deemed tight enough she’s back out the door with a curtsy. Thomas leads you to the dining room and your eyes roam the whole way. Even after having spent the whole day exploring, there are halls and corridors that you’ve yet to step foot in.

The dining room is just as gorgeous as the rest of the place– filled with singular items that could feed entire families for years. Somehow, you think you’ve already grown accustomed to such things, since the only thing you truly care to look at is your husband. Satoru’s already seated, but he stands when you enter, looping around the table to pull a chair out for you.

You give him your most genuine smile, accepting a kiss to your knuckles in greeting before you settle. “How was your day?” you ask as he takes his seat again.

He chuckles. “Perfectly fine. And how was yours, princess?” Your nose crinkles. That’s the second time he’s called you that. Something about it feels wrong. You’re still getting used to being a lady. Princess feels even worse.

“It was… good.”

You watch a perfect white brow arch in the candlelight. “Oh? Just good?” You don’t miss the way his eyes flicker to the corner– to Thomas.

You hurry to elaborate. “Well, I just– I can’t help but feel as if there’s not much… use for me.” Servants flood in, some carrying wine, others carrying trays that hold more food than the both of you could ever possibly consume.

That brow arches impossibly higher. “Use?” His lips crack into that smile again, but it’s tight this time. Too tight. “You have no use. You only enjoy yourself. Surely Thomas has told you that.”

A plate of steaming food plops in front of you. Even its heavenly smell can’t quell the sudden dread in your gut. “Of course! Of course he did.” Your stomach twists and you decide that perhaps now is not the time to press the subject. “I’ll just… I’ll try riding tomorrow.” You hate riding, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Satoru’s smile thaws into something less menacing. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy that.”

You nod eagerly. “I’m sure I will.”

You grab your fork, eager for a new subject. From what you can tell, dinner is roast chicken and vegetables, though it’s the luxury version as everything seems to be. The spices are intoxicating and the green beans are even arranged in a pretty little pattern that makes them look too good to eat. You do anyway. The first bite nearly makes you moan, but you chew slowly, delicately, trying not to let your upbringing show.

It’s not until several bites later that you realize you’re the only one eating. A quick glance reveals your husband has no platter, no chicken or green beans. He’s only… watching you. You clear your throat, dabbing at your lips with a napkin.

“You’re not… eating?”

That permanent smile grows a little wider and you can’t help but feel as if there’s something… menacing about it. “Ate before I came.”

Your brows furrow. “Oh. Were you on the road?”

You think you see something wild flash in his eyes. “No.”

The rest of dinner passes slowly, almost painfully. Satoru doesn’t eat a bite, doesn’t even look enticed. You wonder how that’s possible when it smells like a spice bomb went off in the dining room.

By the time you’ve cleared your plate you’ve discussed everything from the number of horses in the stables to kinds of crops grown on the estate. It’s comforting to know a little more about your new home, but it’s not enough.

“Is there a library?” you ask. You’re on dessert now. It’s the best chocolate cake you’ve ever had and it takes everything in you to hold back a moan each time it touches your tongue.

“Of course.” Your husband’s eyes flicker to Thomas again and you’re honestly starting to fear for the poor footman’s life. Everytime you ask a question it’s like Satoru is angry it hasn’t already been answered. “It’s yours to use as you please.”

You smile lightly. “Perfect. Thank you.”

He softens a bit at that. “Is there anything specific you wanted to read about?”

You shrug. “The estate, I suppose. I should know my home’s history, no?”

His eyes get that wild look again, that sparkle that you know speaks to nothing good. “Oh, absolutely. I have some personal favorites to recommend. I’ll leave them aside for you?”

You swallow and give him a shallow nod. “That would be perfect. Thank you.”

He chuckles. “My pleasure.”

When dessert is finally over, you stand slowly. Satoru’s not far behind you, saying he’ll walk you to your room. Your heart leaps at his words. Will he stay with you tonight?

He offers you his arm in the hall and your mouth runs dry when you feel the corded muscle beneath his jacket. By the time you reach your room, you’re thinking of tugging him in behind you. His denial to stay with you last night was not only confusing, but… off putting. Nearly offensive. Did he not like how you looked? Did he think something was wrong with you?

You muster all the courage you possess and force your lips apart. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

His eyes spark again and you hold your breath. He presses closer. This is it, you think. His lips hover over yours, eyes glimmering in the candlelight. And then he dips his head, his mouth pressing to your pulse.

“Not tonight,” he whispers– and then he’s gone.

You wake suddenly. It’s the middle of the night, you gather. The light streaming through the window is weak enough to only be that of the moon.

Your heart is pounding and your skin is slick with sweat despite the chill in your bones. A nightmare, you think. It must have been a nightmare.

As you settle back into your sheets you swear you see a ripple in the darkness. You close your eyes. If your nightmare is real, you’d rather not see it coming.

The library is huge. It’s sprawling and smells of paper and leather and everytime Thomas lights a candle you flinch at the idea that one misplaced spark could end thousands of years of knowledge.

The books Satoru left you are… perfect. Just what you were looking for. They’re all comprehensive volumes of the history of the estate, many of which reference each other. You’re stunned to see that several are written by very well-known authors of both the past and the present. You knew the Gojo family’s influence reached far, but not that far. You peruse the titles. The Gojos: A History, A History of the Gojo Crest, History of the Gojo Castle, Revisiting the Gojo Family: A Comprehensive History. Altogether you have well over a few thousand pages of information– but there’s one book that doesn’t fit with the rest. It’s relatively unassuming. A black cover with some sort of gold rune etched onto its front. When you flip to the title page it reads “Creatures of Myth and Where To Find Them”. Your brows furrow. You slide it to the side– must have gotten mixed in with the others, you think.

You ask Thomas to bring the books to your room. He does. Very respectfully. He sets them on your bedside table and then retreats like a kicked puppy with only a polite goodbye. You sigh. His behavior has only gotten stranger in the past few days. You think the servants’ coldness must have something to do with Satoru, but you can’t figure out why. Had he ordered them to stay away? Why would he?

You decide it’s a question for another day and dive into your books. You spend hours, days, reading every chapter, page, and word. The pure amount of information is dizzying. Apparently this specific estate had been in the hands of the Gojo family since the eighth century (with several razings and consequential rebuilds). You also learn that Satoru was not only the most wealthy lord on the continent, but the most wealthy man. Even wealthier than the king apparently, though that fact was kept fairly under wraps to protect the crown’s ego. The estimates of your husband’s net worth made your head spin.

Satoru joins you for breakfast and dinner every day. You never see him eat a morsel. It’s… unsettling to say the least. It’s always just that tin cup, filled with something you could never quite see. You develop a pattern of waking in the night, too, with the overwhelming sense that something is watching you. Sometimes you could swear you feel the bed shift as you jerk awake. Each time you simply close your eyes and try your best to slow your heart, convinced your mind is playing tricks on you.

Your days feel a little more productive with a book in your hands, but you’ve read them all three times over by the time a fortnight has passed. You find yourself packing them up to return to Thomas when a certain black cover catches your attention. You grab it from the pile and settle back into your seat. You’ve nothing better to do, right?

You flip back the cover, revealing a familiar title. “Creatures of Myth and Where to Find Them”. You don’t recognize the author’s name. A quick scroll through the table of contents reveals nothing particularly interesting, but you pick a random chapter on ghouls and decide to start there.

It’s fascinating. Nothing about the style is boring and the words fly by. Your silly little myth book is a page turner. By the time you notice the light has started dying you’ve read about ghosts, fairies, werewolves, and goblins– all of which have been a delightful little read. A glance at the clock reveals you have a half hour before dinner. One more chapter, you think. Your eyes skim the title. “Vampires [Vampyr]”.

You skim the first paragraphs until your eyes settle on a line that catches your eye.

“Contrary to popular belief, vampires are not always crazed blood-hungry monsters. Many live among humans quite comfortably and are able to avoid detection with a little well-placed effort.”

You purse your lips. What a… terrifying thought. You skim a little further.

“A vampire’s key characteristic is, of course, their desire and need to drink human blood as sustenance. However, a vampire can be spotted sooner if one is able to recognize their subtler traits. Vampires often have skin lacking any sort of flush. The lack of blood in their veins results in a sickly pallor, even after the most rigorous exercise. Their skin is also noticeably cold to the touch. At best, a vampire’s body will reach room temperature. Vampires can also be noted for their preternatural beauty. They will stand out as the most attractive person in any crowd. Finally, a vampire will have fangs. If one wishes to identify a vampire, one only needs a good look at their teeth”.

A chill settles over your skin. You flip ahead a few pages.

“Vampires are unable to consume typical human food. Should they attempt to, their bodies will immediately reject any and all foreign substances.”

Your stomach drops. You don’t want to think about why. You skip the rest of the paragraph.

“Vampires possess several supernatural abilities that set them apart as a human’s predator rather than their equal. Vampires are known to move unnaturally fast and are notably light footed. If a vampire does not wish to be heard, they will not be. A vampire’s strength is inhuman, well over ten times that of the average man. They also have a penchant for darkness, an ability to hide away in the shadows that cannot be explained. Oftentimes they will seem to appear from thin air.”

You skip ahead again.

“Vampires have been known to take mates. Mates usually come in the form of another vampire, but in some cases a human has been chosen. Vampires are fiercely protective of their mates, bordering on obsession. Any person deemed a threat to their bond or their mate’s safety is usually disposed of quickly. Oftentimes, vampires make these decisions with haste, with little regard for whether or not the threat was real. A vampire will do everything in their power to please their mate, but have been known to forcibly restrain their mates in situations of unrequited feelings. Above all else, vampires wish to possess their mates. Two bonded vampires will sometimes spiral into gloriously destructive fits in their endless desire to protect and possess one another. A vampire bonded to a human will show an increasingly protective nature, often isolating their mate from others.”

