#vague post but you know..*gestures to nothing* | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Tumblr is available in 18 languages.

#vague post but you know..*gestures to nothing*

zhalar · 2 years

Text

apropos to nothing here's a formless list of hopes and dreams and almost specific wishes for s2 lesbian pirates that i've been thinking and holding inside my brain for something of an embarrassing amount of time:

i'm sorta assuming that they'd HAVE to be mary read and anne bonny? Aka two of them. btw i dont care about historical accuracy

saying this as a twentysomething. i don't want them to be in their 20s/early 30s thanks <3

kinda hoping for them to team up with either stede or blackbeard / maybe one for each of them / maybe they’re old buddies/exes/whatever of blackbeard and then they're gonna come for stede's neck bc they still care for this goofus of a dread pirate and his well-being. And it's like, inconvenient for them to have blackbeard In This State. Or whatever, i'm not a strong plotter. Lesbianpirate godmothers kinda deal

desperately dreaming of a casually trans lesbian. Like a trans actress and then its just never underlined that much further in universe or the dialogue of the show. Please pleaseeee more trans people in roles that are not just *the trans character*

i don’t want them to be [strums a lute] conventionally attractiiiiiiiiive. I want my lesbian pirates. GRITTYYYYYYYYY

they need to be a little incompetent. PLEASE. OR A LOT. It could mirror ed and stede's relationship in that way

one of them should be a particularly inept sweetheart/dumbass butch to match stede's inept sweetheart/dumbass feminine gay man. 🤝 and they should become Besties.

actually i want them both to be butch so fucking bad. Grrgrggrg biting through the bars of the cage i’m stuck in, I WANT BUTCH LESBIAN MIDDLE-AGED PIRATES….. WHO ARE DATING !!

as much fun as cameos are. What If They Weren't BigNameHollywoodActors. Thoughts ? idk maybe thats sorta the whole Deal with cameos, but sometimes i just get the heebies cuz every one-off character seemingly needs to be so ... recognizable so that people will care about them? does this make sense. (make no mistake and dont get it twisted tho if leslie jones wants to rehash her role as jackie in s2 i will take her in with OPEN ARMS!!!!)

actually i reealllllllly need them to pick up lucius and become his fairy gaymothers. Blease.

i’m ALSO very invested in the idea of married-but living separately / married but separated / ??? silly romcom drama (nothing actually serious…) for them. Like they've both got their own ships that they're captains of but then they famously get together often enough and drop their crews for shore leave to have some together time or just visit each others boats in a manner of ‘oh i see you’ve redecorated. interesting choices’ ‘get off my ship’ ‘I OWN HALF OF THIS VESSEL???’ or something like that. im spit-balling

like y'know. A fun are they married? divorced?? sorta state in their OWN queer pirate romcom, who also will NOT be saving gentlebeard's marriage lmao, women constantly being more emotionally mature or intelligent than men is sort of a boring trope…. and i don’t want that for them…….

#ofmd #särmäs sermons #i WISH I KNEW HOW TO WRITE FOR REAL #this post is essentially nothing i just need to throw my mark out there. i'd take any of these pointers. i'd take ANY OF THESE !!!!#i just need them to be the same level of [vague hand gestures] as stede-ed-rhys-taika. and treated equally as Characters In A Queer Romcom #also i lied i do care about historical accuracy ... when its funny #but im simply too lazy to think about these characters WITH the added irl history lol sorry what can you do #i also am not above being excited abt cameos if i know of the person. whodathunkit. hm.#i might not actually know what 'a cameo' means but we dont need to focus on that right now

15 notes · View notes

mariahcarreyyy · 2 months

Note

Hi!!! I absolutely adore your writing!!! Could I please request prompt number 8 from the angst dialogue list for Charles Leclerc? Thank you!!!

# prompt no.8, "what do you want from me? to throw away all i've worked for?" // "all i'm asking for is your time."

mariahcarreyyy's 2k celebration announcement post

Change was something you did not lightly graze over or dismiss with a nonchalant wave of your hand. It slowly seeped inside the cracks of your monaco apartment walls, finding solace in your discomfort. But once even a portion of it was there, there was no denying its presence.

Not when the dent of Charles' curves is no longer easy to trace; yours was everpresent, wallowing and growing familiar with the ache in your bones every time you'd wake up to an cold, empty bed.

Not when, despite being allocated time off from work, Charles had let his job consume him. Nipping at his heart and head, wrapped in a frantic worry of not living up to his potential. Lately, it was as if it held greater priority than the peace you'd once been able to bring him.

He's slouched on his chair, fingers tightly wrapped around the wheel of the simulator; his movements are jerky yet cautious, risky, yet he is all but willing. Standing at the burgundy doorframe, you felt like you'd regressed to the age of a toddler—thrashing in your father's hold, begging for an ounce of attention, of care.

"Charles?"

The word drifts away, following the breeze of the opened window, swirling in the starry night sky. He does not answer. That's fine, nothing new. Your lips part to the shape of his name again, timid and picking dutifully at your fingertips. An exhasperated huff escapes his mouth, latching on to the side of his headphones and not-so-lightly placing them on the table.

With gritted teeth and a slight crane to his neck, barely allowing you to enter his peripheral vision, he mutters, "Yes, y/n?"

"Dinner's ready," you house your bottom lip between your teeth, waiting patiently for the dismissive 'not hungry right now' that would roll off his tongue in mere moments.

And Charles does not fail you or your expectations. He motions a hand to his simulator, sending you a pitiful excuse of a sorry smile that makes your palms furl into fists.

"Charles, I said—"

"I know what you said, mon amour," he sighs, and the pet name feels foreign on his tongue and bitter to your ears. "'Can't leave the sim."

Any shame you have left dwindles next to your bruised ego and non-existent dignity.

"One dinner, Charles, 'won't even take twenty minutes out of your day." Your voice is small, directed towards the back of his head, satisfaction pricking at your heart when his hands freeze, sending him crashing through the virtual track.

Desperate, do you even care anymore?

Abruptly, he stands up, arms extended on the table, to steady himself. The shift in atmosphere made you gnaw at your lip harder, and the metallic crimson made you wince. Your feet are glued to the floor.

Charles turns, standing up right to face you. He looks normal, you realize. You've been trying to figure out how to breathewithout him near you, and he looks normal.

"What do you want from me? To throw away all I've worked for?" He raises a predatory brow, malice dripping from his tongue. "Eat, y/n. I'll probably order something later, but I'm not wasting my time with—with."

He makes a vague gesture with his hand.

With you, is left unspoken.

"All I'm asking for is your time." You meet his hard stare and refrain from cowering at the sight. "But it's obvious you don't give a fuck to at least give me that."

You don't run, but you'd never walked so frantically out of a room before. A small part of you is waiting for Charles to scurry behind you, shouting a 'wait! wait, y/n!'. Which would probably not grant him immediate forgiveness but perhaps warm the shivers coursing through your body.

He doesn't.

531 notes · View notes

moonhoures · 6 months

Text

Watch Yourself

🕷️ kinktober — day 17: mirror sex🕸️

pairing: jeonghan (svt) + reader (afab/fem)

genre: non-idol!au, smut, angst/comfort, fluff

warnings: 18+, minors do not interact, explicit smut, [reader is insecure & has negative thoughts about herself/her body so if that makes you uncomfy please don’t read this! mentions of stretch marks, weight gain, cellulite] established relationship, husband!jeonghan, body worship, mirror sex, fingering, marking

word count: ~1.9k

synopsis: you admit to your husband that you’re having negative thoughts about yourself again, so he tries to remind you why you shouldn’t

a/n: i usually don’t write with a focus on specific body types, so i tried to keep this vague but *shrugs* if you don’t feel comfy reading that’s okay! also, sorry for the wait! something came up and i wasn’t able to queue it in time 🤥

posted: october 17, 2023

kinktober masterlist

The day had barely started, and you had already decided it wasn’t going to be a good one. You were rudely awoken at the ungodly hour of six a.m. The sun wasn’t even up yet, but you were. You tried to go back to bed, but each attempt at closing your eyes and relaxing were fruitless. You just couldn’t get comfortable again; you were too hot or too cold. The room was too quiet, and your thoughts were too loud. With a heavy sigh, you peeled the covers back and quietly stepped out of the bed to use the restroom. While you washed your hands, you looked at yourself in the mirror. And just like every other day this week, you frowned at your reflection.

