#ignoring the backstory he is a little pathetic lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

waithyuck · 4 years

Text

best friends give each other head (?)

pairing: lee donghyuck/haechan x reader (f)

genre: smut and there’s barely a plot lmao, no backstory no nothin

word count: 3.4k

warnings: female reader, oral sex (m & f receiving), swearing/explicit language, unprotected sex, best friend!hyuck, best friends to ???? idk man, hyuck is soft but also cocky so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, also ig dom!hyuck sorry for all you sub!hyuck enthusiasts out there I’ll write one for ya eventually

a/n: Ik this trope has been done a lot but this is for raya ( @gohyuck ) bc we’re both thirsty hoes,,,,,also I’ve never actually ever sucked a dick so like sorry for any inaccuracies 😬 I was excited ab this so it isn’t proof read sorry in advance lmao

——

“would you teach me how to suck a dick if I gave you 20 bucks?” you blurted out, your face already feeling hot as you stood at the kitchen counter with your best friend, lee donghyuck. he immediately froze, his hands completely ceasing as he slowly lowers the knife he was using to spread cream cheese on his bagel. you bit your lip anxiously, taking a small step back when his head ever so slowly turned in your direction, his eyes meeting your gaze.

“you–I–what??” he questioned exasperated, a dusty pink hue gracing his cheeks as his eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. you both stared at each other, his mouth agape as you tried to calm your racing heart enough so that you could speak.

“look, I’ve never sucked a dick before and I want to learn—“

“you want to suck my dick?” he cut you off, dropping the knife onto the counter with a loud clatter. he looked at you like you were insane, which didn’t help your already unconfident demeanor. you sighed, your hand going up to pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration.

“No–well yes, I guess.” you pondered over the idea, “I just want to learn in case future adventures with dudes come into play!” you tried to explain, your arms now wildly gesticulating in the air giving away how nervous you actually were. that, and how your voice was coming out extra pitchy and how your words jumbled together as you spoke too quickly gave him insight into how you actually felt in the moment.

he stepped a little closer to you, his eyes narrowing and looking at you up and down in a scrutinizing way. you gulped as he watched you, your hands wringing together. he hummed deeply, the noise coming from within his chest making your legs instinctively squeeze together. you cursed yourself in that moment, screaming at yourself internally for finding your best friend attractive.

“so you’ve really never given anyone a blowjob?” hyuck asked, his head tilting to the side causing his hair to fall over his eyes. “that’s kinda surprising.”

your eyes widened, your cheeks on fire as your jaw dropped to the floor. “I mean,” he continued, his hand coming up to press his thumb against your bottom lip, trailing it across the flesh as you screamed internally. “you’re so pretty, I assumed guys were just dying to shove their cocks down your throat.” he chuckled to himself at the way you were reacting, taking pride in how much you were affected by the smallest touches.

you stood there shocked for a second, allowing his touch to poison your mind. after a minute you finally snapped yourself out of it, shoving his arm away from you and then pushing his shoulders back in anger.

“stop fucking with me, lee donghyuck.” you seethed, embarrassed and agitated. “just say no if you don’t want to.” you rolled your eyes at him and made your way to step around him to leave and hide in your room, but before you could get far his hand caught your waist and pulled you back.

“I’m not saying no,” he murmured lowly, his arms wrapping fully around you and pulling your back to rest up against his front. “it’s not everyday that my beautiful best friend offers to suck me off.”

your hand clutched his forearm shakily as he whispered in your ear, his words barely registering in your brain. nerves were flowing through your veins, causing your fingers to feel cold and your bones to chill. you didn’t reply, as you didn’t trust you voice to come out as steady as you would like. he obviously caught on to your nervousness, laughing lowly in your ear.

“what happened to all that confidence you had, y/n?” he teased, kissing the skin right below your ear. “is a couple of lewd words all it takes to get you flustered?”

you sputtered at his words, failing to find the right things to say in reply. what were you even supposed to say to that anyway? if you lied and told him no, he would definitely call your bluff, as it was pretty obvious how much you were affected. if you told him yes, you would probably feel further embarrassed and just want to dive down into a deep hole and never come back out.

you stared blankly down at the floor below you, your lip trembling as you let your tongue out to trail across them. hyuck suddenly let go of you, moving away and walking out of the kitchen to situate himself on the sofa located in the living room. you absentmindedly followed him, your feet shuffling slowly to a stop as you watched him from the doorway. he sat down heavily, spreading his long legs wide. the gray sweatpants he wore had you practically drooling, and you brought a hand up to your lips just to make sure you weren’t.

he turned his head to look at you, hid eyes hooded and he lazily pointed to the spot on the floor between his legs.

“come here.” he demanded, the deep tone of his voice causing your knees to weaken. you hobbled over to him on shaky legs, reaching your destination and lowering yourself to your knees between his thighs. he watched your every move like a predator, a look you have never seen in the years you have been friends with donghyuck. you shivered, a tingly pleasurable feeling running up your spine caused by his hungry and wandering eyes.

when your knees finally touched the carpeted floor, hyuck leaned forward, his fingers gently capturing your chin and forcing you to look at him. his eyes bore into yours before you watched them trail down your face to settle on your slightly parted lips. you watched him with doe eyes, looking innocent while in such a compromised position.

“Are you absolutely sure you wanna do this, y/n?” he asked you sincerely, his eyes never leaving your lips. you only nodded before breaking out of his hold, leaning up to grip the band of his sweatpants. he allowed you to pull them down and off of him, his body leaning back and his hips lifting up to make it easier for you.

you were surprised to see that he had no boxers on, the heat inside you ever growing at the sight of his pretty cock. he smirked down at you, his hand reaching down to stroke himself for you.

“w-wait, I wanna do it,” you stuttered, your hands moving to slap his own away. he hummed at you, watching as your fingers wrapped around him and began shyly working him up and down. hyuck cursed at the feeling of your warm hand around him, causing your confidence to build. you rubbed him a little faster, your grip growing a little tighter as you went on, his low groans spurring you on.

in no time at all he was completely hard, his cock standing proud in your hold. your mouth watered at the sight, and you wanted to dive in as soon as possible. you licked your lips anxiously, looking up at him for further instructions. he smiled down at you, his hand coming to rest on the top of your head. “Relax” he murmured, “just put your mouth on it and go with the flow.”

“wow hyuck, you’re such a great teacher.” you commented sarcastically, rolling your eyes. you weren’t expecting his hand to move down to lightly slap your cheek, and you squeaked at the suddenness of it.

“better check that attitude, baby,” his hand went back to your head, this time guiding you toward his dick with slight force. “you asked for this, remember?” you let your lips brush against his head, trying to think of everything you’ve read about blowjobs in the past. “I never said i was a good teacher.” after that comment he finally shut up, allowing you to collect your thoughts and press soft kisses up and down his length.

you didn’t tease for too long, recalling something you read about some people not liking it very much, and finally started suckling on the head of his cock. his head fell back against the couch, his hair splaying out every which way beautifully behind him.

you looked up at him, his eyes hooded as they peered down at you, your mouth finally opening to take in his cock, carefully, you made sure not to use your teeth, and you took as much as you could into your mouth, only stopping when your throat protested. your throat constricted slightly and his hips bucked into your mouth, causing his cockhead to ram itself down your throat and you gagged violently. you pulled back a little, tears springing to your eyes as your throat burned, your sputtering causing hyuck to pull you off of him completely.

‘fuck, I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry,” he spoke softly, his thumb coming up to wipe your stray tears away. you tried to ignore the name he called you, but you felt your heart jump not matter how hard you tried to will it not to. drool was already running down your chin and you were sure you looked pathetic sitting there on your knees in front of him, not being able to take his cock. “are you okay?”

you nodded, just then noticing the sudden ache in your core. it wasn’t there until he rammed his cock into your throat, which made you slightly nervous at the insinuation that you enjoyed choking on him.

he gently stroked your cheek, watching you carefully as you got your breathing back to normal. determined, you fixed your posture and pushed his hand off your face, moving to take his dick into your mouth once again. he didn’t stop you, allowing you to take him into your throat. you made sure you relaxed your muscles this time, breathing evenly through your nose as you began to bob your head. you felt the sudden presence of both of his hands finding your head, lightly caressing you as you blew him. from the sounds you could hear coming from deep within his chest, you could infer that you were doing a pretty good job so far.

“oh god, so good baby,” he moaned out, spurring you on to go a little faster and take him a litter deeper. “fuck! are you sure you’ve never done this before?” he questioned, his voice coming out breathy as he whined in pleasure. you just kept looking at him, your eyes glassy with tears as you forced him down your throat, being careful not to gag around the thickness of him.

he kept whining, his voice raising a few octaves when you experimentally kneaded his balls, and before you could go any further he shoved your head away, his cock falling from your mouth and causing a mess of spit to spill past your lips. looking up at him with a curious look, you wiped your mouth with the back of you hand.

“what the hell? I wanna make you cum!” you whined, embarrassed at the sound of your own confession. he was breathing heavily, his cock angry and flushed red, desperate to cum.