Your heart pounds. A bead of sweat rolls down your back. You flip the pages, desperate– desperate for a piece of information that will save you from the thoughts spilling in your mind, from the thoughts you will do anything not to believe. You reach the “Where to Find Them” subsection and nearly gasp with relief. Surely, vampires do not pose as wealthy lords of Europe?

“Vampires can be found everywhere. They do not exist in only one country or continent, but all over the world. Odds are that you have faced at least one vampire in your life, unknowingly or not. Some vampires choose to live solitary lives, surviving in the wilderness where human society will not attempt to tame their wild nature. Others choose to live among humans, some even existing in positions of very high authority.”

No, no, no. This can’t be happening to you. It can’t be real. You’re dreaming, you’re having one of those nightmares again. You’re going to wake up any second.

“One tale recounts a razing of the Gojo estate in the 12th century.”

You’re panting, hyperventilating. This isn’t happening.

“Soldiers of the enemy force recounted a singular man, the son and heir of the then Lord Gojo, taking out a minimum of 800 men. He was described as having his family’s characteristic white hair as well as blue eyes. Eyewitness accounts depict the Gojo heir as covered in blood and killing savagely and with inhuman strength.”

No, no, no.

“(See next page for only existing portrait)”

Your fingers tremble but you can’t stop them. There’s no way. It’s not possible.

You flip the page and Satoru stares back at you.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

You nearly scream. Your door rattles angrily, but you’re not sure you can answer it, not with the knowledge flooding your mind. The knocking continues. You run your hand over your face and smooth down your hair. You feel frazzled, dirty, despite not having moved from your chair all day. Another knock prompts you to set your book aside and stand. You do your best to compose yourself, to put on a straight face. You fail instantly when you pull back the door not to reveal your faithful attendant, not Thomas, but Satoru.

You bite back a shriek and instead force a smile. You’re suddenly very aware of the blood pounding in you veins and of the fact that he most likely knows.

“Hello,” he says, but his voice is lower than usually, more intense.

You force a breath into your lungs. “Hello,” you answer, but it sounds more like a squeak than a greeting.

Something flashes in his eyes, something familiar, something that is no longer interesting but rather terrifying. “Are you alright? You seem a little… flushed.” The concern on his face feels anything but genuine.

“I’m fine,” you answer, but even you can tell that reply too quickly, too eagerly. You rush to cover it up. “Is it time for dinner? Where’s Thomas?”

His lip twitches and you see a muscle in his jaw flex. “Thomas has… left us.”

No. This wasn’t happening to you. There was no way this was happening to you.

“He… what?” There’s an unmistakable wobble in your voice that only causes Satoru’s face to fall further.

“It’s no matter. He’s gone. Now it’s just you and me, hm?” He chuckles and the sound rattles your bones. “In fact, I was thinking I’d cut down on the number of servants we have entirely…”

You mind races with the memory of knowledge you wish you didn’t have. “Vampires are fiercely protective of their mates, bordering on obsession. Any person deemed a threat to their bond or their mate’s safety is usually disposed of quickly.”

You nearly stumble, but lean against the doorframe just in time. Your husband had disposed of a man, all because he brought you meals and books?

“What have you been up to today, princess?” The question breaks your trance just in time for you to see your husband’s eyes flicker behind you.

You wet your lips. “Just some reading.” You plead that he doesn’t ask anything further. He does.

“About the estate?” he asks.

You nod and try to swallow the lump in your throat. “Yes.”

His smile returns and this time it’s not forced. “You got my books, then?”

You try smiling back, but you’re fairly sure it looks more like a grimace. “Yes.”

“Anything interesting?” he presses.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. Does he know? Does he know that you know? “Yes, of course. Lots.”

He pauses and you see the debate and then the decision in his eyes. You think it’s the first time you’ve felt true terror when he meets your gaze again. “I think we should skip dinner tonight. It seems we have so much to discuss.”

You don’t even have the wherewithal to scream when he steps into you, forcing you back until he’s shutting your door behind him. He doesn’t stop there, though. He keeps pressing, keeps pushing until your knees hit the bed and you’re falling to the mattress. He crawls right after you.

“Who knew my little wife was such a reader? All those books in such a short time… You must be simply spilling with information.”

You retreat across the mattress, squeaking when your back hits the headboard and his arms cage your waist. You’re trapped.

His hands find your hips and you’re all too aware of how cool his touch is. Even more so when he pulls you right into his lap.

“Satoru-” your voice is pitiful, breathless, and you’re ashamed to say it’s not just from the fear in your gut. He’s never been this close before, never touched you, held you like this. “Thomas-”

“Don’t speak his name.” His face pulls into the first scowl you’ve ever seen and the sight is enough to root you to the spot. Never have you seen anything more frightening. A creature so beautiful, so perfectly angelic, filled with an insurmountable rage. It’s wrong. “He’s gone. He’ll never bother you again.” He’s closer now, his breath skating over your skin. It’s cool and now you know the reason why.

You shake and tremble and you know– Thomas is dead. Your husband killed him– killed him for getting too close when all he did was stay at a distance. Satoru killed him. Killed him.

He buries himself in your neck, his voice a near whine. “Thought I could put up with it, just so you’d have someone to take care of you…” He groans. “I was so wrong, princess. Couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand the way you smelled more like him than me…”

You feel him melt against you then, relief washing over his body in a wave. “But he’s gone. And now it’s just you and me, hm? Just you and me…” He hums, like remembering that fact is all he’s ever needed.

He’s kissing your pulse again, now, and your heart is racing faster than ever. Your fingers curl into his shoulders. You should push him away, away, away. He’s a killer, of thousands no doubt. You’ve never felt at home here, never felt like you belonged. This is why. You’re not even the same species. He’s something else, something your hands were never meant to touch.

Your mind screams at you to do go, to shove and kick at him and leave this place behind. Go, go, go your gut says… but you don’t. You can’t. It’s too… good. The feeling of his cool lips against your skin, of what you’re sure is his tongue prodding at your pulse… it’s intoxicating. He is intoxicating. How could anyone blame you for wanting more of someone, something, so divine?

“Have you figured it out yet, love?” Your breath hitches and he chuckles, licking a long stripe up your neck, before he settles back at your pulse. Always your pulse. “I can feel those little gears turning. Tell me, what have they discovered?”

He knows you know. But he’s going to make you say it. You swallow and feel his grip on you tighten. “You’re…” Your breaths come faster. You can’t. Not aloud. Aloud makes it too… real.

“Yessss?” he prods. He’s licking at you again, all the way across your throat to find your other pulse-point.

“You’re not…” Something sharps nicks at your skin and you bite your lip to hold back a whimper.

“Go on, princess.” You think he’s just smelling you now, just burying his face as close to you as possible and taking you in.

You close your eyes tightly, holding back tears. “Not human,” you breathe. A piece of you breaks with the admission.

He huffs a little laugh against your skin and pulls back to look you in the eye. “That’s good,” he purrs. “But I think you can be a little more specific, no?” His lips press to your chin, then the corner of your mouth, then down to your jaw… “Tell me.”

Your lips wobble, muscles clenching tighter with each passing moment. You don’t want to say it, don’t want to speak it into existence, but you also don’t dare to disobey him.

“You’re a…” You shake and tremble. He draws a line up your neck with the tip of his nose.

“Mhm?”

You open your eyes, thinking this might be the last time you see. “Vampire.”

He chuckles and you feel his teeth press to the skin of your neck. “That’s right, princess. So smart.”

He smiles and you suddenly realize you’ve never seen his teeth before. Everytime he smiles at you it’s close-lipped and dimpled. But this… this is the smile of a predator– all white and pointy and fitted with a set of menacingly long fangs. You sob at the sight.

“Shhhhh,” he coos. He has your chin in his hand, forcing you to truly look at him, to see him for what he is. “I won’t hurt you, love.” You want to believe him so badly it burns, but his laugh washes away any fire and turns it to ice. “Not unless you want me to.” He wiggles a brow like it’s just a little joke, like he’s not an actual fucking vampire that had his fangs over your neck just moments ago.

“Satoru,” you beg. You’re not sure what you’re begging for. Release maybe? But, no, that’s not right. You don’t want him to let you go, not when you finally have him close after all this time. “Why did you pick me?”

The question slips out. You hadn’t even been thinking about it, hadn’t even noticed it scratching at the walls of your mind, but it made its way out nonetheless.

His brow creases, but not in confusion. Moreso in… thoughtfulness. “Do you think about that a lot, princess?”

You nod and you suddenly want him closer, want him to touch you everywhere, hold you like his life depends on it. You want him, no matter how horrible it might be.

He nods and hums, kissing the tip of your nose lightly. “Well…” he says. His thumb swipes over your lips when he leans in to whisper in your ear. “At first I wanted you for this.” His head dips to your neck again and you feel the familiar brush of his lips against your throat. “You smell…” he chuckles. “Like heaven. Which is a place I’ll never get to on my own, so I had to bring my own little slice home, no?” He laughs again, a little louder this time, genuinely amused. “Went into town one day and caught your scent on the street. At first I thought I must be walking past the bakery, but, lo and behold, there was no baker in sight.” He’s still kissing at your pulse, worshiping it. “Went crazy, princess. Didn’t think I was going to be able to contain myself when I found you. Thought it might be quite the scene.” He huffs a laugh and you shiver, somehow both terrified and intoxicated. “But then I saw you–” he groans and something clenches deep at your center. “And I knew I needed more than just your blood. Needed you.” He’s rocking into you now, and your breath catches when you feel something firm against your backside. “Went to you in that little room you slept in every night. Watched you. Couldn’t stay away. Knew I had to have you.” You feel him smile against your skin. “After a week I couldn’t take it anymore. Sent you that letter, married you. Made you mine.” He groans again. “Then I met you and you were so pretty, princess. Already knew it, but hearin’ you talk to me, look at me.” Teeth graze your pulse. “Needed you more than ever. Almost took you right on the fucking floor in here while you were lookin’ at those dresses.” You whine when his hips roll into you again. “Oh, but I knew I couldn’t. You’re so fragile, love. Had to wait, had to make you feel safe, yeah? Spent all this time forcing myself to stay away, ‘fraid of what I might too if I was in your presence too long. Had to control myself. Had to make you realize you could trust me.” He panting, like he’s so pent up he can hardly sit still. “Do you trust me, princess?”

