#i will do something with that au sometime i promise | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bookwyrminspiration · 2 years

Text

Shattered Upside Down

A kotlc wings au: masterpost here

Chapter 31: Love Me Like You Used To

word count: 8.4k

chapter summary: Sophie tackles one of the items on her To-Do list and learns something she thought she never would

warnings: death (important but not main character), not as bad as it sounds and also not described, anxiety, I think that's it!

taglist: I’ll reblog with it! let me know if you want to be added or removed!

ao3 link here or read below

Stories loved to tease, drawing out the terror and the unease and the questions and the revelations, allowing everyone to see each and every piece of the puzzle fall into place. To give them time to try and solve it themselves, to lead themselves astray. The nature of story-telling is to engage, and Sophie couldn’t help but feel like she was being strung along, waiting in that pause as the narrator took a breath, everyone leaning closer, before the story slammed back down to elicit gasps and shrieks and fear from its audience.

How much longer did she have before her story crashed together? How much longer could their plight build and climb and construct itself?

“What do we even do now?” Linh asked, flopping back against the cushions. “There’s so much going on.”

No one had an answer yet.

Sitting in the silence, Sophie pulled her to-do list from where she’d tucked it, fiddling with the paper. Maybe looking over it would help her decide which item to tackle next, or to prioritize them, because Phoenix had just jumped very high up the list. She couldn’t leave that girl with them, but how did she get her away from all that chaos?

“What’s that?” Fits asked.

Sophie hesitated for a moment; it was meant to be just her To-Do list to keep herself organized, but there was no harm in sharing it with everyone.

“Just a list of things I need to take care of. With so much happening, things kept slipping past me until they became problems I couldn’t ignore, so I’m trying to avoid that now.”

He held out his hand in question, and she handed it over. She didn’t think any of the things she’d written there were particularly embarrassing, but who knew?

His brow furrowed as he read through each item, Keefe crowding over his shoulder to read it too in a way that had Fitz shoving at his face to get away from him.

“I’m just looking!” Keefe insisted, sticking his face right next to Fitz’s, who looked like he was about to shove Keefe off the couch and maybe drag him through some mud for good measure--there was sure to be plenty outside with the patter of the rain nonstop against the roof.

“Keefe, I swear--”

“You can check off a few things from here, Foster,” he added, and she just sighed instead of explaining that Explain what happened when I got taken and Learn what Dex found in the facility had literally just happened and she hadn’t had a chance to yet.

After another moment of watching the two fight, Marella sighed, darting forward to snatch it from Fitz’s hands, reading it aloud to the group.

Or at least, she was going to when Dex interrupted right at the beginning. “You’re going to talk to our parents? Like…all of them? Why?”

Sophie held up her hand like she was defending herself against something when really all it had been was a few perfectly reasonable questions. “Okay, hear me out. I know we left and stopped responding to their messages, but…don’t you think it’s time we reach back out? We can’t avoid them forever. One day they’re going to find us or this is all going to be over and we won’t have any justification for running away--we don’t even have a good enough reason right now! They’re our parents and we’re ignoring them like--”

“Where is this coming from, Sophie?” Tam asked quietly beside her, eyes searching her face as he worried at his lip.

“Livvy said some things,” she admitted, shifting in her bean bag chair to keep her butt from going numb; they’d been sitting there a while.

“And?” he prompted further.

Sighing, she sat on her hands so she wouldn’t tug on her eyelashes. “She asked if she could give me advice, and I said yes, and she told me to talk to my parents. Because they trust me but I’m being uncooperative and they’re worried. And they want to help, but they can’t stop me from ignoring them even though they’ve tried and it’s never going to be any easier to try and fix everything so why not try now. It bothered me how right she was, so it was one of the first things I thought of when writing the list.”

“But not the first thing,” Biana noted, looking to her in question.

“I only thought of the riddle first because I’ve been putting it off for so long, but talking to my parents should probably be the first thing. I didn’t write it in order or anything,” she said, trailing off, anxiety curling in her chest as she wound it into the reforming knot under her ribs. At this rate she’d be fully stocked up and ready to explode with emotion in no time.

Fitz shifted on the couch, jostling Keefe, who’d been resting on his shoulder. “I guess…we should also do the same,” he admitted, glancing to Biana who made a face somewhere in between a grimace and longing…and then guilt for the longing.

“Yeah my mom…is definitely not going to be happy with me,” Dex said quietly, picking at the cuticles of his nails to avoid looking at anyone. “I mean, she’ll be happy to see me I guess. But not with…all of this.”

He punctuated the statement with a wave of his hands around the room, indicating their whole lives. The way they all lived with each other and had strange not-pets like Echo--who was currently investigating Tam’s hand, much to his chagrin, the way monsters were a part of their lives and the way none of them would change that. Not all of them had monsters, but the closest they got to flat out rejection was Maruca, who only did so to protect them all from the bad ones.

But they weren’t all bad, and that was the part that didn’t sit well with everyone else; they’d come around though, she knew they would. At least the people who mattered would. The rest? They could deal with them.

Sophie tried to channel Livvy as she offered him a small smile. “Well, waiting longer isn’t going to make her happier. No time like the present, that’s why it’s the gift. That’s. The present is a gift,” she repeated once again incorrectly, frowning. “Hang on, I know the quote. I’ve got this. Today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present,” she said, flopping back once she’d finally gotten it right, sending a mental apology to Master Oogway out into the world for the disappointment, though he’d probably forgive her.

“I…what?” Maruca asked, distracted enough that the bauble of a shield she’d been rolling in her palms flickered away. She wasn’t the only one; strange looks were coming at her from all around the circle, but she ignored the faint heat crawling up her face. Her Kung Fu Failure wasn’t important right now.

“My point,” Sophie emphasized, “is that it’s never going to get easier, so why not do it now before we nearly die trying to take down the Neverseen and Phoenix--the organization. Phoenix the girl doesn’t deserve that. We need to get her out of there, and that’s part of why we’ll probably nearly die. And maybe our parents could help, too. Not that we’d risk them up here, but they might know things or have ideas. They’ve done that before.”

“Just to be clear, I am not talking to Daddy Dearest,” Keefe added, glancing at her.

She nodded. “Okay, cool. No one else has to do anything, I’m doing this for me. But what about Ro?”

“I hate it when you make good points.”

“I just said you don’t have to do anything, though. It’s a suggestion.”

It only being a suggestion didn’t stop him from sticking his tongue out at her as he folded his arms, pouting.

Fitz grinned, hiding his own rapid heartbeat as he reached over to ruffle Keefe’s hair, who responded by swatting at him.

The conversation made her all too aware of her imparter pressed against her leg, slipped into a hidden pocket. Square and thin, that little device could change so many things if she only used it the right way. But what way was right? Should she show up knocking on their door, go back to the Underground again? Should she hail them?

What would she even say? I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you for weeks, what’s up with you? Read any good books lately?

If only there was a manual for when you got turned not entirely human--elven in her case--and ran away from home, cutting off your parents for an extended period of time as you tried to puzzle together who you were now and the mysterious past of two dangerous organizations terrorizing the planet, and now needed to apologize while also continuing to do almost all the things that caused the problems in the first place.

“Yeah, she’s not hearing a word we’re saying,” Marella’s voice sighed, cutting through Sophie’s worried thoughts and sending her crashing down to Earth more jarringly than when Silveny had thrown her from her back into a pile of glittery manure in front of the entire Council so many years ago.

Sophie’s face burned as she blinked, comprehending how spaced out she’d been only a moment later. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”

“Yep, we were asking if you had any plan on how you wanted to do that, and if it would need all of us. Or if it would be better if we all contacted our parents on our own--or someone else,” Fitz amended, gesturing vaguely towards Keefe. “If we wanted to, that is.”

Picking at the hem of her shirt to keep her from removing all of the eyelashes from her face and then some from someone else's, she thought it over for a moment. “I think…we do it on our own, if we want to. Like I said, the list was just for me. I need to talk to my parents, but I can’t tell the rest of you what to do.”

Wylie was making a face in the corner she couldn’t discern anything from, but he didn’t add to the conversation so she let it slide.

“Well…I guess I need to go make a hail,” Fitz mumbled, turning towards Biana like he was going to ask her something when Keefe jumped in.

“I think you mean we need to go make a hail, because there’s no way I’m letting you do that alone. I’d be able to feel the nerves radiating off of you from the other side of the village, Avery. Now c’mon,” he said, standing and pulling Fitz to his feet with a start, who gave a slight wince as he redistributed his weight off his bad leg.

No one said anything to interrupt them, everyone just amused to watch their banter. Sometimes they acted like an old married couple, and the teasing material they got out of it was so golden no one dared disrupt the process.

Fitz shoved at Keefe with affection. “You’re the worst, you know that right? What are--what are you even trying to do.” Despite his complaints, however, he was still allowing Keefe to drag him out of the building, where the rain had picked up.

“As your best friend for life, I’m giving you the motivation and awesomeness to do something that terrifies you! Like a best friend should.”

“I don’t think that--oh it’s so wet! Why are we out here!” His shrieks from the cold rain finally broke the silent spell over the rest of the group as Biana snorted, clapping a hand against her mouth.

Wylie was rubbing at his temples, Dex leaning back to get a good view out the window of their squabbling figures, and everyone’s lips were upturned, even Tam’s as he shook his head in exasperation.

The somber mood had lifted, the stressors of everything she’d let spill about the day before and the ominous documents Dex had summarized, everything melting into nothing, and Sophie swore she could feel Keefe’s smug smile from here. He may be an absolute pain in their asses a lot of the time, but he knew exactly what he was doing when it counted.

BRRR, Echo complained, and everyone jumped. It’d been sitting so politely and everyone had pretended it wasn’t there, but you couldn’t easily ignore the rumble that burst from its chest, vibrating through the floorboards and sending shivers up your spine, goosebumps across your flesh, unless you were very used to it--and no one but Sophie was.

“Okay seriously what is that thing,” Tam demanded, scooting back further in his beanbag. Or at least, he tried to, instead he just kinda fumbled and sunk further down, knocking a wing into a wall as he struggled.

Sophie just shrugged. “Your guess is about as good as mine, honestly.”

“I think it’s cute,” Biana said, standing up and crossing the room so she could squat down in front of Sophie, extending a hand close to Echo’s face so it could investigate her.

Echo flinched a little in surprise before curiously pushing its face closer to Biana’s fingers, and she practically melted into it, scratching the top of its head and swirling those black and white glitchy furs together as a rumbly purr permeated the room.

Sophie didn’t pay much attention to everyone else as Biana lowered herself completely to the floor, but she was vaguely aware of everyone dispersing--though there were no shrieks of surprise from the rain, which kept up a gentle patter against the windows and roof--until it was only Sophie, Biana, and Linh--and Wylie, because he lived there.

Linh had taken Tam’s beanbag, and was leaning close, watching Biana pet Echo and looking like she very badly wanted to be doing the same thing. Her eyes occasionally strayed towards the vast windows, watching the raindrops streaking down the glass with a misty longing before she drew herself back to the moment, toying with the silver ends of her hair.

“Are you…are you going to hail your parents today?” Biana finally asked into the quiet, dropping her hand from Echo’s fur and inclining her head at Linh, who immediately took her place offering her fingers.

Sophie reached up to pull on her lashes, but stopped herself half-way. “I…yeah, I think I am.”

“Can I be there?” Biana’s voice was small enough Sophie nearly thought she imagined it, but the flush creeping across her cheeks was unmistakable.

“Oh, of course, but,” Sophie trailed off, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. “Don’t you want to talk to your own parents? Why mine?”

Biana made a noise, fiddling with the hem of her shirt--a very pretty dark blue, the kind that went great with khaki--as she shrugged. “I do want to talk to them. I miss them…more than I can ever explain. But it’s been so long that I don’t even know where to start. So I want to see how you do it, and maybe it makes me a coward but if Fitz is willing to do the hard part and talk to them first and explain everything…then I’m going to let him.”

“That doesn’t make you a coward,” Linh interrupted gently, dropping her hand from Echo to look fully at her. “It’s a hard situation, of course you don’t want to deal with it. And if this makes it easier for you and everyone else is willing, why not go for it? No one is going to hold that against you or think less of you.”

Biana didn’t have a response to that, going kind of quiet as she traced a fingernail along the scars all along her body, drawing pictures of her history into her skin.

A faint bump of something in an adjacent room startled the three of them, reminding them that they weren’t alone and this was, in fact, Wylie’s house.

“Do you want to come to my place?” Sophie said in a rush, not quite sure where the words came from but meaning them all the same. “You can come, too, if you want,” she offered to Linh.

Linh gave a smile, lighting up a little from the inside.

“I’d love to, but I’m keeping this thing--” she scratched Echo’s head for emphasis--”with me. You’ve hogged it for far too long.”

“Um, excuse me? It’s not my fault you all were scared of it and Marella wanted to kill it.”

“Semantics,” Biana shrugged as she stood, and Sophie made an indignant noise as she was pulled to her feet, Linh laughing behind her as they pushed the door open.

A dome of water formed above the three of them, Linh twirling her hands with graceful skill to keep the pattering rain off their delicate insect wings and away from the not-cat curled in Biana’s arms, sightly confused by the change of events but going along with it nonetheless.

She’d never seen Echo this calm or for this long before in her life, but it felt right.

Everything was falling into place, they just had to get each other through it.

____________________

“Why is the window broken?” Biana asked, poking her finger at the rough edges, careful not to cut herself on the colors.

“Sophie just loves the open air, she couldn’t help herself,” Linh teased, sitting on the edge of Sophie’s bed as she smoothed out the blankets behind her, picking up a strand of not-cat hair, flicking it away.

“There are easier ways to open a window than breaking it.”

Rolling her eyes, Sophie crawled into the bed behind Linh, sitting in the center. “It was like that when I got here,” she said in answer to Biana’s question.

The Biana in question sank down next to Linh, setting Echo gently on the covers between the three of them. In this formation, with the two of them before Sophie, they wouldn’t be visible on the hail unless they chose to move into sight, a little precaution in case it turned out to be overwhelming.

Sophie was already overwhelmed, palms sweating and her heart beating unevenly in her chest, faint periodic buzzing coming from her wings as they worried at the air. She started to reach for an eyelash, but stopped herself.

Everything was fine. It was just her parents. Maybe they wouldn’t even pick up.

“Hey, Lady Fos-boss,” Biana interrupted before Sophie could fall too far down the panic hole, waving a hand in her face. “I know we claimed this…thing,” she looked quizzically at Echo, “but would it help if you held onto something?”

“Oh! Here,” Linh added, standing up to dart down the stairs towards the desk, snatching the neon dinosaur and bringing it back to place in Sophie’s hand. “Emotional support--aside from us, of course. You could hold us instead if you needed.”

Sophie let out a small laugh, squeezing the dinosaur before settling it in her lap, letting out a breath as she took her imparter from her pocket, ignoring the spike of dizziness, the terror crawling under her skin.

“Thanks for being here--and for the dinosaur.”

They both gave her encouraging thumbs up, though Biana’s heartbeat had started to pound nearly as much as Sophie’s. Linh placed a hand on Biana’s shoulder, offering comfort how she could as Sophie took the next step.

She held up her imparter and spoke the words before any more doubt could creep in. “Show me Edaline Ruewen.”

____________________

When Sophie was little, she’d been gifted much more independence than she probably should’ve had. Her cover story about taking the train back from the museum after Fitz had completely shattered her view of the world at only twelve years old could only work if she knew how to use the train after all.

Her human parents hadn’t been particularly fond of it, and she’d never forgotten the exact cadence of their relief every time she walked back through the door. Their thoughts flooding into a puddle in the forefront of their mind as they tried not to let it show, tried to reassure her that it wasn’t her they distrusted, that everything was okay.

But that deluge of concerns and anxieties had haunted her ever since, and it was the exact same as te tone in Edaline’s words as her face filled the small screen held unsteady in her palm.

“Sophie? Sophie! Oh it’s--” Edaline’s face turned away before she had the chance to say anything, the screen blurring as she stood, calling out Grady’s name a moment later, telling him to come there right this instant, that Sophie was hailing, that she’d finally reached out. That she’d responded. That she was there.

She tightened her grip on the dinosaur to resist the urge to tear out her eyelashes, and Linh gave her an encouraging smile.

BRRR, said Echo from Biana’s lap, in a very Echo-like fashion that allowed her to take a breath. It was okay, everything was okay. It might be a little rocky, but she was fixing things.

And then Grady’s face appeared next to Edaline’s, both of their faces lined with exhaustion and worry, hair mussed but smoothed back and skin colorless. It was as though they’d tried to hastily cover all the signs and were so close but not quite there.

“Um…hey,” she whispered, her voice suddenly gone. The sight of them, those two faces who had taken her in and loved her more than she’d ever deserved or expected…she wanted nothing more than for them to hold her close. Maybe that’s why she’d put this off for so long, because some part of her knew how badly she’d miss them if only she confronted them and she hadn’t been ready to face it.

She wasn’t even sure she was now.

“Kiddo, are you okay? Are you hurt? We know what happened with Elwin--”

“You saw Elwin?”

Edaline set the imparter down so the two of them could sit, saying, “Of course, we visited as soon as Livvy would let us after we heard. She said she patched you up a little, so we know something happened. Everyone’s okay, right?”

Sophie glanced towards Linh and Biana for a moment, who were staying silent in case she didn’t want her parents to know they were there, just carding their fingers through Echo’s fur.

Squeezing the dinosaur tighter, she answered, “Yeah, everyone’s okay. Elwin was…he was the only one home. We were all out, so no one else was hurt.” She didn’t say the rest of it, but they heard the unspoken words nevertheless; they knew her too well.

“It’s not your fault, honey,” Edaline reassured her. “We’re just so glad to hear your voice. We didn’t know if we’d ever see you again.”

What was she even supposed to say to that?

“Sorry about that, it won’t happen again,” was what she came up with after a moment of silence, watching her parents as they spoke with baited breath, as though approaching a wild animal. Like they were scared of startling her away and losing this opportunity.

“Does that mean you’ll stop ignoring us?” Grady asked, glancing between her and Edaline. “That we’ll work together again? Kiddo, we never meant to scare you away--”

Sophie waved her hand in the air, trying to push their worries away through the screen. “No no, it’s--it’s fine. I understand why you did it even if…even though the tracker was a shock at first. But what other options did you have? It’s nothing, really. I’m sorry I pushed you to a point where that was the best choice you could make.”

“Why did you, Sophie?” Edaline’s gentle voice asked after a moment, like she’d been bracing herself for the question. “What’s going on? Please don’t push us away again, whatever it was we just want you to be safe and happy and loved. We’ve had no idea what’s going on with you for weeks, you were gone so suddenly and then when Grady went to see you…talk to us, Sophie.”

Sophie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the blurriness from her eyes, fingers digging into the dinosaur's fluffy exterior as she breathed.

Opening them, she caught Linh and Biana’s eyes, looking at them like they could tell her what to do, what to say, how to fix all this.

“Is someone there with you?” Grady asked, squinting at the screen like he could somehow break elf-physics and project himself into the room so he could see them.

Biana waved, despite not being visible, saying, “Hi, Grady!”

“We’re here for emotional support,” Linh added, coming to Sophie’s rescue as she fumbled for the right words. When she got all heated up it was all too easy to let the vitriol flow from her mouth, spewing fire onto those who pissed her off, but when it mattered like this it was so so much more difficult to find herself, to articulate herself.

Edaline’s fingers were tugging at a strand of hair that had escaped its place as she asked “Have you talked to Alden and Della?”

Biana’s face scrunched up, and she removed her fingers from Echo’s--who had remained blissfully quiet--fur to scoot next to Sophie, wings folded behind her with the colors vanished, invisible on screen.

“I haven’t yet. Fitz and Keefe are doing that; I’ll talk to them…later.” When I’m ready, were the words she didn’t say, but everyone caught nevertheless.

Linh silently came to sit on Sophie’s other side, offering no further commentary except to be there, waving a polite hello that Grady and Edaline returned with a smile. Their eyes were scanning up and down and up and down all of them, looking for injuries or marks despite Sophie assuring them everyone was okay. She couldn’t blame them, her own eyes following every piece of them to try and figure out who they’d become in the time since she’d left them.

“I’m glad you have each other,” Edaline whispered, reaching for Grady’s hand and squeezing tight.

A weight settled in Sophie’s chest, a spark burning through the fear in her mind, the hesitation. “Can we--can you give us a minute?” She blurted out, then rushed to reassure them. “I promise I’m not going to hang up or push you away, that’s why I hailed you in the first place. Livvy told me I should talk to you and she was right and it was so selfish of me to leave the way I did and I want to fix it. I know I don’t deserve it after everything I’ve put you through, but please trust me--just one minute, that’s it. Is that okay?”

“Of course we trust you, Sophie,” Grady said. “But we’re gonna hold you to that not hanging up or pushing us away anymore thing, okay?”

She hummed her agreement, nodding vigorously as she set her imparter face down on her bed, giving the three of them a little bit of privacy as she leaned back to look at them the best she could. Both Biana and Linh had equally curious expressions, and Biana opened her mouth to ask a question Sophie silenced with a wave of her hand.

Not out loud, she said into their heads, forming a little mental bubble for the three of them--actually, four, she realized when Echo made a noise into her head.

What’s this for? Linh asked, Biana inclining her head, equally curious.

Sophie briefly considered trying to approach this delicately, but she didn’t want to leave her parents waiting, so she cut to the chase. I…don’t want to talk to them like this. It feels too important to do over a hail; if I wanted to visit them in person, would you come?

Wait, like go back to the Underground? Biana’s thoughts warred between excitement and nerves, a tinge of pinks and greens coloring her thoughts.

Nodding, she explained further. You don’t have to do anything but…I think it’s what I need to do. You’ve already helped more than enough just being here right now when you didn’t have to, I’d never ask you to do something like this against your will--

Of course I’ll come, Linh interrupted, taking Sophie’s hand and holding it tight, giving her a reassuring squeeze. Whatever you need, I’m there.

Biana hesitated for a moment, then spoke. Yeah, I’ll go.

Her thoughts still squirmed with an unease, prompting Sophie to ask, Are you sure? You really don’t have to if you don’t want to.

No, no. I mean it. I want to go. Her resolve had solidified in her mind with Sophie’s question, and even though her nerves lingered she could tell her offer was genuine. You can’t get rid of me that easily, Lady Fos-Boss.

Sophie gave her a smile, letting out a breath. She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted them to say yes; she never would’ve forced them to come along, but it was nice to have them at her side.

Okay, now you give me one minute, she told them, closing her eyes as she let her mind spread further and further, finding those ties she and Fitz had so carefully crafted between the ten of them.

She gave them a light tug, whispering I need you for a second, giving everyone a moment to stop what they were doing and turn their attention inwards.

You okay? Dex asked immediately, sounding like he was ready to drop everything and come sprinting for her house.

Yep, just a heads up that Biana, Linh, and I are going to go back to the Underground to talk to my parents--just them, we’ll try to stay away from everyone else to make it easier. So…yeah, just letting you all know. Is there anything you’d like us to do or say or bring while we’re there? I think it’ll be best with just the three of us right now so we don’t overwhelm them…but maybe this could be a test to see if you guys can go back soon--if you want to, she tacked on at the end, firmly biting her tongue to remind herself to stop talking.

Silence followed for a second as everyone processed, then Keefe’s voice came through.

If you see Ro…tell her that yellow really isn’t her color.

That earned a few laughs from everyone else, but no one else knew what to say. They trusted her, despite all the shit they’d been through, and if she wanted to go back, well, she’d given them advanced notice of her plans and a bit of her reasoning. They’d know where the three of them were if they never returned, and no one would find them missing in a panic the way they had with Linh.

With all that sorted, Sophie opened her eyes, wincing as her eyes adjusted to the light, Biana and Linh at her side as she picked her imparter back up, both her parents still sitting there, looking to each other and whispering in quick tones.