You had a history of negative thoughts of your body. But you had spent a long time recovering from that toxic mindset. Your husband was a big part of that process. Jeonghan knew about your issues, and he had no problem letting you know that he liked you every and any way you looked. Even after five years together, no matter if you were in fancy clothes or sweatpants, his eyes lit up the same way when he set his eyes on you. He made you like your body for the first time in a long time. But some times were harder than others, and this week had been a hard time.

Nothing had really set it off. You had just been having low self esteem that then snowballed into nitpicking the way you looked in the mirror. If it wasn’t your face then it was your arms, or your stomach, or your legs, or your breasts. Sometimes it wasn’t just about your physicality. You felt like crap. You had mood swings and unwarranted anxiety. You overthought a lot. You felt like you weren’t enough, or you were boring.

You tried your absolute best to save face in front of your husband, not wanting to burden him with your issues, but he knew. He always knew. The slightest shift in your behavior would tip him off. Today was no different.

After you spent several minutes staring in the bathroom mirror, mentally berating yourself, you re-entered the bedroom. You shut the restroom light off but noticed Jeonghan’s bedside lamp was turned on, bathing the room in the softest white light. Your steps came to a halt just out of the doorway as you made eye contact with him. He was sitting up on his side, nearest to the bathroom, looking at you with a small smile just before he yawned.

“Decided to be an early bird today?” he joked.

You knew he was joking, but you couldn’t help but feel an immense amount of guilt for waking him up. You frowned once again, “Did I wake you? I’m so sorry. You can go back to bed, I’ll go in the living room.”

You went to leave the room, but he stopped you with one word, “No.”

For the second time, you came to a halt mid-step and met his eyes from across the room.

“Come here,” he gestured you over with two fingers. As you got closer, you could tell how tired he was. The skin under his eyes were smudged with that faint purplish-brown color that he only got when he didn’t get enough sleep. Your heart sank, “Sit.”

You did as he told you, sitting facing him as he scooted over to make some room for you on the edge of the bed. He looked into your eyes, searching for something, but you weren’t sure what it was yet.

“What’s been going on in that big, beautiful brain of yours?” he asked, a stray piece of his fringe falling over his eyebrow. You so badly wanted to push it back where it came from. His hair looked so soft first thing in the morning.

“Nothing, I just couldn’t go back to sleep,” you supposed it wasn’t a complete lie.

“________,” he said your name the same way a disappointed parent would, “Please talk to me.”

You took a deep, shaky breath, mentally preparing yourself to unload, “I’ve been in one of my moods lately. Just feeling bad about myself. About the way I look. The way I feel. It’s just . . . been a lot.”

Your husband’s soft features seemed to harden the more you spoke, as if he was upset or angered by the words he was hearing. You averted your gaze from his, too ashamed to meet those beautiful brown eyes. For a moment he didn’t speak, he just looked at you. You started to feel uneasy under his stare, but then he was moving, carefully pulling the sheets back to free his legs. You asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t respond.

So, with worry setting in, you sat on the edge of the bed. You watched as he got up from the bed (in only his briefs) to cross the room where your full-length mirror was propped up in the corner. Despite the mirror being pretty hefty by itself, he picked it up with what looked like minimal effort. He placed it right in front of the wall opposite from where you sat, then he climbed back onto the bed, settling in right behind you.

He placed his hands on your shoulders, and you finally met his gaze through the mirror.

“What about your body do you not like?” he asked.

You felt frozen in place, and it didn’t help that his hands felt like they were anchoring you down. You weren’t going anywhere, as far as he was concerned.

“Tell me,” he urged you again.

You swallowed the nervousness building in your throat. Your eyes, along with his, raked over the image of your body in the mirror. From only a few feet away, the first thing you noticed was how bloated you looked, “I’ve been gaining a little weight in my stomach.”

Instantly, Jeonghan’s hands were slithering from your shoulders down to your torso. His lithe fingers splayed out over the soft fabric of your shirt covering your belly, “This stomach? The one I spend hours a week cooking for to make sure it’s fed and happy? To make sure you’re healthy? A little weight isn’t anything to worry about. It’s normal, ________.”

You refused to make eye contact with him, for fear of your eyes tearing up.

“What else?”

Your eyes spotted the top of your arms, the faint stretch marks you had grown accustomed to over the years were just barely showing from where your arm brushed against your ribs, “My arms.”

Your husband’s hand encircled your wrist, carefully turning your arm so that it was outstretched and your stretch marks were on display. He leaned down just enough for his lips to effortlessly press kisses to the delicate skin there, the shallow fissures not deterring him in the slightest. Truthfully, he never noticed them until you brought them up.

“My legs have cellulite,” you muttered so quietly, not even realizing you had said it out loud until he moved his hands down to your thighs.

His blunt fingernails drew goosebumps to the surface of your skin as he dragged them smoothly up your leg. He gripped your flesh in his palm, then soothed it with a gentle, massaging gesture, “These are not things you should feel bad about, _______.”

He whispered that against the shell of your ear, making you close your eyes to keep tears from spilling. You felt his supple lips press tender, healing kisses against the skin of your neck and shoulder. His hands snaked over your body, revisiting the areas you’ve pinpointed. Without words, he was telling you how much he loved your body. Exactly how it was. He always would.

“My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said, his fingertips sliding between your thighs. Your skin there was naturally warm. Your breath hitched in your throat as he grazed over the material of your underwear while his other hand parted your legs. He loved that you didn’t wear pants to sleep. This way he could see the space between your thighs in the mirror; in fact, his eyes were locked on it, “You don’t think my wife is beautiful?”

You didn’t speak. You couldn’t. You didn’t know how to respond to that; or rather, you didn’t know how he wanted you to respond.

“Tell her she’s beautiful,” he spoke sternly, not giving you the option to say ‘No’.

“She is,” you said, a shaky gasp escaping you as his fingertips dipped beneath the edge of your panties.

He rubbed the pads of his fingers over your slit, his words ghosting over your neck as he spoke, “She’s what?”

“Beautiful,” you said.

“That’s right,” he continued to stroke your sensitive skin that was growing wet the more he worked you up. Your chest moved up and down with every heavy breath you took. He was holding back a smirk at the effect he had on you. And you could definitely feel the effect you had on him, his erection was practically poking your ass from behind, “My wife is the most beautiful woman on Earth.”

You nodded, not even really listening to what he was saying anymore. All you could focus on was the way his fingers were circling your clit perfectly. You rested your head on his shoulder, letting him have his way with his lips and teeth on your neck. Hickeys were blossoming all along the skin there, and you couldn’t care less.

“You’re always the prettiest person in every room,” he talked to you while your hips chased after his fingers that were relentlessly pleasuring you, “You’re the smartest. The most beautiful. The funniest. The most caring. You’re the best partner I could ever ask for, you know that, don’t you?”

You were too far gone, eyes beginning to close. Your thighs were starting to ache, wanting to close around his wrist. Jeonghan simply pushed them back open with his free hand before using his fingers to tilt your chin up. He caught your wide-eyed gaze in the mirror ahead of you two, and he looked like a teacher on the verge of reprimanding a student.

“__________,” just the way he said your name sent a chill down your spine.

“I know,” you agreed and, for the first time this morning, he believed you.

“Good, now I want you to watch yourself cum,” he gripped your chin gently, keeping your eyes locked on the sight before you.

You couldn’t deny him even if you wanted to. He kept you locked in. His fingers were bringing you to orgasm, his soft fingertips keeping a determined pace on the button at the top of your folds. They sent your pussy into a frenzy, clenching and pulsating around nothing, arousal leaking out onto your skin. It was getting to be too much, so you had to pull his hand away. But he only intertwined his fingers with yours, bringing your arms up to your chest as he hugged you from behind.

“Don’t keep all these thoughts to yourself,” his gentle voice floated over the skin of your shoulder before he pressed a kiss to it, “As your husband, I’ll be here for you whenever you need me. However you need me. I said that in my vows, and I meant it. Every word.”