“I wanna taste you first,” he blurted, his hands already reaching to grip your arms and pull you up off of your knees. he shifted so that you could lay on your back on the cushions, and he pushed you down almost aggressively. you yelped, but didn’t fight him as he laid you down the way he wanted to. “...please?”

and how could you say no to him when he asked so very nicely? you let a small “okay” slip out of your mouth, your arms coming up to cover your face as he worked on getting your shorts and panties off. you peeked to see that he was now completely naked, his shirt discarded somewhere across the room.

donghyuck spread you thighs apart and was pleasantly surprised to see how wet you were already, smirking to himself at how much you were affected when you were sucking his cock. you whimpered embarrassingly as he stared at your soaked pussy, hunger present in his eyes as he licked his lips. he hands pinned your thighs down as he dove in earnestly, not wasting any time.

his tongue dipped into your hole before licking a stripe up your slit, brushing along your clit and causing your stomach muscles to spasm. he worked your clit with his mouth, licking and sucking like it was his job.

you squirmed in his hold, your little noises of pleasure reaching his ears and egging him on, determined to make you cum as hard as you could.

your hands flew to his long light brown locks, fisting them and tugging when he nipped your sensitive bud. he groaned at the painful pleasure caused by your pulling, his cock twitching in response. you were biting your lip, definitely causing permanent indentations with how hard you were holding it between your teeth. you couldn’t hold back your sounds, loud moans filling the air as his ministrations brought you closer and closer to release. you never thought about it before, but you never would have guessed hyuck was this good at eating pussy.

he slowly inserted two fingers into your core, causing your walls to experimentally clench. you practically yelled out at the added sensation of being filled, your sounds turning into pleas.

“please hyuck,” you whimpered, pulling his hair to lift his head to look at you, his eyes finding yours while his tongue laid flat on your clit. “please fuck me, please,” you were almost crying at this point, desperately wanting to be filled by the same cock you had been blowing not too long ago. you felt pitiful, begging to be fucked liked this by your best friend, but you were too far gone to stop now, and in too deep to care.

within seconds he sped up his fingers, sucking even harder on your clit as you thrashed below him. you couldn’t even collect yourself before your orgasm hit, rippling in waves as you clenched around his sopping fingers. he continued to eat you out as you rode your orgasm, only stopping when you tugged on his hair again.

he pulled his head back, his fingers slipping out of you. he brought said fingers to his mouth, lewdly sucking your juices off of them as he maintained eye contact with you.

“get up,” he demanded, pulling your body from the couch and helping you gain your balance on your noticeably trembling legs. you whined, your brain still foggy from the orgasm he gave you with his mouth. he softly shushed you, helping you to the end of the couch before he pressed you down to bend over the arm of it. you yelped in surprise, but nonetheless let your body become pliant as he positioned your body the way he wanted.

“It's okay baby,” he mouthed against the back of your neck, his chest hovering over your back now. “ i'm gonna give you my cock.” he spoke softly, running his hands up and down your sides in an attempt to calm you as you squirmed aimlessly, desperate for him to fill you up.

you absentmindedly wigged your hips against him, your behind brushing against his extremely hard and dripping cock. he groaned at the friction, sinking his teeth ever so slightly into your skin. he pulled himself up, and before you could complain at the loss of his warmth, you felt his hand come down on your ass. you squealed and heard him laugh as he kneaded the flesh, soothing the pain.

“you want it so bad, don't you, y/n?” they way he said your name was sinful, and the most you could do was frantically nod and whine out several slurred versions of the word ‘yes’. he didn’t make you wait much longer, and you sighed happily once you felt the blunt head of his cock push and pull through your folds, effectively being covered in your excessive wetness.

he swiftly entered you, giving you absolutely no time to get accustomed to his size before he started drilling into you, his hips slapping obscenely against your ass with each harsh thrust. your voice cried out gutterly with each movement he made, your throat feeling raw from the way you were screaming. your walls were sensitive from your previous orgasm, which made the scrape of his dick against them painfully pleasurable. It was almost too much, but you took every inch of him like a good girl just like he wanted.

his hands were gripping your hips, pulling your body back onto his cock with every drive of it inside you. the blunt edges of his nails were piercing your skin, for sure causing you to bleed. you were definitely too far gone now to care; your eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as drool dripped down your bottom lip.

the two of you didn’t say much to each other, but you were very far from being silent. mixed with your airy cries were his deeper grunts and moans, and with every one that reached your ears your pussy involuntarily clenched, causing his noises to come out even louder for your listening pleasure.

he suddenly bent forward, his chest coming down to rest against your back once again as he slowed down and grinded his cock into you. he was so deep inside you, the tip of him was brushing against that sweet spot, making your walls flutter around him happily.

he nudged his head against the side of yours, his lips coming down to kiss your cheek sweetly, a complete contrast to the way he was fucking you mere seconds ago. you weakly opened your eyes to look at him, your eyes moving all the way to the side to meet his own. hyuck groaned as your pussy clenched once more around him, looking directly into your watery eyes as his soft breath hit your face. surprising yourself, you desperately leaned forward and took his lips against yours, kissing him passionately as his cock still worked inside you. as he kissed you back, you felt his fingers slide to your clit, your body jumping in his hold as he began playing with the sensitive nub. his tongue invaded your mouth first, toying with your own playfully before pulling away entirely, leaving you wanting more.

he was getting close, you could tell. his hips pinned yours against the couch with each powerful grind. he positioned his arms on either side of you, using the leverage to thrust into you once again. your clit was abandoned, but the way he pounded you still had your orgasm dancing on the edge of breaking. his thrusts became sloppy and aggressive, his breathing ragged and small whines leaving him as he worked hard to chase his release. you squeaked at the sensation, and before you knew it you were being thrown over the edge for the second time.

the white, hot pleasure enveloped your entire body, your mind going numb as your pussy spasmed hard, causing donghyuck to seize up on top of you and spill his scorching cum inside you. you barely registered the feeling of his cum splattering against your walls, flowing deep. as you came down from your high, your body felt weak and your chest heaved from the effort of the orgasm you experienced. hyuck collapsed against your back, effectively crushing you against the arm of the couch. you grumbled underneath him, squirming but then immediately regretted it as it caused his cock to move against your sensitive walls. to make matters worse, his hips involuntarily bucked into you, causing you to hiss at the overstimulation and you heard him yelp as well.

hyuck gently kissed your shoulder before pulling out of you, his cum almost immediately following, dripping down onto your already soaked thighs. he helped you clean yourself up and was kind enough not to laugh as you limped to sit comfortably on the cushions of the sofa. He joined you, and you both sat together, breathing softly in each other’s company.

“so uh,” hyuck started, his eyes looking over at you and trying not to admire the way you were glowing in the soft light of the room. “do i still get that 20 bucks or…?”

he didn't have enough time to escape before you leaned over and started whacking his shoulder, his giggles sounding off loudly across the room. donghyuck may not have gotten $20 from you, but he was sure he would get to have you and call you his from now on.

——

#haechan smut #nct smut #nct 127 smut #nct dream smut #haechan #lee donghyuck #donghyuck #nct #nct 127 #nct dream

1K notes · View notes

musical-chick-13 · 2 years

Note

Game of Thrones for the fandom meme :)

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): I mean...come on. (Cersei. It's Cersei. She's actually. Everything to me. If this answer ever changes, it is a sign that I am Not Myself and have been replaced by a shapeshifter or alternate universe version of me. God, the amount of time I have dedicated to analyzing and thinking/writing about this fictional character...and I don't regret any of it at all, I love her SO MUCH.)

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped): SANSA!!!!! She is my daughter, and I just want her to be okay. She ended up loved, respected, at home, and as a leader to her people, and I am so happy for her. I wish I could tell her how proud of her I am. :')

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): Theon. My son. I love him. People hated him less as time went on, but he never got to the level of popularity he deserved. At best, he was vaguely acknowledged by the fandom or shipped with Sansa, but he should be widely celebrated for his complexity the way Jaime is, and his character arc is one of my favorites in all of fiction.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): NOBODY TALKS ABOUT MY GIRL MELISANDRE AT ALL. I mean...people don't really...like her, exactly, but compared to the levels of viciously gratuitous hate that other characters (*cough cough CerseiCatelynSansa*) get, she is relatively ignored. But whenever we get glimpses into her internal world or shred of backstory, I get FREE SEROTONIN.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): I have no idea why, but the first character I thought of was Jaime. 😂😂 It's probably because he's a Mess™. (And is also-despite popular interpretation of him trying to suggest otherwise-not a good person yes I will die on this hill.)

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): Idk, I feel like these characters have been through enough. I'll say Stannis, but only because I think I could make a lot of funny memes out of it. (Or the High Sparrow. For the same reason, lmao.)

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): Ramsay Bolton. Although I'd much rather just blink him out of existence entirely.