She could’ve picked up on the conversation if she wanted to, but that was their business; she wasn’t going to interfere.

“Sorry, that was probably more than one minute,” she said, watching their heads turn back towards her as their expressions softened, shoulders dropping and tension leaking from their limbs.

“No worries, kiddo,” Grady told her. “What was that all about?”

Taking a breath, she said, “Well, I was asking Linh and Biana if they’d…like to join me on a trip to visit you.”

____________________

“Is it just me or is the grate different?” Biana whispered, glancing around the clearing, the small open circle of clear grass and flowers bordered by craggy trees all twisting and reaching and moaning towards the sky.

So many times, creatures had roamed this area, come to try and rend the flesh from their bones. But now all she could hear was the faint air moving along the bark, the tapping of a woodpecker, the buzz of quiet, unseen life surviving.

“Well, I kinda threw it into a tree and then Marella melted it back together, so they couldn’t keep it like that,” Sophie offered, crouching down to press her fingers to the grooves, moving it with all the effort of flicking a piece of paper off a desk. She didn’t want a repeat, to keep destroying what she touched.

Her cloak scrunched uncomfortably against her wings and got caught under her foot as she stood, having successfully removed the grate, the tiny entrance into such a bursting live underground, without breaking it. They’d opted to wear them just as a precaution, in case anyone saw them, in case her parents weren’t ready to talk about something like that.

Who was she kidding? Her parents would absolutely want to talk about that. Grady had been gracious enough not to say anything about it since he’d seen, but she knew that was only because there were more pressing things. Because he didn’t want to scare her away, wanted to make sure she was held close before he ventured into those waters.

Once upon a time, he wouldn’t have had a modicum of hesitation about telling it to her straight. She was going to do what she could to get them back to that place.

Biana dropped through first, the edges of her wings visible as they wrapped close to her body to keep from scraping against the crystal edges.

Linh followed, making a slight noise of surprise as she slipped down the ladder a little, but her wings were easy to work with, covered as they were.

Then it was Sophie’s turn, and as she placed her feet on the first rungs, moving down bit by bit until she could drag the cover back over their heads, twisting it into place and shutting them inside.

It had a sense of finality as her feet touched the stone floor, the tops of the stairs leading down down down in spirals.

Biana reached out to grab her hand, an uncharacteristic tremble in her fingers as she reached for Linh too, the three of them linked together as they started the climb back Underground.

Silent footsteps kicked up dust in clouds, mixing alongside other footprints from a time long-since gone. She swore she could pick out one of her own on the steps, from when she’d first run away.

It was about half-way down that she finally peeked over the edge and saw them.

Edaline paced back and forth, the soft yellow fabric of her long sleeves falling down to her arms as she worried at her lip, glancing between the stairs and Grady.

Grady was leaning against a wall, arms rigid against his chest where he’d crossed them, hair ruffled as though he’d run his hands through it again and again. He, too, kept glancing up at the stairs, so Sophie took a step closer to the edge, so they could see her properly.

Lifting her free hand, she gave a slight wave, heart ripping itself out of her ribs as their sudden gasps echoed in her ears, both surging to action as they raced up the stairs.

“Sophie,” Edaline whispered, footsteps pounding through the stone, disappearing from sight as they started the spiral up up up towards where the three of them stood.

“C’mon!” Biana urged, pulling their chain of three down the stairs until they were moving fast enough they had to drop each other’s hands to keep from tripping, Biana and Linh leading the procession as Sophie nearly tripped, every part of her shaking.

And then the footsteps were so so close and they were on the same level and they crash crash crashed into each other, and Grady’s hand cradled the back of her head and Edaline’s fingers brushed against the back of her cloak and everything went blurry and she couldn’t see through the tears streaking down her face and her throat constricted from the effort to keep her sobs in her chest, raw and poignant.

Their arms left her for only a moment, to pull Biana and Linh in just as tight, the five of them all wrapped up and pressed close.

How long they stayed like that, silent and unmoving, Sophie lost track.

But at some point they pulled back and Grady held Sophie gently from an arm’s length, looking her over as though she’d had some secret injury she’d hidden from him over the imparter. Like he just had to make sure she was still whole.

“We’ve missed you so much, kiddo,” he whispered, pulling her close again.

“I missed you too,” she echoed after a moment, not realizing how much she meant the words until her fingers were digging into his back as she breathed in the smell of him, musky and warm and floral and dirty and--

“Why do you smell like smoke?” Alarmed, she leaned back, looking over him the same way he had as her, glancing to Edaline as well. She could feel Linh and Biana’s eyes trailing over the three of them from a few steps away, giving them space but just as concerned.

Edaline stepped forward then, placing one hand on each of their shoulders, smile more grimace than joy as she looked back at Biana and Linh. “I think…we have a lot to discuss, Sophie. But not here. Come down, come back with us. We won’t…” she trailed off, then started again. “You called us this time, we’ll follow your lead, okay?”

Sophie glanced back at Biana and Linh, who shrugged at her as if to say This was your idea. Which wasn’t the most helpful thing in the world, but it gave her the strength to turn back and nod her head, pushing all her questions to the side for the moment. She’d get her chance to ask, she’d get her answers.

And undoubtedly give a million of her own.

Dust whirled against the floor as they moved, swiftly and quietly through the halls, that warm dirt smell fogging the air. Empty empty empty, bleak, hollow and yet stuffed to the brim. That’s how it always felt. People had tried to pretend like nothing was different, like they were still aloof and alone all across the world instead of shoved undignified beneath the earth. Elves didn’t live next to each other, so they didn’t like to see each other. It was just another reminder of the reality they wanted so badly not to be real.

The door clicked shut behind them with a sort of finality, and an ache settled itself in her chest at the cramped yet homey curved walls, so familiar to her yet a lifetime ago. Their cluster had three bubbles: a small main room with a kitchen, dining, and living space, and two bedrooms bordering each side. One for her parents and one for her. Tiny, microscopic compared to Havenfields expanses, but with the three of them there it felt like home.

This couldn’t be her home anymore.

Not with the press of the earth against her consciousness, not with the cramped spaces and uncertainty, the feigned emptiness. Not with so many suffering monsters above and Phoenix stuck with those horrid people, not with everything they were learning.

She didn’t belong underground.

But she didn’t say any of that as she grabbed a chair from the small table in the eating area, dragging it towards the couch in the living area of the main room, Linh and Biana doing the same as her parents sank onto the cushions, all of them now in a circle with each other.

They each tucked their cloaks carefully against their bodies as they sat, wings pressed to their skin. Not that it mattered. Because Grady had seen. It didn’t mean he’d understood what he’d seen, but he’d seen.

In time, they’d get through all that with time; this was a test.

If everything went well, others could use the pathfinder she’d stolen from Grady what felt like a lifetime ago to come back. Everyone had the location of their Underground memorized in case of an emergency, though there’d been no cause to use it in months. Not since everyone had started to give up on the surface.

Edaline spoke first. “Sophie, before you say anything I want to apologize. For the tracker. We--I was desperate, and you weren’t responding to anything else we tried. I know it wasn’t fair to you, and I wish I hadn’t done it. I think it just drove you further away, and I’ll never be sorry enough. I want nothing more than your safety and happiness, but my actions were wrong. And for that I’m sorry.” Her fingers fiddled with the loose fabric of her sleeves pooling in her lap, and Sophie was momentarily stunned.

“I forgave you a while ago,” she said truthfully. “I’m sorry I created a situation where you thought that was all you could do.”

Edaline and Grady both smiled ruefully. “You create a lot of situations, kiddo, but we’ll always love you,” Grady told her, smile fading back into concern. “You all do--what happened yesterday? Elwin…” he trailed off, shaking himself together.

“How about we start from the beginning?” Edaline suggested, leaning forward. “You’re not running away or in a hurry right now, right? I bet it’s a long story--I’ll make tea.”

“Thank you,” Linh said, as Edaline got up, crossing the small space towards the kitchen area and pulling dried herbs and leaves from storage spaces.

Biana put a finger to her lip in thought. “When you say the beginning…”

“We mean the beginning,” Grady confirmed with a nod and a small smirk, like he wasn’t sure he could joke about it yet but trying all the same. “We were all talking about your attack on the main facility, and then you started scratching yourself and we took you straight back to Elwin and that’s the last time any of us knew what was going on. You were there, and Elwin said you didn’t want to deal with visitors, and then the next day you were gone. You’d left. What’s going on, kiddo?” His voice grew soft at the end, the faint sound of Edaline’s fingers drumming against the counter echoing through her ears.

“It was to protect you,” she said, picking at the skin around her nails to keep from tugging at her eyelashes, though both were bad.

“What do you mean? Protect us how?”

Sophie glanced back at Linh and Biana, who both gave a slight shrug--as much as they could without shifting their cloaks and creating a whole new trail of conversation--telling her that she’d been the one to come here. This was her story to tell.

“Because…we were afraid we were going to try and kill you, to kill everyone Underground,” she said, blunt words falling from her mouth and hitting the ground like stones.

After that, the story started tumbling out, disjointed and uncoordinated but complete. As complete as she could make it as she doubled back, explaining what had happened in the facility, how they’d somehow been in the wrong room and how a creature had gotten out and destroyed the shelves, bottles and vials raining down on their heads and mixing and smashing together, how that had done something to them. They thought they could just wash it off but it’d gotten into their systems, under their skin, into their lungs, something Elwin couldn’t do anything about.

How that night she’d woken, how she’d seen her back in the mirror and--wings, there had been wings growing from her back. Wings that weren’t elven, because wings belonged to monsters. And if they were growing wings, then what would stop them from taking over the rest of their bodies, from consuming them whole until they were the same mindless beasts that roamed the surface--at least, they’d thought they were mindless. Sophie knew better now.

But back then it had been enough to drive them away, the suffocating feel of all the earth pressing down around them--

“Is it bothering you now?” Edaline interrupted, hands wrapped around a cup of tea she hadn’t once touched. They were taking the news quietly, used to Sophie’s antics throughout the years, and even if this was a whole new level of strange, they’d had enough practice that their safety was still top priority in their mind over everything else they could throw at them.

Sophie paused mid-word, tongue running along her teeth as she glanced towards the ceiling, the ever present knowledge in the back of her mind that she was trapped trapped trapped--

No, she reminded herself. I can leave whenever I want. I’m not trapped. It’s just dirt. And probably a lot of worms. Could catch a lot of fish. I don’t know how to fish.

“It’s just like…an itch,” Biana supplied while Sophie was thinking about fish. “It’s nothing serious. We’ll be fine.” Linh and Sophie nodded in agreement, but her parents still frowned a little.

“We’re beyond relieved to see you again, but if it gets to be too much--”

Sophie held up a hand. “I know my limits. If it gets to be too much we’ll leave, but really it’s fine. Where was I?”

“Earth,” Grady said, taking a sip from his mug, looking at her with a mixture of something like pain, fear, and complete faith. She had to take a deep breath before she continued, but doing so had her wrinkling her nose again.

She shook her head. “Hang on, you never explained why you smell like smoke.”

Her parents glanced at each other, trying to communicate telepathically, before they sighed.

Edaline trailed a finger along the hem of her shirt, saying, “I suppose it’s only fair that after all of that we share something with you, too. We’ve been…exploring the surface. The destruction from the everblaze in that meadow after it was put out. I guess the smell has stuck despite all the showers.”

Sophie gaped at them, flinching back a little. “You’ve been on the surface? You could be killed!”

“Are you looking for something?” Linh asked at the same time, leaning forward with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.

Grady shook his head, responding to Linh first. “We weren’t looking for anything particular, surveying the land to see what the damage was and what would be necessary to start bringing it back, if we could do anything as restricted as we are.”

“Stop giving us that look, Sophie. You act like you’ve never done anything that stopped our hearts dead in our chests,” Edaline said, and Sophie schooled her look into something more neutral, but she couldn’t take back the horror and concern it’d just been displaying. “It’s only a few hours, not as bad as you think. It’s gotten…better, recently.”

“What does that mean?”

Edaline waved a hand in the air as if that would help her explain. “All the things up above, they haven’t been a problem. We haven’t had any encounters with anything during our visits with how scorched the area is, and even just above--where you came in--it’s like they’ve just vanished. No more attacks when we leave, no more lingering in the area. Like they never were there in the first place. Like something else is more important.”

They all went silent for a moment, and Sophie couldn’t help but feel like the change in the monsters had something to do with them. They all existed in a strange in between, not quite elves but not quite monsters, and if this change happened when Edaline said it had…didn’t that coincide with them leaving?

“So what did you learn about the area?” Linh said, finally breaking the silence. “Have you figured out how to fix it?

“Not quite yet,” Grady said, leaning back on the couch and frowning, looking towards the ceiling as though he could see to the scorched earth beyond. “We’ll need to look again more thoroughly.”

“Well what have you found out?” Sophie asked instead.

“There’s extensive damage to the area, so we’ll need to clean up the ash before we can think about reseeding and regrowing the area. Which will be more work since…the gnomes, you know.”

Biana frowned. “Wait--you said the trips are a few hours; that’s all you learned? We could’ve guessed that.”

Edaline shifted, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “It’s a process. As much as we wish we could, we can’t fix it all at once.”

Sophie wanted to believe her. She was right after all, destruction of that kind took patience and persistence to repair. Fire damage didn’t disappear overnight.

But her parents' hearts were pound pound pounding in their chests, completely contradictory to the way they leaned back on the couch, sipping from their mugs and chatting with the three of them.

“What aren’t you telling us,” she asked, voice solemn and quiet as it sliced through the air.

“Sophie, we aren’t--”

“No,” she interrupted gently. “I know you. You’re keeping something from us. I came back to reconnect with you, not to have more secrets between us.”

Grady shook his head, eyes glossing over. “It’s not pleasant and we won’t have any of the answers to the questions you’ll have. It’s more trouble than it’s worth Sophie, not with so much already going on with you.”

“Well now I’m just going to think up something totally unrealistic and scare myself with it--you really think we can’t handle whatever it is? We’ve dealt with dragons tearing apart the sky and explored abandoned facilities--I got kidnapped yesterday!! I promise it won’t be too much.”

Shock flickered on their faces followed quickly by concern as she realized she’d let slip a little more than she’d meant to. “Don’t focus on that. I want to tell you. I want to be a team again, but how can we trust you with our story if you aren’t willing to do the same?”

Edaline squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing at her temple with one hand as she sighed. “She was going to find out eventually; isn’t it better that it’s from us?” she mumbled to Grady when he seemed like he was going to continue protesting. “You’re right, that’s not all we found. And yes, the information we have about the area is limited to about what you could guess because our investigation was cut short.”

“Why? What did you find?” Biana asked, inclining her head and leaning forward.

Edaline’s hand fell into her lap and Grady squeezed it tight.

Then, she spoke. “We found Lady Gisela--or rather, her body.”

#kotlc wings au #keeper of the lost cities #shattered upside down #quil's quill #kotlc fic #sometimes the story decides it wants to do something and you #are simply along for the rid #e #i promise I know how to type #anyway enjoy!!

7 notes · View notes

saetoru · 9 months

Text

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩ i’m afraid that’s just the way the world works (but i think that it could work for you and me)

synopsis. suguru stumbles across two girls that need a home. somehow, one step at a time, you both find yourselves navigating parenthood

word count. 5.4k (sigh...this was supposed to be a drabble)

contents. not canon compliant at all—there are still curses, but it's literally an au where everything turns out happy LMAO, teacher! suguru, husband! suguru, fem! reader, reader is referred to as "wife" and "mommy," hints at child neglect/abuse (nanako and mimiko's backstory), yuji, nobara and megumi are the ones that save nanako and mimiko—the timeline is inaccurate bc the twins are still kids when megumi and co. are teens, single dad! satoru who raised megs and tsumiki (tsumiki is ALIVE and NOT CURSED) <3, it's just fluff tbh, it's overall healing and happy i promise

notes. yeah i am telling u i literally shoved every fix-it fic idea for jjk into one fic okay and u will all nod along and agree with it. this was supposed to be a drabble but i literally just could not shut up so now its a fic

“there are these two girls,” suguru says quietly at dinner one night, pulling you from the comfortable silence. you look up as you swallow, eyeing him as you nod carefully—nothing is ever a normal conversation when your husband is a jujutsu teacher. nothing is ever a normal conversation when you’re capable of jujutsu in general, you’ve learned that well by now.

“okay…” you say slowly, “and are they your students?”

they must be new, if they are. you know all of suguru’s students; you know them well enough to pick birthday presents and bring what they each like from the bakery. you don’t think you know of these two—they must be new.

“no,” he breathes, “no, they’re too young for that. maybe someday,” he adds hopefully.

“maybe someday,” you agree thoughtfully.

suguru loves teaching. it’s not something he ever saw himself doing—but life is dark at one point, a constant cloud looming over his head as it screams it’s over! your youth is over.

sometimes it hits him all at once—no one was there to protect suguru’s youth, no one was there for satoru’s or nanami’s, and certainly not haibara’s. no one was there to make sure they could be kids, that the sun could still shine and chase the clouds away.

so suguru becomes a teacher. he’s fond of the kids—and they like him too. geto sensei, they call, geto sensei, look! and then he pauses in the hall, holds back an amused chuckle before turning to face an overly enthusiastic yuji and nobara. megumi is not far behind, that disgruntled look on his face as always, but if you look closely, his eyes are soft and laced with something close to fondness.

geto sensei is a favorite—much more of a favorite than gojo sensei is, to satoru’s utter dismay. you can’t help but watch proudly sometimes, can’t help but watch how much suguru has grown as he interacts with those kids, how much he’s allowed himself to grow, how much he’s let himself try to chase the sun instead of letting the clouds convince him the light no longer exists.

“they’re five,” suguru continues, poking the soba in front of him as he doesn’t meet your gaze. “the kids found them on a mission. in a cage.”

you know what that means instantly. you look at suguru, watching as his eyes stare numbly at the food in front of him—sometimes, you worry that suguru will once more fall victim to those bone-chilling thoughts he shares with you one night. sometimes you worry he’ll slip and fall once more and you won’t notice this time, won’t reach your fingers and grasp him at the last second.

but he blinks, looks up and meets your eyes this time, stares into them and searches them for what he needs. he finds it, you think, because there’s light returning to them once more.

maybe it’s hope, maybe it’s acceptance. maybe it’s neither, and he’s just happy to have you to come back to when the world gets too burdensome. you’re not sure, but you do know you’ll always be there, right where he needs you.

“what happened to them?” you ask gently, “was it their parents?”

“no,” he shakes his head, “the villagers. their parents are dead.”

it’s not new—you’ve seen it before too. children tend to notice their techniques at this age. it’s not new to hear about children with no family history of sorcerers being labeled as some type of other in the family, in the community, or in the village.

suguru is lucky in that way—his mother and father see him as something special, something worth celebrating, something greater than they could ever hope to be. you meet them once every year, just for a few days. they love you, greeting you with kind smiles and warm hugs, pulling you inside as they get dinner ready. you visit his old room and smile as you rake your fingers over the figures on his desk and the cd’s he used to collect. his mother keeps his room in perfect condition, even after all these years.

you remind him to call more. sometimes, he tries—just for you, he tries. it’s hard for him, you realize. sometimes suguru is guilty; sometimes, he’s haunted by what he almost did but thankfully didn’t. it’s hard to face his parents ever since, even if they’re blissfully unaware. it’s easier to love them from afar, he thinks. but you insist he calls more, so he does. sometimes hearing his mother’s voice is what he needs, even if he doesn’t like to admit it.

“so…what’ll happen to them?” you ask quietly.

“they’re at the school for tonight,” he mumbles, “there’s enough bedrooms, anyway. but…”

but they can’t stay there forever, is what he wants to say, you know that. staying at jujutsu high is hardly enough for children so young. they need a proper home, a proper family. you can’t help but stare down at your own bowl of soba. it’s hard to watch children suffer like this. it’s especially hard on suguru—he chose to teach to help those kids, to be there. somethings, however, cannot be fixed by simply being there.

“and then what will happen after?”

“they need a home,” he says quietly, “and…listen, i know we never really…we’ve never discussed something like this. but…maybe for a while, just until something better is decided, we could…”

you know what he’s trying to say before he can even say it—you and suguru have never discussed children. you don’t think you ever really want to, and you’re fairly certain he feels the same. it’s hard to lose haibara when you’re just a young kid, hard to live with the fact that someone so young and hopeful about the world is here one second and then gone the next. you see nanami sometimes—he’s kind to you, greets you politely, and asks how you are. but nothing about him has ever been the same since that day.

will your children meet the same fate? will you have them one second and lose them the next? will you patiently wait for them to come to visit the next chance they get from school, only to get a phone call no parent deserves to hear? they’re common in the jujutsu world. it’s a risk every parent has to take. some are selfish—rightfully so. some don’t care to let their children master their techniques, arguing it’s better to have a child that’s incapable and alive than gifted and dead. what if your children end up like nanami? the one who manages to live but can never accept the fact, not when someone else is dead. how will you be a pillar of strength? how can you tell them it’s okay to live as long as it’s not them who’s dead? how can you help them grieve when you are always grieving yourself?

you don’t think you ever want children, and you think you’re right in your assumption that suguru agrees.

but those girls need a home, and you know the look on suguru’s face means options are limited—scarily so. you look at him for a while, look at him and see the way he’s got his heart set on these two girls—suguru has lost more than you ever could, and if this is something he thinks he should do, you think it might be worth a chance.

“bring them for dinner tomorrow,” you say finally, bringing soba to your lips, “i’d like to meet them.”

it’s not a straight answer, but it’s a start. suguru nods, smiling gently at you before he continues with his own dinner. it’s silent after that, but it’s not uncomfortable. he still steals your last bite of soba at the end, and you still roll your eyes and let him. you wash the dishes together after that, argue over whose turn it is to rinse and whose turn it is to dry—it’s routine, and you’re grateful you have something to look forward to in this cruel world, something you can count on regularly.

—————

hasaba nanako and hasaba mimiko.

those are their names. megumi says so when he first brings them to suguru. nanako is blonde, a bit bolder than mimiko, who’s brunette. nanako is older by five minutes, and she likes to remind everyone when she can. mimiko holds nanako’s hand when she’s nervous, and nanako squeezes tightly with a smile. they’re a mellow pair, despite it all. a little distrusting and a little nervous when too many people are in a room at once.

they take a liking to suguru, however. satoru is a bit too loud and boisterous for them, but suguru is kind and soft and gives them gentle head pats when they cooperate and answer his questions. on the way home, he asks them if they’d like something from the bakery.

it leaves them a bit quiet, right until he looks over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow as he awaits their answer.

“we’ve never been to one,” nanako answers quietly, the first to speak between the two, as always.

“is that so?” suguru asks gently. they nod, still holding hands.

children of five summers, and they have never picked out a cake for even a birthday—he wonders why that is. they shouldn't have shown signs of having cursed techniques so young, there should be no reason to mistreat them so early on—the conclusion he comes to makes him even unhappier. parents should never have children if they aren’t willing to love them, he thinks bitterly.

“it’s alright,” mimiko says finally, “we don’t need—”

“come on then,” suguru grabs nanako’s free hand, gently pulling them both along the busy streets of tokyo, “my wife’s favorite bakery is around the corner. we’ve tried everything they have by now, so you’ll have to tell us what’s your favorite, yeah?”

it’s nanako who answers again first, nodding slowly before she smiles hopefully. “okay,” she murmurs.

from the corner of his eyes, suguru notices mimiko gently pull her hand from her sister’s, quickly taking a few steps as she walks across in front of him before promptly finding herself on his other side. her hand reaches for his—it’s slow, a bit unsure, so he grabs it delicately, giving a small squeeze as he grins down at her.

“wait until you try the strawberry cake,” he hums, “that’s my favorite.”