— taglist #1

@jaylaxies @xiaoting999 @kookthief @zaddywilk @wonrangwoo @pedriswrld @ikykleeknowww @odisdad @abby-grace @jungwonloveer @pinklemonadeflav @celestialplatinum @luvkpopp @nlklstan @kisses4denji @jenos-eye-smiles @a-l-i-y-a @channiesprincess @bekah931215 @heerinnie @fairygirl18 @cinnikoi @im-ur-calico-cat @unlikelysublimekryptonite @k-drizzle @iguanas-world

#seventeen smut #svt smut #jeonghan smut #yoon jeonghan smut #[🕷️] kinktober 23 #seventeen fanfic #svt fanfic #jeonghan fanfic #seventeen imagines #svt imagines #jeonghan imagines #seventeen scenarios #svt scenarios #jeonghan scenarios #seventeen x reader #svt x reader #jeonghan x reader

872 notes · View notes

lightfeltmemories · 5 months

Text

episode one: phantom troupe and romance; headcanons from least toxic, to most toxic

characters include: chrollo, machi, pakunoda, shizuku, uvogin, shalnark, feitan, phinks, bonolenov, kortopi, hisoka, illumi, nobunaga, franklin. (not in order)

tw's: nsfw but nothing explicit, mentions of non-con, spoilers for the deaths of pakunoda, shalnark, kortopi and uvogin, toxic relationships, lovebombing, mentions of torture (not on reader), mentions of cheating, mentions of reader's death,

notes: a completely self indulgent post, you can probably tell who im biased towards by how long certain sections are.

because this contains mentions of nsfw, do not interact if you are under 18, you will be blocked if you do !! also, do not leave negative comments please, they will be deleted :)

pakunoda

out of everyone, guaranteed, she'll be the best partner out of everyone else, you might even end up shocked that she's apart of the troupe if it ever comes to you finding out.

she's a darling, spoils and cares for you like anyone else, a great listener and partakes in your interests in hobbies, its (almost) like a fairytale by how the relationship is, the troupe knows you but you don't know them! and she wants to keep it that way, of course still she's a murderer, so it would break her if you were to have found out about everything, she vowed to never let you know or even have you close to knowing about what she does, but you just can't help but wonder what she's doing when she's away for long periods of time.

until it comes to her death.

now, you eventually find out that she died from a close friend of hers, but he knows paku doesn't want you to know about the troupe, so, he's a bit vague, and a bit creepy.

nobunaga

personally out of everyone else, i feel like nobunaga would be other most normal when it comes to relationships, but then again, he's an enigma, he doesn't strike me as the type to be the best boyfriend literally ever or very very toxic, i feel like out of everyone else, if you're looking for someone to be in a semi normal relationship with, nobunaga is your best shot, but of course, he's a part of the phantom troupe, and any member apart of it isn't exactly the best partner by default.

he's still a murder and thief, like all members i believe that he would definitely steal things that remind him of you, he'd most definitely kill for you.

unlike someone like feitan or machi, he doesn't exactly have a problem with being vulnerable when you get to know him, he'll tell you about himself, and of course, because he's a criminal he can't exactly tell you what he does for a living, but can't bring himself to lie about it either, he's just hoping that one day, if you know, you won't leave or judge him for it, his childhood isn't exactly all sunshines and lolipops, y'know?

he'll love you from the ends of the earth, but he definitely won't let you walk all over him, quick to put your in your place and won't allow you to manipulate him, he won't lie to you (about trivial things, at least) so why should you? (who knows, maybe you're apart of a criminal organization and is pretty much a wanted criminal yourself :P)

bonolenov

similar to nobunaga i think if you want something that's somewhat normal, bonolenov is also a nice choice! (100% not putting him up so high because we don't really know that much about him it's totally because he would be a decent partner! honest!)

for one, you would definitely be introduced to usual romantic gestures and advances that come from his tribe, he'll tell you all about how things work with him, he'll do dances he learned when they were still here for you to show how much he adores you, and dresses you in garments that resemble such from his tribe, it's pretty cute, honestly!

now, what concerns him a bit is.. how you'll react without his bandages, he's not exactly sexy like chrollo but (to me, TO MEEEEEE) he's not the ugliest thing in the world! he just hopes that eventually if you see him in his true form, you don't scream and run away at the sight of him, its okay if you do! ..... kind of.

and if you don't, oh you'll mean so much to him!

kortopi

now, here's another one we don't know much about! but i'll try my best either way (i just want to contribute to the lack of attention him and bono get in these spaces.) he's another somewhat normal one, he also doesn't strike me as the type to be the absolute worst, but still is apart of a troupe of murderers and thieves.

similar to everyone else, he'll steal and kill for you (idk if this guy even has a body count but lets pretend he does.) and is a lot more open to being vulnerable than some other members.

now, nine times out of ten you'll be taller than him because this guy is even shorter than feitan, so, he'll definitely be wearing your t-shirts and hoodies, and he ain't complaining about it!

and eventually, he dies, now, honestly, something told you that kortopi seemed... like the odd one out when it came to the troupe, he doesn't seem like the type to be apart of... that! you better hope that hisoka doesn't care about you, or things are gonna turn ugly faster than you can blink.

uvogin

he's big (as hell), but he's sweeter (you know why they're in bold italics) than the others twice his size.

physically the strongest, you're rather lucky to have him has your partner, if someone won't stop messing with you, they're dead within a millisecond, or at least scared off since you know.. he isn't exactly built like the average guy and having someone that's eight foot fucking two walking up on you not really excited to see you is quite terrifying, depending on his mood they'll sometimes get away.... sometimes.

enough of that, how is it like when it's just the two of you? sitting on the couch or laying in bed watching movies together, his arm around you, it's basically a pillow! a hard ass pillow at that.

not the most vulnerable, he's not some weird incel who see's women as sex toys or anything, he's decently capable of being in a normal relationship, you won't see each other often sadly, but when you do, he'll pay 95% of his attention towards you, he'll even let you know straight up that he won't know when he'll get back, but he will! ... until he doesn't..

ah yes, his death at the hands of kurapika, how will you react? hell, how would kurapika react to your existence? something tells me that kurapika might kill you too, send you right off with him, or, in a rather strange twist of events, he might try to fuck you and take you to the other side, not in the way of barging into your house and straight up non con, nah, more like a get to know you then get in your pants type of way, uvo won't be there to protect you now would he? of course the latter is highly unlikely, but to be honest it's kind of fun to think about.

and now that you think of it... you don't even know what uvo was doing or where he was going, you choose how you want to react to how you found out about his troupe business.

shizuku

another woman! she's similar to another person right below her! she looks cute, but she's anything but!...... sort of.

she's not the best or worst partner, she's pretty normal, a bit distant but it's not something you can't manage, maybe she just needs some space and you're overwhelming her, but something that really gets to you is her forgetfulness.

at first, she'll forget things such as your birthday or your anniversary, but going further into the relationship, she becomes less and less forgetful (she might even remember things that you don't even remember.)

what exactly do you guys do together? well, she does try to partake in your interests, and does try to get things you like!

franklin

he's similar to uvo, he's big, he's actually nicer than he appears.

what makes him so low is.. well to be honest i don't know, i don't feel like he could be high up but not so low, so, this is the perfect spot for him.

for one he does have a bit of an anger problem, not as bad as phinks, but he doesn't mind a slight argument, good thing he wont assault you, and is quick to make up for the argument.

i don't know how to write him, so, please forgive me for how small this passage is. :(

shalnark

we're starting to get into uh... strange territory, he looks kind, and seems normal, but he's anything but that, he's not the most toxic but he also isn't the most caring and understanding either, similar to nobunaga he's kind of an enigma.

he's a love bomber and very good at manipulating, definitely takes advantage of his rather cute looks, he'll figure out what you're insecure about and compliment those things specifically, i do think he is capable of loving someone genuinely, but he sometimes does things without realizing that they aren't really normal, maybe he's getting his troupe personality mixed up with the one he has with you.

he does come off as sweet at first, brings you flowers and takes you on some rather expensive dates (an uncanny feeling creeps up on you about how the waiters act, but you don't pay much attention to it.) and sometimes he's more distant and a little bit aloof, you take this as him needing his space.

he's not abusive, but he isn't the absolute best partner, there's definitely better out there.

his death doesn't hit you as hard as the others but it was still devastating, you best hope hisoka doesn't come for you, and if he does, you hope he swiftly kills you, because you really don't want this murder clown to take an interest to you.