Ultra-Specific Fandom Terms ask meme

#not putting this in the general tag because I don't want to get assassinated :)#my precious gritty fantasy deconstruction show #mc thirMEMES #multi t(ASK)ing

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nnegan13 · 5 years

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can you write a fic about Ele telling Edo the backstory of her tattoos like while cuddling in bed?

hi! thank you for the absolute softest prompt ever. literally was melting the entire time I was writing it.

on ao3

rest is under the cut! again, I would advise not to read on mobile bc the formatting gets fucked up but like, its ur funeral lmao

—

MONDAY 30 MARCH23:14 ELEONORA’S BEDROOM, SAVA’S APARTMENT

Eleonora ignores the pathetic whine that comes from her naked, stupid boyfriend on the other side of the bed as she swings her legs off the mattress, his large hand slipping over the bend of her hip but finding no purchase as she turns on her bedside lamp and stands up. She looks over at him, eyebrows raised. Edoardo pouts and she stoops down to pick up his discarded T-shirt so he doesn’t see her smile.

He’s been too pleased with himself tonight. Not that she minds, or anything, but it’s still fun to tease him.

Another whine escapes him. “Where are you going?”

Pulling the shirt on over her head, she stops at her dresser to slip on a clean pair of underwear and shoots him a little smirk over her shoulder before disappearing into the hallway. A low grumble and an obnoxious amount rustling reaches her ears; he must’ve burrowed into the blankets. The image makes her smile.

Despite the tightly shut windows, a late March chill fills the apartment and goosebumps erupt across her skin. Maybe she should’ve put on pants.

After she pads down the hall and finishes in the bathroom, she makes her way to the kitchen to pick over the remnants of their dinner from a few hours ago; the rumbling in her stomach is too loud to ignore.

Edoardo appears in the doorway of the dining room, clad in a pair of sweatpants, as she exits the kitchen, hall-full bowl of pasta in hand and half a mind to go check on her plants outside. It’s starting to warm up, even just a degree or two, and she wants to see how soon she can move the less winter-friendly plants back out into the sun.

He must be able to what she’s thinking in the distracted way she chews and darts her eyes around the dining room because he catches her around the waist before she can make it back to her room and climb out to the veranda. The knowing look on his face makes her chest warm. Even doing long-distance, he knows her almost as well as she knows herself. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Mm,” she hums in lieu of a better answer. It’s nonsensical to check, she knows—she was the one who told him so when the idea first popped into her head the night his flight got in—but it takes up an itchy amount of space in the back of her brain.

“You can always check in the morning.”

“Or,” she muses, turning her gaze from the hallway to Edoardo’s mildly exasperated face and offering him a forkful of her food, schooling her own expression into one of mock innocence, “I could check now.”

Before he can voice more protests, she shoves the fork into his opening mouth and takes off toward her room, giggling as he swipes at her arm. She can picture him standing there in the maw of the hallway: fork protruding from his mouth, eyes crinkling at the corners, sweatpants slung low on his hips, and hands opening and closing like they want to grab at something soft—her waist, no doubt, and the thought makes her smile even in her late night induced single-mindedness.

Once she makes it into her room, she abandons the bowl of pasta on her desk and climbs through her window onto the veranda, ignoring how the chill outside is much worse than in the apartment—she really should’ve put on pants—and dutifully wandering the deck to check her various pots and plants. Inside, she hears Edoardo shut her bedroom door and collapse onto the mattress.

After poking and prodding her plants long enough that the cold has seeped through her muscles down to her bones, she scurries back inside, shutting the window firmly behind herself and plopping her cold body directly on top of Edoardo amidst his squirming and quiet, humorous complaining. Even as he mutters how obscenely cold and cruel she is for doing this, he wraps his arms around her huddled form.

She scoots around his chest until she hears his heartbeat firm and steady underneath her ear. Body heat radiating into her, he kisses the top of her head and tightens his hold as a happy sigh escapes her.

When he speaks, she thinks she might be dreaming. Especially because he’s got her arm pulled away from her ball of a body and is inspecting her wrist like it’s entirely new to him. He’s so gentle, though, that Eleonora doesn’t even notice he’s manhandled her—to put it frankly—until he says, “Who’s Lulu?”

Blinking, she tilts her head up to look at him. “What?”

“Your tattoo.” He lets her pull her arm back to her person, and she stares at the black words inked onto the inside of her wrist like she’s never seen them before. The late hour combined with his intoxicating body heat makes her brain slower than normal. “Who’s Lulu?”

“A little cousin of mine,” she says after a long moment, slithering off him to pull the blankets over both of them. Once they’re covered, she lays back on his chest. He’s propped himself up on a pillow, now, and she rests her chin on her folded hands atop his chest. The steady rise and fall of his breathing lulls her back to the brink of sleep and she resists with her best effort. It’s difficult, but she manages.

They’re having a conversation; she can’t exactly fall asleep on him.

Edoardo reaches down until he finds the hem of his shirt she has on and slips his hand underneath, starts tracing his nails on her skin. She closes her eyes as they roll, mild pleasure flickering through her.

Eventually, Eleonora forces her eyes open again and finds him watching her. Lulu is a heavy subject, one she isn’t sure is appropriate for the light fun that she’s had a hand in supplying for Edoardo’s spring break, but talking to one another, telling each other things when it feels right, has always been something they’ve tried to do.

The words slip out with an ease that’s grown over the past year, with Filippo, with Eva and the girls, and with Edoardo, most of all. “She passed away when I was younger, probably eight or nine. All my older cousins got a tattoo of her name and Filo took me when I was old enough.”

“Were you guys close?” His voice rumbles in his chest, vibrating into her person; it’s a true effort to stay awake.

“I mean, she was just a toddler,” she murmurs. On his face, his expression morphs from one of sleepy interest to sleepy concern and his hand flattens against her back, thumb rubbing slow against her skin. There’s not much to comfort her about; it happened a long time ago, but she appreciates it all the same. “Had a heart defect and got really sick. I don’t really remember much about it, but we would go see her all the time before it all happened.”

For a moment, they stare at one another, her words hanging in the air between them. She rises and falls with his chest, his thumb continues to sweep against her skin, and a microscopic part of her heart breaks again. Then she shifts off her hands and presses her mouth to his chest, her shoulders relaxing as she moves.

When she pulls back, he cups her cheek with his other hand and draws her face to his, kissing her twice, gentle motions more for reassurance and affection than anything else. Her chest warms, and she settles back into her previous position.

“What about the others?”

“The other what?”

“Tattoos.”

“Mm.” Edoardo studies her with those deep brown eyes of his, fingers tracing aimless patterns once more, and Eleonora try to decide where to start. “What do you want to know?”

Shrugging, he pulls her off his chest and helps her tuck into his side. Once she settles, her head pressed into the crook of his shoulder, his arm curled around her, and his hand under her shirt resting against her stomach just above her hip, he takes her forearm and exposes the inside to the soft lamplight illuminating the room. “You don’t grow any sunflowers.”

When he traces a fingernail along the edge of the sunflower inked on her skin, she shivers. “What an observant person you are.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, peeking up at him and grinning when he rolls his eyes a little.

“Why’d you get a tattoo of one if you don’t grow them?”

As she contemplates for a moment, pursing her lips, he goes back to studying her tattoo, tracing the lines and maneuvering her arm around to see better. She’s not embarrassed, but still thinks it’s true: “You’re gonna think it’s stupid.”

“I don’t think anything you do is stupid.”

“Mm.” Watching him makes her smile. “Okay, sure.”

“Remember, I’m not the one who thinks the other is stupid in this relationship.”

She props herself up on her elbow to properly glare at him. He grins, self-assured, back at her. “Hey.”

Squeezing her waist, he says, “C’mon, tell me.”

“Fine.” She purses her lips and thinks about sixteen-year-old Eleonora’s reasoning behind the multitude of tattoos she got amidst her change in schools. They’re still things she wholeheartedly believes, but sixteen-year-olds aren’t the most eloquent people on the planet, so everything is choppy and awkward in her head. “Don’t laugh.”

A sweet smile cracks onto his face. He looks excited at the prospect of learning about her tattoos and it makes her grin. “I promise.”

“Have you ever heard of heliotropism?” He shakes his head. “Certain flowers do it. They track the movement of the sun during the day because the light reactions help with pollination, or internal temperature, or is part of their circadian motion.”

“And sunflowers do heliotropism?”

“No, actually.”

“How misleading.”

Eleonora gives him a pointed look that he grins at before continuing. “Sunflower buds will do it when they’re developing, but once the flower is fully mature it stays facing east.”

“And there’s a metaphor, somewhere.”

Automatically, she says, “No,” even though he’s right.

It’s Edoardo’s turn to give a pointed look, eyebrows raising and mouth twitching, and she relents. “Fine, there’s a metaphor, but I didn’t know the specifics of heliotropism when I got my tattoo like I do now, so it doesn’t really work all that much anymore.”

She sinks back down into him, his arm curving around her shoulder again as she situates herself against his side. “I always focused on what other people thought of me at my old school: what my friends thought of me, what my ex thought of me, if I was pretty enough or skinny enough or small enough. And my grades slipped, I stopped eating, I stopped hanging out with people, it was just—it was bad.