—————

suguru comes home with two small girls on either side of him and more bags than you can count from the bakery just five minutes from your apartment. you blink before rushing over and taking a few bags from his hands.

“did you just buy one of everything or something?” you ask incredulously, staring at all the boxes of goods within the bags.

he grins that closed-eye smile of his, crinkles forming in the corners as he says, “well, of course,” like it’s the most normal thing ever to buy one of every item in a large bakery in the heart of tokyo. “the girls have never been to a bakery before so i thought we could let them try everything and rank them.”

you look down at the girls, who stare at you nervously as they cling to each other. instantly, as soon as you meet their eyes, you can’t help but drop down to your knees to meet their level as you smile softly.

“why hello there,” you murmur, ruffling each head gently. they like that—suguru texted you that earlier, that they seem to brighten considerably when he offers them a gentle pat on the head in affection. “what are your names?”

“i’m nanako,” the blonde one answers instantly—suguru is equal parts shocked and equal parts pleased by her new air of confidence. he wonders if she’d be a bright and energetic child right about now, if the world hadn’t crushed her under and forced her to live meekly. “and i’m older by five minutes.”

“hello nanako, the eldest by five minutes,” you answer seriously, nodding as though it’s a crucial fact to her identity, “it’s a pleasure to meet you. and what about you?”

the brunette clutches her sister’s hand a little tighter—but nanako seems to have deemed you as safe. anyone geto sensei (as the other kids seem to call him) trusts is someone they don’t have to be on guard around. she nudges mimiko gently, encouraging her to tell you her name.

“i’m mimiko,” she says quietly. she seems to be holding a small, pink stuffed toy. it’s seen better days, you think, but a nice wash and a few stitches to the top of its head should have it looking quite a lot better.

“and hello to you too, mimiko,” you smile, “are you younger by five minutes, then?”

she giggles a little at that before nodding, “i am,” she assures, “but i’m smarter.”

“are not!” nanako says instantly, gasping. you and suguru share a look, amused and fond and relieved all at once.

“what a lovely toy,” you murmur, tracing the eyes with your finger. she droops a little at that—like being reminded of its condition is something that breaks her spirit.

“it’s ripped,” she mumbles, “it wasn’t before.”

“i can fix it,” you offer, “suguru is always ripping his uniforms, but lucky for him, his sweet little wife here is a fixer-upper.”

“really?” she brightens. you nod, chuckling as you ruffle her hair, doing the same to nanako, too, when she eyes you hopefully from the side.

“that sounds great,” suguru interrupts, “but i believe i have cakes that need to be tried and mouths that are not trying.”

you rise, rolling your eyes and standing next to him, and his hand gently grabs yours. thank you, he squeezes. always, you squeeze back.

“well, come on, girls,” you usher. mimiko grabs your free hand, and suguru grabs nanako’s—you all make your way to the dinner table. it feels oddly natural, you think. “we have desserts to try. the chocolate one will definitely be your favorite, i can feel it.”

“it’ll be strawberry,” suguru says confidently.

you meet his gaze, grinning at him as he stares at you hopelessly in love. it’s always been enough, you and suguru—it’s always been more than enough with just the two of you. so enough, that you never wanted more. but this is nice too, you think. this is something you could get used to, even if it breaks the routine you’ve learned to love just a bit.

—————

nanako and mimiko stay at your house that night, and somehow, that turns into a week. sometimes, suguru takes them with him to school, just to handle a few things that are still to be taken care of regarding their case. you find you miss three instead of one while you’re home alone for the day.

they return cheery each time, bags of deserts in hand and a newfound glow in their eyes. mimiko’s toy is much cleaner now, and the small rips have been carefully sewn shut by you from the first night they spend. she clutches it everywhere she goes, hugs it in her sleep too. it’s hopelessly endearing.

nanako takes a liking to suguru’s phone—he’s a bit too giving with her, you think. she’s managed to figure out his passcode rather quickly, and he lets her get away with it, watching her small fingers work the buttons of whatever game she's downloaded with a gentle look of affection over his features.

on the days that suguru goes to school alone, the girls are left in your care for the day—you don’t usually have someone to keep you company while you’re at home. you’ve quit being a sorcerer long ago, deciding that it’s not worth the constant back-and-forth tug of war with life and death.

perhaps it's selfish—people are dying every day, and you sit and let it happen, but you can’t help it. it’s too much, sometimes. suguru has always supported it, though, has always murmured that you’re doing the right thing and that sorcerers deserve quiet, peaceful lives, too, if they wish. so you do just that, stay home and learn a new dish or two through the day, watch a few shitty sitcoms on the television, leave and do some grocery shopping for the week, and return home to your quiet little apartment (as quiet as an apartment can get in tokyo, that is) and wait for your husband to come home.

suguru comes home by seven pm every day and gives you a soft kiss on your forehead as he says, hello, wife, to which you giggle and murmur, hi there, husband. you have dinner after that and share details about your days with each other. yuji and nobara are arguing again, suguru will tell you sometimes, i think nobara will cave and talk first this time, though. i brought fresh strawberries from the season’s harvest, you murmur behind a glass of water to your lips, got them just for you, sugu.

it’s been a routine like that ever since your marriage. you marry suguru quietly when you barely turn twenty, just a room full of the few people you dare let yourself love and the two of you as you sign the papers and share a kiss. there’s an extravagant meal waiting for you after, though, courtesy of gojo satoru, a man with more money than he could hope to use on himself. satoru is happy that day—happier than you’ve ever seen him in a long, long while. he takes his bandages off, sits and watches everything, and takes it all in even if it’ll bite him back in the ass later with a long, pounding migraine.

today, however, is a saturday—school is out, and anyone who doesn’t have a mission is free to have the day to themselves. suguru hasn’t taken a large mission in ages, years, even. he accepts small ones here and there, and if it really calls for it, he joins a tough one with his students—but it’s for their sake more than anything. but the big ones are too much for him to handle regularly anymore. the higher-ups aren’t happy—special-grade sorcerers are hard to come by, and it’s unfair that the lower-grade ones are busting their necks out there more than he is. but suguru deserves a semblance of control over his well-being, and with satoru on his side, there isn’t much of anything the higher-ups can really do.

he sits on the couch, scrolling through his phone as you click the remote, finding something to watch.

“you know, we should really talk about this,” suguru mumbles from the side. it’s early, still. barely eight am, and the girls are still sleeping. they’ll be up soon—and with that, will be gone any moment for you and suguru to share a private moment.

they didn’t warn you about that part of kids—you knew it was a busy job, watching over them, but you figured leaving them to play for a bit would grant you some peace. you and suguru quickly learn that children, no matter how well-behaved and disciplined, always need a watchful eye on them.

“talk about what?” you yawn, “it’s too early for you to speak in codes.”

“the girls,” he says, unimpressed. oh. right.

“what about them?” you say, dancing around the edge of the real issue. he sees right through you—you know he will. still, you’re petulant enough to try and dodge the topic anyway.

“it’s been a week,” he says seriously, “those kids think this is their new home. it’s cruel to make them think that any longer if we don’t…”

keep them. let them stay. let them become a part of this home and, by extension, this family that has always just been you and suguru. raise them. take them in. take responsibility over them. love them.

can you love? like that, at least? are you meant to be a mother? you’re too selfish, you think—you couldn’t even stay fighting curses for long, too weak to care about those who need you, and too focused on needing yourself. can you handle two children? if you do this, you can’t do anything else but do it right—it’s what they deserve. but you don’t know if you can give them what they deserve.

but there aren’t many better options either, you remind yourself.

suguru seems to know what you’re thinking because he murmurs, “i think it’s easier to raise children than be a sorcerer,” he says quietly.

you raise an eyebrow skeptically. “you can walk away from being a sorcerer, suguru. being a parent is for life.”

“being a parent means you get to love,” he reasons, “unconditionally. without regrets. without a contract, you know? loving a sorcerer is just betting how long someone has left to live, at the end of the day.”

“how morbid of you,” you snort.

“they’re good kids,” he says quietly, “great, even.”

“they’re lovely,” you agree. and then, quieter this time, “i…i would miss them. more than i care to admit.”

“me too,” he nods.

your head falls to his chest, and he presses a kiss to your head, wrapping his arms around you. suguru has always loved you—when the world was not worth loving, and the people were not worth saving, suguru had loved you. he still does. and the way you love him is enough to make all of those things change. the world has a little more hope, and the people are a little less ugly when you’re there to prove not everything is bad. that even where the bad exists, the good can follow. as long as he has you, suguru is complete—but he thinks more is not always so bad.

“suguru?” you ask gently. he hums, rubbing a thumb over your knuckles as he squeezes your hand, “we won’t force them,” you say firmly, “to do anything. they should exist as themselves if they want to. cursed techniques or not.”

he smiles. you don’t see it, and you don’t have to. you know it’s that deep, eye-crinkling smile that’s heartfelt and real.

“no, we won’t force them,” he agrees, “they’re perfect as is.”

—————

the girls are given the option to each get the two spare rooms you and suguru have in your apartment. that leaves ultimately no guest room, but you think they deserve to have their own space and be their own people after everything. but, as you and he had expected, they choose to share a room and stay together.

you’ll never forget the looks on their faces when they realize they’re staying here permanently, the look of pure excitement and the slightest hints of shock—you never realized how fulfilling it could be to make two children smile like that.

“we can’t paint the walls,” you hum, “we don’t own this place. but we can still decorate,” you offer.

they don’t seem all that disappointed about not being able to paint their walls—instead, they’re too excited about their beds, giggling as they jump on the mattress. suguru wants to tell them that jumping on mattresses is bad for the springs, but you stop him—they deserve to be kids for a bit. after that, you’ll teach them. but for now, they deserve to just be kids.

“can we get lights?” nanako asks—now that you and suguru are guardians to two children (parents seems…a bit too overwhelming to use right now), spontaneous dates don’t happen one on one anymore. evidently, it’s hard to find babysitters on the spot, and leaving them home alone is not an option, so you decide to simply bring them along on your weekly sunday afternoon cafe visit. nanako takes a liking to the lights on the walls, and mimiko eats three slices of cake.

you can’t wait to bring them next week, too.

“you sure can,” suguru hums, chuckling.

“and a mirror?”

“of course,” you nod, “you’ll certainly need one to make sure the beauty sleep works.”

nanako giggles, flopping onto the bed, and mimiko sits not long after, still hugging that toy to her chest as she looks around the room in wonder. they’ve been sleeping in it for over a week now, but now that they can officially call it their own, they seem to be much more attached.

“i want pink sheets,” nanako hums.

“i want blue,” mimiko mumbles, looking at you shyly.

“well,” suguru murmurs so that only you can hear, “maybe we can get them two beds. smaller one—they’ll fit on either side.”

“and what do we do with this one, then?” you raise a brow.

“we…sell it?”

“suguru, are you trying to drain every last bit of our savings?”

“we have plenty,” he chuckles, “we don’t ever do anything.”

that much is true—you and suguru hardly leave tokyo let alone japan, and though you let yourselves splurge on nice things, there isn’t much to spend on between two people. but the last few days have really put into perspective how…expensive raising children can be. clothing and school supplies (they’ll attend a normal school) and room decor and snacks, and anything else children require to be children is quite denting to bank accounts.

but you and suguru can’t say you mind—and if nanako and mimiko want pink and blue sheets, well…you think you can make that happen.

“i think we’re spoiling them,” you mumble, “should we be doing that?”

he wraps an arm around you and pulls you against his chest as his nose presses to the top of your head when he kisses it. he’s warm, just like he always is—maybe warmer now, in fact.

“nah,” he grins, “i think we’re doing great.”

—————

the girls take their time to warm up to satoru, but when they finally do, he seems to be a favorite. satoru is very proud of this fact—he’s not a lot of children’s favorite…well, maybe yuji’s perhaps, but you don’t think yuji has a single bone in his body that could really dislike anyone. or rank them, to be quite honest—you don’t think he prefers satoru or suguru over the other.

“oh, kids,” satoru calls, stepping into your apartment and letting himself in. you and suguru are in the middle of making dinner, looking back in shock from the kitchen as satoru waves enthusiastically at you both.

“satoru, how did you even get in?” you ask, raising an eyebrow. he grins, practically giggling as he points to your husband.

“suguru gave me a key.”

“what?” suguru sputters, “no, i didn’t!”

“you let me borrow them,” satoru concedes—that’s still not even anywhere near the truth.

“i left them at your place and kindly asked you to bring them to me at work the next day,” suguru corrects, crossing his arms and looking thoroughly unimpressed.

“yes, and i did what you should have done a long time ago and made myself a copy,” satoru huffs, “i’m the best friend! i deserve a key—”

“gojo sensei!” the girls call.

as most kids do, they pick up what they hear around them. everyone seems to refer to satoru and suguru as gojo sensei and geto sensei. they’re not students, but nanako and mimiko both pick up on the habit too—and it’s helplessly adorable, you can’t deny.

sometimes, you want to correct them, but they seem excited to see satoru, so you let the moment pass.

“there they are!” satoru beams, taking his blindfold off and crouching down to meet them in the eye—nanako and mimiko seem to find satoru infinitely more approachable when his eyes are out and easy to look into. you can’t imagine why—he looks like a creep. “i brought dessert! because what’s life without something sweet, right? are these two feeding you girls the sugar you need to grow into tall, healthy young women?”

“this is why you should never be allowed near children,” you say flatly.

satoru looks at you with a pointed look, “i practically raised megumi and tsumiki, y’know. saving young siblings and giving them a nice home life is old news, i already did that. be more original, please.”

what a jackass—you scowl at him, throwing the wooden spoon in your hand at his head and watching as it doesn’t even touch him and falls to the floor. curse his infinity.

“okay, now,” suguru chuckles, “i don’t want to spend the evening looking after four children instead of two—”

“geto sensei! thanks for having us over for dinner,” yuji interrupts, stepping through the door that satoru took such great care not to close, “fushiguro was a bit of a hassle to convince, though.”

suguru throws a sharp glare at satoru as soon as three of their students step into your home—you’re going to have to forget the dinner you’re making and order takeout, you think. satoru will pay.

“this is why you didn’t get a key,” suguru hisses, “because then you act like you own the place.”

“i wanted a family gathering,” satoru gasps, “tsumiki is coming too! wait for her.”

despite the way suguru grabs satoru’s hair—and satoru, for some reason, turns off his infinity and lets him—you notice the corners of your husband’s mouth twitching into a gentle smile, and you know he’s thinking the same thing as you. family—nanako and mimiko are here, and so are yuji, and nobara, and megumi, and satoru (the biggest headache), and soon, tsumiki too.

family—yes, this is family, you think.

—————

“daddy, i’m hungry,” mimiko tugs on suguru’s sleeve.

“i know, pumpkin, just give me a second and—”

“daddy, look! i beat the high score on my game and—”

“daddy is looking, sweetie, just give me one minute, nanako, yeah? daddy will look and—”

“wow,” satoru chuckles, grinning amused, “you’re really worn thin.”

“satoru,” suguru grumbles, “if you’re not going to help, then please leave.”

nanako and mimiko are seven now. in two years, their personalities have really blossomed—something which you and suguru are very grateful for. the world should not crush children so young that they don’t get to be the children they are meant to be. you and suguru take great care to make sure they know they can be kids.

and they are—they whine about bedtime and pick at their vegetables and point at everything in the store and plead for something new. they’re children—your children, and you can’t help but love them unconditionally so.

“well, welcome to fatherhood,” suguru snaps, trying his best to make lunch and entertain the two girls waiting for his attention.

suguru is a good father—a gentle one, in fact. he comes home every day from work and grins, asking in that smooth voice of his, where are my ladies? and just like that, you and your two girls meet him with excited grins. you peck his lips before he crouches down and pulls two small bodies against his chest, letting their tiny arms wrap around his neck as he hoists them up.

it’s a perfect little routine, one you cherish greatly. but the girls are getting older, and soon, they’ll be too heavy to carry like this. it makes you a little sad to think about—but if there’s one thing you’ve learned, breaking routine isn’t always so bad. soon there will be a new one, and when you outgrow that, another new one, and so on.

what won’t ever change is the way you love suguru, and he loves you, and you both love your daughters, and they love you both too.

“daddy,” nanako calls, “where’s mommy?”

“at the store, nanako,” he says patiently, sighing. this is the fifth time she’s asked.

“when will she be back?”

“soon, nanako,” he smiles assuringly, “at least, i hope so,” he adds quietly, under his breath.

satoru hears, though—and he cackles, heinously loud, too, as he watches the scene unfold in amusement. but satoru is suguru’s best friend, and yours too. and the girls love him. he’s family—and so are their students.

it’s nice, suguru thinks, it’s nice to have something worth smiling for.

“i’m home!” you call, “is satoru here? because the door was unlocked—”

“mommy!” the girls call, cutting you off with the pitter-patter of small, excited little feet hitting the ground and greeting you.

“why hello,” you gasp excitedly, laughing as they tackle you in a hug.

you and suguru share a smile as he looks back—family, it’s what you’ve both built here. it’s slow at first, and sometimes it wasn’t easy. at one point, it was just the two of you, just you and suguru, and that was okay. you didn’t think you would ever be capable of letting it be more—but it’s nice when it grows, you think. maybe one day, you can dare to hope to grow it some more.

the scene were they got 2 beds—that was me and my sister when we first moved into our weeeee lil apartment back when i was in middle school !! we were bummed bc we couldn't paint the walls but our parents let us have 2 beds so we could pick our sheets !! it was a fond memory LOL but now i DO have a room where i painted the color except i HATE the color now bc i was still in middle school when we moved into our house and got to pick colors and middle school me and adult me are soooo different so now i have a teal bedroom that haunts me

#teepods.writings #fics.#geto x reader #geto x you #geto fluff #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk fluff #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru x you #geto suguru fluff #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen x you

3K notes · View notes

churipu · 4 months

Text

THE MOMENT THEY REALIZE THEY'RE IN LOVE ִ ࣪𖤐

featuring. gojo satoru, sukuna ryomen, itadori yuuji, toji fushiguro x reader

warnings. cursing, college! au, toji being a single father during his second term of uni (i searched that most japanese college uses 2 terms or trimester system / 3 terms, 1 term of uni in japan is around 15 weeks apparently) -> please tell me if i get this wrong.

note. omg, for the anons who have sent in requests to me, i apologize if these came out before your requests did, i'm trying to empty out my drafts :( but pls note that i am not ignoring your requests at all, it will be written, i promise <;33

GOJO SATORU

when he finds himself checking his phone countless of times, waiting for your message

i promise you, you both started out as work partners in one of your lectures. the two of you were complete strangers to each other — he doesn't know you, and you don't know him. but, either way, the two of you had to get to know each other because this was a crucial grade to pass this lecture.

gojo never thought about having feelings towards you, his work partner. he thought to himself, he'd just get this work done, pass this lecture, and never see you again.

but fate is a funny thing.

the way you made him feel like he wasn't just special because of his face, but his heart too. whereas most people in campus would consider him the pretty boy who could go head-to-head with the hottest celebrities — they just think of him as a pretty boy. and gojo would just go along with them, he gets used to it.

but you? you didn't consider him special at all. although, you did make him feel special the way other people can't.

gojo deep down, knows he was fucked up the moment he finds himself checking his phone to see if you'd reply to his messages, and when you do, he gets so happy. gojo was never a fast responder to everyone — because he practically receives the same kind of messages, "gojo hang out with us", "gojo go out with me", "gojo i like you".

but with you? he won't waste a second at all. even if sometimes you didn't reply as fast as he does, because you are a busy person in campus. you'll work on that after you both started dating, i promise.

SUKUNA RYOMEN

when you stood up for him when nobody would.

sukuna, how do i say this? not everyone is fond of him, people are scared of him — they talk shit behind his back, and don't dare to approach him. people dreaded when they have to be in the same group with him, despite the fact that he actually works; they still think he's a bad person.

"you guys are talking shit to a person who's in our group, if you want to say something to him, have the balls to say it to his face. and while he's here, why don't you tell him about it?" you tell the two people who were sitting beside you, who had been talking in whispers about how they were unlucky to be grouped up with sukuna.

and sukuna? he could honestly care less, he'd gotten used to those kind of things anyway. but when you actually stood up for him, he could only look at you with an amused smile.

he's definitely curious about you after that day — he has pride. and he'd never admit that he's actually pretty thankful that you, the first person to stand up for him, actually did what you did. because now people are a little terrified of being told off by you.

sukuna finally sucks it up at the end of the semester and tries to talk to you. yes, it took him the whole semester to talk to you, asking you for your number, and then thanking you for what you did because nobody has ever done that before to him.

ITADORI YUUJI

when you went all out to tutor him so he'd pass his lectures, teaching him patiently when he doesn't understand something.

yuuji hates studying. and when his lecturer asked you to tutor him, he feels extremely bad for you — he feels that he'd just going to waste your time tutoring him, when he knows that he's going to fail this one subject.

but when you reassured him, and encouraged him. saying that you will do anything to teach him so that he could pass, he gets a little emotional at the thought. you both were just mere classmates, and he barely knows you, vice versa.

when he doesn't understand a topic, he gets so frustrated at himself for not being able to understand it. but you, you were very patient with the male, reassuring him that you had the time to teach him over so that he will be able to understand the said topic.

and when he does finally understand, he gets so happy. he started looking forwards to your tutoring sessions, and like everyone said: if you enjoy something, it passes by quickly. and it's true, yuuji feels like time went by in a flash, and the exams soon started.

he passed with flying colors, he makes sure that you know about his grades — and points out that without you, he wouldn't be able to pass. yuuji, gets a little upset when he realizes that if the exams are over, you had no more tutoring sessions with him; which meant no more conversations.

so he has to ask you out right then, he didn't want to just return as mere classmates. he wanted to be more than that.

TOJI FUSHIGURO

when you didn't care about his shitty reputation of being a single father while still being on the second term of uni.

being a single parent is hard enough. not to mention, in university. not married, with a baby itself gets a lot of unwanted (negative) attention — toji, who once failed to get a babysitter on a weekday, and so he had to bring his eight month old son to class.

his son—megumi— was a calm baby, thankfully. the young one didn't cry or babble during lectures, and he just slept through it. toji was a little relieved to say the least, but ever since people find out about him being a single father to an eight month old baby, a lot of assumptions and words have gone around.

toji hated group works, especially when he has to pick the group himself. people didn't want a single father to be in their group, they assumed that the male would focus on his baby and ends up deserting the group work.

so when that particular day where he has to bring megumi to campus, strapped on a baby carrier on his chest. his lecturer just had to give out a partner work, and to add the cherry on top; the lecturer left the class to choose their own partner. so the male sat on his place, a pencil in between his nose and upper lip as he puckered them lightly — hearing his classmates choosing each other.

he figured that he could just do this and get the grade himself, solo. but when you came up and slipped into the seat next to him, he was of course surprised.

you asked him if he would like to partner up with you for this work, and after a few seconds, he accepted your offer.

toji knew it was getting bad when you didn't care about what people say about you getting close to him. just by choosing him for this work made your reputation falter a bit, and he was honestly ready for you to back out of the partner work.

but you didn't, and he knew it's bad for him, his feelings, and his heart.

the way you treated him and megumi like they're both normal (which they are normal humans), and the way you always make him feel included makes his heart race. sometimes, when he fails to look for a babysitter when you both are working for this project, you tell him he didn't have to since megumi is a calm baby.

he finds himself in awe when baby megumi plays with you during both of your little meet ups outside of class to do the project. he's in love.

2K notes · View notes

mondaymelon · 11 months

Text

— "𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲, 𝗯𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝗯𝗼𝘆𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱!!" ♥

:feat~ xiao, kazuha, heizou, scaramouche x gn!reader:

⤷ synopsis: ah, poor reader's crush won't notice them!! the solution? ask your guy friend to pretend to be your partner, and perhaps that'll get them jealous... except-!? ⤷ cw: fluff, highschool!au, possesive + overprotectiveness, ykyk the whole package

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ (open!) : @manager-of-the-pudding-bank, @iamdedinside, @ilyuu, @achlysis, @swivy123

"C'mon, just for one week...?"