phinks

phinks is another one 'that's kind of odd to me, i don't want to judge a book by its cover and say "yeah he's a piece of shit!!" but again, he's a lot better in comparison to anyone below.

he's similar to shalnark in quite a few ways, one, he does things that kind of makes you think he's a bit of an odd ball, he's intimidating to look at and is the second strongest physically in the troupe, so you're lucky to have someone like him if you're looking for protection.

i don't see him as the type to take you out to fancy restaurants and bring you flowers, stuff like that is a bit too sappy for him, he shows other ways like giving you thinks you like or taking you to like carnivals or other fun events.

his main problem is his anger issues, he won't physically harm you especially if you don't use nen, but he's not above arguing with or yelling at you, he doesn't do it often, but he might call you an idiot or a bitch if you take him to that point.

the relationship is somewhat normal besides that.

chrollo

chrollo is weird, some say he's loving, caring, blah blah blah while some might say he's the exact opposite.

for one he is charming, he's a relatively good looking man, he's intelligent, and is looking for someone who's also intelligent.

i feel like chrollo definitely has a type, he likes people who are elegant, he wants someone that'll make him look good while he's in public, he doesn't care much for how people view the relationship outside of that, he also looks for someone with a personality he doesn't want someone who looks good yes, but is boring to be around, someone he can have a deep conversation with and talk about his interests with.

for one, you will not know about the troupe's existence, until he is 100% ready to tell you, which will definitely take a while, but he's confident that the troupe and himself will protect you from anyone who tries to avenge.

now, what makes him so low on this list? well, he's quite manipulative, a gaslighter, too, what do you mean you saw me with another woman? it's all for business, i'm just trying to steal her nen ability.

he does want to be a good partner, but this relationship is kind of a "too good to be true" type, something is happening behind closed doors and the thought is too persistent to ignore.

illumi

this guy is... strange, for one, his beady ass eyes make him look like a bug (affectionately), and section.. his very warped perception of what love even is.

i agree with the fandom that he has a breeding kink no doubt, his intention on dating is marriage, and you will bear his children, no ifs, ands or buts.

you'll meet his family but you'll never meet the troupe, he doesn't want you getting involved in fighting (he might have someone teach you some basic self protection) because he doesn't want you to die, that'll fuck with him... kind of, you're basically trapped in the mansion.

his overprotection is toxic on its own, you don't have that much freedom, you can't go shopping unless he's with you (or if he can't be there, one of his servants will accompany you), you're never truly alone unless he's away, and when he's here, things are no better, he's distant and cold, there's not much to talk about with him, sure, he loves you, but doesn't know how to express it much.

machi

one out of three toxic ass individuals, one of them consists of machi.

lets start off with the fact that she's cold hearted, as hell, if you cry in front of her she'll look at you like you're crazy, if she's really in that mood she'll tell you that you look stupid and you need to suck it up.

not good with physical touch or romance, who knows how the two of you managed to continue the relationship, she does leave flowers for you but won't tell you that they're from her, won't admit that she's the one who got them for you.

i feel like similar to a certain clown, she won't care much for you if you aren't either powerful or capable of protecting yourself in some way.

but all she's really doing is putting up barriers, she's actually caring in her own weird way, she'll still be there for you, patch up your wounds if you managed to get cut or stabbed and would probably mourn your death.

hisoka

were getting lower, and a certain sadist who loves torture is worse, but somehow, hisoka is slightly better than him in some way or another.

for one, hisoka probably won't be that interested in you if you aren't powerful, it would be worse if you were a regular civilian, he'll take that as an opportunity to take advantage of you sexually, physically, psychologically and mentally, and the relationship will be literal hell..

but, lets say you are pretty powerful, dare i say a troupe member yourself, he won't be as interested in fighting you as much as he would chrollo, but he would be interested in... other ways.

how you managed to get into a relationship with this freak is unclear, but you two one day just.. hooked up, and it all goes downhill from here.

he has no problem killing you if he gets tired of you, he already killed two and plans on killing the rest of the spiders, why not kill another? especially you? or, in an alternate scenario where he does manage to kill off all the spider, you're the only one who's left, this can go two ways, one, he can fuck you one last time then kill you, or, he takes you with him! if you managed to have a lasting impression on him, that is.

outside of sex, he just isn't a good partner, he's probably the only one on this list that's probably willing to cheat on you (don't you dare get back at him, both you and your lover will die) he's manipulative as hell, he doesn't necessarily care about how you feel and he'll provoke you just to get a reaction out of you.

feitan

and last but not least, feitan, oh boy, good luck to you for managing to have this man attracted to you. (im a feitan girlie, so this one might be a big longer than the rest)

for one, he'll hate your rotten guts for making him feel this way, for making him feel so weak, so emotional... he might even contemplate on killing you, but when that time comes he can't bring himself to do it.

i don't want to say yandere is his default since he doesn't really know how to properly love, because i do think he has some potential, but it does make sense for him, because there has to be something about you that makes you interested in him, maybe you're his polar opposite? maybe you're also a sadist?

he's not the most romantic partner, he doesn't want to come off as vulnerable, or sappy, so, what considers as a date to him? he's the type to probably take you to a cemetery at night as a form of a date.

he will not allow the troupe to know you or you to know them, for one he's going to be teased from hell and back for finally managing to pull someone and second while it appears that he doesn't care for you much, him protecting you from them is his way of showing you that he cares.

he can't find himself being vulnerable, he might teach you his language if you're up for it, and he might bring you some things he knows you like, but thats kind of it, also he won't force you to see him torture people.. unless you betray him in a way.

637 notes · View notes

netherworldpost · 10 months

Text

With the various rumors and releases of Tumblr possibly changing how they do things... (gestures to the vague rumor mill)...

Zines.

I really think we as Folks Who Make Things and Folks Who Like Art Writing Poetry Music Comics Other Things need to explore zines. And I mean ZINES. Nothing glossy. Nothing fancy.

Very. Cheap. Zines.

I've been threatening mentioning I was going to create a guide on how I'm going to approach this -- and I'm going to -- but I am also realizing in the writing I Do Things Highfalutin because I am who I am + had a career in graphic design.

Let's talk about how you can make a zine very cheaply and very pretty.

STEP ONE: SUPPLIES

Very bright paper. I like "Astrobrights" because they are absurdly bright. Here is a link in a store I like. I buy a lot of paper and envelopes from them. You can generally find Astrobrights in big box office stores. It prints on laser printers and ink jet and photocopiers.

Very bright envelopes. What's that? Astrobrights has envelopes?! AM I SOLVING PROBLEMS let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Letter paper is 8.5" x 11" and is the most common size in the united states (overseas folk will have to use this advice with a grain o'sea salt and search yer own waters).

A9 envelopes are a letter sheet folded in half.

A2 envelopes are a letter sheet folded in half, then folded in half.

#10 envelopes are your common long envelopes, letter paper folded in thirds.

Pick the size you like.

If you want to get big and fancy, Tabloid is 17" x 11" -- so double a letter sheet. This gets tricky to work with but is neat in sizing.

STEP TWO: ZINE CONTENT

Do you know how to use InDesign or similar program? Use that.

No? Use Google Docs or Word or whatever other program and ramble.

Want something special? Write out some or part with a sharpee or pen.

Mix and match both.

If you are feeling fancy, design it like a booklet -- mock up a sheet of blank paper as if it were a brochure. If not, just design it straight up and down like a letter. There are no zine laws.

STEP THREE: ZINE PRINTING

Print at home on your home printer.

Don't have a printer at home? Print it at work (don't get fired)

Can't? Your local library may be able to help.

You need 1 copy on white paper.

FedEx Office has photocopiers. Your local library may too. Or your job.

Print 1 copy of your zine on white paper and then photocopy the rest onto colorful paper (or white paper, it be yer zine seadog).

Or print everything on the color paper if you have access to free printing, that's fine too.

The photocopy setup is purely "printing tends to cost more than photocopying."

If you want to slash prices, print 2 per sheet and have FedEx office cut them for you, this will cost $1 - $5 depending on how many sheets you are dealing with. This is for when you're doing a LOT of zines at once.

Or use their manual paper cutter yourself for free.

STEP FOUR: ZINE STAPLING

"Long reach stapler" is what I recommend. There are a few varieties. They tend to be $20 - $30.

Or just use 1 sheet!