“It got worse when everything happened with my ex. I wound up in the hospital for a little while.” It hits her that she’s saying these things out loud; she’s saying these things to an actual person—to Edoardo—not just to herself. For a moment, her pulse spikes and her stomach turns and her muscles tighten, like they want her to ball up on herself, but he smooths his thumb across her hip and kisses her hairline and she remembers that he’s already seen her lows, he already knows a good chunk of the hurt she’s been though—he was there, after all—and she takes a deep breath. Looks at him. Tries not to blush or smile or do something stupid when the only thing she can read on his face is deep-rooted concern. “I transferred a couple weeks after that.”

Edoardo says nothing, still, which she appreciates.

“I started gardening when I got out of the hospital,” Eleonora says, a wistful smile forming on her face as she thinks of her crude attempts at keeping her mother’s deck plants alive. “And Filo wanted me to put a giant pot of sunflowers in the corner of the deck because he thought everything was too green. I told him we couldn’t put them in the corner because they have to track the sun to survive and out of nowhere he said that I was like them, that I cared about people’s opinions so much that it would kill me. Then we were yelling and I was crying and he was telling me I needed to focus on something else or I would die.”

She snorts. “He’s so dramatic.”

Edoardo’s hand flexes against her waist and she looks up at him. He’s not frowning, looks rather contemplative, actually, and the corner of his mouth twitches. “I don’t know if I’d call it that. You did end up in the hospital.”

Pressure builds up behind her eyes as he speaks. It’s weird, hearing another person say she was in the hospital, especially when he’s so close to her—it makes it all feel very, very real again. The need to snark back, keep herself from crying, turn this serious moment into something they can laugh at instead, wells up inside her, but she pushes it aside. She wants to be honest with Edoardo, and not just with her words.

“Okay,” her voice is thick and she doesn’t actually start crying, but he presses his lips to her forehead just the same. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Not a maybe,” he mumbles against her skin.

The hand that was holding her arm up for his inspection of her tattoo slips down her wrist and grasps hers, squeezing softly. She takes another deep breath.

“Filo gets all his tattoos to remind himself of things. He thought we could do the same—that I could do the same—so he took me to the parlor he got his done at,” she says. “I was still crying and Filo didn’t know what to do, so he just apologized to the artist once we got inside. And he had decided in the car that I would get a sunflower and what it would remind me of and then I got it.”

“Filo decided on the metaphor, then?”

“Yeah. Well—we did, together.” This is the part that’s corny and cheesy and all too fitting of a sixteen-year-old even if the sentiment holds true. She sighs and looks at Edoardo. The brush of his thumb against her hip helps with the nervous flips of her stomach. “The sunflower focuses on the sun to survive, and I should focus on myself to survive.”

For a moment, he says nothing, just studying her face with the corners of his lips gradually turning up and it’s only this that lets her know that he heard her, that her voice didn’t fade into the darkness engulfing everything outside her bedroom.

He curls their bodies together, pulling her up into him with the arm tucked around her back and his neck bending and body curving until his lips press into her forehead and the space between them shrinks into a tiny width she could close in a minuscule movement. Their legs tangle together under the blankets. Once he’s situated his other arm across her waist, he draws his mouth a hairsbreadth away from her skin and mumbles, “So you’re the sun and the sunflower in this situation?”

“Yes,” she says, closing her eyes, and adds after a beat, “Asshole.”

A chuckle rumbles in his chest and out of his mouth against her forehead and the warm, sleepy feeling descends upon her again. The light’s still on, her brain reminds her, but Edoardo exudes heat and his skin is soft, and she loves laying here and talking with him, even if that talking will soon dwindle into sleep, and so she can’t be bothered to turn the lamp off.

“I don’t think it’s stupid, Ele,” he murmurs as she fits her head under his chin.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t think it’s stupid, either, but it’s nice that he agrees.

—

TUESDAY 31 MARCH 14:22 LIVING ROOM, EDOARDO’S HOUSE

“What about the spider?” For such a dangerous question, his tone is entirely blasé.

Eleonora pauses mid-stride and scans the floor and walls around her. Not a spider in sight. Scrunching her eyebrows, she looks back at Edoardo’s wiry frame sprawled out on the couch, his deep brown eyes following her as she returns from the kitchen. A lazy grin tugs at his mouth. If she wasn’t preoccupied with other matters (read: spiders) she might’ve smiled, entertained a few ideas that popped into her mind as he laid there, committed to one and climbed on top of him, but she is preoccupied. “There’s a spider?”

When it comes to spiders, she doesn’t have an opinion one way or the other, but a confused half-smile spreads on his face, he props himself up on an elbow, and he says, “Yeah, the one on your arm,” with a tone and matching expression that would be cute if he was saying anything else, and she thinks she might have a heart attack.

“On my arm?”

Immediately, her heart rate spikes and adrenaline floods her system and she flails her arms around, starts batting at herself to get the alleged spider off her person. If she makes a few inhuman sounds during her brief panic, that’s her problem, not anyone else’s.

There’s a spider on her arm—on her fucking arm—for fuck’s sake.

“Is it off? Is it off? Get it off!”

Edoardo’s half-grin turns into an amused grimace and suddenly he’s there across the room to where she’s backed up in her panic, grabbing her thrashing wrists and saying, “Ele, Ele—”

“Don’t fucking—”

“The tattoo! I meant your tattoo.”

Mouth open, chest heaving, eye widening, she stares at him long enough that his grimace turns back into a little grin. Is he fucking kidding right now? Then his expression turns sheepish as she glares and he shrugs. “We fell asleep before we finished talking last night.”

A beat passes, then—“You’re so stupid!”

Once she’s ripped a hand from his grip, she shoves against his chest. There’s not enough heat behind her words for them to stick or force behind her hand for it to hurt, and he looks adorable when he tilts his head like that. Against her will, the corners of her mouth turn up even as she keeps glaring and Edoardo loops his free arm around her waist and draws her into his side. All the while, she keeps shoving against him, tries to force down the part of her that finds the whole thing funny, too. He’s being dumb, she reminds herself, and she’s irritated, but she recognizes the look on his face, the angle of his brow and the twitch of his lips; if there’s one thing she’s a sucker for it’s—“No, no! You don’t get to kiss your way out of this!”

Already, he’s peppering her face with his mouth, little sweet kisses on her forehead, along her brow-line, down her temple, even as she wriggles in his hold.

He uses them to punctuate his words: “I don’t—” one on her cheekbone, “—know what—” two on either side of her nose, “—you’re talking—” one by the corner of her eye that forces a smile to her lips, another on her other cheekbone, “—about.”

He’s made it to the edge of her face, now, and starts pressing tiny kisses from the top of her ear to the corner of her jaw. When she tries to pull away, he laughs a little and holds her tighter, even as she walks her hips, her legs, away from his body. He follows her, kissing diligently at her skin and using the hand still clasped in his to navigate her body back toward him, and she tries to keep her expression neutral, her tone neutral. Tries. “Fucking—liar.”

“Mm—” Eleonora frowns, but the kisses—slower, now, open-mouthed and edging toward fervent—down her cheek and to her jaw have her lips twitching upwards. His mouth is intoxicating, she decides as her skin heats and her feet stumble. He hasn’t even made his way to her lips, yet, given her a proper kiss that would warrant her mind i wandering, her resolve wavering, her efforts to escape lessening. Damn him. “Okay.”

“Okay?” She musters a little heat now. He’s so nonchalant, and she’s—worked up in more ways than one. “You’re so—”

“Funny?” More heavy kisses along her jawline, he releases her other wrist and uses his second arm to pull her back into his chest. “Handsome? Wonderful?”

“Annoying!” It’s an effort to get that same heat she just had into her words, but she’s successful, even against his mind-numbing, blood boiling barrage. Her skin tingles wherever he touches her—his hands on her waist, their legs brushing against one another, and his damn mouth on her neck—every touch zinging up her spine to her brain; she’s so, so warm, and he’s everywhere.

“Ah, yes, this is exactly what I wanted from my spring break.” The kisses along her jaw and under her chin paired with the brief tease of his teeth against her pulse point undermine his statement, as does the humor in his tone and the smile she feels against her skin. That’s what gets her, she thinks, his fucking smile. “To have my girlfriend call me annoying.”

He’s enjoying this and knows, even if she tries to say otherwise, that she is, too.

“Mm,” she hums, the hand that should shove against his chest slipping up to grip his shoulder as he continues to tease his mouth along her skin. At her waist, his hands flex, thumbs kneading into her skin, rolling into the tension in her muscles. It’s an effort not to let a moan escape her. Eye closing and mouth stuttering a little, she gasps. “Glad I, um—lived up to your—ah, your expectations.”

He steps them backwards toward the couch, his hands continuing to flex and squeeze against her waist and a chuckle rumbling in his chest when—despite her best efforts—an embarrassing noise falls from her lips. Teeth grazing her collarbone, he sucks hard enough against the same spot that she’s sure there will be a bruise. She clutches his shoulders as her knees grow weaker and weaker; damn him and his stupid, maddening mouth. It pops off her skin with a wet noise and when he pulls back, she opens her eyes.