"Have you finally gone mad?"

XIAO's words come out as more of a scoff, if anything. You can see the way that his expression forms a scowl that he's less than pleased at your suggestion. "You want me to fake date you for a week?"

Sheepish, you nod. "...Please?"

"Because you want your 'crush' to get jealous?" You don't get why he's put that in quotations, but you nod along, slightly confused. Xiao's expression only darkens, for some inexplicable reason. What, have you done something to offend him?

Desperate, you recall your last resort. "Well," you begin, voice unsteady as you try to sound as nonchalant as possible. With a shrug, you sigh. "If you're not willing, I can always find someone e-"

"I'll do it."

Ah, there was the Xiao you knew. Aloof, yes. Cold, yes. But not willing to admit he was inferior to anyone - especially when it regarded you.

So there, your plan was complete. Act like Xiao was your boyfriend, and then maybe they would finally notice you… except, why do you get the feeling that Xiao was forgetting his purpose?

It’s not anything major, not by a long shot, but you find it strange how he’s suddenly grown so clingy, as if pretending to be your partner somehow enhanced the relationship between the two of you. He walks you to every one of your classes, and insists on coming over to your house for study sessions, and while you don’t particularly dislike it, it is awkward, seeing him act so intimate even with no eyes watching.

But… this was all normal, right? He was just normalizing himself with his role, so there was nothing to concern yourself over. That’s what you chided to yourself whenever these moments occurred again and again, until one day, you accidentally brush hands with the male while trying to pass him some papers, and he practically jumps away from your touch. He doesn’t apologize afterwards, but you can see how he’s more cautious around you, sometimes catching his gaze lingering on you for far too long while a sheepish red creeps over his cheeks… and the way he glances at his own hand so gingerly is something peculiar all together.

However, none of that prepared you when the next week, the last day of the promised agreement, Xiao asks to talk to you. Alone.

“Xiao, what’s up?” He hasn’t spoken yet, and the silence is suffocating.

“Can we… not pretend any longer?”

And for a moment, everything seems to stop. Time itself halts as the only thing you can hear is your own shallow inhale and exhale. His voice cuts through the moment. “I’m tired of pretending, wanting something that isn’t mine. Something that I can never have.”

“Something… that can never be yours…?” It’s hard to speak, like something is in your throat, but you manage to.

“Yes. You.”

Ah, how could you not return his words when he gazes into your eyes with such adoration?

“...Xiao, it’s not entirely impossible.”

And the words that come out of your mouth aren’t lies, because you’ve felt the butterflies too. You wouldn’t think, a week prior, that you would’ve fallen for someone as distant as him, but the way he treated you so gently swayed your resolve. In a way, this outcome was inevitable.

Ha, but to think that Xiao, born from one of Liyue’s elite families, would confess to you like this, with such a flustered expression, eyes clouded with love?

“Ah… then, if that’s the case, you’ll allow me this, won’t you?”

There’s a hint of something strange in his tone, yet it’s left undeciphered as the male swiftly leans forward, one hand making its way behind you and keeping you steady as his lips meet yours. He’s pressed against you, close enough that you can feel his own heartbeats along yours, beating just as quickly. When he pulls away, one shaky hand manages to grab yours, grasp surprisingly strong.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll have to kiss you again.” ♥

"...Ah? Sorry, I think I heard something different. Could you repeat that?"

You don't think KAZUHA has ever looked more perplexed as he stares at you, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar as he tries his best to process your words. "So you..." His voice cracks, and he coughs into his fist. "You want me to be your fake boyfriend?"

"Just for one week..." You nod at his words, feeling a little awkward at your request. It wasn't too outlandish, was it? From the way Kazuha seems completely frozen, one would assume so... but it was a simple plan, even if it didn't work, it was worth trying, right?

It takes the white haired male a whole ten seconds to respond, which is already unusual in and of itself. He nods hesitantly, “I…I suppose I could.”

It surprises you how good of an actor he is, holding your hand without a second thought, inviting you out after school, waiting for you to pack up after classes and always following you to your next… sometimes you wonder if it’s even an act at all.

His touch seems too sincere, gaze too warm… and by the third day, your crush fades. Is it too hopeful to wish for something more in your relationship with Kazuha? Was it really so shameful? He treated you too tenderly to ignore, even if it was all just pretend… you wanted it to be real.

And maybe such thoughts were given an answer when, on a whim of carelessness, a small, folded up piece of paper fell from the male’s pocket as he waved goodbye, walking out of the classroom. Curious, you retrieved the paper, figuring you could give it back to him later… but you couldn’t resist just one peek. If it was really that private, he would’ve taken greater measures in ensuring its safety, wouldn’t he?

Ah, but what was written on the paper…well, to put it simply…

It was a poem, addressed to you. Professing his love, his adoration, his infatuation.

Words you were not meant to see, but ones you witnessed.

And when he comes to pick you up after class, wearing his usual serene smile, it’s almost as if you’re seeing him for the first time.

His crimson eyes seem to glitter when he spots you amongst the crowd, his entire expression brightening as he excitedly half-runs over with a slight flush on his cheeks. “There you are!” And just like always, he latches his hand upon yours, his grip comfortably tight.

Have his hands always been so warm?

“Dove, is something wrong?” The look of concern in his eyes is almost overwhelming. Something that can’t all just be a farce.

“Sorry.” Then, amidst the bustling crowd, you lean forward and give him a light peck on the cheek, pulling away as you watch his features grow slack with shock, cheeks reddening as he lightly squeezes your hand.

“W- Oh, does this mean…” His voice has gained a hopeful edge as a smile graces his lips. “C’mon dove, you missed. Here, let me show you how…”

And then he embraces you tightly, and you can feel his bashful warmth spreading into your body as his soft lips meet yours in the mere span of seconds, engulfing you with a sense of affection that you had never felt before.

“K-Kazuha… I…” It’s hard to get words out, with how loud your heart is beating in your ears - but there’s no need to, as the male shushes you with a smile playing on his lips.

“There’s no need to explain, I already understand. Besides, I was getting tired of playing pretend all the same.” ♥

"Haha, never expected to hear those words from you..."

HEIZOU looks rather calm, which is odd, about the entire situation, laughing quietly to himself before turning to you with a rather smug expression. "What, you want me to be your 'boyfriend' for a week?"

"Mhm..." You do suppose he's likely heard of stranger requests before, given the part-time detective work he does.

"Hmm..." Even though it seems like he's already made up his mind, he still playfully puffs out his cheeks, squinting his eyes at the distance as if that'll help his decision making skills in any way. "What'd I get in return, though?"

"...Eh? Uhm..." While Heizou was one of the more eccentric people you were acquainted with, you hadn't expected that he'd ask for something in return. "...A kiss?"

You were joking, but somehow, that made the male perk up. "Sure, sounds like a fair trade to me."

Well… if he was satisfied, then all was fine, right?

Except, with the promise of a kiss in tow, why does he seem so much more… full of vigor? That wasn’t natural, was it?

It’s easy to dismiss things you don’t see, but not when it’s clearly witnessed. Every little action he did, accompanied with a smirk, would be followed with a smug little something along the lines of, “I can’t wait for the kiss,” or “Your kiss will make this all worth it~!” And even whenever he loosely held your hand, he would glance at you and make a puckering motion with his lips.

At that point, calling his actions “normal” would just be lying to yourself.

“So, how’d it go?” Heizou glances up at you with tentative emerald eyes as you near him, something in his gaze that you can’t quite describe.

“All they said was ‘congrats on finding a partner.’” You sigh, slumping as you stand next to him, sliding down the wall before sitting on the floor, knees hugged to your chest. “I think they're dating someone else… ah, how could this be? I’ve had a crush on them for years, yet…” Another long sigh escapes your lips.

At the edge of your vision, you can see a certain male staring at you with a faint smile on his face, growing subtly wider with each word that leaves your mouth.

“Heh, seems like my love has run fresh out of fortune~!” His voice lilts, and you can hear the smirk residing in hsi tone as you flinch at the use of a petname. “Aw, it’s really too bad, isn’t it…” He’d almost look convincing if he wiped the jeering grin off his face.

“What are you…” Your voice trails off as Heizou sits on the ground next to you, mimicking your posture while placing his hand over yours.

“You promised me a kiss, didn’t you?”

Curses. That, you did.

“...Ah, were you serious about that?” You laugh awkwardly, but his expression doesn’t change.

“Were you not?” He counters instantaneously, his smug expression not budging an inch. “I never knew you were so unfaithful in keeping promises… I can’t help but feel disappointed.”

Then he pouts, eyes glimmering as he gives you the puppy eyes, albeit a little cursed. And just like that, you can feel your resolve shatter, crumpling like a piece of wet paper mache. An odd metaphor, but it seemed to fit the current predicament. With a groan of… embarrassment? Exasperation? You finally agree, grumbling, “Ah, let’s just get this over with.”

“Ready when you are~!”

Awkwardly… hesitantly, you lean forward, give him a light peck on the cheek, and retract as fast as humanly possible. Heizou only laughs at your antics, “You call that a kiss?”

“What, do you have any complaints?” You can’t help the snarky edge that makes its way into your voice.

“Perhaps a few.” The male smirks, scooching closer to you so that the two of you are uncomfortably close. “Why don’t I show you what a true kiss looks like?”

He doesn’t wait for your answer, he doesn’t have to - he just swiftly moves in, one hand on your chin as he moves your mouth onto his. You can feel the sneer against your lips as he engulfs you into one kiss, then another. It seems like an eternity before he pulls away, and when he does, your left panting, face flushed with red.

“Hah… I-” Archons, why did he look so handsome right now? With his slightly dishiveled burgundy hair that framed his face so immaculately, the way his spring eyes glimmered with the slightest hint of mischief, and the way the corners of his mouth turned upwards with a satisfied air.

“No need to thank me for my services, but if you’d like to repay me…” He recovers quicker than you do, his smile not flickering from his face, not even once.

“Why don’t you repay me with a date?” ♥

"Hahaha- oh. Wait, you aren't joking? Ugh, who do you take me for?"

The instant SCARAMOUCHE realizes you aren't jesting, his smile drops, and it's replaced with a look of absolute denial... or maybe it's repulsion?

Either way, he looks displeased, and his gaze towards you is one as if he's glaring at an annoyingly loud fly. Or maybe a worm, like he always likes to say to people he particularly dislikes, cursing "lowly worms" under his breath when he passes them in the hallways.

"Are you crazy? Delusional? Oh, I get it, you ate something weird." He lifts his eyebrow at you, frown deepening with every word. When he notices that you don't admit to any of them, his eyes go wide. "...You're being serious."

“Yes…?” The way he’s acting makes you nervous. “C’mon, please? Just for one week…”

“...How unfortunate… the way you’re acting so desperate is kind of disgusting… but if you insist…” Scaramouche glowers, but eventually loosens his expression. "Let's make it quick."

He's a bit of a strange boyfriend, to say the least, barely holds your hand, and when he does, it's only when people are around. He's not exactly polite in his affection either, whenever he's latched onto you, he'll stick his tongue out at anyone and all who passes by you two, giving any sort of strange look.

He may or may not tone his antics down if you ask him too, but likely not. Why should he give a shit about what you think, or what others think? He's stronger - if they want a fight, he'll give it to them.

And when your crush eventually never returns the jealousy you were wishing for, it's disappointing, to say the least, but the only words Scaramouche have to say about it are: "They didn't deserve you anyway, the fool."

...Wait, was he the one that sounded jealous, now?

Perhaps you were hearing things.

Except...

"Hey, the week's over, isn't it?" Scaramouche sounds disinterested, but the way his gaze is fixated on you says otherwise. "Our little 'dating scheme' is finally over." You note the slightest hint of remorse in his voice.

"So it is." You don't glance up at him, continuing to scroll through your homefeed.

"Does that mean we're dating for real now?"

"...What?"

He lets out a sound that's a mix between a laugh and a scoff. "You tell me."

"Aren't we, now that we aren't faking it anymore?" ♥

(a/n) oops i made heizou's part too long and scara's too short whoopsies

4K notes · View notes

hyewka · 5 months

Note

soobin + humiliation kink + hes such a perv

priorities, you perv | c.sb ࿐

⭑ synopsis. a blind date? oh thats immediately pushed aside just for the addictive high you get off messing with your roommate, who seems to be more pouty than usual tonight for whatever reason.

⭑ warnings. sub perv soobin, panty sniffing, underwear used as bondage kinda, handjob, fuck buddy roommate au, humiliation kink sortaa, dacryphilia, vibrator, bunny/pup petname, not proofread, use of goddess

Soobin’s been intent on following you around like a puppy this evening, all around the house, but the longer he keeps it up, the less it becomes cute and funny and the more it crosses into the ‘overbearing jealous boyfriend who isn’t actually your boyfriend’ territory. Because really, why the hell has he been acting like a pet with abandonment anxiety the day you have your blind date scheduled?

“You can’t come in my bedroom with me.” you finally say, flashing him a superficial wide smile, behind your door.

He abruptly stops, stumbling back like his mind really was on autopilot following you—then his face falls, brows knitting together. “What, why?”

“Because I don’t want your cooties all over my bed.” He isn’t amused, clearly, with a brow raised. You groan, it could be life or death and your roommate would still not choose to humor you. “I’m going to change idiot.”

“It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before?”

You click your tongue at him—he might have an amazing track record with academics, but sometimes it really is rocks for brains in there. “You’re not coming in Soobin, tough luck!”

In lightning speed he sticks his arm between the crack before you shut your door. “Wait, no, I wanna—I wanna help you pick something out!”

Now its your turn to raise a brow. Soobin? Help you get ready? He’d rather die of boredom.

You knew you weren’t crazy.

All day, hes been acting extremely out of character. Throwing you pouts during the one lecture you shared, feeling his eyes bore into you like he’s trying to burn a hole in your face, yet still spending money to buy you your favorite tiramisu even when he’s been sulking like you’ve wronged his entire bloodline.

The craziest thing is that you truly do not know a bigger cheapskate than Soobin. He’d chase a quarter in a crowd of people even if it took him all the way to Japan. So the tiramisu was a mind boggling investment. For you, let alone. It’s like he was bribing you.

He couldn’t have magically fell head over heels, it has to have something to do with the one thing different today. Your blind date.

You reach out to pat his head, mock pouting. He takes the bait anyway, lowering his head a little, looking so cute confused. It’s adorable actually, how quick he is to go with whatever you do.

“Aww Soobie, it’s okay, I promise you’ll always be my number one good boy. You really don’t have to be jealous and act out.” you tease, intentionally using baby talk to agitate him a lot more than it would’ve.

He scoffs loudly snapping his head to the side, bewildered this is the direction you decided to take things. “What? Jealous? Jealous? Jealous of what? I’m not jealous.” You stand there wearing a skeptic look on your face and a cross of your arms over your chest.

He wags his finger at your face like he can’t believe your audacity, dryly laughing (which really just sounds like a bunch of scoffs stringed together). “You’re funny, I—I gotta give it to you Y/N, you should really try your luck with Hueningkai’s comedy group again. Is it a crime to want to support your roommate after being all too aware of her notorious losing streak with the dating world? I don’t think so!”

Ouch, the all too real call out. “Damn, okay asshole you can help.” you faux hurt, not missing the chance to flip him off before walking inside and leaving your bedroom door wide open behind you. Maybe his input will have you get to your date earlier. “By the way, I do not have a losing streak.”

————-

There are outfits you just think you’d never wear to a first date—your black bodycon with cuts at the waist was an absolute no-go, especially with it’s length. Then there was the crimson red shoulder-off that had your tits looking too full—that was a big no. You don’t even know how your blind date looks, you wouldn’t want to have a man you find sexually unappealing to find you sexually appealing. That’s always a cause for a migraine.

But the problem you’re facing right now is far greater than any migraine you’ll experience. Soobin seems to think every outfit you wound up coming out with is, in his own words, “too much”.

This one’s the worst of all. “It’s literally just ripped jeans and a crop top!”

“That’s the problem! It doesn’t even look pretty!” he splutters, eyes wide and a large pout on his lips.

“You want me to wear something pretty?”

He looks to the side, mumbling, “Whatever.”

It’s raining, you hear it pouring and you’re like, fifteen minutes late already. All for Soobin’s useless input. It’s not worth it, and you’re proven even more correct when you come out the bathroom with the outfit you picked out. White, tight, but flowy at the ends of the dress. Girly and especially tight at the chest, just like you know he likes it.

Soobins eyes don’t fail to shamelessly rake over your body, stunned, looking like a deer in headlights. He clears his throat, snapping out of it. “No, absolutely not.”

You feign innocence, tilting your head. “Why not? It’s pretty.” You make it more of a point when you turn around, acting like you’re just checking your outfit through your wall mirror, knowing damn well the horndogs probably salivating at your ass barely being covered.

“It’s too much.” he parrots again lamely, chewing slightly on his lips. “Change, you can’t go out like this.”

Okay, that sort of pisses you off, turning around with your arms crossed again to the boy sitting at the edge of your bed. He doesn’t have the right to order you around. “Yes I can, I very much can.”

Suddenly, there’s a switch—he cowers like a kicked dog. “You can wear whatever you want I didn’t mean to-”

You break into a grin all of a sudden walking towards him, shutting him up.

He gulps, sitting there, avoiding eye contact when you’re close. You prop his chin up, and he just lets you, forcing him to look you in the eye. God, he already looks stupidly entranced. “You’d hate for me to wear this, huh?”

“Yeah..” he admits way too easily, a little whine in his voice, brows knitting up. Cute.

“But you love the dress, don’t you?” you purr, caressing his face with your thumb.

Your phone suddenly rings and you’re pulled out of the moment for a second, glaring at it then back to your roommate who looks like he’s under some love spell. Yeah no, this is much more fun.

You ignore the call, letting it ring as you drag your thumb down his bottom lip and god how obedient he is just sitting there and looking up like you’re his deity.

“What?” you giggle at the way his breath hitches the further you trail your finger down his body. The switch right before your eyes, oh that transformation’s worth more than anything else in the world. Bunny’s horny.

“You’d love to take this off me, right? You’d love me tease you bit by bit, have my tits bouncing in the restrictions of them, just struggling to keep your hands from ripping it apart...” you trail off, finally getting your hand on his half erect clothed dick.

You can see him holding back, holding back from humping your hand, the one you just purposefully let rest on his growing boner. “Your date.” he reminds.

You quirk a brow, taken aback. “Want me to go?”

Suddenly, he vigorously shakes his head, “No, no, don’t. I want you, please.” The strain of his voice when he pleads—god it’s the sexiest, most sinful thing ever.

Shameless. Just the way you like him.

“Hm? You do? Don’t you always?” you tease, walking away to get something out of your drawer.

“What are you looking for?” he mumbles skeptically.

You gleam, pulling out the vibrator and turning it on, showing it to your unsuspecting roommate. “Let’s play with this.”

He frowns. “You know I can make you feel ten times better than that toy, you don’t need it.”

“Who says its for me?”

You enjoy the blush that trickles his cheeks, and how easily the tips of his ear turn red as he blinks rapidly to collect himself. His adam apple bobs up and down again, stumbling over his words. “God, you’re such a himbo.”

“W-wait!” he shrieks, suddenly covering the tent in his pants.

You halt, the vibrator only a few inches from his crotch. “Can—can you…” he sighs frustratedly, looking away from you, the steam coming his red ears has you curious, what’s he so hesitant for? “Can you take off your underwear?” Oh.

Of course.

Your lips form into a smirk, knowing exactly what he wants to do with them. Slowly, with one hand you pull down your panties and let them drop to the floor. His eyes are, despite having a hard time telling you what he wants, eagerly fixed on the black lace, you could see the bead of sweat that breaks from his forehead. Pervert.

You bend down to grab it, purposefully making a show of it and he just huffs. “Get with it already.”

You laugh, “You’re being so bratty today. Think you’re owed a fuck?”

He whimpers dejectedly, shaking his head. Mockingly, you wave your panties in front of his face like an owner wagging a bone in front of their dog. He’s so indecent he has the audacity to take a whiff when the garment is close enough. God, he really is absolutely shameless.

And you really need to relieve yourself. You’re trying to not rub your thighs too much.

You crumble the underwear in your hand, and coo. “Open your mouth wide baby.”

Soobin’s mouth falls open almost immediately, tongue lolling out, looking up at you expectantly so much so it would be endearing if not for the situation you’re currently in. You shove it in his mouth, cringing at the saliva that wets your fingers.

“This is how it started huh?” you near the vibrator on his inner thighs enjoying the way he sighs through his nose, shuddering. “Fooling your roommate into thinking you were a studious, innocent good boy but in reality you just snuck in the laundry room every night to jerk off with her panties. Disgusting.”

He moans wantonly around the fabric, his hair brushing over his eyes as you near the vibrator to where he actually wants it. His dick. Poor him, its probably weeping in his pants.

“Violating me like that without my knowledge— you’ll always be a bad boy.”

Again, he shakes his head hard, to the point your panties fall out of his mouth already. “No, good boy. I’m your good boy.” he pants, face flushed. How’s he so easily worked up?

You giggle, pressing the vibrator against his cock, having Soobin’s jaw fall slack. “Couldn’t even keep the underwear in your mouth for more than two seconds. You’d make a really good camboy, always wanting people to hear you moan and whine like a slut.”

“No, no, just want you. Just want you to hear me.”

That affects you more than you’d like, and you try to fight the blush that warms your cheeks. God damn Soobin.

But he isn’t even aware, if his babbles were any indication. He dips his head back, big hands digging onto your sheets as you run the vibrator up and down. “Fuck.” he groans, still keeping his eyes open to watch your chest. You know he’s trying hard to keep up the good boy act for you, so you throw him a bone.

He gasps when your hand goes down his pants to wrap around his cock, and it’s the cutest thing ever how he immediately melts. You’re sitting next to him, twisting and jerking off his dick with his head leaning on your shoulder when you’re supposed to be under an umbrella with a future dating prospect instead.

Who cares, that man you’re sure wouldn’t give you what he’s giving you.

“Don’t wanna cum yet, wanna fuck you f-first.” he breathes into your neck. “Please goddess, please. Want your pussy.” he begs dumbly, starting to lay wet kisses to your neck— hes just not leaving room for you to really hold back.

“Holy shit, you’re good.” you realize in awe, probably wetting your bed with how aroused you are right now.

“Then take me baby, take me how you want. You’ve been good, so good.” you slur, and he practically jumps onto you like an oversized bunny, having your back on the mattress and him hovering, pulling you into an open mouth kiss almost immedietely.

“You’re so hot, fuck, you drive me crazy.” he says rushed, kissing you again, melting his mewls and pants into it.

You feel the roughness of his hands playing with your tits already, kneading so desperately you think he must’ve been itching to do just that this entire time. You like it with him, how it’s so dirty and quick, but still passionate enough to keep you wanting more.

“Fuck, wanna see them, please, please.” he whines as he salivates even more, playing with your nipples through the fabric, cheeks red and flushed, pathetically humping your cunt with his boner. “No, be a good bunny and fuck me good.”

He’s sniffling and tears stain his lashes, yet he still nods obediently, humping your cunt like he’s just restless enough to not pull out his dick and put it in—it’s the hottest thing ever.

But eventually the fabric feels rough against your skin, and you hiss, taking it upon yourself to pull out his cock from his pants.

God, his tip is red, leaky— it’s gross, a testament to how he gets with you and you love it. “Come on baby—bunny, fuck me.” you look up at him with wide, doe eyes and it immediately has him nodding frantically, missing your entrance once before he completely bottoms out, suffocatingly filling you up in one push—you’ll just never get used to his size.