Your brows scrunch. Say no, say no, say no a part of you screams. Run, run, run. You can’t. “Yes,” you breathe.

You feel him smile again, feel the pleasure of submission. “Good girl.”

You’re on your back. It happens so fast your eyes don’t even have time to gasp. You don’t see Satoru, but you feel him. Everywhere. His hands are roaming your body softly, sliding under buttons and laces and popping them off. Your dress loosens with every passing moment until Satoru reappears above you, diving straight for your neck again. “So good, princess. Let’s get you out of this dress, yeah?”

You nod wordlessly, entranced. He finds your mouth as he rids you of your clothes. His tongue presses in and you flail against him, unsure of what to do, of how to handle the intrusion. The kiss is heavy, too heavy, but Satoru can’t seem to stop. He devours you as he gives up on laces and buttons and simply shreds your dress down the back. You tremble when the cold air hits your skin, when his cool fingers dust your collarbone.

“I always forget how many damn layers they make you ladies wear,” he chuckles. His hands run beneath your shift, up across your bare thigh. You gasp at the touch. No one has even been so close to you before. You feel the threads of your corset snapping away, feel your breaths growing deeper. You tremble when he pulls your sleeve down past your shoulder and runs his mouth along the newly exposed skin.

“Satoru,” you gasp, and your hand pulls at his flowing white shirt.

He chuckles, pulling back just enough to see your face. “You wanna see me too?” You nod, lips parted and eyes glassy, and he laughs again. He lips dust over the corner of your mouth. “Alright.”

His hands shift from you to himself, working at the laces on his chest. His movements are speedy, practiced, like he’s been lacing and unlacing shirts for hundreds of years. Your throat tightens when you realize that he has.

You gasp when he reveals himself, when his shirt slides away to reveal an expanse of pale skin and carved muscle. You’ve never seen a man like this and seeing one this close up for the first time is nearly blinding. He’s art, you think- nothing less.

“Touch me, princess,” he says. You can’t. You shouldn’t. He’s too beautiful, too perfect to be beneath your insignificant hands. “Need a little help?” he asks, and there’s a lilt in his voice that makes you sure he’s grinning.

His hands find yours and bring them to his chest, running your palms over his collarbones, his pecs, down, down, down across his abs that you can feel each and every one… You whimper, watching your own fingers grope his skin. He pulls you lower, lower, lower, and you gasp when your fingertips brush the waistband of his pants. But then he’s laughing again and he’s throwing your arms over his shoulders and pulling you closer, kissing your neck like it pained him to be parted from your pulse for so long.

“Not so fast,” he says, like he wasn’t the one nearly stuffing your hands down his pants. His hands are on your corset again. You can feel it dangling onto you by a thread, literally. All he needs is a couple more pulls and you’ll be bare. By the look he gives you, you can tell he’s

thinking the same thing. “You touch me, now I touch you, yeah?” There’s a tug and a tear and then so much… cold. You’ve never realized how cold this castle is, not until you’re exposed to its elements fully. You’re naked.

Satoru sits back on his knees and just watches. His gaze is searing, burning, despite the iciness of his being. It’s too much. Your hands move to cover yourself, to maintain some modicum of your dignity-

“No.” Strong hands find your wrists and pry them apart. “Let me see you,” he says. His tongue darts out to lick his lips.

Your jaw clenches and your frame shakes, but you do as he asks, letting your hands fall limply at your sides. There’s silence for many more moments and it seems to go on so long that you can only squeeze your eyes shut under his gaze. Surely he will turn you away now, get up and leave, tell you this was a mistake, tell you that you’re–

“Beautiful,” he breathes. Your eyes snap open to find him already staring at you. “Beautiful,” he says again, and then he’s on you, lips at your pulse, hands on your skin. His touch is cool and you squeak at the chill that runs up your spine. You’re not sure it’s entirely from his temperature.

His mouth seeks yours and he devours you. You feel as if he’s sucking your soul out through your lips. “Tell me you’ve never done this before,” he begs. “Tell me I’m the first to touch you.”

You whine against his mouth, both aching for more and overwhelmed by what he’s already giving you. “Y-You’re the first,” you whisper.

His groan is deep, primal. It rattles through your chest and you whimper when his hands dig into your waist hard enough to bruise. “Yes,” he breathes, and you shiver again. “Lie back, princess.” Your eyes widen, with anticipation or fear you’re not sure. Probably both. He chuckles. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”

You pray he means that. “Just relax, love. Here, hold my hand.” His fingers find yours, twining them together. When you swallow, his eyes follow the bob of your throat. He leans back again and your body twitches when his free hand skims the skin of your thighs. His tongue darts out to wet his lips as he finds your knees and you gasp when he parts your legs, revealing you so completely to his gaze. The way he stares, like he’s committing you to memory, it’s nearly enough to make you snap your thighs shut, but a squeeze from his hand reminds you to relax, to trust.

His palm skates up your thigh and settles near your hip, his fingertips inching closer to where you can feel an embarrassing throb.

“Tell me, love. Have you ever touched yourself here?” His fingers dust low on your tummy- just low enough for you to catch his meaning, but not low enough to give you any relief. Your face heats and your teeth dig into the flesh of your cheek. You have, you have touched yourself there, but it’s the last thing you want to admit to your new husband. It’s shameful, it’s dirty, it’s- “Don’t think I’ll judge you, princess. Just wanna know.”

You gulp down a breath. You should come clean. “Y-yes,” you stutter, and the sound of your voice so weak and helpless only makes you flush further.

He chuckles and squeezes your hand again. “On the outside or the inside?”

Your eyes widen. I-inside? You’d never considered that… “J-just the outside,” you answer.

Your eyes grow even wider when his head rolls back and he moans straight up to the ceiling like your answer is heaven-sent. When he looks back to you his fangs are on full display. “Well, I think you and I are in for a little treat today, hm?”

Your brow furrows and your lips part to ask him what he means– his fingers travel those last few inches down your tummy and find your clit. You squeak and jolt so violently that he presses a hand to your hip, holding you to the mattress. “Somebody’s sensitive,” he chuckles. He holds you still for a moment and then lets your hips go free. “Try to stay still. I promise it’ll feel good.”

You nod hopelessly, but this time you’re prepared for when he touches you again. Your muscles clench at the first touch, at the foreign sensation of a touch down there that wasn’t your own. But then it’s more. It’s languid, slow circles around a spot that you’ve never been able to pinpoint so well on your own. It’s heat building in your tummy that seeps through every vein and into every pore. It’s relaxation that you’ve never known, that has you melting into the mattress despite the chill of the touch.

There’s a little huff of a laugh and then his voice. “Good girl. Feels nice, yeah?” You nod hesitantly and squeeze desperately at his hand, searching for an anchor. His head cocks to the side and you watch the smile slide across his lips. “It’s about to feel even nicer.”

By the time you realize what he’s doing it’s far too late to stop him. His mouth closes around your cunt and you yelp, trying to wiggle away from the overwhelming sensation- but he’s got his freehand on your hip again and his grip is bruising, punishing, as he holds you in place. He licks a stripe through your folds and you find yourself jolting again, uselessly so against the pressure of his palm on your hip. “Stop that, princess.” Your heart drops at the admonishment until you feel his guiding touch. “Rock into me like this.” His hand rocks your hips into his mouth and the pressure of his tongue against your clit is so delicious that you whimper. “Good girl,” he says and your heart rises right back up. “Keep doing that, now.” You don’t dare defy him. You rock like he showed you, a little jerkily at first, and then you find a rhythm that has you seeing stars. “That’s it, love,” he says, and the sound is muffled against your cunt. “Here, put your hand in my hair.” He finds your wrist and guides you forward until your fingers are tangling in those snowy locks. They’re even softer than you’d imagined. “Good girl,” he whispers and suddenly he’s taking one last long lick and lifting his head to meet your eyes. “‘M gonna put my fingers in you now, princess.” Your chin wobbles. “It might hurt a little bit, but stay still, okay?” You can’t do anything but nod.

His eyes return to your cunt and you can feel him prodding at your entrance, circling the hole as you clench in anticipation. “Relaaaaaax, love,” he says and you nod. A deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth–

You feel the exact moment he pushes into you and a whine of pain rips from your throat. Your walls clamp down like a vice, angry at the intrusion– but it’s already too late. There’s a beat of silence, of anticipation, and then he’s– laughing?

Your brows furrow when you hear it, your head lifting to a sight that locks your limbs in shock. Satoru’s hand is lifted in front of his face, his pointer finger coated in– blood, you realize. Your blood. And he’s a fucking vampire.

“Oh princess,” he coos, and the manic look in his eyes makes you tremble. “You really are perfect.”

Things seem to slow as you watch him take his blood covered finger into his mouth. You’re sure you’ve never seen an expression more blissful, more lost to sensation. His eyes roll back and his body shivers, like he’s ascending to some higher plane. Maybe he is.