Where the fuck does he think he’s going?

The tiniest of smirks spreads on his lips and her chest heaves against his; he laughs as she manages a soft glare. “Oh, you surpassed every one of them.”

“I’m so glad.” Voice weak but pointed, it doesn’t take much effort for him to walk them the rest of the way to the couch he previously occupied, mouth returned to nibbling on her neck, sliding one large, warm hand up to cup the bottom of her shoulder blade and the other down just low enough that she starts to get ideas. She isn’t sure how, but he draws her closer and closer, even though they’re as close together as she thinks they possible can be, and her jaw shudders up and down as he licks a stripe up the side of her neck. She’s embarrassed to feel lightheaded at the whole thing—she hasn’t even kissed him once—but then his mouth makes its way back up to the corner of her jaw and he pulls her earlobe through his teeth and her eyes roll. She shudders, pulling the fabric of his sweater between the fingers of one hand and gripping harder to his shoulder with the other. “Leave a—a good review for me on, uh, girlfriend Yelp.”

“Girlfriend Yelp?” Incredulity colors his tone like a heady flush colors her face. If she had planned to use her witticism to distract him long enough for her to escape—like she probably should have—or started her own opened-mouth, tongue-included, mind-blowing kissing barrage against him in revenge, she’d be sorely disappointed. Even in his disbelief he doesn’t let up, lips, tongue, and teeth making their way across her jaw, under her chin, and to the other side of her face. Blood pumping, knees shaking, hands balling into weak fists against his chest, Eleonora can’t help the noise that slips out of her mouth as he starts the whole process over on this new, untouched, unattended side of her neck.

Skin hot and tingling, with enough ease that he can guide them toward the couch, he drives her oversensitivity up the wall.

That’d be nice, she thinks as he does something truly wicked that makes her knees buckle, to be pressed against a wall. Or to press him against a wall. Her hands slide off his shoulders and fist in his sweater, feeling the hard plane of his chest through the fabric, with half a mind to do just that, but it’s almost like he can tell what’s circling in her thoughts.

He sucks this other earlobe into his mouth and laughs—fucking laughs—when she groans.

When the back of his legs hit the couch and their momentum stops, her entire body seems to sag against his and, try as she might to move her hands to pull his face to hers so he could fucking kiss her or something crazy like that, she can’t; he overwhelms her entire nervous system. He sucks on her pulse point again and she thinks she might start convulsing. She remembers, now, that he’s making fun of her for being nonsensical thanks to his stupid, mind fogging neck kisses, and pants, “Trying to be funny—or, or something.”

“Mm?” That hum sounds entirely too pleased.

“Yeah—yeah.” The hands at her waist slip just a little further down her body and she gets her own hands to move as well, but all they seem capable of doing is gripping his shoulders and sliding into his hair, pulling it between her fingers. At this, his own little moan vibrates from his chest out of his mouth and into her skin. It feels so good—too good—but it gets him to detach his lips from her neck and she gets a moment of clarity.

She’s supposed to be yelling at him for being a little asshole right now.

Just as she realizes, his arms band a little tighter around her, he pulls her up onto her toes, and presses his lips back into her skin, muttering, “Well, I hope I get an equally good review on boyfriend Yelp.”

Her moment of clarity disappears and goosebumps burst along her skin, up the back of her neck, and all over her scalp. She tries not to shiver too hard, one hand fisting in his hair again and the other squeezing his shoulder.

And finally, blissfully, maddeningly, Edoardo shifts his mouth from her neck onto her lips and she whimpers, tension leaking from her body. Their progression to sit on the couch pauses for several long seconds. These kisses are slow, sensual, mouths sliding hot against each other, his tongue sweeping across her bottom lip. When she tugs on his hair, his mouth opens in a slight gasp before she licks into his mouth with a laugh.

After enough time passes that she can’t tell whose breath is whose anymore, Edoardo pulls his mouth from hers, pressing their foreheads together and eliciting a whine from deep in Eleonora’s diaphragm. Laughing, he braces his hands at her waist and sinks into the couch, pressing singular kisses to her lips as she bends to follow him.

Once he settles, she lowers herself onto the cushions, first one knee and then the other on either side of his hips, and slides her mouth over his again; her hands cup his cheeks and he tilts his face up to her. As she takes her time kissing him into as much senselessness as he had done to her, he palms the back of her thighs, heat warming her skin as he trails them up her ass to the top of her shorts. His fingers slip into the waistband and her shirt comes untucked. She shivers, his hands slipping under the fabric, nails tracing over her skin as his hands move up and up, from the small of her back around to her ribs, up her sides. She sinks into his lap, her shirt rucking up and exposing her heated skin to the cool air of his living room. A gasp slips from her lips into his—

Edoardo draws back, chest heaving, and her mind registers the smug, excited smile spreading on that mouth that she should be kissing but isn’t anymore. What the fuck is he—

One of his hands drops lower on her waist, thumb pressing against her skin over and over as if to say hey, don’t worry, we’ll be getting back to this in a moment. The other pulls her shirt further up her side until his fingers run along the waistband of her bra and the skin underneath. He ducks his head out of the gentle hold she has on him, and for a hopeful moment she thinks he has other ideas, but his mouth doesn’t latch onto her ribs. No, he just stares at her skin, fingers ghosting a hair below the waistband. Eleonora frowns. “Edo.”

“Hm?”

She leans back, taking a hold of her shirt so she can see whatever he’s looking at, and glares as their eyes meet. It’s the fucking fast forward symbol tattooed on her ribs right in front of his face. “Really?”

He leans back into the couch as she drops her shirt. It pools over his wrist, his hand still cupping her ribs underneath her bra, and she folds her arms over her chest. “We never finished talking about them.”

“And so you asked about the spider.” A nod. “And scared the shit out of me.”

A smirk slides onto his face. He intertwines his hands together at the small of her back and pulls her closer to him. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” She raises an eyebrow, her earlier annoyance flaring up and down as she studies his damn face, contemplates the fact that he used a known weakness of hers—fucking kissing, it’s so distracting—to get her to talk about her tattoos again. It’s ridiculous. He’s ridiculous. “Don’t lie.”

“Okay.” Another tug closer. She braces her hands against his chest to keep her balance and the corners of his mouth twitch up.

“Okay.” She sits back in his lap but it does little to put more space between them, even though that’s what she needs to keep from giving in again. “And you had the perfect opportunity to ask me about them again, but you kissed me instead.”

“You brought kissing up first.”

“Mm, don’t turn this on me.” She pokes his chest. “You are the only one at fault.”

He nods, his hands slipping from one another. One presses flat against her back and the other opens and closes into a loose fist against her skin, light scratching. He’s doing it again, trying to distract her from her mild annoyance, and he knows it’s working, like she knows how to get him worked up, too—skin heated, mind dizzy, too aroused for public decency but not so much as to be cruel—even when she’s not in the mood for anything more. He’s playing her at her own game. The problem is: it’s working.

She tries not to smile. The game, she knows he enjoys it even if the outcome is mildly infuriating for him; she just can’t believe that it’s the same now that the tables are turned: even if she’s annoyed, there’s a thrill underlying it all.

“Okay, I take all the blame,” he says, grinning. “What does this one mean?”

He’s going to love this: “Nothing.”

“Nothing.” His grin slips from his face. She presses her lips together to keep from laughing. “You’re serious.”

She nods. “As serious as I’ve ever been.”

A pout replaces his grin, and he shakes his head. “I can’t believe—”

“Hey!” She shoves at his chest. “Not every tattoo has to have a super deep meaning.”

“Mm, okay, why’d you get it then?”

“I think rib tattoos look really cool.”

“Ele—” she doesn’t let him get much farther, cupping his face and surging forward, foregoing her internal debate about the morality of their game in favor of using it to distract him once more. She slides her mouth over his and laughs at the surprised sound he makes. His hands flatten against her back, pulling her torso flush against his, and her hair falls like a curtain around their faces. After a moment full of his mouth and his tongue and his breath mingling with hers, she slips a hand into his curls and tugs just hard enough.

Plus, she thinks as his mouth opens underneath hers and he bites her bottom lip, they both like the game. Her tattoos can wait.

—

FRIDAY APRIL 3 16:33 DOCKS, FIUMICINO

“Okay,” he starts, drawing her attention from the glint of the sun off the waves to his face where he lays with his head in her lap. He’s got his eyebrows raised. “Just to preface: I’m not asking about an actual spider this time.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Eleonora says, looking away, but smiles when he laughs something sharp and bright. When she pointedly keeps her gaze locked on a passing boat in the distance, he tugs on her shirt until she relents. “What?”

“Hey.” Edoardo’s voice is soft and sweet, now, sensitive to her annoyance but still amused, if only a little, by her reaction. Earnestness shades his eyes. “Will you tell me why you got the spider tattoo?”

For a moment, she watches him, studies his eyes, the way the sunlight glints off their glossy surface and turns his irises into a backlit brown, like coffee or cola. His hand encircles the wrist she rests on his sternum and one corner of his mouth pulls up. The smile that blooms when she nods is bright like the sun. Her chest warms.