“Always so mean, you’re always so mean to me.” he dumbly babbles, tongue out as he fucks into you maniacally, getting lost in your pussy.

“But you’re in my cunt right now aren’t you?” you mock, knowing that’s always his end goal with you, his end prize.

You’re breathless, curling your toes the harder he snaps his hips. You’re used to how it is with Soobin, he’s always animalistic and unrhythmic, rubbing your clit like he has no idea what he’s doing. But that’s the fun in it, how inexperienced and pathetic he is.

“Gonna cum, gonna cum, are you? Are you?” he’s out of it, kissing your neck, biting, panicky as he nears his orgasm, that before you could respond, you’re already feeling his seed fill your cunt.

He can tell, he can tell when you didn’t get there so he’s already pulling your dress up over your tits, attaching his mouth on one of your nipples, pulling the other through his hands, playing with them till they become puffy and have you withering under him. “Fuck, fuck Soobie…just like that,” you moan, feeling his long fingers squeeze into your pussy, speeding up, trying to rip an orgasm out of you.

The tense of his arms, veins showing, cease once you arch your back and cum at getting a good look of his face— lips raw and red as he bit onto them for majority of the time, eyes wet and big, just silently begging you to cum on his fingers, you let yourself go, the tightening band finally snapping.

—————-

note. lol im not super duper confident but let me know how you guys feel about this one, feedback keeps me going

#txt smut #soobin smut #soobin fanfic #sub!soobin #perv!soobin #sub!idol #sub idol #sub txt #txt hard hours #yeonjun smut

2K notes · View notes

shibaraki · 1 month

Text

OUT OF MY HEAD, HALF BURSTING ┊ MIDORIYA IZUKU

synopsis: japan’s sweetheart and saviour is in a quirk induced coma. you’re the only one that can bring him back.

tags: GN reader, post canon au, pro hero deku, quirk accidents, fluff + angst, hospitalisation, mutual pining, intimacy, technically doctor/patient but they know each other, friends to lovers, reader has quirk (‘dream walker’), memory/dream sharing, referenced depression, getting together, kissing, cheesy idc idc

wc: 5.2K

In your years wading through patients' memories, you’ve found that people have the most uncanny ability to resign themselves to their fate. You’ve wondered time and time again whether it’s instinctive to ruin things—if humans couldn’t help but stumble and make a mess of the things around them.

You recall that thought process now with a weary sigh, as your eyes skim over the patient's name for the tenth time in as many seconds. Midoriya Izuku.

“Well? Are you gonna do it or not?”

You’ve been staring at the medical file for long enough that an uncomfortable silence has dawned upon your office. Two weeks prior, a villain named Catatonic used her quirk to force Deku into a comatose state, that which he has yet to wake from. Even after the liberal use of quirk inhibitors, countless visits from Eraserhead and the administration of various stimulants, Deku would not stir. Realistically he should’ve roused from the coma naturally as soon as the quirk was cancelled. But he hadn’t, and his doctors can only assume it’s because he can’t, or refuses to.

Thus the case in your lap. A last resort.

“I’ll do it,” you intoned, thumb flicking at the corner of the manila folder. There’s already a deep crease there. The file itself is the heaviest you’ve ever had in your hands. Dense in a way that makes you ache. You and Deku are good friends—the kind of friendship that forms mainly because you frequent the same places. That place in particular being the hospital, except you were there to work, and he was often wandering the hallways listlessly to burn off the dregs of whatever sedatives he’d taken or visiting with patients.

Awkward small talk eventually blossomed into real, fulfilling conversations, and you started to like him, a lot more than you should. You kept the memory of his small, sincere smile close to your chest; nothing like that dazzling grin he wore on duty, it was softer, something private, and you relished being on the receiving end of it.

He was skilled at talking around his injuries. Sometimes if you felt especially bone-weary after a shift you’d be so relieved to see him that you forgot to ask. That sits with you. Deku is a hero. A good one, the best one. He’s brilliant at what he does—keeping people safe, protecting them from harm. In the entirety of his career, it appears he rarely, if ever, turned that care and consideration onto himself. You’re not a licensed therapist, and barely a doctor. Still you contemplate his medical history with a cold sense of regret.

“You realise there’s a large possibility I’ll end up seeing a lot of confidential stuff while I’m in there”.

“Don’t care. S’not like you can tell anyone”.

“I don’t think you understand how invasive this will be. I’ll see personal things. Private things, Bakugo. He won’t be happy”.

“Don’t care. If he doesn’t like it then maybe he should fuckin’ wake up”.

“This might not work, you know,” you finish tiredly.

Bakugo arches his brow at that. Despite the shadows under his eyes there’s no defeated slope to his shoulders, only a fierce scowl. “Either you can do it or you can’t,” he says, voice unsteady as if reeling between rationality and outright aggression. “You’re supposed to be the best at what you do”.

“I am the best at what I do, Bakugo. I can promise you I’ll find him”.

“Then what’s the damn problem?”

The file feels heavier. It feels like a foregone conclusion. You swallow, your throat dry. You don’t bother attempting a smile. You’ve lost the will to maintain your professional veneer.

“I can’t promise he’ll want to come back”.

Dream walker.

At twelve years old you thought it made your quirk sound whimsical, and gentle, and not at all the invasive thing that it actually is. After all, your reach didn’t end only at dreams. You were able to project your consciousness into another’s mind if it pleased you, parse through every memory, ambition, fantasy, trauma and fear, and manipulate them however you liked. Back when your control was non-existent you would drift into people’s heads whenever you slept like some wayward soul and saw far too much far too young.

The need to understand yourself and your quirk is what drove you to studying medicine. Neuropsychology, mainly. You carved meditative techniques into the very recesses of your own brain and learned to keep your consciousness tightly moored but had no real ambition beyond that. After the war and the complete upheaval and reform of hero society, it was difficult to find your place.

Until Okumura Yukiko.

At the small age of eight, Yukiko fell under the effects of a severe nightmare quirk, and despite the quirk being canceled she couldn’t wake up naturally. You had carefully walked through the delicate threads that made up her young mindscape—quirk-infested by formless shadows with knife-sharp teeth and worse, eerie figures that wore the appearance of her father—you found her trembling inside her mothers figmental wardrobe, took her hand, and guided her out.

When you came to she was curled up in the swaddle of your arms, trembling still, but awake. Her timid incantations ring true in your ears even now. Those tiny little thank you, thank you, thank you’s inspired the person you are today. Not quite a doctor, or a therapist. A specialist for special cases.

Something in your gut told you that traipsing into Midoriya Izuku’s mind wouldn’t be simple. That it would permanently change things. This isn’t some stranger, or a patient you’d never cross paths with again. He’s important to you in a way others aren’t.

Your hand hovers over his face, fingertips brushing his temple. You push your fingers into his thick green hair, rich in colour and soft, no knots to catch on your knuckles. His friends have been visiting in shifts, keeping him comfortable and presentable.

Bakugo had managed to keep the Hero Commission at bay for the time being, but if you came back without Midoriya tomorrow there would be far more than one scowling man looming in your office. Though the possibility left a bad taste in your mouth you can admit, in the privacy of your thoughts, that you’ve contemplated prolonging his recovery for the sake of allowing Midoriya rest. There must be something keeping him under, his genuine reluctance or worse; you’ve been reassured repeatedly of All for One’s death and the absence of the previous quirk holders but it’s best to exercise vigilance.

Midoriya does not react, not even a twitch of his nose, but there’s a flutter beneath his eyelids and a sleepy-sweet warmth to him that has you smiling, fond. Tucking your feet around the legs of your chair, you scoot it forward and bend closer, elbows resting on the edge of the hospital bed. “I’m not sure you can hear me in there. Maybe not. But I hope you won’t hate me for this,” you tell him.

Midoriya’s face remains serene as ever—more so than you can remember. It makes you wonder how much pain and discomfort he’s been hiding throughout your interactions. The tension has been sapped from his expression, lashes fanning over his cheeks. You’re close enough to count each individual freckle. Lightly, your thumb taps the space between his brows. “There are a lot of people out here that love you. They’re waiting for you to wake up, so I’ll have to have a look around your head a bit. Okay?”

Nothing. Heartbeat monitor pulsing a healthy rhythm, broad chest rising and falling, Midoriya continues to sleep. You sigh and cast a final glance around the private hospital room. The clock reads 18:22. Outside the window you see a single cloud, wispy as a dandelion, slowly disintegrate across the dusky sky. You make a cradle with your arm, head resting in the crook while you take Midoriya’s hand and try to relax. Anticipation turns in your gut. Years of experience aside, you’ve never really acclimated to the feeling of that first step into another’s subconscious.

Pressure gathers inside your skull as your quirk activates. You inhale a quick, wounded breath at the sensation. Your eyes roll back, vision swallowed by abrupt darkness, and you jerk against the distinct sensation of falling as your stomach roils. You’re overwhelmed by a cacophony of images and sounds—a determination that happiness would come, then moored to the burden of expectation, any optimism muffled under exhaustion and pain, replaced swiftly by a sense of discontent, grief and regret that swelled over time.

And then everything stops.

Your arms feel empty. Your chest feels hungry. You ache with it, the disquieting loneliness. Fog leaks into the memory, surroundings concealed beneath a thick mist. Behind you is a small pond. There’s a notebook soaking in the water. The koi are mouthing curiously at the weathered corners, faint black tendrils of ink curling off the charred pages. Scrawled boldly across the top is ‘Hero Analysis for The Future: No. 13’. Your strikingly young reflection ripples as you plunge your hand in and fish it out, holding it at arm's length as you shake the excess away.

Sufficiently less soaked, you draw the notebook to your front and carefully turn the cover to read the first page. You can feel the slight indentations on the back where a pen has been pressed hard enough to score the words through the page. Written inside, smudged but undeniable, is Midoriya Izuku’s name.

“Uh—excuse me…” a shaky, pitched voice comes from behind you, belonging to a very familiar pair of teary eyes. Midoriya is not just small, he’s scrawny. His hair is longer, unable to decide on which direction it wants to grow, and his middle school uniform is slightly ill-fitting, as though his mother bought it a size bigger for longevity. He ducks into the higher collar to hide his reddened face when you look at him.

The urge to bundle him up and hide him from the world is fierce. The situation is odd, but you offer a smile and his blush worsens. “Is this yours?” you ask, holding up the notebook. You try not to grimace at your own childlike voice. Midoriya nods frantically. His hands flex around the straps of his backpack. Smaller than the broad palms you’re familiar with, neither scarred nor crooked, trembling where they motion to clasp around the notebook. Your fingers brush and he attempts to swallow the yelp that bubbles in his throat.

“Thank you,” he stammers, pressing the notebook flat to his own chest. Midoriya swallows. His gaze never strays from you, growing brighter with each passing second as the idea in his head takes shape.

“Do you go to school here?”

“Oh,” you blink and the shadows have elongated. The pond is now hugging a school building. You recognise it despite never having seen it before. Aldera Junior High. “I don't,” you answer, sounding sorry. He predictably deflates. “I live close by, though!”

Midoriya perks up again. He shifts his weight between each foot. Red faced and unsteady, he quietly asks, “Do you think we could be friends?”

Your mouth slacks a bit, answers dying in your throat. You look down at your hands, palms upturned and unblemished. The dappled sunlight passes through your incorporeal form. Interaction with anything aside from the true patient during your work is incredibly rare though not entirely unfounded; people who daydream in vivid detail or ruminate chronically on old regrets usually had false memories in excess. Their minds seem to naturally meld around your intrusion, but they never went so far as to seamlessly incorporate you. Which can only mean one thing.

You fit because Midoriya has imagined this numerous times before—befriending you as a child.

Before you can respond you’re being dragged abruptly into a memory, the echo of a blinding flash of pain rippling through you. A reflexive gasp has your chest heaving and you curse at your lack of control. There’s barely a shard of light. Behind you is a hard, jagged surface but below is loose, uprooted. Attempts to move are futile, and agonising. You slump into the displaced rubble, silt and icy embrace, and listen. From above there is only a haunting silence but only a few feet ahead you hear muffled crying and Bakugo’s strangely tinny voice.

Your vision adjusts in increments, from pure darkness to a soft outlined blob to a comfortingly familiar silhouette. Midoriya is poised like an Atlantean statue, holding up the creaking structure and keeping it from crushing the young girl cowered in front of him.

Another wave of pain washes over you as the rubble groans. Midoriya bites back a whimper. His body is sinew and bone pulled taut, skin stretched over a drum. Everything seemed to swell dramatically around him.

“We’re almost there, kid. Two minutes,” Bakugo’s voice spills jarringly from the bulky earpiece hugging Midoriya’s ear. “Now look at Deku for me. You lookin’?” the young girl does as he commands. You see her trepidation falter at the easy smile Deku is wearing. “Bet he’s got a big dumb grin on his face right now, yeah?”

“Y—yeah,” she echoes, clutching the dirtied hem of her dress.

“You think he’d be smiling if there was anythin’ to be scared of?”

Her shoulders slant, the tension released, and she offers a tremulous smile of her own, “No”.

But you can feel, quite viscerally, how scared Deku was in that moment. The nauseating pain in his arms has dwindled into numbness and he daren’t spare himself more than the occasional shallow breath, as if the bloating of his lungs alone might disrupt his balance. Not once does his smile falter.

The surroundings warp again. You struggle against the whiplash, flung unwillingly into another memory. Breath forced from your lungs, the echo of Izuku’s pain dissipates in a blink and you land on unsteady feet, coughing and spluttering in the middle of an eclectic café covered in tinsel.

A sign written in cursive above the chalkboard menu reads ‘Mean Mug’. Melodious Christmas music plays quietly overhead, and the bell above the door is soft enough to get lost in the smooth notes. You’re cocooned by heat and met with bold patterned wallpaper. The unifying palette seems to be warm-toned colours; red, orange and brown come together amidst the mismatched decor to create a cosy atmosphere.

A half heartedly disguised Midoriya shuffles awkwardly by the counter, looking up at the door with trepidation every time the bell chimes to signal another customer. He grins once Uravity arrives in a casual disguise of her own, eyes still bright beneath the shadow of his cap.

They order and settle in a quaint alcove away from the windows and any prying eyes. Neither hero notices your presence as you seat yourself at their table and listen to their conversation. There are things you don’t understand. Code words to be used when discussing sensitive matters outside of their agencies. Inside jokes that you weren’t there for. But most curious of all is the knowing look on Uraraka’s face when Midoriya mentions that he saw you at the hospital that day.

“You’re hopeless, Deku-kun,” she says, as fond as she is amused. “What was your excuse this time?”

Midoriya clears his throat. He grips his cup, pressing until his knuckles turn white. It draws your attention to the thin cast splinting his ring and middle fingers together. “I broke my fingers sparring with Kirishima”.

You remember that, though too entrenched in his memory to attempt receding into yours for details.

“So you leapt halfway across the city to have them stuck together despite the fact that your agency has an on-site infirmary,” Uraraka’s hair falls in a gentle swoop beneath her jaw as she laughs. Midoriya shrinks into himself ever so slightly and her eyes soften. She pokes at his forearm. “C’mon Deku—why haven’t you asked yet? Do you really think you’ll get rejected?”

Glancing back and forth between them, your heart beats a tattoo across the inside of your ribs. You feel as if you’ve both missed something quite important and heard too much. You push your chair backwards and fall away from the table, and the memory, before Midoriya can respond.

With renewed determination—and heat rising to your cheeks—you reign in your quirk, steering cautiously through Midoriya’s subconscious mind as you should’ve in the first place. Images flicker in and around your periphery, each as desperate to draw you in as the last.

You see Midoriya crying, bleeding, lashing out in anger. You see him in a sterilised room, lulled by monotonous beeps, flesh stitched back together. You hear the doctor's voices coalesce into white noise. You watch as he’s handed crudely drawn thank you cards, coffee-stained police reports and thick manila envelopes marked as confidential in large red letters.

You turn away as Eraserhead approaches, a solemn expression, a quiet clink accompanying his footsteps, unnaturally heavy to one side, a young girl with silver hair following right behind him.

Your heart leaps to your throat when he screams in agony. You look down. There’s blood running down the street in rivulets, skin coming apart like wet paper.

You close your eyes. Next you risk a glance All Might is there, thinner than ever. He’s sitting in a wheelchair by a large window swaddled in a thick knitted blanket, watching over the city, smiling.

You turn away, feeling a pang of grief. Midoriya is expressionless, examining his battered body in the mirror, condensation still lingering on the glass, tendrils of heat curling upward as the shower drain gurgles.

Then he’s in a dark room bringing a stranger's hand to his mouth, kissing the centre of their palm, drawing the finger into his kiss-bitten mouth and sucking with a hazy gleam in his eyes.

It’s overwhelming. You stumble and suddenly Shouto is eating across from Izuku. He brings his chopsticks to his lips, noodles hung limp between them. “It’s obvious you like each other. You should just confess,” he says before shovelling his food.

Too private. You turn on your heel and find a patient of yours on the bed, unresponsive. Izuku is beside you, muttering under his breath, thumb pressed to the shadow beneath his lip. He reaches back to brush your wrist and offers a tentative touch of reassurance. You watch yourself lean against him for a moment and then retreat, grateful for his consideration, unneeding of it, and desperately wanting it, all at once.

The scene ripples violently. A reporter is staring up at Izuku with sparkling eyes. Her hair cycles through an array of colours as she shakes with excitement. “It’s amazing, Deku-san,” she insists. “For your spirit to be so heroic that it physically steers your body… that’s special!”

Izuku conceded with a strained laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck. You feel how his stomach knots. “I used to think so too,” he says, sounding far away.

It’s the middle of the night somewhere when your search finally comes to a halt. You find you’ve landed on an empty street, in that dense, heavy darkness that makes you feel like the only person in the world who’s awake. There’s a tall residential building hugging the pavement. Intuitively, you know this is where Izuku lives.

Your footsteps are made heavy by Izuku’s lingering hurt and exhaustion. It’s disconcerting, the way he feels about his apartment. Coming home should be effortless. People come home in the same way they draw breath. But to Izuku, it's a weary, miserable journey that he must consciously think about and do. His perennial loneliness is overwhelming, a near physical force repelling you from opening the large glass door.

One foot in the lobby and the surroundings undulate. You’re dropped in the middle of his living room. It’s vacant. There’s a large box of case files tucked under the coffee table, an old takeout box left out on the counter, a blanket strewn haphazardly over the couch cushions. You pinch the soft fabric and rub it between your fingers, bringing it to your nose as you’re overcome by the urge to smell it. Izuku’s warm scent floods your senses.

Something thuds outside, followed by a tinkling of keys on a chain. Your blood runs quicker as the front door abruptly opens. Izuku looks harried as he ducks into the genkan, quite visibly frayed. The upper half of his hero suit is unzipped, pushed down to hang over his hips, littered with debris and dry mud. You hold your breath as he kicks off his shoes and lifts his head, meeting your wide-eyed gaze. The air around you is charged. Trepidation prickles at your nape.

Then the shadows over his stormy face recede. Izuku gentles, light returning to his previously empty eyes. “I’m home,” he breathes. “I missed you”. His voice shivers down your spine—you know in your gut that this is him, the real Izuku, but that fact is hard to believe while he’s looking at you like he wants you.

“Welcome home,” you smile back, slipping the blanket around your shoulders as you move toward him. “Hard day at—?”

Your intentions are to sit him down, keep him calm so as not to be ejected, and explain what’s happening, but before you have the chance his larger body crowds you against the wall—the dull impact reverberates through your ribs, knocking the breath from your lungs and he’s kissing you as if it’s something he always does.

Though it’s more of a collision than a kiss. The sensation is indescribable. Information spills into your mouth, your quirk reflexively absorbing his every fantasy, ache and want. Your knees almost buckle. The blanket puddles at your feet. Fingers snake into his thick hair, nails dig into his roots where skin becomes earth as you try to reciprocate his fervour.

Under your tongue you feel the cut on his lip, under your palms the dark swell across his cheek. You shake off the cloud of desire. Too many lines have already been crossed. “Izuku,” you whine. His name comes naturally now; you know him deeply enough. Blunt teeth graze at your jaw, your throat. You lean away for air only to catch a glimpse of another angry ivory-red bruise peeking from beneath his loose collar. “Izuku,” you tried again. Then louder. “Izuku, that’s enough”.

“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Izuku rasps as he rears up from the crook of your neck with wide, glassy eyes.

“No—I’m,” your heart beats hard in your ears. Dread sinks low in your belly. “It’s me. I’m really here, Izuku. You’ve been away for too long. I had to use my quirk. We need to wake up”.

“Wake up? You’re… oh,” his eyes grow wider, then shutter closed on a shaky exhale. The cut on his bottom lip has started bleeding again. Rivulets seeped into the cracks between his teeth and stained his gums red. You yearn for the searing heat of his hands as he releases you and staggers backwards to scrub at his face. “Oh my god”.

“Wait. Please don’t throw me out,” you say quickly, reaching to clutch at his wrist in case he panicked. Izuku tenses at the contact only to relax a beat later, his fingers spreading over his eyes so he can get a peek at you. “It took me forever to find you here. There’s a lot of stuff in your head”.

“I won’t. I wouldn’t,” he mumbles. You could collapse in relief. He’s not angry, he’s embarrassed.

“Thank you. I promise I tried not to look at anything too private”. Your mind didn’t make it easy, you think. It was almost like he wanted me to see everything.

Izuku groans and lets his hands drop to his sides in defeat, revealing an entirely pink face. You keep your fingers curled around his wrist, his pulse light and fast. “Okay. I’m okay. We should probably sit down for this,” he eventually croaks, a tremulous smile working its way across his lips. “Drink?”

You pick up the blanket and make your way to the couch while he briefly disappears into the kitchen. Around you the apartment takes on a rosy sheen. A dull clink shudders through the silence as Izuku sets a cup on the coffee table in front of you. It’s your favourite work mug down to the smallest details.

“You remembered this old thing?”

Shaped like a cat, the handle curved in and away like a feline’s tail. It’s piping hot, steam already curling up from it like a crooked finger, like the invitation he meant it to be.

Izuku nodded awkwardly, perched so far forward that it stretched credulity to say he was on the couch at all. He tracks your movements with intensity when you lean to pick up the hot drink. The initial sting to your palms quickly dwindles into numbness as you bring it closer and realise what’s inside. Hot chocolate. The surface sprinkled with those small, cube shaped marshmallows that he likes.

You swallow and feel the warmth spread through your body. A smile pulls at the corner of your mouth as the thick, saccharine flavour floods your senses, washing back the bitterness and thawing your anxiety. You can hear the tension in Izuku’s shoulders snap as he slumps forward, arms hung over his knees and head low in relief. His reaction is oddly vindicating, if not contagious.

“How long have I been asleep?” he asks. “Time is weird here”.

“You’ve been comatose for over two weeks,” you reply. “They tried everything they could before Bakugo insisted on bringing me in. You have a lot of people waiting for you”.

Izuku inhales sharply. He makes an aborted motion to scoot closer before thinking better of it. Your attention strays to the nervous wringing of his battle worn hands. Endeared, you put your mug down and close the distance yourself. Pressed thigh to thigh, you envelop his tightly curled fists, bringing them into your lap. The shaky breath he takes is loud in the otherwise quiet room.

“Honestly I’m surprised you’re still working”.

He looks at you with an unsure, watery smile, sunlight caught in glassy eyes. His voice is thick as he asks, “What do you mean?”

You smile sadly and run your thumb over his knuckles. “You’ve been on patrol. I thought you might’ve locked yourself in your head because you needed a proper break—and who could blame you, really. But you’re working yourself thin even in your dreams”.