STEP FOUR: ZINE POSTAGE

A single first class stamp for 1-2 pages. If you get up to 3+, go to the post office and ask them to weigh a comp you have assembled.

This is a guideline.

It's a really good idea to check at least once how much your zine weighs just in general. Post offices have scales. And are pretty. And have stamps.

OKAY ENOUGH LUSTING FOR THE POST OFFICE FROM THE GHOTS POST OFFICE BLOG BACK TO WORK

STEP FIVE: ZINE MAILING

This is actually the most difficult part. Label printers exist with various costs -- if you're starting out? Go with printable labels.

Your office supply shop will have them and they'll have templates you can drop in the customer addresses.

Save yourself time by using this label as the thing that seals the envelope -- don't lick envelopes.

A key tenet to staying in business is constantly reviewing physical (and mental) labor and stressors and reducing them as much as possible.

Return address labels are intensely cheap in literally every online printer, google "return address labels." Make sure you have this because at least a few of your shipments will come back to you.

STEP SIX: ZINE PRICING

Okay here is where we get uncomfortable because we're talkin' coins.

Prices are based on above links. You can get whatever paper you want, so this is guidelines. All numbers rounded up.

Payment processing ($0.30) + $0.05 sheet + $0.15 envelope + $0.66 first class postage = $1.16 base cost

$1.16 + 2.9% of $1.16 payment processing = $1.20

Plus taxes. I'm not getting into tax figures YOU DO THAT (just say 30% for easy math, this is not saying "your taxes are 30% or that mine are" I am saying "I am going to factor 30% for this equation to complete this guide".)

I did not include the mailing label (it will be $0.01 - $0.05 depending on how fancy and how many you buy) because you have the option to just write things and also it fits into the rounding of the above.

If you use Patreon, include your fees. Probably replace the above processing fees with your patreon processing... fees? I don't use patreon I don't know how it works.

Retail option 01: $1.50 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.09 / net / zine.

Retail option 02: $2 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.56 / net / zine.

Retail option 03: $3 - 1.20 = $1.80 gross - 30% = $1.26 / net / zine.

Should it be $1.50? Should it be $3.00? MORE? LESS?! That is for you to decide. Base it on what your zine contains, how long it takes you to write/draw/etc. it and how you want your flow to be.

STEP SEVEN: ZINE FREQUENCY

When my shop launches, it'll have a zine once a month. We are going to offer a subscription option + a "I just want 1" option.

You can do a zine monthly, or every few months, or whatever.

Keep in mind that the purpose of doing this is to break the dependency on social media marketing.

KEEP IN MIND AS AN AUDIENCE MEMBER TO A CREATOR YOU LIKE THAT THEY ARE DOING THIS TO BREAK THEIR DEPENDENCY ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.

If you have a lot of energy and an audience that comes to your shop a lot? Consider doing a zine monthly.

If you do not have a lot of energy and/or your audience is tapped for cash frequently? Considering doing 1 zine per season.

Consider 2 zines a year if that works better for you!

NO RULES ONLY JOY

Not sure? Experiment! Be upfront! "This is new. I'm figuring this out. Billionaires are tinkering with these things and we gotta figure something else out."

BONUS STEP: NETHERWORLDPOST.COM

so hi I'm atty and I'm your loud long rambler today

Netherworld Post Office used to be @evilsupplyco and now we are rebranding in prep of relaunching. Same person behind the rambles and comics, new name with a more focus (mail instead of mail + seemingly everything else in experiment)

if you enjoyed this ramble and/or like ghosts, monsters, witches, mermaids, and fun stories and projects focused on cozy Halloween, you may like us when we finish the rebranding and relaunching in autumn 2023.

email sign up (the zine will come when we are open)

WHETHER YOU JOIN MY LIST OR NOT

I really, really, really hope you consider doing a regular, or irregular, zine. Something outside of email, something outside of social media, something that connects I MADE A WEIRD THING and the people who say I LOVE THIS WEIRD THING YOU MADE.

The walls are closing in on free social media as a platform for people who make weird things to build audiences for free or very cheap.

And with that...

netherworldpost.com as one final hat pass

good luck folks

thanks for listenin' to the ol' ghost

#small business #small business marketing #small business fun #zines #zine #making zines

1K notes · View notes

lovelyhan · 1 year

Text

— hoax ⟢

pairing: joshua x reader

summary: you’re a hostess that’s drowning in debt, and jisoo is a man with too many secrets to keep. making a clean break for it isn’t as easy as you’d hoped.

word count: 18.6k words

tags: mafia!shua, strangers to lovers, angst, smut

warnings: shua smokes cigarettes & has tatts...i think that should be a warning LOL, mentions of shady mafia business but nothing detailed, graphic sexual content (minors dni!!)

notes: psa that this is a fic i originally wrote for another fandom, but decided to repurpose for svt! in case you find the narration familiar, it's posted on ao3 as a genshin fic, i just did some tweaks to the story to make it fit shua better hehe ++ i loved writing this so much, but it didn't get as much love as i expected back so i've decided to share this w caratblr as well :')

smut tags: dub con in one of the earlier scenes, protected & unprotected sex, shua & reader are both whipped as fuck

svt taglist: @wonderfulshinee - @misssugarlips - @yourfavoritefreakyhan - @jeanjacketjesus - @just-here-to-read-01 - @hanihans - @venusrae - @taestrwbrry - @minnie-mouser22 - @dreamhannies - @thvhannie - @kkooongie - @gae-uls - @lenireads - @gaebestie - @ryusha-rose - @spk93

joshua taglist: @renjunphile - @potatofrieswithketchup - @pretty-trustme

“Rei, time’s up!”

Your current patron groans with contempt at the manager’s announcement. He was a salaryman that’s probably in his thirties, and has been visiting the bar for about two weeks now. It didn’t take long for him to become one of your regular guests.

“Rei, you’ll be here tomorrow, right?” he asks.

“Of course.” You flash him an apologetic smile as you untangle the arm that circles your waist. “I promise we’ll continue where we left off when you get back~”

This is how you normally appeared to your customers – the bubbliest escort in the entire red light district. It’s easy to lull men into a false sense of connection when you act so sweet and lovely; when you smile like the sun is in your eyes even in the middle of the night. In just six months of working in this place, the manager has considerably taken a liking to you, and you intend to keep up that track record just a few weeks more.

Then, you’d be free.

But no matter how much you doll yourself up for the evening; no matter how much money is signed on your paycheck, you can’t help but feel that something’s amiss.

It’s a lingering thought that tickles the back of your head every now and again. Your fellow hostesses once told you that feeling the way you do was all part of the job. So once you start feeling uncomfortable in your own skin – under the gazes of your own lecherous patrons – you pour yourself a drink and throw your head back with a ditzy smile. Despite that steadily growing void in her heart, their beloved Rei will continue to grin and bear it.

“They’re here again.”

You flash the manager a puzzled look once you make it back to the counter. “Who are we talking about?”

She presses her lips into a thin line, gesturing vaguely somewhere behind you. You manage to follow her line of sight discreetly, but when you see a pair of men in rugged suits seated near the entrance, your heart plummets to the pit of your stomach.

“I know you said you’ll deal with them, but they’re starting to unnerve the other girls,” the manager explains quietly. “Is it okay if you take care of this ASAP? I don’t want the bar to get mixed up in something bad.”

Dread sinks its claws into your skin as you mull over a response. The manager has been considerably patient with your dealings involving those loan sharks. But part of you knows that she’s only being this lenient because you were good at your job.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ll go talk to them now,” you mumble.

Each stride you took feels like a step closer to your own grave. It’s always these same, two men keeping tabs on you – both with full sleeves of tattoos and a missing finger or two. It would make sense that the other girls didn’t like them lingering around the property. After all, your first instinct is always to steer clear every time you see them.

“How can I help you?” you ask sweetly the moment you arrive at their table.

The first one glares at you through his tinted sunglasses, taking a drag of his cigarette none-too-discreetly. “Cut the crap. You know what we’re here for.”

He says your real name in a way that sounds like two sheets of styrofoam gnashing in your ears. You look around warily, hoping no one heard him.

“I go by Rei in my workplace, so I’d appreciate it if you addressed me as such,” you speak sternly, refusing to take a seat in their company. “What do you want this time? Didn’t we agree that I’ll be paying for the last installment this month?”