“It was Filo’s idea again.”

His laugh echoes off the water. “Really?”

“Mm.”

“Do you have any tattoos that weren’t his idea?”

“The fast forward,” she says, pinching his chest and raising her eyebrows when a playful wince scrunches up his face. “And you seemed pretty interested in that one the other day.”

“Well, what piques my interest piques my interest.”

“Piques? Is Cornell expanding your vocabulary, or something?” Her other hand drifts into his hair, winds a curl or two around her index finger. His smile makes her chest warm further. “I thought you were there for business: finance and accounting and math.”

“I’m interdisciplinary.”

“I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

He snorts a little, and covers his eyes with the back of his wrist. “C’mon, tell me.”

“Okay.” She presses her lips together and draws her hand from his hair so she can lean back on it. From the moment the topic of tattoos came up, Eleonora knew they’d be delving into rough terrain, so to speak. A lot of things have happened to her and the tattoos have been—therapeutic, if nothing else. They’ve covered heavy stuff, stuff she’s been scared to talk about with most people before, but he’s still here with her, still sleeping in her bed, still laying with his head in her lap, still waiting to hear every word that comes out of her mouth.

What’s a little more weight, then?

“Nymphomaniac wasn’t the only thing I was called at my old school,” she says, voice dropping to a whisper. “It was mostly your typical slut-shaming rhetoric, but everyone’s favorite seemed to be ‘man-eater.’”

His voice hints at derision, low and rough, and his jaw clenches as he mutters, “What a title.”

“I know, right?”

A beat passes. They listen to the waves lapping at the docks and crashing against the sea, the wind whistling at a low pitch, each other’s breathing. Edoardo’s hand doesn’t tighten or loosen against her wrist, but rather his hand shifts to cover millimeters more of her skin, to offer his presence. Tension she wasn’t aware of drains from her shoulders.

“And the most famous man-eater is the black widow. Filo said I should get a tattoo of one, reclaim the term. Give an actual reason to be called it, besides rumors that weren’t true.” She shrugs, even though Edoardo’s hand still covers his eyes. “So I did.”

Several moments pass and she turns her face up to the sun, closing her eyes. That warmth in her chest doesn’t disappear as she talks about her tattoo, rather spreads as the sun falls on her skin, and soon her entire body is pleasantly warm. Filippo was clever when he came up with the idea, she thinks, her lips twitching up, and it’s fun to tell someone else about it.

Edoardo hums and she looks back down at him. He’s pulled his arm off his face and watches her with a contemplative expression, like he’s trying to decide how to feel: angry on her behalf, or amused by Filippo like she is, or maybe even indifferent. It happened then and now it doesn’t anymore. Not much to do. She doesn’t figure out what he chooses, he speaks too soon: “Can I see it?”

Shrugging off her jacket, she braces herself against the early April chill and rucks up the sleeve covering her tattoo before twisting her arm and showing it to him. His hands are gentle when they grasp her arm, one steadying her wrist and the other beneath her elbow. Unlike the air around them, his hand is warm and helps maintain the contented feeling grown in her chest, spread down her limbs, along her bones. She smiles while he studies it closely, his head lifting slightly from her lap to peer closer.

Once he’s done, he lays back in her lap, the fingers at her wrist slipping down to hold her hand. The other settles on his stomach and she relaxes her arm so their clasped hands rests against his sternum above his heart. “Mm, I like it.”

Eleonora smiles. “I’m glad.”

He closes his eyes against the sun again and for a few minutes, they sit there quiet in the bright afternoon light. In her lap, his head grows heavy enough she thinks he might’ve fallen asleep, though he hints at a smile when she starts playing with his hair. They’ve stilled enough she can feel his heartbeat beneath where their hands lay. A few beats pass. “All this talk of tattoos is making me think of getting one.”

“Yeah?” He’d look good with tattoos, she thinks. They’d look nice against his skin, against his body. She presses her lips together to keep from smiling. “What would you get?”

“Well, since you think rib tattoos are super cool—” of course he’d mention that, the asshole, “—obviously I’d want to get one of those.”

“Mm, yeah?” She brushes a few curls off his forehead, and a mingle of dread and anticipation fills her stomach. He’s going to say something stupid, she knows, and amusing in that infuriating way of his. “Of what?”

“A big ass drawing of your face.”

“Asshole,” she says, stifling her laughter.

He grins. “I was thinking I could get Nico to do it.”

“He is the only one who could get my face—or anyone’s face—to look good as a tattoo, you’re right.” It really isn’t meant to be anything self-deprecating, but Edoardo takes each and every opportunity to tell her she’s beautiful that he gets. Even something silly, like this.

A squeeze to her hand, accompanied by an earnest smile, raised eyebrows. She scrunches her face even as he says, “You’d look magnificent as a tattoo.”

“Oh, compliment me further, please.”

“Ele,” he chuckles a little like he can’t help it, even as he tugs on her hand. “I’m serious. Even if I wouldn’t get it tattooed, I’d love to commission Nico to draw you.”

“Like one of his French girls?” She doesn’t look at him, she can’t look at him.

“Ele.”

She looks at him. Her breath hitches. A blush rises to her cheeks. Even after a year, Edoardo does and says things that make her heart beat faster. Says them all with the most serious expression, the most genuine tone, that it’s impossible not to believe him, and it makes her chest smart. The fucking charmer. “Don’t say things like that if you’re not serious about it, you’ll get my hopes up.”

In an instant, he sits up, ferventness smoothing his expression until a small smile remains and the middle of his brow lifts. The skin around his eyes crinkles as that smile grows. “Yours is a face people would put in museums, Ele.”

“Stop.”

“No.” He leans toward her and presses the lightest of kisses to her mouth and draws back so she can see his face once more. “You’re beautiful.”

“Stop.”

“You know how you feel when you look at a garden or at a flower or a bush you think is really nice?” he asks, ignoring her protests, shifting his legs underneath himself to turn more fully toward her. He props up a bent knee and wraps his arm around it, scooting himself closer. “That’s how I feel when I look at you.”

Her lips part as her focus flickers back and forth between his irises. Not a speck of dishonesty mars his face and the warmth in her chest spikes, her pulse races. “Edo—”

A finger comes up and presses to her lips, replaced quickly by his thumb. It ghosts over her skin and goosebumps erupt down the back of her neck and along her shoulders. “No, don’t say anything, you’ll ruin it.”

Eleonora raises her eyebrows, face scrunching up. He’s right, after all. Accepting compliments is not her strong suit, even after a full year of him giving her a multitude of opportunities to practice.

“You are beautiful, and wonderful, and smart.” He cups the back of her head. “Let me tell you that, okay?”

After a moment of hesitation, she nods, and he proceeds to do so for several long minutes that make her squirm and smile and blush and makes her heart ache. She blushes so much as he lavishes her with an endless string of impassioned compliments that she’s far warmer than she was just the other day when the same mouth—now spouting adoration in a tone that can only be interpreted as honest—riled her up so much she thought she might burst from it. At the end, he gives her sweet kisses that can’t be strung into anything longer because they’re both smiling too hard; her out of the absolute fluster he’s caused and him from the reaction he’s drawn, she’s sure.

A final kiss, then he sits back and beams at her.

She purses her lips and shakes her head, squeezing his hand before changing the subject. “Okay, beyond the one of my face, what tattoo would you get?”

Edoardo smirks at her pointed look, but his expression sobers as he thinks. After a second or two of consideration, he shrugs. “Probably something to remind me of my mom.”

A soft smile slides onto her lips. Her voice is quiet. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His own smile broadens as he thinks further. “She loved the sea, being in the water. Maybe I could get a wave, or a boat. Or a surfboard, she loved surfing.”

“That sounds really nice.” She brushes the stray curl always falling into his eyes away from his face and he kisses her palm when she draws her hand back. As she speaks, his gaze never leaves her face. “I think she’d really like that.”

“Yeah?”

She nods, and her smile turns sheepish as she thinks of what she wants to say next. He spent several long minutes singing her praises, its the least she can do to say what she’s thinking: “I didn’t know her, but I know you. And something tells me that’s close enough.”

The smile she’s rewarded with makes that warmth in her chest flare. He is as bright as the sun, talking about his mother, and radiates light. It’s contagious, she grins wide.

“You’re too nice to me, sometimes.”

Of their own accord, her eyebrows raise. “Says mister ‘compliment my girlfriend for ten minutes straight.’”

“Those are well deserved.”

“So is this.” She hopes he reads her honesty, understands how much she means it. As he studies her, his eyes flicker over her face, lighting on each of her features before returning to her eyes. He shakes his head, but smiles, and she squeezes his hand again. “She’d like anything you do.”

And again, the staring. Just as she can’t take her compliments, neither can he, even after her attempts to match him the whole year.

She whispers, “Let me tell you that, okay?”

It’s his turn to part his lips and look hopelessly at her and nod after a pause. Eleonora smiles.