Izuku huffed a laugh, more breath than humour. “I love being a hero. It’s what I’ve always wanted,” he says, his voice tight. You sink into his side and feel his diaphragm stutter. “But it isn’t everything. It felt like I was suffocating and I needed something more. Something to come home to for a little while…”

His red-rimmed eyes quickly return to his lap when you meet them. “I still can’t believe you’re here. Your quirk really is incredible”.

You can feel the shame swatting at you like a summer-born heatwave, reminded of just how deeply you’ve invaded his privacy, and how easily you overstepped your bounds.

“I’m so sorry,” he continues, at the same time that you tell him, “I’m sorry, Izuku”.

“Please. Let me go first,” he murmurs like a question. You nod your assent. “I’m sorry I forced myself on you. I thought you were a part of my imagination, like the rest of this place. I should have realised you weren’t. I’m sorry,” he rambles on. “I wanted to be closer to you but I got carried away and I’m sorry”.

“You couldn’t have known. I should have told you it was me as soon as you walked in,” you firmly interject. Izuku doesn’t look any less stricken in your periphery, cheek sunken where he’s gnawing at the flesh. “And you didn’t force anything. I hardly pushed you away,” your brow wrinkles and you smile despite yourself. “I got a little lost in your head, too. Not my most professional moment I admit. But I wouldn’t want to leave either, if we were cuddled up in here all day”.

“Really?” Izuku blinks. Hope colours his cheeks. He clears his throat and shifts in place as he tries very hard to appear unaffected. “You don’t think it’s creepy—me picturing all this with you?”

You think of that young boy yoked with the burden of expectation and feel your heart crack. You can still taste his desires. They’re insipid, belying their age, as though they’d lingered long enough to stale. Izuku treasured his friends and fans', their love and loyalty; yet he felt guilty for allowing them to foster such a blind faith in his goodness. He was a man with faults like any other, capable of making mistakes, of inflicting harm. More than anything Izuku longed for someone to see the darker, uglier corners of his life, and make room for all of him. And you wanted to be the one to do it.

“I’ve imagined this with you. This and more,” bolstered by everything you’ve seen, the confession spills out with startling ease. Your eyes squint above the curve of your grin. “I like you too,” you coaxed his fist open as you spoke, mapping out the carved furrows, shallows and depths on his palm. “A lot”.

“Oh,” he exhales, slowly entangling your fingers.

You give an emphatic nod.

“How mad is Kacchan?”

“Pretty mad. But when is he not?” you laugh at his grimace. “I’ll be there as a buffer when you wake up. It’s my professional opinion that you need a few more days to recuperate and take me out for crêpes. So will you come home with me?”

There’s a gleam in his eyes—a combination of warmth and weight that tugs at your chest. His gaze flickers across your face, from your lips to your eyes in askance. You lean in and he kisses you again, sipping gently at your mouth, firm and slightly sticky with congealed blood. Strange. It feels so real. You suppose it is, in all the ways that matter.

“Okay,” he whispers after one last peck to your lips. You get to your feet as he stands and gestures nervously toward the genkan. “I, uh. I don’t really know how to get out of here so… lead the way?”

You laugh and take him by the hand. “Don’t worry. The way home is always a lot faster. It’s a little disorienting—watch your step,” you warn as he follows you through the front door. Rather than the lobby, or a stairwell, both bodies are swallowed up by darkness.

Spat out just as abruptly, your senses return to you piece by piece. Breathing through the vertigo you peel your eyes open to the rapid rise and fall of Izuku’s chest as he reorients himself. A crick in your neck, a knot in your spine. The clock reads 07:12. There are already nurses bustling around the hospital bed, likely alerted by the frantic heart monitor; that which does little to hide the way Izuku’s pulse stutters when you lift your head to get a look at him.

“I’m up,” he says, throat rough from disuse. There’s a shaky smile on his face. “I’m home”.

Your hands are still entwined, albeit a little sweaty. You smile, “Welcome home”.

#deku x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #midoriya izuku x reader #midoriya x reader #q’d

729 notes · View notes

yestrday · 3 months

Text

— YANDERE! MALEWIFE! GENSHIN AU part one | two | three | four

⇢ alhaitham, kaveh, tighnari, cyno

introducing ! at the altar decorated by the blooming lotus flowers, your wrist is bound to your husband with a red string and a promise of togetherness. while the people dance and sing in celebration of the newlywed, his eyes are on you and you only— possessive through and through, even in parabandhana.

[ surpriseeeeeeee yea you did not expect this did you yeah neither did I. i just sat on my computer and decided to be productive. also did not include baizhu and mika for now cuz I got lazy. ]

warning ! yandere behavior, drúgging, manipulation, mentions of locking you away and múrder

— ADMONISHING INSTRUCTION. alhaitham | الهيثم

[ “sure, sure, i’ll clean up after you go. hm? i’m not being lazy at all, just enjoying my peace and quiet.”]

⇢ my boy is living the dream life. no nosy seniors, demanding bosses, and curious co-workers. just him and his hardworking partner and the freedom to do his research at his own time. when you’re around, he tends to slack off (though he denies it) but he does his part of the chores anyway, so you don’t really have any complaints. he’d already been living the cushy life before, but now this lifestyle is more than comfortable.

⇢ he helps you out with your work when he sees you struggling, and he lets you use him as a soundboard to work out solutions. sometimes even lets you complain. keyword: sometimes. most of the time he’ll distract you with a movie or just bring you to the bed so the two of you can read a book together. unfortunately, his tolerance towards whining is very low (reminds him too much of a certain blonde), but he still loves you enough that he’s willing to let your stress out through other means.

⇢ marriage seems to have made him a bit of a romantic, though he’ll tell you that he’s stayed the same as he was when he was still your boyfriend. whenever you’re squinting at your computer screen in frustration, you’ll be caught offguard when he presses a tender kiss to your temple and sets down a mug of coffee next to you. or while you’re talking about something or another as you eat, he’ll clasp your hands in his and press a chaste kiss to each knuckle. these gestures has you blushing and stammering all the time, reverting you back to the naive student you were when you met him. this makes him a bit smug, so you often hit him in embarrassment.

⇢ he would never look down at you. marrying you means he has acknowledged you his equal, and to be fair he doesn’t really have a habit of looking down on others. however, when he sees some pesky flies fly a bit too close, he often gets too full of himself. someone trying to smooth talk you at the cafe? haitham’s not one for pda, but he’ll wrap a sturdy bicep around your waist and watch as the poor thing trembles from his gaze.

⇢ haitham doesn’t always tell you this, but he admires you for a lot of things. but sometimes you get a bit too… irrational, and he knows that he has to be the one to bring you down sometimes. you’re not a kid, so you should know better. besides, haitham’s always been the more rational between the two of you. sometimes bordering on…heartless, but you never tell him that. you don’t have the heart to.

⇢ he’s often the decision-maker, most of the time not even asking you what you want. he says it’s not about want, he has to take the rational decision for the both of you. you’ve always been a little… dull. it’s an endearing trait, but it’s something that has to go away as you both age. he sees the hurt flash in your eyes when he tells you this, and he thinks he can make up for it with a gentle kiss between your pretty eyes. he loves you like his equal, really, but sometimes (most of the time) you need a good talking down to.

“so you’ll continue to let your brother exploit you, despite everything he’s done to you in the past?” haitham shuts his book and stares at you with a seemingly bored gaze. “you know you don’t need to give them that solicitation, right? he’s not worth it.”

“it– it’s not about him, haitham, believe me!” you plead with him. “i’m, i’m doing this for his wife, okay? she doesn’t deserve to deliver a baby in his dingy apartment with no professionals around. it’s not fair! just because my brother was a díck doesn’t mean she deserves the cold shoulder too! have some compassion for once!” he rolls his eyes and gets up, towering above some good inches. his eyes look down at you, but his hand rests heavy on your shoulder as if trying to calm you down. “it’s not about compassion, dear. it’s about being rational. once your brother sees you softening, he’ll start asking for more and more and more and well, we know what kind of person you are.” you open your mouth to retort, but he shakes his head. “you’re too soft, [y. name]. chasing around the affection of others… you don’t have to do that anymore.”

[ “this is for the both of us. i’m sure you can’t tell now, but sooner or later, you’ll thank me.” ]

— EMPYREAN REFLECTION. kaveh | کاوه

[ “you’re the — hic!— the best thing’s that ever happened to me! of– of course i’m crying! i’m not heartless!” ]

⇢ for kaveh, your marriage was both a blessing and a cause of distress to him. a blessing, of course, because what sane man would not want to get married to you! his darling, light of his life, the one who tolerates his flaws more than any other person on teyvat! but at the same time, he can’t just let you shoulder his burdens! he can’t give you the luxury you deserve to have, you don’t deserve to be saddled with his debt, it’s– it’s just not fair!

⇢ with kaveh’s sense of aesthetics and talent for architecture, you two will have the prettiest home around! it is a must for this architect to gift you with the prettiest home you’ve ever laid eyes on. sure, he can’t give you the grandiose mansion that you deserve even with both of your savings joined, but a master architect will make the most of what he has. this is the place where he’ll make memories with you, where you’ll grow a family and your chi… children (?!??!!!!) will live. it has to be as beautiful as you.

⇢ complains like you’d never believe. he’s always been chatty, but he gets even chattier after a disagreement with a client or a run-in with a certain someone or when he hears whispers of your horrendous workplace. to anyone else, his overdramatic flair might be a bit too much to handle, but you can’t help but listen with amusement as your husband drones on and on and on and embellishing his rants with over-the-top remarks. nevertheless, in the case that you do get weary, just press a kiss on his lips— it will surely leave him an incoherent mess in no time.

⇢ a bit too eager for your praise. it’s not like people don’t praise him all the time, but it’s only your approval that he cares for. when he makes a meal that he’s proud of, he’s squirming nervously in the seat across you as he watches you take bite after bite. when he finished his part of the chores, he tends to be a bit clingy with you as he tries to fish for compliments. it’s your choice to cave in so easily or play around with him, but when you do utter a compliment, know that you’ll be left with a gooey pile of mush cuddling into you.

⇢ on the other hand, kaveh absolutely cannot handle fights with you. fighting is a normal thing between couples, but he gets so absolutely wrecked it’s unreal. your look of disappointment, the glare you gave him, the fed-up sigh when you push him away and say that you need some time away from him… they all drive him insane. he curses himself, wondering why’d he have to go and open his stupid mouth and fuck everything up. you’re not wrong, never wrong, and it should be him to take the blame. the longer the fight, the more his wellness and self-confidence cracks. it’s a common sight to see him groveling on the ground, for your forgiveness, begging for you to notice him again. the sight is so pathetic that you can’t bear to look away.

⇢ the most insecure husband to ever exist and grows even worse with every fight you two might have had in the past. anyone who approaches you has him tensing up and tightening his grip on you, but a raised brow from you has him reluctantly loosening his grip and shamefully looking away. he’s plagued with thoughts of you leaving (because why would you stay with a wreck like him?) and overthinks every friendly gesture you give towards anyone who isn’t him (is that how you smile with someone who isn’t a complete fool?). he’s a pushover and craves your love and attention the most. if you love being an asshole and having someone completely around your finger, there’s no perfect husband to get more than kaveh.

“kaveh…” you start hesitantly, brows furrowed as you put a hand on his shoulder. “kaveh… there’s really no need for you to do all this.” but despite your gentle words, it only makes kaveh flinch and bury his weeping face even more into your chest. “i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry,” he keeps whispering with a voice ragged from the amount of apologies he’s repeated. “i won’t do it again. whatever i’ve done please just forgive me. i can’t, i can’t stand it!” he looks up at you and that pretty face of his is ruined with tears. “please come back to me. you don’t have to sleep at that inn anymore. i can’t handle you not being with me anymore.” your grip on his shoulder tightens, and your expression seems to twist between a grimace and guilt. the only reason you stayed at an inn was because you were a coward, and you couldn’t handle watching kaveh break down as he beats himself up for a mistake that you caused. this fight was your fault to begin with, but the only one ruined was the innocent one. “i… i forgive you, dear,” you hushedly whisper, with the audacity of a man who did nothing but take advantage. “i forgive you. no matter what you’ve done.” and when he brightens up and smiles so prettily, your heart squeezes in your chest as he pulls you into a kiss sweeter than you deserve.

[ “wh… what are you apologizing for…? there’s no need to look at me like that…! you can blame me all you like!” ]

— VERDANT STRIDER. tighnari | الطغنري

[ “once again, i told you not to eat your boss’ baking! no, i don’t care if they looked nice! they. are. poisonous!” ]

⇢ he’s more at ease now that he doesn’t have to tolerate idiots who think eating poisonous mushrooms recklessly count as experiments or co-workers who tell him stupid jokes all the time. it’s a less stressful environment now… at least, that’s what he thinks. so why do you keep coming home barely alive?! you’ll find tighnari fussing over you and nagging at your office’s poor working environment.

⇢you’ll have the prettiest garden in the whole neighborhood, if not the whole world! the research data he can acquire from the plants in his backyard is limited, so it’s mostly a hobby of his. of course, he doesn’t just grow whatever there! there’s tons of medicinal herbs growing there and there’s a shed you both built where he can experiment wherever he likes. whenn you’re off work, you like to idle the time away in the garden while tighnari is hard at work on another of his concoctions. simply admiring his focused face is enough to put the stress of work behind you, and you think it’d be prettier if you tucked a flower behind his ear. but you never learn, do you? he launches off to another lecture about why you shouldn’t pluck flowers thoughtlessly while you daydream about his pretty face.

⇢ please please please don’t bring him to any work parties, lest you want to see the entire world burn. he still has that dry sarcasm that you oh so love, but he’s ruthless when it comes to your boss and your more unpleasant co-workers. if any of them try to act chummy with you, he immediately raises a brow and gives them the side-eye. he combats whatever fake-ass comment they have with a dry retort, leaving you panicking and trying him to stop it. but no one stops tighnari in verbal combat, and before long he’s revealed your boss’ and co-workers' vulnerabilities and have them deflating like a balloon.

⇢ tighnari always knows how to make the perfect brew, his teas always the perfect blend of both taste and remedy. it’s too bad though, that you always fall asleep before you can manage to finish a single pot. whenever you awake from a tea-induced slumber, your body feels strangely heavy but you can’t complain about the sleep. your husband is always the first thing you see from these naps, his fluffy tail wrapped around your legs and his big eyes staring intently at your face.

⇢ whenever he mixes in the drugs in your food or tea, tighnari’s tail swishes back and forth as he begins thinking of your cute expressions while you’re half-sober. sometimes he doesn’t put the usual dose and instead just halves it, just to see you flailing to get a grip on your senses and reaching out to your oh-so-innocent husband for help. he often chastises himself for this… dirty behavior, but the devil in his mind gleefully reminds him that this counts as research. the test subject just happened to be his trusting partner for life.

⇢ tighnari isn’t above imprisonment. it’s less for the thought of protecting you and more for his personal benefit. he likes to tell himself this is strictly research, but he can’t deny the awestruck look on his face as he greedily eats up every expression of your drugged face. when you grasp onto his clothes and lean on him for support… it makes him shudder with delight. you’re so cute when your system is laced with drugs, and even cuter when you look at him like he’s your entire world. he wants you to rely on him… and in turn, he wants to abuse that over reliance.

“you look better like this,” he murmurs as he brushes your freshly bathed hair. your figure is slumped in your chair like a doll, which isn’t far from the truth from how he handles you like one. he holds you gently, like porcelain, but you don’t react. you are too knocked out from the dose he had slipped into your tea awhile ago. he leans into your face, tutting at the dark circles under your eyes. “look at this… clear neglect of your health. i keep telling you to sleep, but you never listen to me, do you?” he sighs before focusing his attention back to your hair. “you’re so stubborn sometimes, you know. i barely know what to do with you.” he spends the next few moments in silence, rubbing cream into and ointments into your face. you smell slightly of lemongrass now, thanks to the bath he’s given you. tomorrow when you wake up, you will marvel at the softness of your skin and the clearness of your mind, before you throw yourself into another week of overwork. like always. tighnari regrets giving you the sleeping drug now. maybe he should’ve added a dose of the aphrodisiac drug he’s just finished. with the way his feline eyes zero into your blissful face and the eager swaying of his tail, he can just barely hold himself back now.

[ “aaah, i’ve run out of your meds again. oh, don’t you worry, i’ll make you some more. it’s nice how your body is so… receptive to my medicine ♡” ]

— JUDICATOR OF SECRETS. cyno | κύων

[ “... we’re married… …what? i honestly didn’t think i’d come this far.” ]

⇢while there’s no other man you could imagine to spend the rest of your life with, you’re inwardly groaning about the amount of dad jokes you have to put up with later on in life. sure, you love cyno’s goofy lil personality, but you think you can only take too many stupid jokes before you go crazy. you voice this concern to cyno, who just gives you a reassuring hand on your shoulder and says he can handle you just fine if you do. you’re not quite sure what this implies.

⇢ quite sulky, but he refuses to own up to the fact. sometimes you get a little distracted with one of the neighborhood children, start chatting up one of the kind neighbors, or meet one of your co-workers. you tend to get a little bit distracted by them, and while cyno believes that he’s not overly bothered by this, he admits that he is a little bit miffed about you not paying attention to them. he also gets pouty when work starts taking up of your time and you start to neglect him, so expect him to just shut the laptop close and demand you to eat dinner with him without rushing to get your job done.

⇢ he used to scare the neighborhood kids away with just one look and you always had to comfort him and pat him on the back in sympathetic understanding. “maybe you’ll get them next time,” you had joked, handing him an ice cream as he sulked on the park’s bench. “one of your jokes should do the trick.” you really shouldn’t have suggested that, because after another trip to the park he stared those kids down with his same stoic expression and cracked one of the corniest jokes known to man. every kid looked at him like he was stupid. now no one takes him seriously. well, at least they like playing with him now???

⇢ overprotective, like over overprotective. he knows you can handle going outside the house on your own, and hell, he might have no qualms with your workplace. but the more you complain, the more paranoid he gets until he’s staking out the site for himself. touchy co-workers? cruel bosses? he could easily have their corpses fed to the dogs. he is a protector of justice, after all, and what is justice but not killing those who lay a hand on their partner?

⇢ it’s not very easy to just push him over the edge, but he can and has the will to lock you away. it’s the modern world, no one’s going to have it out for a salary worker slaving day in and out for a corporation, but still. he’s made plenty of enemies when he was still in the force and there’s a paranoia eating at him whenever you go out of the front door. when he does lock you away, he’s as gentle as he can be, even with the stench of blood all over him. this is all for your sake after all, and he couldn’t bear to see you hurt when he had the power of protecting you.

“cy,” you huff in exasperation, looking up from your laptop as he glares down at you from behind it. “what in the world are you talking about? they’re my co-worker, my superior. you can’t just tell me to stop talking to them. i need their help!” “what help could you possibly need from them when you have me?” he huffs back, crossing his arms. “i’m telling you. they’re dangerous. i… i just know it, okay?” “what could a retired general possibly know about handling excel sheets?” when his face falters, you sigh and shut the laptop closed. “look, i know you just want to protect me and i appreciate that, really. but come on, cy, don’t be unreasonable.” the pressed line of his lips tells you that he has something against being called that, but you press on. “the company does background checks on their employees. it’s safe, i promise.” you press a kiss on his cheek and smile at him. “sit here and calm yourself down, okay? i’ll handle dinner tonight.” he watches your back as you disappear into the kitchen, humming a bright tune that offsets the stormy look in his eyes. he could tell you all about his time in the workforce— the violations he’s made, the blood on his hands, and the enemies he’s made— but he won’t. not if it means breaking this beautiful life he’s created with you. but that’s okay, that’s fine. he’s been trained to adapt to the situation and to work with the shadows.

[ “even if you don’t have a care in the world… i’ll be right behind you. wherever. whenever.” ]

#yandere genshin impact #genshin impact #yandere x reader #genshin impact x reader #yandere genshin impact x reader #yandere genshin #yandere alhaitham #yandere kaveh #yandere tighnari #yandere cyno #yester.writes #yester.au — househusband 💍#[noooot quite satisfied w what i did w cyno bc i wanted to explore him beyond being a joker but. sigh. not enough media to give me a read o #that side of him]

935 notes · View notes

ghostbeam · 1 year

Text

casual | dabi/touya todoroki

“My mom wants to meet you.”

It’s a sentence uttered as Touya pulls the T-shirt he’d discarded earlier (while he was pushing you toward your bed and sucking your tongue into his mouth) over his head. It comes as a shock, lying in your bed completely bare, still struggling to catch your breath. It shouldn’t make you feel excited in the way that it does, not when Touya has been more than clear about the nature of the relationship between the two of you. Nothing serious. No commitment.

Casual.

notes: hiiiii so this is just something I’ve been working on for a bittttt it’s inspired by causal by Chappell roan it’s nothing special but I just couldn’t get the idea out of my head so yeahhhh sorry for the severe lack of smut in a friends with benefits fic btw ahsjsjsjs thanks for reading hope u enjoy!!<3

warnings: 18+, minors dni, f!reader, explicit content, no quirk au, oral f!recieving, friends to lovers, friends with benefits, the todorokis are healing, dabi is called Touya throughout literally the entire thing

words: 4.1k

“My mom wants to meet you.”

Casual.

“What?” You aren’t sure how you should respond, or what the right answer is. He shrugs, buttoning his jeans.

“You don’t have to. Just promised her I’d ask.” He says, turning around to dig through your dresser. He pulls out one of the shirts he’s left there and a pair of underwear for you, tossing the items your way. You change, covering yourself up before moving to sit in the middle of the bed, legs tucked underneath you.

“You’ve been talking to her about me?” You question. You know it’s not what he wants to hear.

“I’ve mentioned you.” He tells you. He’s still standing, staring down at you. Your question should have been teasing, but you were sincere. You’ve met his siblings before. You know you’re not a secret to his family, but the mention of his mom feels entirely too serious. It makes you feel hopeful. You don’t want to feel hopeful.

“Oh, yeah?” You grin, your last ditch effort at turning this back on him, to show him that you can handle casual, that you like casual. He rolls his eyes.

“It’s not a big deal.” He shrugs. “She’s met all my friends.”

“Friends like me?” You ask him. You aren’t even sure what you mean by it. Touya was your friend long before the two of you had sex. That doesn’t really make you different from the others in any real way.

Touya is your friend. Sometimes, you wish he wasn’t.

“Friends like you…” He trails off. His eyes flicker from yours like he’s thinking about it. “No, I guess she hasn’t.”

You hum, nodding your head. You don’t want to read into what he could possibly mean by that. But, truthfully, Touya doesn’t have any friends like you.

“Whatever. I tell my mom about you. You write about me in your little diary.” He speaks, leaning down so he’s at eye level with you. He kisses you once, long and hard before pulling away. “We’ll call it even.”

He stands up straight, grabbing his keys from the top of your dresser and picking his jacket up from the floor on his way out of your bedroom. He turns back to wink at you once before disappearing through your doorway.

“It’s not a diary!” You call, but he only chuckles in response.

…

wear that one dress read 7:42am

the blue one with the flowers read 7:42am

does ur mom like blue? sent 7:43am

?? read 7:44am

no i like blue read 7:44am

and i like you in blue read 7:45am

ok maybe sent 7:45am

…

You do not wear the dress.

Touya chuckles when he sees you, like he knew you wouldn’t and opens the passenger side door for you. Your sweater is blue, though.

Rei lives near the shore in a house that’s all her own. Touya tells you that he and his siblings visit as much as possible, that his sister thinks she might get lonely out on her own, but he knows she enjoys the solitude. There’s a freedom to it, the choice. Touya can understand that.

The road is long, and once the two of you get out of the city, there’s not much to look at. You watch the weather change out the window, blue skies above slowly shift into damp overcast and Touya rests his hand on your thigh.

He’s done it more times than you can count. It’s not unusual for Touya to touch you. He’s clingy like that. But in the car, driving two hours out of the city to meet his mother, it feels different. It is different. You want to believe that.