When he pulls his finger from his mouth it’s completely licked clean. You hold your breath. He’s going to go for your neck now, right? He’s had a taste and now he’ll want more of it, all of it?

“Fuck,” is all he says. His mouth is back on your cunt so fast you don’t even see him move.

Your mouth falls wide. It hurts, the way he is so desperately licking at you. You feel his finger again, pressing in, in, in, only to pull back and suddenly be joined by another. The stretch tears at you. You thrash and jolt, but Satoru doesn’t bother telling you to stop this time. His arm wraps over your hips, holding you in place. He seems immune to how hard your legs squeeze at his head or your hands pull at his hair. He’s lost. You can feel him licking, lapping, and prodding at you like you’re a fucking gold mine. He’s lost to desperation, to the need for more, more, more. Every so often he lifts his chin and you see his mouth smudged with a mixture of your wetness and your blood. He laps at his lips like an animal, dragging his thumb across his chin and sliding it into his mouth to make sure he gets every last drop.

You’re not quite sure when the ravenous pain turns to a ravenous pleasure, when it turns from terrifying to downright delicious. You don’t notice your moans filling the air until Satoru joins you, groaning and whining into your cunt and telling you to keep going, to keep making those sounds. The hand you have buried in his hair doesn’t fight to push him away any longer, only to pull him into those now practiced rocks of your hips. His fingers thrust deep, curling into a spot that makes you feel so good and his mouth has found your clit again. He sucks your nerves lightly between his lips, tongue swirling in little circles. Your thighs start to shake.

“Yes. Yes. Give it to me.”

“S-Satoru–” you breathe. Warmth and tightness pool in your tummy, and you recognize it as your approaching orgasm, though you know this one will be far different than any you’ve ever managed to give yourself. Your body shakes and your breaths tremble and then– you fall over the edge, rocking your hips senselessly, losing all form of rhythm. Warmth tingles in your spine and seeps all the way down to your toes. You think you cry out, cry for your husband, cry for more, cry for less, but if you do you don’t hear it. All you hear is the pounding of your pulse, of pleasure throbbing in your veins until the world slowly seeps back in through the corners of your vision.

Satoru is grinning. A speck of your blood clings to his chin and his fangs peek out from behind his lips. The sight makes your blood run a little colder. If any part of you doubted what he was before… well, there was no doubt any longer.

There’s a shift between your legs, his hips slotting between them, and you’re suddenly snapped back to reality. From the look in his eyes, you’re not done.

Frantic hands find his pants and he undoes each button with a quickness that is almost inhuman. You wonder if he could go even faster, if he’s holding back so as not to scare you. If he is, it isn’t working very well. Fear surges in your veins right alongside anticipation.

“S-Satoru–”

“It’s alright, love.” His hand finds yours without his eyes ever looking up. His grip is just a little too firm, a little too cold. “Just stay still.”

You whimper, but you don’t think he’s paying attention to that, and soon enough, neither are you. His pants slide down just past his hips, just enough. You gasp.

You’ve never seen a man in the nude, never even dared to think about what it might look like, though it seemed you no longer had to guess. His hand wrapped around his shaft, giving one long and slow stroke that made his breath hiss through his fangs. The tip was flushed, angry, and leaking something that looked clear and sticky. You couldn’t help but notice it was a lot thicker than a finger, or even two. If his fingers had hurt…

He moves with that alarming quickness again, leaning down to hover over you, chests nearly pressed together. “Gonna take you now, princess. Gonna make you mine.” His eyes bore into yours, blue and shimmering with something wild. His hand presses into the mattress beside your head. “Stay still, now.”

It’s all the warning he gives you. You feel like you’re splitting– straight up the middle. You wail, hands flying out to claw at his back. It hurts. It hurts.

“Satoru, p-please! It’s–”

Lips catch yours– hungry, feral. The kiss is not gentle, not soothing. It shuts you up, it keeps you quiet, it keeps you still as you feel him sinking further, deeper into you. It’s too much, you try to say, but the poke of sharp teeth against your lips keeps you silent. Your hips jolt and wiggle trying desperately to escape the stretch but it’s no use. By the time he’s fully inside you, tears are streaking down your cheeks, fat and heavy. His lips break away and his eyes reappear. You shake when you see that none of the wildness has been tamed, that you’ve only just begun.

“Good girl,” he coos, and a cool finger traces a line across your jaw. “Took me so well.” You hold back a sob when his hips shift a little, testing, prodding. He must see the pinch of your eyes, the twist of your mouth, because he’s quick to comfort. “Just hold my hand, princess.” His hips rock in earnest this time and you whimper, squeezing down on his hand with all your might. You’re panting as he chuckles. “Breathe, love. Breathe. Soon you’ll be begging for more,” he laughs. It’s not long before he’s rocking into you sincerely, setting a pace that stretches you to the brink of breaking. At first it’s all you can do to grasp onto him, to bite your lips through the whimpers and hold his hand. And then it’s… more. It’s heat and warmth despite the coolness of his body on yours. It’s sensation and… pleasure. He laughs when the first moan slides past your lips, burying his face in your neck once again. You hear him at your ear, panting his hot breath across your skin.

“Feel good, princess?” You nod, letting your hips rock against his as he showed you before. It feels good– it feels right. He chuckles, but there’s nothing light about the sound. “Wanna feel even better?” Something sharp pokes at the skin of your neck, hard enough to make you squeak, to make you freeze at what you know he wants.

He pulls himself back, pressing his forehead to yours, searching your eyes with his. Something like a cruel smile dances on his mouth. “Just a taste, love. I promise it won’ hurt.” His tongue darts out and licks across your lips, his thrusts rocking just a bit faster. “You’ll feel s’ good an’ I’ll only take a little.” He laughs again and it sends a chill through your bones. “Promise.” He sounds breathless, like he’s struggling to restrain himself. The increase of his pace makes you whine and you squeeze his hand again. He buries himself back in your neck, panting. “Come on, love. Say yes. Say yes f’ me.” Your eyes glaze over. Your body justles with each new thrust. He’s desperate now, seeking a release that you don’t think is any kind you’re familiar with. “Yes, yes, yes,” he chants in your ear. You’re not sure when his words twist in your mind, when they settle on your tongue and push past your lips, but you know it feels so right when they do.

“Yes,” you whisper.

His fangs clamp around your pulse. You scream when the sting rips through you, violent and savage– but it only lasts a moment. Pain fades to… ecstasy. You feel his throat bobbing with each swallow, feel your blood seeping from your skin and onto his tongue. You’d thought it would feel slicing, draining, like the life was being sucked from you. It doesn’t. It feels wonderful. Heat spreads under your skin, emanating from your neck and down to your toes. It feels like breathing for the first time, like sugar being pumped into your veins. It feels like heaven. Your hand tangles in his hair, holding him close. You don’t want it to stop, not ever. You could die like this, have him suck every last drop of blood from your veins and thank him for it with your dying breath.

He’s moaning now, hands curling into your hips while he fucks into you relentlessly. The pace is grueling and brutal. You know it should hurt but only feels perfect. Anything less would not be enough. Anything else would leave you wanting. You feel it building, feel that familiar twinge at your core. The ecstasy flooding through your veins has it coming faster, has you teetering on the edge in moments.

“Satoru…” You hadn’t noticed how dizzy you felt until you tried to speak. You wonder why… “‘M gonna…”

He fucks you harder, something menacing and deep rumbling in his chest. The sound makes you shiver, makes you whine, makes you come.

Your body shakes and a cry rips from your throat, cunt clenching like a vice around him. Your eyes roll back, hands scraping trails down his back. Your thighs quake with the intensity, with the overwhelming senses of pleasure that erupt throughout your body. Every nerve is firing, every hair rising. It’s an unstoppable current, one that sweeps you away, helpless to its pull.

His thrusts grow sloppy and untimed. His grip on your hips tightens, holding you in place while he makes you his. His teeth break from your neck and when you look up through blurry eyes you see his head thrown back, your blood streaming down his chin in thick little globs. You feel it when he cums, feel the thick ropes of it seeping into your womb, feel the way he keeps fucking you, pushing it deeper and deeper inside. He’s moaning, chanting your name like a prayer at the heavens.

When the moment ends he slumps over you, eyes half lidded and tired. There’s a familiar grin on his lips, one that inspires both comfort and uneasiness in your gut. You can’t help but stare at him, at the blood that stains his chin and cheeks, that reddens his lips so beautifully. You want to reach out and touch him, touch his blood-soaked skin and see what it feels like, what it tastes like. What you taste like.

His eyes slide to the side, finding your pulse again. You groan. Yes, you think. Please, yes. More. You don’t think you’ll ever get enough of that. Of his teeth in your flesh, of the euphoria flooding your veins. More, more, more, your mind chants.

He chuckles lightly and shakes his head. “No, princess.” He raises a finger to trace the curve of your neck. “I took more than I should have…” His expression doesn’t tense with worry. His cheeks pull into a smile, those little dimples shining through. “But what can I say? You just taste so good.” Like he needs to emphasize his point, his tongue darts out to trace his lips, lapping up some of the remaining blood on his chin. “You taste like mine.”

You whine. More, more, more. It’s all you can think about. You lift an arm weakly. You want to pull him to your neck, to make him drink, to make him fill you with the heaven you had just moments ago.

He catches your wrist and brings it to his lips, inhaling deeply. His lips split into another grin and you see his eyes spark again with the wildness you crave.