A quiet few minutes pass in which they kiss and kiss and kiss until she’s out of breath, the wind whistling in her ears and cooling her skin, but not her heart. The sun shines bright, still, but it’s nothing compared to the light on Edoardo’s face as they draw apart. They settle into a cuddled clump once more, waves still lapping at the dock like he hadn’t upended her world for the thousandth time. She tucks into his side, one of his legs propped up behind her back and the other slid under her bent knees, his arm draped across her shoulders so he can play with her hair.

Every muscle in her body relaxes when he tugs her closer and she smiles, turning her face into his chest. His sweater is soft against her cheek. “You could get Nico to draw the tattoo for your mom.”

“You think?”

“Of course.” A yawn escaped her. “You’ll want to have it drawn up before you go to the parlor. What reminds you of her the most?”

“The ocean. When I play the guitar. Being with my nonna.”

“Hm, okay, what we need to do is talk to Filo, of course, he’s the resident tattoo expert, as you probably know.”

Edoardo’s laugh rings clear out over the ocean. Eleonora grins.

#asks #skam italia #incantava #incantava fic #eleonora sava #edoardo incanti #this prompt literally killed me it was so soft #I'm dying #thank you for sending it in #and really pls read it on ao3 it always looks so much nicer there

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fanfiction-and-coffee · 7 years

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"no. no, no, no — you really don’t want me as a soulmate." with jason todd please? for the angsty soulmate thing?

okay, so I wanted to do something a little different with this, because I don’t want to just use the same au for every prompt, you know? so for this one shot I’m going with an au where everyone feels an invisible magnetic pull towards their soulmate, and it gets stronger the closer you get to them. (not gonna lie, I’m reading the night circus by erin morgenstern right now, and this au is heavily based off of that book but with a soumate-y twist lmao) I hope that explanation makes sense.

jason’s backstory is also cool for this because it lets me think about what would happen to the soulmate bond if one person died, so here’s your official content warning for angst, character death, and some minor medical body horror.

prompt is from this list!

When Jason was in his early teens, he loved the idea of soulmates. Maybe it was the hopeless romantic in him, too many hours spent poring over books like Pride And Prejudice and The Great Gatsby. Maybe it was because his parents weren’t soulmates, and he was still young enough to convince himself that all of the fighting and insults and viciousness in their relationship was because they just weren’t meant to be – that surely two people who were fated to be together could be nothing but happy. Or maybe he was just a lonely kid, desperate for love and attention, hanging on to the hope that there was someone out there in the great big world who wanted him.

Whatever the reason, he used to leave the house every morning wondering if today was the day that the unseen hands of fate would pull him towards his soulmate. He’d heard some people describe the bond as a magnetic pull, while others said it was more of a hollow ache, the sense that something was missing inside them. To him, it felt like a small but persistent tugging in his chest, like a string was tied around his heart, with someone holding the other end and gently pulling on it. On some days it was stronger than others, and those were the days that his hopes soared the highest, wondering if maybe the person he was meant to be with was right around the corner.

No one could accurately describe the feeling of finding your soulmate, and scientists speculated that it felt different for every person. All anyone knew for sure that it was a rush of endorphins, and that it just felt right. There was no way to miss it or mistake it for something else – when you found your soulmate, you’d know it.

After becoming Robin, he had less time to think about finding his soulmate. Between training and his new “night job” and adjusting to being part of his new family, he hardly had time to sleep, let alone daydream.

After he dies, after the Lazarus Pit brings him back broken and twisted and wrong, he stops thinking about his soulmate at all.

You were fourteen when your bond with your soulmate was severed.

You’d heard about bonds being cut before, of course. Even a bond between soulmates can’t bridge the gap between life and death. But no one had told you about the pain.

You woke up screaming in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat and clawing at your chest. It was unlike anything you’d ever felt, as if a hot knife had been plunged right through your heart. Every breath was a struggle, sawing painfully from your too-tight chest, and in that moment you were fully convinced that you were dying.

Your screams and sobs brought your family running to your room, but you hardly registered being gently lifted from bed and carefully changed into warm clothes. You felt disconnected, distant, only aware of the pain in your chest and the overwhelming sense that something was horrifically wrong.

By the time you reached the hospital, the pain had faded to a dull ache, and your breathing had returned to normal. You spent the rest of the night under observation in a hospital bed, being tested for various ailments as a team of doctors pondered about what could possibly send a healthy teenager into cardiac arrest.

It was the hospital’s head psychiatrist who sat you down a few days later, gently explaining that nothing was physically wrong with you, but that people’s bodies sometimes reacted this way when their bond with their soulmate was severed unexpectedly. It was uncommon to see it in someone so young, she told you in a sympathetic tone, but tragedies did sometimes happen. She ended the conversation by gently patting you on the arm and telling you that she was very sorry for your loss.

You stayed out of school for a week, telling your friends and classmates that you’d come down with a nasty case of the flu but were otherwise fine. Only your family and your doctors knew the truth.

The ache in your chest lasted for days before fading to a strange hollowness. You spent most of the week alone in your room, trying to wrap your head around the idea that your soulmate, the one person you’d been destined for, was gone. Dead.

You’d never given much thought to soulmates or destiny, always assuming that you’d have time for those things when you were older. Now, it was all you could think about.

For nearly an entire year, you lived every day with that empty feeling in your chest, the fundamental sense that something essential was missing, torn out. You weren’t in mourning – you’d never known your soulmate, didn’t even know their name. But without that bond that you’d always taken for granted, you felt cold.

When your friends commented on how much more serious you were these days, you told them that you were preoccupied with school, with family drama, whatever excuse it took to keep them from asking too many questions. You didn’t want to tell them what had really happened. What you’d lost. It was easier to keep it a secret, quietly grieving for a lost relationship with someone you’d never met, but should have.

And then, one day, almost a full year after the night the bond was severed, it suddenly returned.

There was no pain this time, no sudden change. You simply woke up one morning with the strangest feeling that something was different.

It only took a few minutes for you to realize that the change was in your chest, where the aching emptiness that you’d grown to accept as a part of you had been replaced by a soft, gentle warmth that you’d been sure you’d never feel again. You could feel the gentle tug, like your heart had its own gravity pulling it towards the person at the other end of the bond. After so many months of nothing, it felt strange. Wrong.

For weeks, you kept it a secret, half expecting the bond to disappear again, leaving you as alone and as hollow as before. When a month had passed and the bond remained steady and strong, you told your family about it, asking them nervously what this meant for you.

Nobody knows what it means, is the unhelpful answer that you got stuck with.

It’s not unheard of for people who lose a soulmate at a young age to develop a new bond, connecting them to a new fate with a new person, but it usually takes much longer than yours did. The therapist your family took you to suggested that you may have had a small mental break, causing your brain to convince your body that your bond had been lost, but she couldn’t think of any trauma in your life that would have been significant enough to cause such an episode, or what could have suddenly brought you out of it. You wondered if maybe it isn’t the other way around – if maybe your soulmate was really and truly dead, and your poor brain was hallucinating a new bond because you couldn’t accept the reality of what you’d lost.

Whatever the reason, you decided after those therapy sessions that you didn’t need a soulmate, whether you really had one out there somewhere or not. It’s pathetic, you think, to hang all of your happiness on a single person, and you’re determined to live a full life without one. So you put it out of your mind.

And when, five years later, the tugging sensation in your chest suddenly grows much more intense, as if your soulmate is now much closer to you than they were before, you are determined to ignore it.

Jason doesn’t like being back in Gotham. The city is full of rot and filth and bad memories, and his nightmares are always worse when he’s there. But what he hates most, whether he’ll admit it to himself or not, is that even after all this time, it still feels like home.

Part of it is that his family – and he does still think of them as family, despite everything – is here, sure, but it’s made worse by the fact that the pulling sensation in his chest intensifies whenever he’s within the city limits, like the person he’s being pulled towards is there. He doesn’t like thinking about it, doesn’t like admitting that he’s terrified by it.

Terrified that he’ll find his soulmate in Gotham, of all places. Terrified that he isn’t good enough, that they won’t want him. And the other alternative, the possibility that they’ll accept him despite everything and want to stay with him, is the most terrifying of all.

The people Jason Todd loves rarely stick around, and when they do, bad things always happen to them. He doesn’t want to inflict that on anyone else, doesn’t want to have to deal with losing anyone else he cares about.

Besides, after all the things he’s done, no sane person would want to be anywhere near him. Not that he’d blame them.

And so he ignores the feeling in his chest, and whenever he’s in Gotham he tries to avoid meeting new people.

“I’ve really gotta get out of this city,” you mumble under your breath. “Or at least stop going out at night.”

You’ve had this conversation with yourself a dozen times before, and yet you still have rent to pay, and so you still find yourself agreeing every time your boss asks you to work late. The walk from your place of work to the bus station that will take you home is fine, if not entirely pleasant, during the day, but once the sun goes down it becomes more than a little harrowing. There’s no “good part of town” in Gotham, but this area in particular has been known to get especially rough when the nocturnal crowd is roaming the streets.

Maybe you should look for a new job in a nicer part of the city, you think to yourself as you pass an alley between two buildings where a group of teenagers smoke something that definitely isn’t tobacco.