She stands at the front door as the two of you pull in. Her presence is a surprise to you when you know Touya hadn’t used his phone once the entire car ride. She looks small, delicate, almost, with a strength that settles in her shoulders, her chin tilted up slightly. You see now, how much of her is in him.

“She does this every time,” Touya speaks. “I have no clue how she knows.”

“Mother’s intuition.” You shrug.

“It’s creepy.”

“I think it’s cool.” You say. He flicks your forehead.

“You would.” He squeezes your thigh once before getting out of the car. He jogs to your side and lets you out. You feel his hand brush against yours as he leads you up to the house, but he never intertwines your fingers like you wish he would.

Rei introduces herself warmly and embraces you in a tight hug. Touya has to bend down a bit to allow her to hold him around his shoulders. She ushers the two of you inside and runs a hand through Touya’s hair, murmurs something about a haircut, but he shakes her hand off of his head and insists that he keeps it this way because you like it. You’ve never told him you liked his hair before. But it’s enough to get Rei off of his back about it because she sends you a knowing smile as you follow her into the living room.

The visit is a standard one as far as meeting the parents goes. Touya’s favorite food has been prepared and the three of you eat as Rei asks you questions. She’s understanding when the topic of your future comes up and you aren’t sure how to answer. She’s engaged when you tell her about your hobbies. At some point, you forget you’re here with Touya until you’re reminded of his presence when you turn your head in his direction and notice an uncharacteristically soft expression on his face. It confuses you, and it makes your stomach flip. You can’t ignore the feeling of his eyes on you for the rest of the visit.

When Rei pulls out a photo album, Touya stands up and says he’s going outside to smoke. You know part of it is because of embarrassment, old photos of such a young innocent thing, him in matching clothes with Natsuo, photos of all his bad haircuts. You also know that part of it is that he’d rather not think about that time in his life, even though his father is cut out of all the photos Rei shows you.

Rei speaks after a while, flipping through the pages of the album, “you’re good for him.”

You don’t look at her, eyeing one of Touya’s school photos from long ago.

“What did he say I was…to him?” You question.

“A friend.” She speaks, “But I think it’s obvious that it’s more than that.”

“Not really. I am his friend. I mean, I’m not a girlfriend or anything like that.” You try to explain. “I can’t really be good for him.”

“I think you can. I think you are.” She continues to flip through the photo album, and you continue to check the back door in case Touya walks in on your conversation.

“It means a lot that you say that. I really care about him.” You admit it to her even though she already knows because it feels right to. You want her to know that you could love her son if he let you, that you would in a heartbeat. It’s just more complicated than that.

“I can tell you do. And he cares about you, too. He’s just stubborn.” She pauses. “And scared.”

“Yeah.” You sigh. “Me too.”

Touya walks through the door a moment later. “We should go soon. I wanna leave before it gets dark. And I don’t need you two spilling any more secrets about me to each other.”

You freeze for a moment, wondering if he heard your earlier exchange, but the teasing tilt of his voice tells you he didn’t.

You say goodbye to Rei, and she makes you both promise that you’ll visit her again soon. When she hugs you, firm and tight like before, you feel sad to go. Touya guides you to his car with a hand placed on the small of your back. He doesn’t open your door for you, but he holds your hand the entire way home.

…

should we open a cafe read 2:22pm

what sent 2:25pm

or a bookstore read 2:26pm

what are u talking abt sent 2:27pm

both at the same time read 2:28pm

???? read 2:28pm

u wanna be business partners on top of being sent 2:29pm

whatever this is sent 2:29pm

fuck buddies read 2:30pm

ew sent 2:30pm

dont call it that sent 2:30pm

lovers???? read 2:32pm

pls stop sent 2:33pm

what shld we name the cafe/bookstore read 2:34pm

?? read 2:40pm

…

“Touya!” You cry, head thrown against the foggy car window as he stares up at you from between your legs. You run one hand through his hair as he runs his tongue through your folds. You whine. “Oh, my god.”

He pulls away to let out a breathy laugh, eyes finding yours as he kisses your thighs. You shift your hips forward, missing his mouth against your cunt. It’s cramped in his car, your back uncomfortably pressed against the door. Touya’s contorted in a way that allows his long body to fit in the back seat with the door closed. His comfort is an afterthought while in between your thighs.

“Don’t stop.” You cry, wiggling your hips. He grins, bringing his hand up to run two fingers gently over your clit. It’s not enough. You can barely stand it.

“Poor baby.” He coos, rubbing agonizingly slow circles over your most sensitive spot. “Were you gonna come?”

“Fuck you.” You speak through clenched teeth, moving your hips to try and grind against his fingers.

“Not yet.” He teases, before attaching his lips to your cunt once more. His movements are hurried, making a mess of you in his backseat as he runs his tongue over your clit over and over again. You feel his hand reach up to grab your wrist, bringing it back to the top of his head. You tug on his hair, grinding against his face, understanding exactly what he wants from you. He groans against you, reaching down to touch himself through his jeans.

“I’m close!” You whine. Every flick of his tongue is controlled, his only goal being your pleasure. His fingers dig into one of your thighs, and the feeling of your hips twitching against him drives him insane.

“Come for me, baby.” Touya pleads, releasing his grip on your thigh and rubbing a soothing hand over the spot. “You look so fucking pretty when you come. Let me see it.”

With one last swipe of his tongue, you're pushed over the edge, legs shaking around his head as he continues movements against you. He pulls away, leaving kisses against your thighs, moving up over your stomach, your chest, your neck. He pulls you forward with one arm so that you're pressed against him.

“C’mere.” He whispers, pressing his lips tenderly to yours, far too sweet for casual. He slips his tongue into your mouth, and you reach down to touch him over his jeans. He bucks his hips up, letting out a moan against your lips, when his phone begins to ring. He ignores it, pulling away to kiss your neck. You thumb the button of his jeans open, reaching down to touch him again, when the ringing of his phone interrupts yet again. Touya lets out an annoyed sigh, reaching into his back pocket to pull the buzzing device out.

“What.” He speaks, voice laced with anger. When the voice on the other end of the line speaks, you know it’s Tomura.

Touya met Tomura a few years after he met you, and you liked him. You did, but he always found a way to get under Touya’s skin at the worst times. Every comment he makes about the relationship between the two of you leaves Touya with far too much to think about. It usually pushes him away from you for a week at most, replying to your messages with short answers, canceling plans. You figure that now that he’s picked up the phone, your fun in Touya’s backseat is over.

Touya speaks to Tomura as you pull your shirt back over your head, not bothering with your bra, just wanting to get dressed as quickly as possible. You search for your skirt, spotting it halfway underneath Touya while he tells Tomura he’s not free until Saturday night. You try to pull it out from under him, but it won’t budge.

“You’re sitting on my skirt.” You speak softly so you don’t interrupt his call. He notices immediately, lifting his hips for you to grab the piece of clothing. He mutters a quick sorry as you pull it over your legs, and you can hear Tomura question him over the phone.

“Huh? It’s no one.” He speaks, and though you know that you’re nothing more to Touya than a “friend” as he puts it, you hoped you were more to him than “no one”.

You pull your clothes on and exit the car, not wanting to hear the rest of the conversation. The car sits on a ledge, high on some mountain that overlooks a lush forest below. Touya showed you this place years ago while you were still just friends, somewhere that was just his became yours together. Back then it meant a lot to you. Now you know it probably meant nothing to him.

Touya exits the car a couple of minutes after you, eyeing you as you stare down over the cliff. You don’t notice when he comes up beside you, a hand on your back. He says, “you okay?”

“Mhm.” You nod your head, hands crossed over your chest. “I’m tired. Can you take me home?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” He presses a kiss to your temple before walking towards the car. On your way home, when Touya’s hand begins to creep towards your thigh, you cross your legs and move your stare towards your window. When he drops you off at home, you don’t kiss him goodbye.

…

come over read 8:18pm

cant sent 8:30pm

why not read 8:31pm

im studying sent: 8:34pm

study here read 8:35pm

no sent 9:00pm

you’re distracting sent 9:00pm

…

what are you doing read 1:22pm

fuyumi wants me to invite you to lunch read 1:24pm

tell her im sorry but i have class right now sent 1:30pm

u dont have class right now read 1:32pm

?? read 1:32pm

…

where have you been read 11:11pm

i want you read 11:11pm

come over read 11:12pm

please read 11:12pm

wanna kiss you read 11:16pm

need u read 11:30pm

sorry read 10:02am

stole a bottle from natsuo read 10:03am

i wanna see you though read 10:20am

...

Touya texts…a lot.

Your excuses are weak, especially to the man who knows you better than anyone in the world, someone who’s committed your schedule to memory for the better part of two years. But you try because it hurts, because despite agreeing to casual, you cannot continue to pretend like you aren’t in love with Touya. And you can’t continue to pretend that he’s in love with you too.

You write a lot to try and process it all. You write in your “little diary” as he called it, page after page about him and his pretty eyes, and his stupid hair, and his fucking tongue. It’s hard not to miss him.

You screen most of his calls when you can get away with it, but he texts you after each one you miss. He has no problem with double, triple, quadruple texting you because it’s you. There’s no pressure to impress or feign disinterest with you. You know this isn’t about the sex. Touya wants his friend back.

Only the thing is, you can’t be his friend. Not now, not after crossing every single possible line with him. You’ve fallen for him. This much you can admit to yourself, but you’ll never admit it to him.

So your only option is distance, which hurts you just as much as it hurts him. You want to send him cats you see on the street. You want to ask him to see the newest horror film with you. You want to lay in his bed and trace the lines on his face and wake up with his head buried in your neck.

What you want is to be his girlfriend. You want him to love you back.

You don’t know if it’s worse to be with him or without him.

…

r you busy rn? read 5:44pm

yeah sent 5:45pm

ok read 5:45pm

…

There’s a knock at your door at six pm on the dot while you’re thirty-seven pages deep into some cheesy romance novel you picked up to try and mend your broken heart, fill the void that you created by pushing your best friend (and the love of your life) away.

It doesn’t help that you’re wearing one of his shirts.

You open your door and peek through the crack. Touya stands there with a six-pack in one hand and the leather jacket he knows you love on him so much hung effortlessly over his shoulders. Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him. He looks like a model and you’re wearing his T-shirt.

He doesn’t say hello, just pushes his way through and kicks his annoyingly loud boots off, setting them by the door. He places the six-pack on the counter before muttering, “Cute shirt.”

He’s teasing you. You want to strangle him.

“What are you doing here?” You ask him, an annoyed huff leaving your lips as you cross your arms over your chest as if it’ll hide the shirt that he’s already noticed.

“Um, well.” He shrugs, strolling over to your couch where you left your romance novel and fuzzy blanket. He picks the book up and looks at you. “You know, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” You stomp towards him, snatching the book out of his hands. “You’re the worst. Why don’t you ever say what you actually mean.”

You know why, though. Because Touya is unknowable, or at least he thinks himself to be. That’s why he doesn’t tell you anything real but allows you to see his apartment, allows you to see him naked with all of his scars and make love to him with the lights on. He won’t say that he loves you, but he’ll leave you thirty missed calls and show up at your apartment when he doesn’t get an answer. He won’t say that he’s worried, but he is. You know that he is because you’re the only person who’s ever really known him, even before the sex. Touya has always been yours. If Touya thinks you know nothing, at the very least he thinks you know this.

“Yeah.” He says. “You know, it’s funny cause, all of a sudden my best friend stopped talking to me. Not exactly not talking because she does answer my texts, still. Sometimes she answers my calls, but not really. But, I haven’t seen her in person in weeks. I miss her, and her stupid face, and her giant comfy couch.”

“Touya–” You begin to speak, but you don’t even know what you’re going to say. You’re definitely not going to explain yourself. You’re not going to confess to him wearing his t-shirt like some sad ex-girlfriend.

“Where did you go?” He asks. His voice breaks and it's like a blade in your heart. “Did I do something? Did I say something?”

“I didn’t go anywhere, Touya. I’m here. I’m here, I just–” you pause, trying to find the words to explain it all. “I don’t think we can do this anymore.”

“Do what?” He asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question. He knows what’s coming.

“Sleeping together. I don’t–I can’t–” You try again, but it’s fucking hard to talk to him. You want to kiss him. You want to fall into his arms. You want him to make you forget.

“Done.” He says. He doesn’t hesitate, and it hurts. “We can stop, we can–I just want you back. I want you with me. We can be just friends again, but please, please don’t leave.”

Tears fill your eyes at his words. He’s finally talking to you, finally saying something real, baring his soul, and you can’t tell him that you’ll stay. You love him so much, but you’re selfish.

“We can’t be friends either.” You choke, staring at the floor. If you look into his eyes, you’ll break.

“Why?” He shakes his head, “Talk to me, what’s happening? What changed?”

“Why do you care so much, Touya? I thought I was no one.” The words leave your lips before you can stop them.

“When did I say that?” He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember and it’s the one thing you’ve been agonizing over for weeks.

“What is it about Tomura that makes you shut down around me?” You ask him. Realization falls across his face. “Every time you talk to him you…pull away. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“I don’t pull away.” He argues.

“You do.”

“Is that what you’re doing? You’re trying to get back at me or something?”

“I’m trying to fucking–get over you!”

There’s nothing but silence after your confession. Your eyes fall closed in defeat, admitting the one thing you never wanted him to know.

“I can’t do casual. I am not casual. I tried to be cool. I was really good at it for a while, but now it just hurts.” You speak, voice shaking as you gain the courage to say everything you need to. “The thing is, I love you. And not how I’ve always loved you. I’m in love with you. So it sucks when, you know, I know you’re not in love with me.”

“Who told you I’m not in love with you?” He asks.

“You’re mean.” You say, glaring at him for the unnecessary question. No one told you. You just know. “It’s obvious.”

“Yeah? Is it?” He asks. “You think I bring anyone to meet my mom? You have half of my wardrobe here. You have a toothbrush and all of your stupid skincare shit at mine. I hold your hand in public. I text you good morning and shit.”

“So that means you’re in love with me?”

“Fuck, I thought it did.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. His roots are grown out, you notice. Have you really been gone that long?

“I don’t understand.” Touya is in love with you. Is that what he’s getting at?

“I love you.” He shakes his head, remembering your words from earlier. Not how I’ve always loved you. “I’m in love with you. That’s–Tomura knows. He knew it before I did. He says some dumb shit about it every time I talk about you, and it scares me, so I pull away. I didn’t know it felt like this. I’m fucking miserable.”

“When did you know?” You ask.

“Honestly? I think I always have been. I think that’s why I brought up sleeping together. I wanted to be closer to you without all of the commitment. But it was when you came to dinner that time when my dad showed up.” He walks toward you slowly as he speaks. He’s becoming more sure of himself, open. He’s done hiding. “And when we left, you were so fucking angry. You just ranted about him the whole way home, and it clicked. We were at a stop light and you were moving your hands all around and I thought ‘fuck, please don’t fall in love with this girl’, but it was too late and I knew it.”

“I think this is the most you’ve ever said to me.” You say dumbly. Touya just confessed his love to you and this is what you say?

“That’s not true. I never shut up. You know that. You tell me that all the time.”

“I mean–not, like, about music, or books, or someone who came into work. I mean real, raw, ‘fuck, don't fall in love with this girl’ shit.” You explain, a sly grin falling across your lips.

“You’re a dick.” He chuckles, wrapping his fingers around one of your wrists, and dragging you toward him.

“Yeah, but you’re in love with me.” You shrug, smiling up at him.

“Yeah, I really fucking am.” He says before he leans down to kiss you. It feels right, familiar. It is like all of the others because there’s always been love. It’s always been there. He’s always been yours. Touya knows you know this. “Please don’t…pull away again.”

“Okay.” You agree, resting your forehead against his.

“Cause I’m just gonna chase after you.”

“Yeah? Gonna show up at my apartment with beer I don’t like?” You tease, and he rolls his eyes.

“Fuck you.” He says with absolutely no venom behind it.

“Yeah, maybe you should.” You grin.

#dabi x reader #dabi x female reader #touya todoroki x reader #touya todoroki x female reader #bnha x reader

7K notes · View notes

motherofagony · 6 months

Text

FIRE WALK - one shot

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: au, no outbreak!joel x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+, minors dni word count: 6.5k summary: a chance encounter at a motel has you crossing paths with a stranger in a blue t-shirt. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), very brief references to past non-con encounters (not with joel, no details just shitty men in general), soft!joel, alcohol, mentions of family trauma and ab*se, unprotected piv, fingering, oral (f + m receiving), A Scene With a Belt™, slight mentions of reader's clothing but no physical descriptions otherwise, love as consumption and women as fruit a/n: this was a brain-worm of a one shot, so i had to press pause on AHFE and get it out. consider it a dirty love letter to strangers with stories in shitty motels. and i have to give the biggest thank-you to @iamskyereads for stepping in and offering to be my beta reader in the final hour. she was so unbelievably thorough and thoughtful and kind. i owe you big.

New-age boogeymen hang two-way mirrors and jiggle motel door handles with broken hangers.

That’s what the news says.

August licks an unforgiving line of heat up your back, and cutoff denim and halter tops do nothing but give the sun more skin to burn.

It’s sweltering, brutal as an Arizona summer is, and The Palms Motel promises a pool and a mini bar on their dirty marquee. You’ll take what you can get, can’t really afford to be picky with fifty dollars in your pocket, but at least maybe you’ll live like royalty tonight.

Some guy you met — Tom, Tim, Jim, whoever — pulls his convertible up to the front office. Your knees knock together over the speed bump, cartilage kissing bone.

It’s the closest you’ve ever come close to a chauffeur, but the chauffeur you see in movies doesn’t usually take liberties with trying to work his grease-speckled mechanic hand up the passenger’s shirt.

You met him at a gas station in Tucson, thumbing your way from northern Texas to put as much distance between you and your whiskey-breathed dad as you could. He’d torn your clothes apart at the seams with his eyes when he spotted you in the parking lot, swimming in blood-infested waters with sharp, sharp teeth.

There was no plan, no directions penned and cities circled on a folded map, just glass in your hair and a final straw.

He asked if you could buy him some booze — revoked license, baby, y’know how that goes — and you shouldn’t have, but when he flashed a leather wallet thick with cash, you knew you’d be stupid not to.

You hid behind a shelf inside the gas station while he idled in the parking lot and plucked a fifty from the wad, stuffing it deep in your bag. You grabbed some shitty malt-something from a fridge along with a 6-pack, flashing the slack-jawed cashier a wink.

He didn’t try to hide the eye contact with your tits, but neither do most men. Sometimes you milk it in your favor, sometimes it just makes your lunch rise to the back of your throat.

And when you’re by yourself, it’s hot iron, ready to strike. A doe in their headlights, a buck with a nice rack. Skipping through the center of their bullseye.

You bought a little palm-sized bottle for yourself and tucked it safely next to the stolen cash in the abyss of your purse. These tiny cons got you by, made power surge deep in your belly. It made loneliness feel worth it, knowing you had an upper hand to lean on if you were ever in a bind.

He bitched about inflation when you came out with less than was reasonable for the amount you spent, and you just shrugged. Not your cash, not your problem.

You bartered for a ride to the nearest motel, and now Tom-Tim-Jim is asking you over the purr of the engine if you need company for the night.

If you were feeling a little more you, you might’ve taken him up on it. Maybe he would’ve even paid for the room, maybe he wouldn’t get angry like your dad does. Maybe he’d be able to fuck you without hitting you.

You’re good at diffusing the temper in most men, can touch them in ways that make them grit their teeth, can be a good girl and go fetch.

But you’re not in the mood to bend, to give someone’s son — someone’s husband with a tan line around their ring finger — a place to wipe their shoes on. You don’t feel like wiping their dirt, your mascara from your eyes and saying thank you while they zip up their pants.

And you sure as fuck don’t fancy being on a milk carton.

“I’m alright, sugar. Thanks for the ride,” you say, dipping your chin to peer over your sunglasses. “I know where to find you, don’t worry.”

Yeah fuckin’ right.

He doesn’t try to conceal his disappointment, just sucks his teeth and squeezes at the exposed skin of your thigh. His way of saying goodbye to something he could’ve dripped sweat on, came in too early. You think your flesh might rot off in chunks.

You open the door and swing your legs out in a way that’s a little too eager.

Tom-Tim-Jim waves solemnly with two fingers up and two bent, and then he’s gone in an aggressive rev.

The motel might’ve been a kitschy dream in its heyday. It’s not a total dump; more of a vintage skeleton of washed-out pink and umbrellas that’ve been ripped by weather and overuse. There are a million faded emblems of cartoonish palm trees. It’s almost endearing how tragic it is.

You can tell that it was popular and swarming with tourists at one time — there are dusty, water-stained pamphlets lining the wall next to the front desk that brag Named one of Arizona’s top destinations in 1996!

A mounted fan whirs and oscillates, but it might as well be someone blowing hot breath down your neck.

There’s a tired woman holding down the fort at the desk with a name tag that claims Brenda, and she looks surprised to see you. You figure most customers are stopping in for a night’s rest on the way to somewhere more important, their final destination. But you don’t look like you have anywhere better to be.

“Hey, honey,” Brenda trickles, laced with an accent that’s more New Orleans than Arizona. “Need a room?”

“Yeah, just for the night,” you say, fishing out your wallet with confidence that doesn’t meet your eyes. “How much?”

“Forty-five a night, ‘less you wanna upgrade to the honeymoon suite.” She looks somewhere over your shoulder.

That’s nearly everything you have, but it sounds a lot like tomorrow’s problem. At least you’ll be safe tonight from the prowling stares of nighttime predators, and the leftover change will give you a decent vending machine dinner.

“Just a normal room’s fine,” you smile, sliding over the crumpled, stolen fifty.

Brenda types busily on the keyboard, asking for your name but nothing else. And when she hands you a plastic keycard, you finally relax your shoulders. Untangle the nerves in your lower back that are choking one another.

Room 17, it reads. Your oasis awaits!

You thank her, spin on your heel, and immediately bump chest to chest with something hard.

You’re eye level with a worn, cornflower blue t-shirt, ringed with a light stain of sweat at the collar. They’re grasping both of your arms to steady you, and you’re snagging the gaze of a tousled man with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Watch where you’re goin’,” he murmurs, but it isn’t reprimanding or mean like you’re used to, just sickly sweet and Texan. Syrupy in a way that drips right down between your legs.

You don’t remember seeing anyone else in the lot when you’d pulled up. And the stealth of him entering soundlessly behind you sends a jolt of electricity up your spine, the clench of something that would be fear if it were any other stranger.

But he doesn’t look at you with intent to devour or to claim. Just eyes you like you’re anyone else. An equal. The bare minimum, but rare and shiny nonetheless.

“Sorry,” you breathe, and he’s releasing you a little too quickly for your liking. Leaving brands on the creases of where your forearms meet upper and elbow.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

So you don’t.

You brush past him on the way out, a polite nod. And that’s that.

The heat is the kind that feels hotter, unbearable when paired with the shrill sing of cicadas. An endless buzzing that you think might be the sun sizzling on the concrete. If you stood in one place for too long, your flip flops might very well melt you in place.

Your room key clicks to unlock Room 17, and you push the door open to a heavy, humid space that smells vaguely of mold. You’re so grateful for the privacy that you can’t even bring yourself to wrinkle your nose.

Flip flops discarded, your toes sink into shag carpet — a dirty luxury that makes you moan. It’s only been two days since you left home, fled home, but it beats sleeping with one eye open on a bus stop bench.

You up-end your leather bag, dumping all of its contents onto the bed. Cigarettes, some loose film canisters, your toothbrush, a lighter. There wasn’t much time to pack, nothing worth bringing, and the less, the better. Nothing to weigh you down if you had to dip at a moment’s notice.

It takes you only a couple minutes and a light sheen of sweat to realize that the A/C is busted. Smothered, you try to crack open a window in the bathroom, but it’s no cooler than the hell you’re standing in.