“Not yet, princess.” he coos. “But soon.” His smile grows even wider, until those fangs are on full display, until you’re trembling again. “Forever,” he whispers.

taglist (dm me or send an ask to be added!): @lacheri, @la-undercover-latina, @keiva1000

please consider leaving a comment, sending an ask, or reblogging! interacting with authors is the best way to support them! thanks for reading ♡

25K notes · View notes

chickenparm · 4 months

Text

Helping Out (Nanami/Reader)

just a lil quickie cause @drawlypsy inspired me with her absolutely insane nanami art that you can see here! please go look at it, i promise it won't disappoint. (it's also nsfw albeit censored)

---

AO3 LINK

Nanami/Reader (no pronouns, no descriptions) 1,478 Words - NSFW (handjobs, blowjobs, fluff, minor praise/service)

Nanami isn’t particularly shy about his work exhausting him.

You’re not a part of that life, but you know well enough that sometimes he comes home to you and all he can manage is a chaste kiss on your cheek before slumping into a seat. You’ll slide up behind him, pressing your thumbs into the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders, murmuring little words of encouragement about how proud you are, how good of a job he does.

And maybe you’ll sneak in a few kisses behind his ear where you know he’s sensitive, watching goosebumps prickle across his cheek. Sometimes you say nothing at all, fully aware of his life being a little too full of sound and fury. Nanami melts under your hands and sweet words, but he also relishes the silence just as much.

This evening, you aren’t home when he arrives. Groceries needed to be bought, and the commute was slower than usual, so dinner hadn’t even been started. Nanami wouldn’t complain, of course - he’d been a victim of rush hour more times than you could count. You’re certain he’d be sitting in his chair, enjoying the silence as he tried to relax from the day’s events.

Careful not to jostle your bags too much, you slip into your home and deposit your items in the kitchen, then tip-toe along to find where he’s posted up for now. The living room is empty, so is the bedroom, so you slip into the study and find him slumped at the window. Nanami has always looked good in warm tones, and this moment is no exception as the light filters through and makes him glow.

Your lips quirk, however, when you see the state he’s in. A little rumpled, head lolled back as he takes steady breaths. Neither of his hands are in his lap, nor on his bared cock that’s freed from his pants. It glistens a little, a testament to how he’d been touching himself not so long ago during a private moment.

For a moment, you debate leaving him, but he looks a little too tired. You severely doubt he’d even bother to finish himself off. For the greater good, you titter to yourself as you enter the room and pad over to him. Nanami already knows you’re there, his eyes cracking open to watch as you approach. There’s a rumble in his voice that speaks of just how tired he is when he says, “I thought I’d be done by the time you got back.”

“Don’t seem like you’re in much of a rush,” you tease quietly, pressing your hand to his knee and squeezing. Visibly, his cock jumps, but he doesn’t otherwise move. Poor thing.

Nanami blows air through his nose in a long sigh, letting his head fall back again. “I wasn’t sure it was worth finishing. Too much effort.”

Oh, that’s a simple fix. You’ve done plenty of things that Nanami didn’t consider worth the effort, and he appreciated them once finished. This would be no exception, and you slip to your knees as your hands move up his thighs. “Let me help. Just relax, don’t lift a finger.”

And how is he going to argue with that? Nanami sinks further into his chair, and you lean in to press a chaste kiss to the tip of his cock as you take him in hand. “There we go. Just do your breathing exercises and I’ll handle this for you.”

You’ll handle it with both hands, you muse to yourself as you use one to hold the base of his cock while the other pulls back slowly on his foreskin, then strokes upward to coax a bead of pre from the tip. With a swipe of your thumb, you wick it away and smear it along his head to ease your movements. In response, a low, steady breath leaves his chest nearly concave, one of his hands squeezing into a fist before falling limp on the arm of the chair once more.

When he’s back to full hardness once more, only needing a few cursory movements of your hand, you lean in and take the tip into your mouth to roll over it with your tongue. A stilted groan is your treat for something so sudden, and you smile around the heavy weight on your tongue as you take a little more, savoring the taste of him.

Normally, you’d close your eyes to focus on only pleasuring him, but you take a second to watch the line of his throat bob as he swallows hard. And so do you, your mouth opening wider to accommodate him to the back and swallow around his length at the back of your throat. Despite your practice with him like this, you really can only manage his size there for a few beats before you have to pull back to avoid gagging.

Nanami likes that, sometimes. That you struggle to handle him, and your throat closes around his cock as if to push him out. But there’s a time and a place, and this is too languid for something so heated and desperate. Next time, you’ll treat him in a different way.

The veins on his length are mapped by your tongue, and you trace them instinctively with each bob of your head. If necessary, you could draw them with perfect recollection, having nearly branded them into your tongue from him filling your mouth like this. Your other hand works over what you can’t fit, working in tandem with your lips and tongue as you go a little faster, a little deeper.

One of his hands slides along your face to cup your cheek, thumb stroking at the apex of your cheekbone with undeniable affection. Nanami is certainly watching you now, but you’re far more focused on making sure this is good for him. That there are no wasted movements, that you’re not moving too quickly or too slowly. Just a steady build-up to avoid working him up unnecessarily.

This is about as cathartic for you as it is for him, you think.

Nanami doesn’t need to be taken care of, he can function more than fine on his own. But you find a sense of self-satisfaction in finding ways to dote on him and reduce his stress. Using your mouth on his cock is one of your favorites; you like being hands-on with him - and mouth-on.

With the way you can feel his pulse throbbing in your mouth, you think perhaps he likes it, too.

Using your free hand, you cup his balls and roll them gently, just a little extra stimulation in tandem with your mouth. The tension in his thighs increases, his stomach tightening, and you can feel the way they draw a little closer to his body as he gets close. Instinct tells you to go faster, to give him more, but you keep slow and steady.

He’ll get there when he gets there, you think. In the meantime, you’re going to just enjoy yourself by listening to Nanami moan under his breath, his hand moving to the top of your head. He doesn’t push or pull, but simply rests the weight of his palm at the crown while you work him over with quiet enthusiasm.

Nanami’s hand tightens a little, his other balling into a fist, and you have but a moment to prepare before the first pulse of his release hits your tongue. Rather than make a show of it and pull off to let him paint your cheeks, you keep the tip just beyond your lips and make sure nothing is wasted as his hips jerk up in barely-controlled thrusts.

This time, you swallow and pull away, giving his cock one more kiss before putting him back in his pants and wiping your lips with the back of your hand. Once you’re sufficiently cleaned up, you plant your hands on the arms of the chair to push yourself up and give him a kiss to his cheek, feeling a bit of stubble rasping your lips from where it’d grown from this morning.

“Dinner will be ready in thirty. Are you eating with me, or do you need a little longer?”

Nanami’s breaths are long as he blinks at you a little slowly. Then, as if a man cured of some grave illness, a bit of the exhaustion melts away as he lifts his head. “I’ll come help you.”

“Hm… you can cut the vegetables, then.”

“So you can rush through the rest of it and tell me to sit down? No, I don’t think so,” Nanami pushes himself from the chair with a grunt, then presses his hand to your lower back to guide you from the room. “I’ll do the meat as well.”

“Well, now I don’t think we’ll have meat in the dish–”

“Hush.”

#mind the a/n for content warnings #nanami #nanami kento #kento nanami #nanami jjk #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #nanami x reader #nanami/reader #reader-insert #reader insert #gn!reader #x reader #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #mdni #nsft

87 notes · View notes

ciaoteamo · 23 days

Text

Milk and Water (Pt. I)

pairings: doppelgänger!Milkman x fem!Reader

summary: One of the newest residents’ very first doppelgänger comes in, trying to sway you into to letting them in. Will you..?

pt.II

art credit (twt: loafuu_chii)

warning: 18+ content

“…what’s the story behind your um… ears(?)” You ask the doppelgänger before you. It was a clone of one of your favorite neighbors actually, her name was Maria.

A woman around your age that you became really close friends with over the few months of you working here.

“@&! !$?&” The doppelgänger let out a series of sounds.

“right, so give me one second” You press the bright red button next to the window and the steel blinds shut with a blaring alarm sound.

You call D.D.D. and they clean up their mess per usual. You once again, you were just thankful you didn’t have to work on that side of the glass.

You check your wrist watch, and happily sigh at the fact that you only had one more hour left to work.

“ mmm, someone’s eager to go home i see” A familiar voice speaks up.

“oh, Mr. Francis” You give the man a polite grin. He gave you a sly one in return. You knew it wasn’t him off the bat. Francis was usually shy towards you, making you want to tease him into blushing whenever you saw him.

Well, you suppose you could kill two birds with one stone. Flirt with the doppelgänger of your crush, and have some entertainment.

“how are you pretty girl” He asks, sliding an I.D. and sheet through the slot.

You examine the documents and identification and beam a smile up at him.

“the date on the I.D. is a little expired hun” You declare. He lets out a small chuckle and leans a little toward the glass.

“mmm, been busy with the milk business, love. must’ve slipped my mind to renew it” He replied. His eyes were low but he still held his sly grin. You leaned back in your chair, with a bored look on your face.

“you’re not like my Francis” You huff and tilt your head with a disappointed look.

His grin faltered and he stepped closer. His breathing had quickened a bit and he took off his hat. “who knows, i could be better” He suggests.

Now that his confidence had depleted a little, you were growing bored of him. You checked the time again and you had 45 minutes left.

“well i’ve gotta get you moving now. it was nice to see such a handsome face though, so thank you” You beam and reach for the button

“you don’t want to do this, trust me” He states with a warning tone. This wasn’t unusual, getting threats after realizing they’re doppelgängers, but being that this one was this aware… they must be evolving.

“and why would i trust you?” You ask out of curiosity.

“i mean look at me” He smirks, one arm leaned against the top of the window. His irises turned from their chocolate brown and into an empty pure white.