Tonight’s walk is even more tense than usual, the extra stress all due to the large man in a hoodie who has been walking several paces behind you for an uncomfortably long time. He’s too big for you to feel optimistic about your chances of fighting him off if it comes to that, and this isn’t the kind of neighborhood where you can count on someone coming to your aid if you scream.

Don’t stress about it, you command yourself, even as you reach into your bag for the pepper spray that you always carry with you when you have to walk the streets of Gotham alone. Think about something else. Anything else.

You usually make a point of not thinking about your soulmate, but right now it seems like as good a distraction as any. The tugging of the bond in your chest has intensified significantly in the last week or two, and you’ve been trying not to dwell on it. Even now, that steady warmth seems to grip your heart tightly, gently pulling you towards something you aren’t sure you want to find.

The man in the hoodie is definitely following you, you decide. You quicken your pace, only for him to match your new speed, the distance between you staying exactly the same. Your heart begins to beat faster, and you wonder if you started sprinting now if you could make it to the bus stop before he caught up to you.

You’ve gotten so worked up that you jump and nearly scream at the tall figure who ducks silently out of the doorway they’d been standing in, smoothly falling into step at your side.

“You shouldn’t be out by yourself this late, you know.” The figure says in a deep, definitely male voice.

“Neither should you.” As you say it, you take in the stranger out of the corner of your eye. He’s tall, but not as tall as you originally thought, you realize. He has broad shoulders and a muscular build that make him look bigger than he really is. But what you’re more concerned with is his outfit – he’s wearing a leather jacket that looks like it’s been torn and hastily mended in several places, and a bright red helmet that completely covers his head, including his face.

You almost groan out loud. If living in Gotham has taught you anything, it’s that people in costumes are rarely good news. And you’ve even heard of this guy before.

“Red Hood, right?” You lift an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be selling drugs somewhere?”

“I don’t sell the drugs, sweetheart.” He sounds like he’s grinning under the helmet. “I just tell other people where to sell them. Guy’s gotta make a living somehow. We can’t all be Bruce Wayne.” The way he says it, you’re fairly sure there’s a double meaning to the quip that you aren’t picking up on.

His tone suddenly becomes serious as he moves closer to you, so that his body is angled between you and the man following you. “I’m pretty sure there’s a human trafficking ring operating in this neighborhood. I’ve been trying to, uh, deal with them, but they’re harder to pin down than I expected.” The helmet tilts down towards you, and you’re pretty sure you detect a bit of concern in his voice. “Is there somewhere safe I can walk you to?”

“Yeah,” You say softly, suddenly no longer minding his close proximity. “My bus stop is just a few more blocks. I think I can make it home from there.”

“Good. That’s good.” He moves to put his hand on your back in a casual, friendly gesture. “Just act calm and casual, okay? We’re just two friends out for a–”

He stops mid-sentence when his hand connects with your back, and you can’t say you blame him. For your own part, you’re suddenly finding it difficult to stay on your feet, as your legs seem to have decided they’re no longer interested in supporting you.

The feeling is similar to an electric shock, and you can’t help but wonder if this is what it feels like to be struck by lightning. You’re almost painfully aware of his hand, still on your back, and you could swear you can feel the heat of his skin, even through multiple layers of clothing. But the most intense change is in your chest, where you feel as if whatever invisible thread was tied around your heart has suddenly gone taught, paired with a warmth and energy that seems to be spreading into your very bones. It’s not painful. In fact, you think it might be the most comforting thing you’ve ever felt.

It only lasts for a second or two before he snatches his hand away as if he’s been burnt, and as suddenly as the strange new feeling appeared, it’s gone. It leaves you reeling, and you stumble, almost tripping and falling. He moves to steady you, but then seems to think better of it. He’s careful not to touch you again.

“You felt that too, right?” Your voice is slightly breathless, and your knees still feel weak.

He nods slowly. When he speaks, the playful and confident tone is gone. “Yeah.” His voice breaks. “Yeah, I felt it.”

“What do you think…?” But before you can even finish asking the question, you know. You know it more clearly than you’ve known anything in your entire life.

He’s your soulmate.

“Is… is there somewhere private we could go?” You try to steady your breathing. You can already feel the emptiness settling in your chest, and a small part of you is desperate to touch him again. “I think we need to talk.”

“Yeah.” His hand floats towards yours, as if he’s going to take it, before he quickly snatches it back. “Uh, yeah, I know somewhere.” He turns away, not looking back to see if you follow. “Shit. Shit.”

The “somewhere private” he takes you to is an apartment that looks like it rarely, if ever, sees use. It’s surprisingly clean and well-furnished, each room decorated in a tasteful but minimalist style, but it feels empty, more like a display room in a furniture store than an actual home.

Jason closes the door behind you a little more forcefully than is strictly necessary, and he resists the urge to glance over at you as he makes his way across the living room and collapses onto the couch. This is one of his nicer hideouts in Gotham, partially because he rarely uses it.

His hands are shaking, he realizes. In fact, his whole body feels pretty damn shaken. He can still feel lingering traces of that overwhelming warmth in his chest, can still feel small flickers of electricity shooting through his veins. He wants to reach out to you, craves more of whatever the hell happened when he touched you before, and it’s all he can do to keep his thoughts together. He can’t touch you again. If he was smart, he would tell you to leave right now, and do everything within his power to make sure you never see him again. That would be the right thing to do.

You sit down next to him, and he sucks in a shaky breath. This is the time to do it, he tells himself, he has to tell you to leave before–

Gently, cautiously, you lay your hand on his arm. It’s the lightest, softest of touches, and yet the wave of feeling and sensation that comes with it is enough to take his breath away and make him feel slightly lightheaded. He’s never felt anything so right, so perfect, and for one short, beautiful second, he hopes it never stops.

Shaking off your touch in that moment is the hardest thing he’s ever done. But he does it.

He sees the hurt and confusion in your eyes, but you quickly smooth over it. You voice is little more than a whisper as you stare at him with wide eyes. “I never thought I’d actually find you.”

“No.” His voice sounds weak and panicky to his own ears as he jumps up from the couch, taking several steps away from you. “No, no, no — you really don’t want me as a soulmate. If you knew who I was, the things I’d done–”

“I know who you are.” You speak softly, like you’re afraid to startle him.

“No.” He keeps backing away, until almost the entire room separates the two of you. “No, you don’t. You have no idea – you can’t even imagine –” He takes a deep breath, fighting to steady himself, to at least sound like he’s in control of the situation, even if he feels hopelessly lost. “If you knew what I really was, you’d run away screaming.”

“Try me.” You cross your arms over your chest. “I think I can handle it.”

“You can’t.” Jason sinks down into the chair across from the couch, his head in his hands. “I can barely handle it, and I lived it. I don’t…” He looks up at you and takes a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t want to pull you into all of that. Of this.” He waves his hand at the helmet that still covers his face, at the guns strapped to his side.

“Shouldn’t it be my choice?” Your voice sounds thick, heavy, like you’re on the verge of crying. He can’t look at you.

“I won’t do that to you.” His tone is firm, despite the ache in his chest. “Look: bad things happen to people who hang around me, okay? Just being with me could get you killed.” He slumps back in the chair, defeated. “You should go home and forget you ever met me.”

“I can’t.” You voice breaks, and when he looks up he sees that you are indeed crying. “I can’t go through that again. I don’t– I just can’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘again’?” He leans forward, eyes trained on your face.

“I thought I lost my soulmate, once before.” Your voice is shaky, and he notices that you have your hands clenched into fists at your sides. “I was just a kid. Still in high school. I woke up in the middle of the night with this… this ripping, tearing feeling in my chest, and I thought I was dying. It felt like the world was ending.” You pause to angrily swipe at the tears running down your cheeks. “After that, my bond with my soulmate was just… gone. There was nothing there. I felt empty. They told me that my soulmate had probably died. When the bond came back, out of the blue, a year later, I thought…” You trail off, ending the sentence with a shrug rather than finishing it.

Jason feels like he’s been hit by a train. From your appearance, he can guess that you’re about his age, maybe a year or two younger, which means that when you were in high school…

He’s never wondered what his soulmate felt when he died. He came out of the Lazarus Pit with the bond somehow miraculously intact, so it’s never occurred to him that his death would have severed it, or that his resurrection might have somehow mended it. He’s never wondered what it would feel like to lose your soulmate before you even met them.

Now, looking at your face, he realizes just how awful it must have been.

“I’m sorry.” The words don’t feel like enough, but he means them with every fiber of his being. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t. But now you know.” You stand up and slowly cross the room, before taking a seat on the arm of his chair. “And no matter what you’ve done, no matter how dangerous your life is… I’d rather have all of that, any day, than have to deal with losing my soulmate again. So can we at least try?” You hold out your hand, waiting for him to take it, to accept your offering of friendship, of maybe something more.

He hesitates for only a moment before he takes it.

#i got a little carried away so here's nine pages of angst #requested #soulmate au #angst #jason todd #jason todd imagine #jason todd/reader #batfam #batman imagine #dc comics imagine #dc comics #batfam imagine

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