The second man snorts before bringing out an envelope from the lapel of his coat. “You sure about that? You got some nerve actin’ all feisty with the people kind enough to loan ya some cash.”

You accept the envelope with trembling hands – brows cinched as you take out the document inside. But the longer you take to scan its contents, the wider your eyes become.

It’s an approval notice for a loan of five million won, signed under your father’s name.

“W-What is this?” you stammer. “We didn’t submit any more loan requests.”

The first man shrugs – wholly unconcerned with your plight. And as he kills his cigarette on a crystalline ashtray, you feel your entire world crumbling before your eyes.

“Your old man specifically told us,” he began, words sounding more and more like a threat with each syllable. “That you’d take care of it all.”

You don’t know how you end up running barefoot in the streets after that. Your heels have long been ditched in an alley when you realized you can’t exactly get that far in them. And now, you’re mindlessly shouldering your way through the late night crowd – tuning out the people yelling your name in harsh voices. Those men came prepared; they even stationed a couple of their goons around the area. You can only evade them now because the streets were so packed, but you know better than push your luck.

Goddammit, you think to yourself – cringing a little when you step on a wet patch of something underfoot. I was almost free…

“Don’t let that bitch get away!”

Your body seizes up when you hear the loan shark’s voice closer than you anticipated. Fuck. They have you surrounded.

In the midst of your momentary distraction though, you fail to see another person who’s also on the run. The same as you. While you did excellently in evading all the other passers-by, you ended up crashing into him in the middle of the busy street anyways – the impact making you stumble to the ground.

“Shit, sorry!”

You look up with misty eyes – staring at the perpetrator with the intent to glare at him, but his doe-like gaze takes you by surprise. He’s adorned with a neatly-pressed suit, dark hair slicked back to perfection as he holds out a hand for you to take; the one not gripping a heavy-looking suitcase.

“I’m okay…” you mumble, getting back to your feet without accepting his help. “If anything, I should be the one who’s –”

“There she is!”

The two of you bristle at the loan shark’s voice, and you’re rooted to the spot – frozen with fear. You don’t notice the way the stranger you just ran into flickers his gaze between your trembling form and the lackeys coming from every direction. And you’re ignorant of how he manages to put two and two together before seizing your wrist.

“Come with me,” he murmurs, tugging you along before you can protest.

You know you should be skeptical of him. The district you work in is the perfect environment for scheming assholes like the men who are after you to use as a stronghold. For all you know, this person is the same breed. But there’s something in his firm yet gentle grip that tells you he means no harm. Even as he makes you run faster, farther, you feel none of the dread that slowly crept on you the moment those loan sharks cornered you at the bar.

Your lungs are burning by the time you make it out of the busy streets – nothing but the chirp of cicadas ringing in your ears. Mystery man makes you sit on a bench just outside a small temple, and you’re not exactly in the position to refuse.

“Ow…” You wince, glancing down only to see that your toes have cuts all over; blood and grime mixing with the wounds.

“Hmm. Wonder what a pretty thing like you got herself into,” the man sighs, raking a gloved hand through his messy black hair. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

You don’t respond. You barely have the energy. The silence only deepens as you train your eyes on the ground. Your throat was parched from all that running, and you belatedly realize that you still haven’t eaten.

What’s worse is that the cuts on your feet sting like a bitch. Mystery man heaves a deep sigh, and you clearly hear the sound of leaves crunching beneath his shoes as he walks away. You try not to feel disappointed.

You didn’t expect him to stay and comfort you or anything like that. He was kind enough to go out of his way and take you somewhere those goons won’t be able to catch up. It would be stupid to ask for more. But still, you feel that hole in your heart rupture itself even wider – leaving you so hollow that you can’t even hope to fill the void anymore.

Your makeup is running. Your pedicure is a mess. These are some of the things that you always cared to pay attention to before timing in for work. But now, with nowhere else to go, none of them seem to matter anymore. Even if you spent a significant amount of time getting ready for tonight, you can’t be assed to give a damn.

This is so fucking pathetic.

You don’t want to live like this – working at a goddamn cabaret club just to pay off the debts your father always keeps racking up. All he ever does these days is drink himself dead before dragging his ass to the nearest pachinko machine. You hate it. You hate him. What did you ever do to deserve all the shit that’s being thrown your way?

Why do you have to deal with all of it alone?

“Here.”

You startle at the sound of your savior’s voice – surprised to see him as he tosses something on the ground in front of you. He came back? But what did he…

Are those sandals?

“I picked out a pair that matches your outfit best. Women are always particular about that kind of stuff, right?” he says nonchalantly, kneeling to the ground as he brings out a pack of wipes from a plastic bag. At that moment, you realize that he’s changed out of his stuffy gray suit in exchange for a pair of jeans and a ratty t-shirt.

Even his hair seems different now, like he'd washed out the wax keeping it in place. Now, it looks just a bit damp as the tips curl at the edges. How he managed to do all that so quickly, you have no clue.

“Hold still. I’m going to clean you up.”

You wince a little when the cool, wet tissue comes into contact with your skin. He doesn’t speak as he wipes off the blood and dirt from your feet, and you’re more mortified than grateful for his kind but uncalled for gesture. Is he trying to get you indebted to him? Are you going to have to pay this back, too?

A few moments later, you spot a general store a few blocks away and the pieces start to fit in your head. That must’ve been where he bought all this stuff. You look around as he continues cleaning you up, and notice that his suitcase is nowhere to be found either. Instead, he has a black knapsack hoisted across one shoulder – a red baseball cap hanging from one of the straps.

How did he manage to buy all this and get changed so quickly? Or were you just sulking about your stupid predicament for that long?

“There we go,” he says, tossing the soiled tissues into a nearby trash can before covering your wounds with…cute band-aids? “I’m not really one to stick my nose into other people’s business, but my mom would never let me hear the end of it if she found out I left a poor woman for dead.”

Mom? “Okay, but you didn’t have to do all of…this.”

Mystery man glances up at you with a lopsided smile – the light of the street lamps somehow accentuating the color of his eyes. He looks so much younger like this; dressed down like a college student in his first semester. Once he’s put all the bandages in place, he even goes the extra mile and slides the newly bought sandals on your now-clean feet.

“You’re right, pretty girl. I don’t have to.” He beams. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

Your breath catches in your throat. Your heart skips a beat. Everything about him is still rightfully suspicious, but you find yourself oddly happy with the care he’s given. This is the first time someone’s been so nice to you in a long while.

“Now that you’re good to go, I best be on my way.”

All of a sudden, that fleeting bliss dissipates in a puff of smoke. “...Wait, what? W-Where are you going?”

The man rises back to his feet, and it occurs to you just how tall he is. You swallow the lump in your throat, instinctively backing away from him on the bench. He’s still wearing that endearing look he showed you earlier, but when he speaks again, his voice holds none of his initial warmth.

“Somewhere that has nothing to do with you.”

The words lance through your heart the moment they leave his lips, and you ask yourself, why do you feel so…sad about parting ways with a complete stranger? You don’t even know his name. It shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

You don’t say anything as he takes his baseball cap and eases it atop his messy hair. You don’t utter a word when he starts walking away for real. But the moment you recall the fate that awaits you back at the red light district, the ridiculous debt your father had foolishly signed, and the pathetic life you’ve been wanting to escape from for so long…

Your new sandals crunch against the fallen leaves as you run after him. Your heart nearly leaps into your throat from the adrenaline, and before he can go any farther, you catch the mystery man by the hem of his shirt. He doesn’t even flinch. As if he expected you to follow him right from the start. That makes you wonder if he thinks you’re being a nuisance, but at this point, you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Take me with you. Please.”

He stares along with an unreadable look – his doe eyes shining in the dark as he watches you clutch onto the fabric of his shirt.

“If you come with me, you’ll never be able to go back,” he tells you up front. “You okay with that?”

In hindsight, maybe running away with a complete stranger isn’t far up in the best decisions you’ve made in life – god knows you’ve only made a few of those. Just because he showed you an ounce of kindness, doesn’t mean he’s a good person.

Still, the answer comes to you quite easily.