When you let Brenda know, she just shrugs with an apologetic kind of half-smile.

“Most of ‘em are out these days, honey,” she says, and you decide then that it’s a small price to pay. “We got someone comin’ to look at it next week.”

You shoot her a smile, figure that she’s had enough rotten backtalk in her day. You scoop a set of flamingo-themed matches from the bowl on the counter and turn around, only to see a familiar blue shirt waiting his turn.

His eyes try not to roam, but he’s giving you a nod and stepping up without hesitation, asking Brenda for extra towels.

The way that she titters and blushes, you’d think he’d asked if he could spit in her mouth.

It irritates you, and you can’t say why.

The door chimes behind you as it closes, and you linger, striking a match and lighting a cigarette. When he emerges, a stack of towels so high it’s hitting his chin, you step in stride on the walk back. Tracing his footsteps, catching up with his shadow.

“You followin’ me?” you quip, a cigarette dangling from your mouth. The cherry ignites on every breath, smoke erupting in tendrils that hug each word.

He answers with a laugh, turns and squints back at you with one eye. Almost as if he was expecting you to ask.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart? Could say the same to you.”

You stop in front of 17, hand over your brow to shield from the sun that’s winding its way down, getting ready to tuck itself in for the night. There’s nothing that touches your tongue that doesn’t sound exactly like a fuck yes. So you don’t say anything.

“Enjoy your sauna,” he chuckles over his shoulder, passing you with his towels on the way to Room 20.

—

Led Zeppelin filters out through the radio, half-static, half-electric. Your legs are crossed in the air behind you, and you’re posted up face down on the bed, kicking along to the beat while you flip through whatever Cosmopolitan someone left behind in a drawer.

Someone raps a few times on the door, and if it’s a repairman, they’re getting their fucking dick sucked.

You army-roll off the flowery duvet, abandoning a how-to on finding your g-spot, and you peer through the peephole.

Your breath hitches on a soft swear.

When you open the door, you see Blue T-Shirt standing there, skin creasing around his eyes slyly. An unopened beer hangs and swings from his restless fingers. He offers it up wordlessly, the butt of it pointed at you.

It’s ice-cold and slippery to the touch, erupting goosebumps on your forearm. Saliva coats your tongue, and you don’t think it’s the thirst for alcohol, but maybe the tall drink of water.

“Um… thanks?”

“Figured you’d either be dead by now or parched,” he says smugly, and it’s velvet to your ears.

“Oh. Yeah, thanks. I got the fan to work at least,” you mutter, jerking your thumb vaguely behind you.

“Listen, uh —”

He’s rubbing the nape of his neck, and you catch the way the network of muscles flex from his elbow to the seam of his armpit. He looks like he’s in pain, struggling with the fit of a puzzle piece into something rough and jagged.

Something he shouldn’t be trying but has to see it through, exhaust it until it’s definite one way or the other.

You just squint, sucking in the corner of your lip between your teeth. You nearly grin, but it’s much more fun to watch than to connect the dots for him.

“A/C works in my room, so ‘f you wanted to… y’know,” he trails off, not even sure in his own offer. “No pressure. It’s hot as hell outside, don’t want you t’get heat stroke ‘f I can help it.”

This kind of approval you like. This kind that sizzles girl-honey between your legs, winning it from a man that’s playing to earn, not to cheat.

“I try not to make a habit out of going into motel rooms of guys I don’t know the names of,” you harp sweetly. But it might as well be a done-deal.

“D’you make a habit outta accepting beers from ‘em?”

You smile. Typically, yes.

“Joel.”

His hand shoots out, strong and suggestive. Fingers like alligator teeth that’ll grip you, hold you under until you thrash.

And you pluck your cigarettes and gifted liquor bottle from the bed, arms full when you carry them down to Joel’s room.

—

You’re sprawled on the full-size bed next to his, head propped up on hand propped up on elbow.

You’ve been trading your little fist of bourbon back and forth, swapping stories in the same way. Somehow, you fall into it easy like old friends, and it’s nice to follow someone’s lead instead of keeping one step, three, seven steps ahead. Arm outstretched to the door knob, feet ready to break into a run at the change in tone, blackening of pupils.

Without meaning to, you’ve wordlessly agreed that the person in possession of the bottle has the proverbial mic, and they swig to help with details and theatrics. It’s counter-productive in flow, but it makes you laugh when Joel exaggerates the story he’s telling on purpose, reaching out to pass it back and suddenly yanking it back, remembering a shade of gray or a funny expression.

Your knuckles keep zapping each other, brushing a little longer than the time before. There’s no numbness to consensual touch.

Joel’s mid-40s. From Texas, like you. He came to visit his daughter Sarah at college, says she’s growin’ up too fast, doesn’t need her old man anymore. It’s a thrill to see someone talk about their own flesh with love, admiration for who she is and who she’s becoming. You find yourself leaning in, enraptured that there are no IOUs or fine-print that you know to come with a parent’s love.

Mentions of his stubborn brother Tommy who he works with and who just can’t stop getting into trouble. The unspoken guilt that maybe he could be the one to keep him out of jail if he tried harder. It doesn’t work that way, and you tell him so.

You tell him about your dad when he asks about your life, your story, and you don’t know why you do but maybe you know exactly why. No one ever gets close enough to ask, so it comes leaking out of the corners of your mouth.

You’ve never told anyone, not even your diary, not even the guidance counselor who slipped a note to your fifth grade teacher and pulled you out of class. Shaky fingers, shaky limbs when they asked if they could roll up your sleeves just to see and you said no.

Crying because you knew your dad wouldn’t let you go back. Not to school, not to your friends.

You omit the nitty-gritty details, but Joel gets the gist. Swigs his share of the liquor a little too angrily with tight lips. Not like your dad does, but you don’t miss the irony of it all.

He holds anger for you, on behalf of you. It simmers as he listens to you in patient silence, coming to a boil at the bad parts when he gets up and starts walking lines in the shitty carpet. Pretending to look outside in interest at his truck parked at the end of the lot, but gripping the curtains until you can see every expanse of bone in his hand.

You don’t need this from him. It’s a hurt you’ve wedged between the pages of a book and doused in flames of acceptance long ago. But it spreads from your toes to your ears, the burn of someone feeling like this. For someone like you.

He finally settles down in an armchair by the window, a funny corduroy thing that would probably light up under a blacklight on one of those crime shows. Legs parted, a warm stare on the way you take up space on the bed. Facing him comfortably, your vision buzzing around the edges. A loose smile shared as if this room was meant for the two of you all along.

“So, what’s your plan?” Joel’s humming, his words getting lost in an echo of the bottle neck.

You don’t have one. Can’t have one when you have nowhere to go but gone.

It stretches on and on between you — a mouth opened and closed too many times on possibilities. If you admit to it, you end up with pity or an upper hand dealt to a stranger. You can’t afford to owe anyone a favor, nor can you front the cost of needing one.

But you’re so tired.

“Dunno. I’ll figure it out.”

“You got enough time for that?”

And you know what he means. Enough time in the motel, enough time before you’re a thief at wit’s end, doing anything for survival. He doesn’t need to ask to know you don’t have a destination, some relative waiting for you in a California dream.

You’ve excused yourself to the bathroom, soft radio bleeding in under the door, arms braced on the sink, all glossy eyes.

You want him, bad. But he won’t make the first move, won’t take advantage of what isn’t his and what others before him took without asking. You’re a pawn, entitled to the first move. The rejection would kill you, but not knowing would be worse.

He could hold you soft, give you something to think about when tomorrow rips you both in opposite directions.

When you pull open the door, Joel’s frozen in mid-stride towards you, like he’s just made up his mind about something.

He straightens but he’s still. Afraid of moving too fast, saying too much, scaring you into flight. Out of the unlocked cage of his room — something he did on purpose, because he doesn’t expect anything from you and wants you to know he doesn’t.

You meet him in his dusty shag quicksand. You take his wrist in your hand, kiss the thrum of life in the dip where veins meet palm. An offering.

Joel looks like he’s in pain, like what you’re doing is excruciating and thorny. The front of his jeans strains. He’s searching you for any hesitation, any obligation because he did something kind. He knows what currency you feel the need to pay in, and this isn’t that.

“Please,” you whisper simply. And he nods, accepting, succumbing.

There’s a careful meeting of lips, wanting to do it the right way, in the right order. When you push your tongue in, used to the pace of animals, he just holds your face and slows you down. It’s languid, his mouth showing you what sweet and gentle can taste like. Your tongues take their time, and your hands slip beneath the hem of his shirt, all ribbed muscle with a sprinkling of hair.

He shudders against the lightness of your feather-fingers.

Joel’s hands are peeling your shirt off, his thumbs resting to press against pillowy hips. He’s not letting your lips go, something like impatience stirring in you.

Doesn’t he want to fuck you hard? Fuck you fast and selfish?

Isn’t there a catch?

He’s taking his shirt off now, up and over. Carved by Michaelangelo, thrown up on a ceiling in a library book you read once. You’re touching him in reverence, but not letting yourself learn too much of him.

His eyes are molten. Joel walks you back to the edge of the bed, scratchy quilt tickling your thighs when you fall back on it. You start to pose yourself, angles that make you look more desirable, pliable. But he’s not paying attention to that, just unbuttoning your shorts, kissing the jut of every curve and permeating down to the bone, punching out a soft groan when he slides the denim off and sees the shining ambrosia that’s waiting.

He’s kneeling, tugging you down to meet his waiting mouth. And you’re just breathless, flinching when he pulls you apart, guiding your legs over his shoulders and wasting no time devouring you. Your legs, his bib.

Joel’s tongue flicks through the shell of you, teasing you in alternates of quick and slow, starving and full. It feels like a slice of heaven.

You pitch out a tangled gasp, hands instinctively moving to knot in his hair. Anything to hold onto, a different kind of grounding.

“So wet f’me,” he vibrates lowly into you, all husk. “Taste so fuckin’ sweet.”

He sinks a middle finger into you, and you’re keening, hips canting and unable to stay glued to the mattress. You feel him smile against your cunt, just pressing his forearm across your lower half to keep you still.

Joel’s twisting and working into you, onto you, and you’re so fucking close from just this — a tiptoeing to the edge that grows longer, more erratic in stride. He sucks your clit — pulsing sensitive, so swollen — into his mouth and grazes it with the tip of his tongue just so. Baring his incisors and closing around you in a delicious scrape like a Venus flytrap taking its meal.

You think you see God behind the flutter of your eyes.

You’re close enough to warn him, to rasp it out in the symphony of moans. His free hand reaches up to roll your peaked nipple between his forefinger and thumb, and he stretches you with an added ring finger. You’re writhing. Possessed.

He’s watching you through thick lashes. Letting your heels dig into his shoulders as the drenched sounds of you fill the room.

“Joel, please — I’m gonna —”

“C’mon, pretty girl,” he just murmurs.

You feel that little pull at your navel.

And you’re tipping in a freefall, seeing stars. You clench down around his fingers, fingers that are still pumping against that spongy spot deep inside you. Your arousal gushes, wet and sticky against the scrape of his beard. He laps you up, the sight making heat creep up your chest and wrap around your neck.

When he lifts his head, he’s high on it. Pupils dilated like tiny, round moons. Your orgasm glistens on him, smeared over lips and chin. The fur of a peach peeled back far enough to sink teeth into.

It’s fucking filthy.

Joel places open-mouthed kisses from your hip up to the center of your breasts, a trail of your orgasm shiny on your skin in perfect, sloppy Os. His breath meets your throat where he nips at you, and you don’t have time to drag in a breath before you’re tasting the saltiness of yourself on his tongue.

Your fingers fumble on his belt, practiced with years of releasing the tension on the metal prongs, the slithering sound whooshing from the loops of pants. You’re good at it, like you used to be good at gymnastics until your mom stopped getting out of bed to drive you.

There was always a little gold for contorting your body.

He detaches from you unwillingly, putting all of his weight on his knees and shins as he straddles the space of your thighs.

You’re pulling yourself up in a sitting position, pushing denim and boxers down past his hips. Letting his cock spring free, the head a dark pink and beaded with precum. You swipe the flat of your tongue against it, peeking up at him while you soak up the taste of it.

When you push the length of him into your mouth, ridged hard with veins, Joel tips his head back, chin to the ceiling. He groans something brutish yet helpless, cradling the back of your head. You’re seated in the driver’s seat, all control.

It’s new, different.

But then he’s moving his hips back, pulling himself from your mouth, wiping the saliva from your chin with a steady thumb.

“Don’t need t’do that,” Joel whispers hoarsely. “Not ‘f you don’t want to.”

Confused, you knit your brows. He laughs darkly, shaking his head.

“Didn’t mean it like that, it’s — it feels fuckin’ good,” he says, awestruck. “Would just rather make you feel good instead.”

Oh.

He doesn’t wait for an answer or a negotiation. The rest of his clothes pool on the floor in a pile, and he’s climbing back over you, an anchor or a buoy in a storm.

He lines himself up at the seam of you, puffy and so wet from before, nudging the tip of his cock at your warm center. A thumb coaxing the bud at the apex of you in lazy circles.

Joel’s sliding in slowly by each inch, filling you full until there’s nothing left and his patch of hair prickles the pearl of your clit. All you can do is whine and tense around him.

He’s resting tentative hands on either side of your face, indenting the weak mattress with handprints. He groans, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t give in when you try to rock against him.

“This alright?”

You’ve forgotten how to do anything, hoping that digging your fingertips into his forearms is communication enough.

“I’m gonna need a yes, baby.”

You feel around in the dark for the tether back to your body, and it jerks you like a marionette, giving him a nod.

“Yes. Fuck.”

That’s enough. He’s rewarding you with a roll of his hips, and you feel like you’re on fire. It’s a stuttering, painfully slow pace at first, his mouth so close to your ear that every grunt is amplified. But it evolves into something eager, unsatiated, snapping up into you with a relentless sort of fucking.

He’s hitting that place so deep within you, letting you unravel and grow hoarse from the moans tearing their way up your throat. That pressure is roiling, the kind that you get only when you touch yourself but intensified by a million.

It just feels so right, because there’s nothing to prove.

You’re ships passing in the night, strangers making a pit-stop on the way to nowhere. There’s no backstory, no history to make mention of. No shame in the morning when he inevitably rolls over and pretends to be asleep, and you scrub off the smell of him with your provided travel-size shampoo.

It’s not love, but it might be the closest you ever get.

The glow of him above you, a deity with his face screwed in agony. Chasing after you when he feels the tightening of your cunt, the easy glide of every thrust that tells him you’re close.

Then, you’re snapping like a rubber band. Gushing in a dripping mess that trickles to where your ass meets thigh. Crying without tears, overstimulated but blissful. Joel is quick to follow, like he’s been waiting his turn.

He’s trembling, emptying inside you in a warm flood. Groaning low and beautiful, gripping your hips to keep you flush to him.

When pulls out, tearing himself away, he’s slinging an arm over his eyes on the pillow beside yours. One hand on your leg to make sure you don’t go anywhere.

“So fuckin’ perfect,” you hear him mutter.

At some point you drift off, his arm draped over you. You open a bleary eye to a neon 2:49AM that casts a halo over the nightstand. Joel’s tucked you in, the thin duvet snug up to your shoulder. He’s not snoring but not not snoring, just breath getting caught in his throat in a satisfied, well-spent way.

It’s all too much, too pure to be real.

Before you let yourself change your mind, you slink out from under the warmth of your generous stranger. You step in your shorts one foot at a time, tugging them up gelatin legs too springy from coiling and uncoiling.

You promise yourself that you’ll take just one mental picture as a keepsake, and it’s this. A sleepy Joel who will be well on his way to a second cup of coffee on the way out of Arizona, maybe even nursing a little headache behind his right eye. And he’ll remember an apparition of some girl he fucked in a motel. The touristy thing to do, a sight to see.

He might even tell Tommy, say you were a crazy little thing with too much baggage, but it was fun to stay up past his bedtime.

You don’t mean to do it, really you don’t, but you flip through his wallet that lays innocently on top of the TV.

If you take a little something, that’ll turn this into another one of your stories that you tell your kids born from a loveless marriage somewhere in the crevices of a future from now. It won’t pull on the tendons of your heart.

And it won’t mean anything. You won’t let it.

—

The next morning, there’s a soft knock at the door, and it’s probably housekeeping kicking you out for overstaying your welcome. Time to turn down the bed for the next lost soul. You imagine Joel’s long gone, hopped in his truck and back to a reality you’ll never meet him in.

Your fingers are slow to gather up your purse, and you’re shoving your toothbrush in from its place on the sink.

“I’ll be out in a second!” you yell in a voice that reeks of years of diner-flavored customer service.

More persistent knocking that borders on pounding. It shakes the chain in the deadbolt.

You’re yanking open the door, and there’s Joel, white shirt and jeans. And it isn’t that cushion of admiration from last night, no greeting with a chaste kiss on the cheek.

Just a wolf coming to claim his continental breakfast.

Fuck.

You try to shut the door, suddenly too ashamed of what you’ve done, and to someone undeserving. Someone that showed you kindness, empathy.

But his boot catches the door before it can close, and he’s inside, slicing through the space between you. It’s not quite anger, but it’s shadowy. Sardonic.

Your shoulder blades kiss the cheap wallpaper.

“You’re real funny, y’know that?” he starts, and he’s smiling but not really.

Shrinking small, so small that maybe you’ll disappear.

There’s a tick of silence. His thumb skates to your collarbone and then to the hollow at the base of your throat. He wants to squeeze but he doesn’t, his fingers wrapping loosely around the column to fix you there. Heat creeps up the back of your neck into your hairline.

The instinct to flinch bubbles up against your joints, but you can’t bring yourself to.

��Y’think you can fuck me,” he muses, disgustingly deadpan, “‘n steal from me.”

Dread weighs heavy like lead in your stomach. You can’t stop yourself from shaking your head, still playing dumb.

He bristles at that, thunderous. You both know it’s a lie; you’re a hundred dollars richer than you were last night. His fingers briefly flex around you in a way that you’ve seen before, and horror hits a fever pitch in you.

Tears prick your eyes, and you’re putting your palms on his chest and shoving, but he doesn’t give. Unstoppable force meets immovable object, and all that.

It’s not so much the blaring punctuation in a sentence, the ticking of dynamite ready to blow. He’s confronting you with proximity, with your own dishonesty. Wanting to shake you and tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Joel just leans in closer, almost grazing noses. You try to breathe around the lump of panic.

“The hell’s the matter with you?”

It’s disbelief, it’s hurt. In the same way, it’s understanding, incredulous. It’s him stepping back and loosening the hold around your neck like no one’s ever done; it’s softening and imploring.

He’s shoving his hands in his pockets, guilty and recoiling. Sorry he could even make himself look like one of them — a forced penance in the flesh.

There’s no answer that can justify what you did. Nothing simple about nothing personal. But truly… that’s all it was. A pie wafting steam on an open windowsill. Something to make you feel better about the void he’d leave.

“‘F you needed money, you coulda just asked.”

He’s disappointed, desperate. In a tone that really says, I would’ve done anything you wanted.

A dam inside you gives, crumbling deep at the foundation and knocking the walls down around you. Words don’t come, but you shove your hand in blind into your bag, pulling out the loose bill and extending it.

Joel sees the regretful offering and your heart with x-ray vision. That you think of yourself as a doll, less valuable without her box. Used without tags. Free to a good home.

He shakes his head, the softness of a keep it barely peeking out of his mouth.

You’re skinning yourself raw, wanting another way out but having none. With half a mind to say that the next night could come with fangs.

You feel the stab of relief, and shame. So much shame.

Like a soothsayer, he foresees the coldness of a bench, the shrinking of you into the safety of an alley.

You drop to your knees in exaltation, thinking you know what’ll fix this. You can’t see through the watercolor blur of your tears, but you touch his belt with fingers that are cold to the tips.

But Joel knows what you’re doing, shaking his head no no no.

He won’t let you do it like this. He drags you up gently by the elbows. Pulls you into his chest, says stop stop stop. Kisses your hair, then your lips. You cry until he can taste the tears, until the front of his shirt is damp.

“I’m sorry,” you rasp out roughly. “I’m so sorry.”

He tells you to never say sorry to him again.

—

Joel pays for a room for two more nights, but only one — his with the working A/C.

You move your toothbrush and your bag over to Room 20.

You go to the pool, swimming laps around him in a tank top and your cherry-embroidered underwear, squealing and splashing in a flail when he swims underneath your legs and stands up to hold you on his tan shoulders.

Sunscreen streaks greasy on your stomach when you lay out together on the loungers after. Joel likes a cat-nap with his face under a towel, grumpy and tired from the sun. But he never snaps at you, never gets impatient when you ask too many questions while he’s dozing off.

You learn the pinched expression he makes just before he comes. That his right palm has hundreds of lines you can see best by lamplight. He misses the noise of Sarah in his house, of sharing the coffee pot with someone. He doesn’t like the small piling of toast crumbs left only by him on the kitchen table.

He learns that you apologize for wet, clean hair on his pillowcase, for laughing too loud. Things that don’t need a sorry. A collection of oversaturated manners that might take time to unlearn, but he promises to teach you.

He learns that you approach an orgasm with tentative toes in cold water, almost unbelieving that sex can give, give, give instead of take, take, take. He learns that you like the meeting of eyes when he’s buried between your legs, pushing your thighs apart to keep from suffocating. That when he does let you get on your knees for him, you know just the spot to caress with your tongue on the underside of his cock.

Joel’s belt is snaked under your stomach, across your hips, fists intertwined in the leather as he pulls you back, slams himself forward. It bites and creates indents in your flesh, and you don’t care. He gives you marks to love, to admire in your reflection, never ones that are ugly. Never ones out of hate over spilled milk.

There’s a dirty slap of skin, growing louder, competing with your moans. Your nails are tearing into the cheap sheets, and Joel’s so close but won’t come until he coaxes another out of you. A grand total of at least four by now, but you’ve lost count.

At long last, you splinter around him. Pitching off the cliff in a cry. Joel’s leaning — his chest, your back — and spilling deep, holding onto you for dear life. You hear him whimper in a strangle. Big, tough game that’s been taken down with an arrow in his chest.

Hot tears are flowing out of you, stuttering sobs close to follow, and Joel pulls out slowly. Seems to know why. And he rolls you over, into him, hand careful in slow strokes against your hair.

You’ve never been good at goodbyes. Maybe that’s what this is.

Men like to say that women like you are insane, too analytical, too tear-streaked, too conscious of the way they look when they sleep. Because waking up with your mouth open, a drying corner of drool threatening your cheek is too human, not pretty.

Sometimes women like you are dead, rotting pomegranate flesh. Long forgotten in decay on the ground when the weight became too heavy to hold yourself up. And those men pick up your seeds and shove them squelching back into places where they don’t fit.

The winters come bitter and harsh, but you’re always reborn in the spring. And without fail, you grow back fiercely into a tree reminiscent of Eden, low-hanging apples plucked and bruised and bitten into once and spit out in tart disgust.

Women like you choke men like this with your pits, strangle them with vines, poison them with berries. They can consume, but so can you.

But then, in the ripe, cool shade of summer, you’ll have a visitor like Joel that will come with a basket and a blanket and they’ll stay and read books beneath you. They’ll enjoy your fruit, you’ll drip from their mouth and dry tacky like flypaper, and they won’t be able to imagine a day before you.

They’ll collect all the pieces of you on a Tuesday morning and give you change to get a Coke after checkout. They’ll tuck you into the front seat of their truck, let you put your feet up on the dash, hand protective and calm on your thigh while the other steers you both back to Texas. A new home without shouting and bottles thrown.

And they’ll stay through every season.

#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us smut #the last of us au #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller #tlou fanfiction #fire walk #my writing #joel miller one shot #motherofagony

1K notes · View notes