“hm” You nod and press the button.

“(Y/N)!” He roared with what you assume was his fist banging the glass.

You call D.D.D. and wait for them to clean their mess, again.

The steel blind begins to lift and you sit back in your seat, checking your watch again but noticed the new pink lighting that shone in.

You furrow your eyebrows and look up in horror as you see blood streaks on the window in thick, and dripping amounts. You jump out of your chair and put your back against the wall.

About 5 D.D.D. workers were piled up, bloody and battered in the corner of the room, and there the doppelgänger was.

Staring at you.

His eyes were low, his shirt was torn, revealing his pecs and the start of his abdomen. He was panting with his (surprisingly still) neat hair and an almost psychotic expression.

“oh no…” He starts with a laugh, still breathing heavily.

“what did you do..?” You cover your mouth with your hand.

“it’s what you did. you got me all riled up.”

He looks down for a brief moment and you swear you hear a zip. He holds his tie and the end of his tattered shirt in his mouth and looks up at you with knitted eyebrows.

His breath fogging up the window as he asks you. Looking like a poor starving puppy. “will you let me in now…? I need your help…” He slightly groaned.

“…what. the. fuck.”

#milkman #milkman x reader #francis mosses #francis mosses x reader #ciaoteamo #x reader #imagine #smut #fem dom reader #thats not my neighbor #milkman smut #milk the man

4K notes · View notes

nanamea · 4 months

Text

～｡☆ FAVOURITE JJK FICS ON AO3

ft. jjk men (toji, nanami, geto, gojo, and choso)

ヾ˙❥ all of these fics are nsfw (smut, sexual content! please read the tags and the warnings inside of the story before you read!)

ヾ˙❥ click here for jjk men fic recs on tumblr!

1. heat waves (ft. choso kamo) by nagumoan

～｡☆ it's too hot to even move a single muscle of yours, so the only logical way to deal with it is... working up a sweat with your boyfriend. at least it's logical in his mind.

2. tease me (ft. gojo satoru & geto suguru) by meowandyouui

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ "𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔, 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒."

↳ in which - y/n falls in love with her bullies. geto and gojo. though she can't have both, and is torn between having to choose. ︶꒷꒦︶ ๋࣭ ⭑

3. seduce and destroy (ft. toji fushiguro) by skyredvenus

～｡☆ moving in with a wealthy family in their mansion for your new job, but nothing is as it seems. the house is haunted by a family curse and a mysterious blood-lusted creature.

4. fruit (ft. choso kamo) by thelovelyruin

～｡☆ he’s your ex, and he’s having a hard time moving on from you.

5. i know (ft. choso kamo) by thelovelyruin

～｡☆ choso wasn’t taking the break up well, and honestly, neither were you.

6. midnight (ft. gojo satoru) by tsunderetsukki

～｡☆ ❝ You look tired boss, let me help you out a little. Consider it an apology for making you work late ❞

╰---➤ 𝐈𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡, 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐞-𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤.

7. slow bloom (ft. nanami kento) by princesspetty

8. shirt (ft. toji fushiguro) by skyredvenus

～｡☆ the arrival of a mysterious package leads to a hot, sticky situation.

9. wet dreams (ft. toji fushiguro) by meowandyouui

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ "𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐒𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔."

↳ in which - y/n is wedded off to the biggest enigma floating around. though... she can't stop having peculiar dreams about this very man. toji zenin.

10. bloodlust (ft. geto suguru) by teatimewithlevi

～｡☆ you move to the suburbs and a freakishly sexy man is your neighbour. he has a taste for blood—especially yours.

11. secret slut (ft. choso kamo) by meowandyouui

12. dark eyes (ft. choso kamo) by moonc0re

13. first time (ft. choso kamo) by chososdisordkitten

14. late mornings (ft. nanami kento) by l043

～｡☆ the weekend was for rest, relaxation, and sex.

15. feverish (ft. toji fushiguro) by angry_geese

16. cabin (ft. geto suguru) by slvttyplum

～｡☆ You and Suguru go on a group cabin trip, with a couple of drinks and your love for each other… what happens?

17. cadillac : a pimp's anthem (ft. geto suguru) by redskyvenus

～｡☆ an unexpected meeting at Suguru's nightclub ignites an interesting connection.

18. so, you got a boyfriend? (ft. geto suguru) by slttygeto

～｡☆ when watching a certain scary movie gives your husband, suguru, the perfect idea on how to ruin you.

19. hell is empty & love is wicked (ft. geto suguru) by soleilnomoon

～｡☆ geto suguru is the perfect boyfriend, until he grows bored with y/n & casts her aside; he doesn't account for y/n standing up for herself & getting revenge.

20. 00.00 (ft. nanami kento) by kamisathoes

～｡☆ In which you need some late night loving from your ex-lover, Nanami Kento. But things were not what you expected them to be, they were more than what you anticipated it to be.

8K notes · View notes

satorena · 10 days

Text

❛ UNPROFESSIONALISM ! ❜

⟡ content warnings. explicit content. foul language. ceo!satoru. secretary!reader. mentioned past flings. fondlīng. fīngerīng. afab!reader. p in v. unprotected. brēēding. squīrtīng. gojo satoru is his own damn warning. 4.9k.

⟡ serena's note. oh if y’all knew the lengths i went thru just to post this damn fic. . .

“ugh, this is such a painnn!”

“the sooner you finish your paperwork, the sooner you’re off, sir.” you sigh, arms crossed over your chest. you’re used to your boss’ childish antics by now, having worked side by side with him for nearly a year. you check the time on your watch, “work ended about half an hour ago— you might want to hurry up.”

“but y/n!” he drags out your name, voice all whiny and pitched in a telltale manner. he pushes himself off away from his desk, chair rolling back from the impact as he lolls his head back. “this shit is sooo lame. didn’t i hire nanamin to take care of the boring stuff? how come he isn’t here handling this god forsaken load of terrorizing agony?!”

you click your tongue, clutching tighter at the clipboard in your hold. you wonder if he’d been dropped on the head as a child, his lack of self-awareness so painful it makes you reconsider if the check at the end of the week is ever worth it. “he’s scheduled the week off to keep his wife and newborn in check. he signed off about a month ago.”

he snaps his head up so quickly, you’re positive he’s gotten whiplash. gojo blinks at you through big blue eyes and snowy lashes, a dumbfounded look on his face. he lifts his index to scratch at the corner of his lips, and cocks his head to the side, “ahh. . . ‘s that right? wait— nanamin’s a dad?!”

you feel the vein in your head inevitably tick.

“sir,” you let out an exhausted sigh, completely baffled by his ineptitude. he must purposely choose to do this to you, there’s simply no other explanation. “we attended his wife’s baby shower a few months ago—the one you mistook for a bachelor party and had me escorting the escorts back home.” you lift your pointer finger, brows cinched as the memory burns into your mind. he tilts his head to the side, affirming the idea of his cluelessness even more.

you raised a second finger, “we showed up to the hospital to congratulate them on their baby— and you got them that ridiculous cutout board of yourself that sings when you press on the—”

“the button on my dick, yeah!” gojo cackles as if it’s the funniest story ever, as if you hadn’t need to dump a bucket of water on the cutout figure to get it to shut up before he could get his company sued for emotional distress.

you huff, the stressful reminder of that unfortunate day having you anxiously tugging at the hem of your skirt, “yep. that’s the one.” between the baby’s obnoxious cries and exaggerated mecha-gojo moans, you’d rather not think about that encounter.

“and this whole time i figured she was his sister,” gojo snorts, wiping a faux tear from the corner of his eye. he sighs when his laughter dies down, and pulls him chair back into his desk. “man, his wife’s a babe. guess that explains why she looked at me all crazy when i called her fine the other day.”

“you sure that’s the only reason?” you mutter under your breath, the insult flowing off your tongue so naturally that you couldn’t help stopping it, even if you wanted to. that man was all kinds of deranged, his ego and head much bigger than it needed to be.

“ouch, that’s mean, doll.” gojo pouts, clutching at the material of his blazer above his heart. the back of his free hand lands on his forehead as he dramatically leans back into his seat. his eyelids shut tightly, “you’re wounding me. ‘m too young to die. i can’t go on like this— tell my mother i loved her. sign off my will for me, wouldya? make sure to terrorize nanamin some more. oh, and empty out all my search histories. wouldn’t wanna ruin my reputation. and get rid of my porn magazines beneath my bed. ‘ve got some pretty nasty stuff there. and check up on my kid every now and then. and—”

“alright, alright. i apologize.” you cut his rambling off before it spiralled into something far worse. there’s a full headache throbbing at your temple, your feet ache from your heels, and your stomach rumbles in hunger. you’re ready to go home now, but that won’t be possible unless your big man baby of a boss finishes up his task. “i’m sure you’ve a very suitable man. many would be grateful to have you. my apologies, sir.”

he peeks through an eye, a smug smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. his beaten-puppy look is quickly replaced by one you know far too well now— the look he gets after beating his rival company in terms of stock. the look he gets after successfully shitting on his higher ups. the look he gets after getting you to cum on his fingers after a long day— you’ve stroked his ego. “i’ve trained you well, princess. always flattering me, ohh, however did i get so lucky?”

whatever have you done to get so unlucky? “time’s ticking, sir. you can’t afford to pick up megumi late from practice again.”