“Yeah,” you say, more confident than you’ve ever been. “Anywhere is better than a dump like this…”

He considers your answer for a moment before letting out a soft laugh. “This town must’ve fucked you up pretty badly, huh? Poor thing.” Mystery man holds out his hand again, and you’re a bit too glad that he’s speaking to you nicely again. “The name’s Joshua.”

“Joshua…?”

Well, that was obviously an alias. You consider telling him the one you go by at the bar as well, but when your eyes rivet to the floral sandals he bought for you on a whim, you immediately assume that you should tell him the truth. Even if he was doing the exact opposite.

You give him your real name with little hesitation, face warming at the intensity of his gaze. But at that moment, you don’t really care what happens anymore. All you want is to escape reality without looking back.

If you have to cling to a complete stranger to achieve that, then so be it.

...

“You were just about to ditch me, weren’t you?”

Joshua jolts like a cat dumped with ice-cold water – hand shying away from the doorknob of your hotel room with a sheepish look. “Me? Ditching you? You’re dreaming, princess!”

You let out an irritated noise, but your shoulders relax once you catch him plopping his bag on the mattress either way. He’s the one who told you that you can’t go back once you tagged along. You wanted to say that you’re going to make it his responsibility to take care of you, but your mother brought you up better than that.

Still…this all feels a bit surreal.

All your life, you’ve lived in the small town of Andong. You could never afford to make the trip to Seoul even if you wanted – given that a majority of your salary is dedicated to paying off those shitty loans. Yet now, you’re checked in one of the most beautiful hotels you’ve ever seen, courtesy of your stranger-than-life companion.

Now that you’re in a clearer state of mind, you start to consider the possibility of Joshua being a foreigner; if his name wasn't already a dead giveaway in and of itself.

Another thing you’re left thinking about is how well-off he really is. Not everyone can just book a fancy room at a fancy hotel. But when the two of you showed up at the front desk earlier tonight, he was surprisingly received with warm hospitality. Although, you suppose that all guests are treated the same way in high-end hotels. Not that you would know.

“Well, since we’re stuck together anyways, I’ll be showering first,” he grumbles, tossing his cap on the nightstand as he musses his own hair. “Ahh, I can’t wait to crash into bed.”

“Wait a minute. I thought we agreed I was going to shower first –”

Joshua shuts the door to the en-suite, clicking the lock before you can even finish.

That jerk…!

You angrily sprawl yourself across the mattress as a petty means of getting back at him. Let’s see if he can crash into bed comfortably now! But the abrupt movement makes the bag that Joshua left rustle in place. You shift around until you’re seated on the bed, taking a quick peek at the opened zipper. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise you to see thick wads of cash inside. You knew that you were right on the money to think there’s more to him than meets the eye.

The more rational part of you insists that you get out of here while you still can. That man is probably more dangerous than you think, and even if he’s acting all cheeky with you now, there’s no telling when he’ll decide to cut you off. You remember how quickly Joshua's mirthful countenance morphed into something…scarier when you asked where he was going earlier. Long story short, you do not want to mess with that.

“Hey, princess. It’s your turn.”

You scramble on the bed at the sound of his voice as you compose yourself in a way that doesn’t suggest that you’ve been going through his stuff. Joshua emerges from the bathroom with steam billowing from the doorway – a fluffy towel hanging low on his hips. But now that he was liberated from the confines of his clothes, you realize that his body was actually inked.

Twin koi fish curled around both of his pecs – accentuating the contours of his chest better than you’d expect. And when he turns around, there’s a massive caricature of a dragon splayed across his muscular back. You don’t know whether he’s oblivious of your observant stare or he’s just letting you enjoy the show. But either way, Joshua grants you an eyeful of his tattoos for a good amount of time.

He walks over to the table near the windows – grabbing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter you didn’t know he was carrying around. Joshua takes a stick between his teeth, and you can’t peel your eyes away from the way he takes a drag after he lights it. But when his deep brown gaze finally flickers to yours, you’re not quick enough to disengage.

“So how long are you going to stare at me for?” He asks, amused.

Eye twitching with annoyance, you grab one of the pillows on the bed before throwing it right at his face. Joshua manages to catch it before that happens though, much to your dismay.

“None of your business!”

It’s only when you get under the spill of a hot shower that the gravity of your situation finally hits you. You absentmindedly scrub away the grime off your body as you think that you might’ve followed someone you shouldn’t have. Now that your prior amazement from seeing his tattoos had come and went, you realize that he didn’t have them inked on a whim. They were a symbol of status and power.

Working as a hostess means that you get to know a lot more shady guys than you’d otherwise meet under normal circumstances. But apart from those nasty debt collectors, you’ve done a great job at avoiding a lot of them. But now, you willingly waltzed into the den of someone that’s probably ten times worse.

Great.

You put on a bathrobe before heading out of the en-suite, peaking your head out of the door to make sure Joshua isn’t doing anything weird. But all you see is a tall man dozing softly on the bed – his still-wet hair dampening the pillows slightly. You sigh before padding back inside the room. Didn’t he ever learn that sleeping with damp hair is going to make him catch a cold in the morning?

For some reason, you end up grabbing a small, dry towel he left on the table – intent on patting down some of the moisture. Joshua lays still on his side, undisturbed in his slumber. You make sure you’re careful with how you dab the towel across his head; not really wanting him to wake up in the middle of it. But now that you’re close enough to study his face, you can feel yourself growing embarrassed. Joshua's thick lashes lay softly across the skin beneath his eyes, and when you look closer, you can almost see the tiny spots that dot his cheekbones.

You don’t like to admit, but he’s actually pretty…handsome.

A while later, you come to terms that you won’t be able to pat down his hair thoroughly if he’s asleep. That’s when you decide to towel dry your own hair for ten or-so minutes before climbing into bed with him.

The sheets feel smooth against your skin, but that does little to keep your mind off the fact that a gangster (at least, you assumed he was a gangster) is sleeping right next to you. You tell yourself not to sneak any glances, but you end up doing just that anyway – admiring each detail of his tattoos without really meaning to.

Is this really okay? Should I really let my guard down around someone like him?

All these thoughts drift in and out of your head, but in the end, you succumb to the day’s fatigue. Joshua bought dinner for the both of you once you got off the train on the way here, so your hunger was already abated. But you figure that a good night’s sleep is what your body needs to completely recuperate.

…But if he’s kind enough to patch up your wounds and buy you dinner, then gangster or not, maybe he isn’t such a bad person.

Joshua, however, makes you regret even thinking that literally the next second later.

The moment you’ve found a comfortable spot on the bed, the man beside you suddenly pounces – caging you in his strong arms before you can even draw a breath. His lips twitch into a lazy smile that borders on devilish, and you immediately figure out that you’re fucked.

“You’re a sweet little thing, aren’t you?” he laughs, tracing the swell of your lower lip with his finger. “Drying my hair ‘cause you’re worried about me? Princess, I’d be more careful if I were you. After all…”

When Joshua leans closer, you feel his breath fan against your ear – making you hate the way your body shudders from the feel of it.

“I’m not a good man.”

You should push him away – you know you should. But from the hypnotizing strokes of his tattoos to the endless honey brown of his eyes, you find Joshua whittling down your defenses alarmingly fast. When his mouth descends onto yours, you welcome him despite your voice of reason screaming for you to stop – to get away while you still can.

But that’s the thing, you can’t get away. Not when you willingly followed him in the first place.

His body is impossibly warm against yours, and you can’t help but respond to his touch whenever his dexterous fingers graze your skin. But as you let him deepen his tongue-filled kiss, you suddenly recall why you’re even here.

Persistent loan sharks. A never-ending debt.

And you have the gall to be doing all this?

“Joshua,” you plead, mustering the strength to push against his chest. “Please, stop.”

He doesn’t listen. Instead, Joshua nudges the folds of your bathrobe apart, exposing your chest to the cold air of your hotel room. A large hand moves to grope your breast, languidly massaging the supple flesh. But the sensation of his heated palm on your cold skin is enough to snap you back to your senses, and finally, you manage to retaliate.

“I told you to stop!” you shout, folding your knee high enough to kick him in the chest. Joshua obviously doesn’t expect this, and grunts in pain as he stumbles backwards on the mattress. He stares at you with a puzzled look, as if he didn’t try to take advantage of you only a few seconds prior.

“I didn’t come with you to be your fuckdoll, asshole,” you growled, tears stinging your eyes despite the anger in your voice. “Just because I’m a hostess, doesn’t mean I’m easy. Who the hell do you think you are?”