“nanamin’s wife might be a babe, but you’re a gem, y’know?” your boss entirely ignores you, leaning his elbow onto the pile of work he’s now completely erased from his existence. he leans his cheek into his palm, fingertips tapping at the side of his head. “one helluva girl. i mean it— i really lucked out with ya.”

you cross your leg over the other, shifting your hips over the suede material of his couch. you recognize the sultry undertone to his voice, and your clear your throat, “is that so?”

gojo chuckles, flashing you all thirty two teeth, “i mean it’s not everyday you find a woman with your patience. god, you must be in love with me or something.”

you roll your eyes, despite the small smile that creeps up on your lips, “that’s certainly not why i stayed,” which wasn’t entirely true, but it’s not as if you haven’t inflated his ego enough today. “you may be a handful but your pockets sure are generous.”

“wouldn’t kill you to make a guy feel good about himself from time to time, ya know?” he fiddled the black pen between his fingers, twirling the object from knuckle to knuckle. he pauses when you don’t answer, noticing you noticing his finger movements. and so he proceeds with a smirk, “you’re always so tense all the time. . . tell me, when’s the last time you’ve been properly fucked?”

you nearly lose the grip on your clipboard at his audacity, the question throwing you off guard. though, you quickly keep composure— a fierce facade that’s always labelled you as the calm and collected kind. though, you’re doubtful it worked against your own boss.

“that’s an unprofessional question, sir.” you grit through teeth, nails scratching at the wooden back of your board. highly hypocritical of yourself, as you’re absolutely no better than he is— having already opened a window of no return that fateful night you accepted his invite to come inside his home.

“pretty sure we’re past unprofessionalism.” he pushes himself off of his desk, rising to his feet. your eyes trail his movements, from the index finger that hooks at his tie to loosen the knot, to the cock of his head to the side that has his hair bouncing, to the sound of expensive shoes clicking with every stride closer to you.

his presence can be oddly intimidating at times— you’ve noticed while working with him for a while. there’re moments like whenever he steps up on a podium in front of thousands of people, or when the elevator doors slide open and presents him to the building. despite his childish antics, he exudes an aura so enchanting that serves as reminder of that at the end of the day, he’s the boss.

you swallow, eyes following his lean figure until he stops right before you. it’s hard to read him in moments like these, when he’s so unlike himself (or maybe finally truly himself). his hands sit in the pockets of his slacks, legs parted enough to entrap your own legs between his, as he tilts his head forward. his irises darken behind tinted shades, bangs curtaining the raise of an eyebrow.

“unprofessional?” he repeats, and your eyes narrow at him, subconsciously gripping at your board tighter. it’s the only thing that you seem to have control over, since it clearly wouldn’t be this conversation. “you mean like that time i had you creamin’ all over my fingers in the back of my car? or unprofessional like that time you bent over my desk and came all over my face? or was it that night when i had to tie your hands together to keep you from runnin’ away?”

your gaze flickers away from his, the heat of embarrassment creeping from your neck all the way to your face. he wasn’t wrong— your relationship with him had passed morally ethical the moment you pulled him in closer to kiss you instead of pushing him away.

“we’re still at work.” you quip, the last bit of resolve tattering away the longer you feel his eyes on you. your roll your ankle nervously, thighs tightening against another.

“work ended half an hour ago sweetheart, remember?” he reminds you, voice as taunting as ever, and you sure as hell don’t need to see him to know he’s smirking. right side of his lips pulled with a moon crescent dimple on the side— he’s making fun of you. “forgettin’ already? can’t have my adorable secretary so overwhelmed that it’s meltin’ her brain. that should be my dick’s doing only, of course.”

you click your tongue, eyes casting back up to stare him dead in the eye. naturally, he’s already meeting your own, with the same damn smirk you’d predicted, “you have paperwork to finish, sir. better get on that quickly.”

“oh?” he laughs at your command, pulling his hands out of his pockets to rest at his hips. he runs his tongue against the top row of his teeth, and you hate the way your mind instantly travels back to days prior when you’d once had that same tongue working in and out of you.

he hums in faux thought, tapping his index against his chin. his lips fall into a pout before instantly stretching back to its default state, his infamous smile, “i suppose you’re right. come help me finish then, hmm? teamwork makes the dream work.”

you’re skeptical— you know him too well, but you’d rather divert the focus of attention from you to those papers. anything to prevent your mind from wandering off further into endless unprofessional possibilities. “lead the way, boss.”

he curtsies dramatically as you rise to your feet, stomping over to his desk. you notice he’s got shit done, and you’ll most likely be here for a minute. and so, you stand next to the chair he’d abandoned and pick up the pen, waiting for him to sit so you both could get started.

only you should’ve known you’d fallen right into his trap the minute you agreed to his ridiculous offer. you feel him pressed up behind you, lurking over your shoulder to study whatever you had going on. he’s unreasonably tall, frame so large it has you feeling frail in his presence, and his cologne so strong you feel it already clouding your judgement.

damn it all.

clicking your tongue, you tilt your head to the side to narrow your eyes, “well? are you not going to sit?”

gojo blinks at you, “how come? i enjoy the view here much better anyway.”

you roll your eyes, before turning back to his desk. he was a complete idiot if he thought you hadn’t already anticipated his next moves. the more your wrist flexes, mumbling the words you read on your sheets as you write them down, the more you felt him. you could feel the back of your thighs meeting the from of his, you could feel his bulge rubbing at your ass, you could feel his warm breath fanning at the slope of your neck.

damn it all.

“sales have risen to a—ahhn!” your pen falters in your grip, scribbling on the white sheet as it hits the desk. your eyelids shut close, teeth clamping down on your bottom lip as a warm mouth kisses at that sensitive spot behind your ear. your palm lays flat against the surface of the table, side by side with gojo’s, body tensing as his mouth trails down lower.

“oh you bastard,” you mutter, shaky hand attempting to grab the pen in an unsteady hold. his chuckle rumbles deep from his chest, and you feel the vibrations against your back. you’re determined to stand your ground, despite the urge to push your hips back into him. he may have soft lips and an annoyingly hot voice, but you would not falter— no matter the moisture of his breath sending shivers down your spine.

you think you have it set in stone, the pen in your hold— albeit unsteady— despite his large hand creeping up your thigh. every trail of his touch leaves an electrifying feeling, and you’re sure he’s noticed your trembling knees if the way he subtly slid his leg in between yours to keep you steady said anything.

it’s when you’re ready to scribble out your mistake to replace it that he decides to plunge his canines to your jugular. the moan that erupts from you is squeaky, your hand clutching tightly at the pen as your back arches into his chest from the painful pleasure.

gojo nibbles and sucks at your skin, running his tongue over the throbbing area to soothe the pain, fingers trailing closer to your now aching core. you’re positive your skirt has now hiked up with how much your hips are pushing back into his, head lolled forward.

“aweee, what’s the matter sweetheart? ‘s too much for you already?” gojo coos, sultry voice sending chills from the shell of your ear down to your core, finally slipping his hand inside of your skirt. his fingertips brush at your clothed clit, the material of your thong shamefully damp in arousal. you huff, nails scratching at his desktop when his index and middle finger rub painfully slow circles at your clit. “but we’ve barely done anything? tsk, can’t afford slowing the company down because you’re too distracted to focus.”

your thighs and arms threaten to give out, body heating with lust and desire. you want to say you hate this, that this is against your typical work ethics, to tell him to fuck off and do the work himself. but the focus on your pussy really has you melting puddle, bottom lip tugged on to suppress any louder sounds to escape.

“y-you’re the worst.” you complain, though it fades into another moan when he pushes his thigh up in between your legs. you’re internally thankful, because had this gone any further, you’re certain you would’ve sunken to the floor.

“love you too, pretty girl.” he presses a kiss at your jaw, fingers pushing past your panties. fuck any resolve you’d held onto— you chuck the pen far away, planting both palms down as you allowed him to take control. every rub of his fingers at your clit had you dripping down his thigh, to where your hips shifted and rolled down his leg, dragging out that blissful heat in your gut.

“givin’ up already? y’didn’t put much of a fight this time, can’t say i’m a disappointed.” his free hand grips at your thigh and trails up to your hips, resting at your flesh to guide you down his leg. he’s all too enthralled by your sensitivity, gaze zeroed in on your expressions— from the slackness at your jaw to the way your brows furrow.

“just h-hurry up already,” you grit, eyelashes fluttering as your eyelids lift. your gaze meets his instantly, and gulp at the hungry look in his eyes. his skin is already flushed pink, lips parted as he pants heavily. “you’re no—ngh, better than i am, dickhead.”

“well aren’t ya damn mouthy,” gojo acknowledged, though clearly unbothered, as his fingers pinch at that bundle of nerve. you gasp, cunt clenching as it leaks more of your essence down on him. your head drops back against his shoulder, the slope of your back curving as you grip onto the closest thing in your vicinity— the hem of his blazer. “hm, whatever happened to my obedient secretary? always so polite and respectful, don’t tell me i haven’t trained you enough?”

“m-maybe you haven’t,” you pant, chest heaving as you feel his fingertips teasing the entrance of your folds. they’re slow movements, applying just enough pressure to ignite the spark in your guts but not enough to leave you wanting more. “can’t even do your damn j-job right and you call yourself boss? hah, wonder if mister geto would have this issue— fuuuck!”

“low fuckin’ blow, sweets.” gojo chuckles darkly, now two fingers knuckle deep in your cunt. he wastes no time to plunge himself inside, knuckles rubbing at your velvety walls. you clamp down on his digits, desperate to keep him in for the sake of that orgasm you craved. “and here i was ready to put this pretty pussy in my mouth. you’re dickless for a few days and catch an attitude wimme? that’s cold, baby.”

“dickless?” you cock a brow, teeth gritting as you focus all your energy left on delivering your next line. he always got so cocky whenever he had a slight advantage. “a-according to who—ooh, god, shit!”

“ooh god, shit!” gojo mocks you, a third finger now joining the others. he scissors your cunt open, the slick of your arousal simplifying the slide in. you’re dripping down to his palm, so wet despite the front you’re putting up. he knows you love it whenever he angles his fingers at this angle, the one that has you knees weak and ready to fold. “face it sweets, i’m the only one who treats this pussy the way it deserves. see how well she responds to me?”

and you wish you could negate or deny him, but unfortunately, you both know he’s correct. he’s only got his fingers inside of you and you’re already at your limit. your hips eagerly chase his fingers whenever he pulls out just to thrust them back in, the pad of his thumb drawing infinity signs at your clit. your tongue feels heavy in your mouth, knot in your tummy tightening from the stimulation.

“nghhh, ‘m gonna cum,” your hand slides down the slope of his forearm till where his wrist begins. you claw at the bone, clutching and grabbing at him eagerly. damn him and his damned fingers— driving you to mush with all six inches. “more, hah, need more— gimme more!”

“manners, pretty baby.” gojo coos at your ear, despite upping his pace. his hands reach all the right spots, pussy desperate to hold out to his fingers as they fuck your cunt open, soaking the digits in your slick. “c’mon girl, what’s the magic word? i know you’ve got it in you.”

“p-please! pleasepleaseplease—” you’re cut off by your own gasp as the dam in your stomach finally breaks. you leak on his fingers, squirting your juices as your muscles convulse, walls entrapping him in. your back arches away from him and you grasp at anything in your reach, your mouth gaped. you’re cussing like a sailor, vision blacked out beneath your eye lids as your hips twitch and stutter against gojo’s ruthless pace.

your high washes down, as you lose feeling in your limbs, falling face down to the desk. your skin is moist with heat, mouth parted as drool coats the abandoned paperwork beneath you. your body twitches with oversensitivity, thighs quaking as your last few spurts spray all over gojo’s thigh.

“don’t tell me you’re all worn out from a little foreplay?” your boss teases, his free hand delivering a blow onto your ass cheek. it recoils as you jolt, snivelling like a baby. you hear the sound of his belt unbuckling, slacks falling next and pooling at his ankles. the next few moments happen in a blur, but sooner than you’d realized, you’d been turned onto your back with your legs propped over his shoulders and your folds were being played with again, the overstimulation having your toes curling in your heels.

“anddd there we go,” gojo strokes at his bricked cock, your essence serving as lube to coat his dick. he drags his fist from the base of his shaft to the tip, both your fluids and his pre cum mixture softening the jerk. “you fuckin’ water park. jeez, maybe i should plug this tiny cunt to prevent any further leakage, yeah?”

“fucking hurry already!” you don’t whine, or so you hope, though the grip of your legs at the back of his neck does tighten. with your skirt hiked up and your panties pushed to the side, gojo has a clear view of your twitching pussy, a hole designated intentionally just for him. he can already feel the cum in his balls ready to burst and fill your womb.

“and back to mouthy she goes,” he chuckles, using the leverage of his hand at his cock to slap his dick at your folds. the impact causes you to whimper, your hands clutching at the border of the desk. you wish you could wipe that smirk off his face, but fuck if the way he didn’t rub himself against you arouse you in ways that would surely haunt you after the orgasmic high faded away.

“take a deep breath for me baby, kay?” gojo instructs, thumb brushing over the skin above your hip bone, and before you’re able to retaliate, he slides in his dick.

his length is nothing to scoff at, and although you’ve already dealt with it in the past, all that prepping he’d done earlier seemed in vain. he bottoms out quickly, balls deep into you cunt. both your moans blend in harmony, overlapping one another as you settle with the aching stretch. your pussy clenches around his cock uncontrollably, both eager to push and pull him away.

“shittttt,” he whines throatily despite the huge grin on his lips. the flush pampering his skin has gotten significantly deeper, pale brows furrowed to the centre of his forehead. his hands grip at your plush thighs, fingers digging deep into your skin, surely enough to leave bruises. the bastard— he knew you’d be forced to wear your own slacks tomorrow to avoid suspicions.

“no fuckin’ way ‘m already set to bust— hah, fuck, what in the magical pussy is this?” gojo groans, snowy hair bouncing with his head thrown back. the tighter you grip at his cock, the tighter he grips at your thighs and the deeper his breaths are.

you push yourself up to your elbows, giggling at the irony of the situation. “already huh? so it wasn’t the liquor’s fault last time.” surely you were no better, entirely stimulated and body excreting all kinds of fluids from all over, but the ball was now in your court, and you planned on taking advantage. “s-should’ve known.”

naturally, he doesn’t rise to your bait, instead moving his hips away from yours, slowly dragging his cock out until the only part left in your cunt is his pink tip. “don’t make me make you eat your words, sweets.”

you raise your hand and rest it right above his pelvis, eyes set straight on his. you’re both clearly eager and ready to go, but you still had your dignity to uphold. you drag your palm upwards his torso, nails trailing up his button-up top teasingly before clutching at his tie. with the strength left in you, you yank him down and closer to you.

the shift in position stirs his dick in your cunt, knees now pressed closer to your chest. he hovers over you, a newfound look in his eyes you aren’t ready to divulge into—he was a very expressive man after all. both your lips ghosts one over another, breaths hot and mingling. you feel fuzzy, all senses fucked but collectively drawing at a same conclusion: wanting him to fuck your brains out on this desk.

“fuckin’ hell that was sexy.” it almost comes off a whisper, his tone breathless as his eyes bare deep into your. you feel the warmth of his hands fading away in favour to cup at your waist.

you tilt your head to the side, nose grazing against his. your fingers fiddle with the hem of his tie, despite never breaking the eye contact. “you gonna rock my world now?”

nothing more has to be said as he engulfs your mouth into his, knocking the wind out of you. his tongue explores the warm cave of your mouth, no inch left untouched. you moan and kiss him back just as eagerly, sliding the hand from his neck tie to his nape. your fingers thread through his soft locks, nails scratching his scalp and tugging at the roots.

he whimpers pathetically, the pain sending courses of arousal straight to his dick as his hips slam right back against yours. his thrust is rough and deep— leaving you gasping, as he takes the opportunity to kiss you even deeper while simultaneously working on his strokes.

the curve of his cock reaches even deeper than his fingers could manage, rubbing at your gummy walls and stretching them even wider. the sounds of your bodies connecting, your skins slapping, both your fluids mixing— everything felt so wanton, so filthy. he was everywhere, so far in your stomach you swear you could feel him in your throat.

the stretch of his cock at your pussy sent a fiery feeling spreading towards all of your limbs. the squelching of your pussy tightening and clenching at his dick filling the room. he soon picked up his pace, railing into you with every fibre in his body, loving the way your body bounced up in reaction to his thrusts.

“s-shit, oh fuck— don’t stop, ngh, right there!” you begged, throwing your head back against the hard surface. you’d given up on trying to keep your eyes open, the intensity of his dick ramming into your guts so fierce, you’d never felt anything like it.

he takes a sharp inhale of breath, followed by a whiny exhale. you were driving him insane, your sloppy cunt greedily clamping on his dick as if it were its lifeline. “suckin’ me in so tight, shitttt baby, ‘s like you want me to fill this perfect pussy full of my nut.” he dives his tongue deeper into your mouth for extra measure. you’re in a turmoil of multiple emotions at once but you kiss him back— until your lips feel tender and your mouth tastes of his breath.

he was annoyingly intoxicating, whether you wanted to admit it or not. your body spoke every word you were ashamed to say, responding with his own almost too perfectly.

when he slips his thumb to toy at your clit, your toes curl in your shoes and you’re accustomed to the oncoming feeling all too well, nails clawing at his skin. your words come out all fumbled mixed with tongue and drool, “s-satoru, i— ‘m gonna, don’t you stop— fuck ‘s too much— hnng!” you pull away just slightly, eyes all dazed as they roll to the back of your skull.

“shit, oh shit, me too,” he swipes at the drool dribbling past your mouth. from there, he plants more kisses at your skin, nibbling at every inch of you. he’s rutting like a madman, pace unforgiving as he focuses on that same spot that has you mindless. he finds you prettiest when you’re this way— all obedient for him. “my pretty girl— where do i— fuck, where—”

“inside.” as if you’d wanted to kill him, just as quick the word left your lips, he emptied his balls in your cunt. he sobs, his orgasm wracking over his entire body as he slams and fills your pussy full of him. the mixture of sounds is downright sinful, and whether it’d been the focus on your clit or his inhumane stamina, you soon met your similar end.

you cream on his dick once more, legs trembling as your second orgasm washes over you. your mind gone dumb, you do nothing but lay as you take the pounding inflicted on your worn out pussy. with each stroke you see stars, breasts juggling at the match of his pace. it’s damn near painful, but in the best enjoyable way. you feel yourself getting fuller by the second as you spray more of your arousal onto him.

the high eventually comes down for you both, the room reeking of sex. you’re both panting heavily, muscles twitching from overexertion. you couldn’t recall the last time you’d been fucked to the point of a momentary blackout— but you’d be damned if you’d ever let him know. he was too busy crying over your cunt anyways.

after a moment of silence, “. . .shit.”

“what?” you hum tiredly, rubbing the back of your hand to your tired hands. god, you could barely muster enough energy to do just that. what did this man eat?

he skips a few beats, before sheepishly chuckling, the hand that’d once been tracing patterns at the skin of your thighs now moving to your side. your gaze follows his movements, and it’s only when he retracts his hand does your heart sink to your chest.

“we definitely fucked these papers up.”

. . . shit.

io baby.. if you ever end up reading this i did it :c

#stargirl★rena.#jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk smut #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x reader #gojo smut #gojo x reader #gojo x y/n

3K notes · View notes