You expect him to lose his temper – to ‘remind you of your place’. Because that’s how gangsters usually operate. Going for the things they want without considering the repercussions on the other people involved. When he reaches out to you, you brace yourself for the oncoming impact. But instead of a hard slap to the face, Joshua caresses the side of your cheek almost apologetically. You startle at his touch – flashing him a perturbed look.

“Sorry, my mom’s always told me that I can be a bit too into the things I do,” he chuckles, thumb grazing the high of your cheekbone. “And that I can be a bit selfish and presumptive. When I did all those nice things for you today, I expected you’ll return the favor by whatever means~”

You don’t even have the time to think about how this man just brought up his mother in a serious conversation. Instead, you scowl at Joshua like he’s just lost his mind. “Doesn’t that just make you a scumbag?”

“When did I ever say I wasn’t?” He laughs. “Didn’t you find it the least bit suspicious that I was being kind to you without asking for anything in return? I’ll have you know that everyone has ulterior motives these days, princess.”

“I did,” you snap. “And I’m glad I didn’t trust you right off the bat.”

“Oh? But you trust me enough to share this room with me?”

You open your mouth, close it, open it again, but alas, no wise retort comes out. He’s right. You knew that Joshua was suspicious from the start, but you still threw everything to the wind and ran away with him. It’s not like you can go back now that everything has gone to shit, though. And you can’t say with confidence that you can find a place for yourself here in the city with no connections nor cash either.

All you have is Joshua, as much as it pains you to admit.

“Come here.”

Joshua eases himself back to his side of the bed and holds out his arms – as if inviting you into his space. You respond with a bizarre look that makes him snort. “You think I’ll come anywhere near you after that stunt you pulled?”

“Hey, you don’t want to have sex. That’s cool. I’m not so much of a scumbag that I’ll force you to do it,” he tells you nonchalantly. “But can we at least cuddle? It’s been quite a while since I’ve felt the warmth of a woman.”

“...You’re really, really strange. You know that?”

“Mhmm. So I've been told.”

Gods, you’re tired. Downright exhausted. You just want to knock yourself out and forget about the misfortune of having landed someone like Joshua as a companion. You appreciate that he isn’t the type to coerce women into sex, but…ugh! This guy’s impossible to figure out.

…Still, you inch closer to his welcoming touch, biting down a sharp retort when you hear him chuckling softly at your surrender. Joshua wraps his strong arms around your frame, and you close your eyes – catching a whiff of a salty breeze in the air. You wonder if the scent is coming from the sheets or his wild, wild hair.

“This isn’t so bad, now is it?” he teases.

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Aww, you’re making an awful lot of demands to the person who saved you! I think I liked you better when you were bashful and on the brink of tears, princess.”

You scoff. “So not only are you a scumbag, but you’re also a sadist.”

“Mmm, I don’t have any objections about that, really.”

God, just what have you gotten yourself into?

...

If you thought your first night as Joshua’s unwitting travel companion was a big hassle, you’re certainly in for the ride for the next few days.

He’s always out during the daytime – feeding you excuses like he has to meet up with a couple of friends before leaving you alone and bored in the hotel room. It’s a good thing that the cable service here covered your favorite noontime soap operas, so you could kill time for at least a few hours. Joshua always returns before dinner, and orders room service while engaging you in small talk. He doesn’t tell you about his daytime escapades, nor do you ask.

But when the daily cycle repeats itself for the third time, you decide to put your foot down.

“Are you trying to get me to die of boredom or something?” you ask him once the bellboy takes away your food trays for the night. “I know you’re doing some super shady stuff somewhere out there, but would it kill you to show me around? First time I’ve ever been to Seoul and I’m confined in a hotel room.”

Joshua stares at you dubiously. “Princess, you’re not some inmate I’m keeping locked up in a cell. I never said you weren’t allowed to go sightseeing or whatever.”

You pause. Right, he never did say that explicitly… But you can’t really tell him you were too afraid to go out wandering on your own.

“Have you been behaving like I kidnapped you or something?” Joshua snorts, walking over to the windows to light a cigarette. Your face scrunches up at that. The room’s going to reek of tobacco smoke now. “How about this: let’s walk around the shopping district tomorrow morning. Besides, the spare clothes provided by the hotel are just going to rack up on the checkout bill. Might as well get you some better outfits instead.”

Looking down at your current attire, you can’t help but think he’s right. You couldn’t exactly bring any of your clothes with you on this very impromptu trip, and you refused when Joshua offered to lend you a bunch of his own. For some reason, a whole duffel bag full of men’s clothes arrived a day after you checked in, and when you asked Joshua about it, he simply said that he prides his men for always delivering the necessities for a trip.

His men. Meaning, this asshole is definitely a big shot kingpin of some sketchy organization and he’s just keeping his mouth shut about it. It’s a good thing that the staff offered to give you some hotel-issued clothes for a certain price, though. Like hell you’re going to prance around in a mafia boss’ clothes.

But…did you hear him right? Did Joshua just offer to take you shopping?

“Don’t you dare think you can buy my trust with material things,” you warn him, bringing your knees closer to your chest on the bed. “I’m still on to you.”

“So scary,” your companion chuckles, tilting his chin up before puffing out a cloud of smoke. He looks like he’s just about to follow that up with another jab to get on your nerves, but something seems to catch his gaze.

Then, you realize that Joshua is staring at your feet.

Before you can blurt out some offhand remark about a foot fetish, though, he asks, “You won’t be needing band-aids anymore, right? I can always run to the drugstore and get you some.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to do that. My feet are fine,” you insist before following it up with a softer, “But I might need a new pedicure, though…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. What time are we going out again?”

The next morning, Joshua jostles you out of bed at seven A.M. sharp – much to your utter dismay. Judging by how never stays out too late despite his questionable business ventures in the city, it probably makes sense for him to be a morning person. He tells you that the shopping district doesn’t even open until nine, but the bastard insists that the early morning sun is good for your skin!

As he shows you around the main avenue, though, your initial unwillingness to go out so early in the goddamn morning slowly ebbs – having been replaced with pure, unadulterated awe because wow. The big city really is a sight to see. It’s so different from your hometown that you kind of regret not visiting sooner.

Thankfully, there are some places just outside the shopping district that open much earlier. Joshua escorts you to a nearby restaurant – insisting that you can order to your heart’s content. You receive the offer with equal parts bewilderment and concern, but cooping yourself up in that damn hotel room gives you little time to think about courtesy. If he’s willing to pay for your expenses, who are you to refuse?

Breakfast goes the same way all the other meals you shared with Joshua have gone so far. You try to probe his reasons for visiting Seoul as subtle as you can, but he always skirts around the topic with a face as smooth as butter. It’s obvious that he isn’t going to start talking about whatever undercover mission he’s on, so instead, you ask about his family.

“My family?” he repeats.

You nod. “Yeah. You brought up your mom like...twice already. Kinda made me wonder if a lunatic like you is actually a family man.”

“Hey! While you’re not wrong about me being a lunatic, I’ve yet to show you that side of me. That’s a pretty mean assumption.” Joshua pouts, scooping a spoonful of rice into his mouth.

You’re not even going to ask him to elaborate.

“Hmm… But I guess you could say I’m a family man,” he hums right after swallowing his food. “I’m an only child, but I've always wanted a family of my own, you know? Old suburban home, white picket fence, six kids, and a dog –”

“Six?” you echo. “Were you that lonely growing up?”

Joshua snorts. “Where I'm from, it's completely normal to have a ton of kids.”

“Where are you from anyway?”

“The U.S. Los Angeles, specifically.”

Los Angeles… Well, at least he's honest about that. His answer also proves your hunch about him being a foreigner.

“What are you doing so far away from home then?” you ask. “Won’t your parents miss you or something? Don’t you miss them?”

An emotion you can’t quite identify passes over Joshua's face – something grim and untouchable. You’re about to insist that he doesn’t need to answer or anything, but the look disappears faster than it surfaced and he’s back to flashing you a shit-eating grin like usual.

“Hmm, why are you talking about family when we’re out on a date?” he sulks. “You’re so unromantic. How about you teach me how to use chopsticks instead?”

You stare at him, puzzled. “You…don’t know how to use chopsticks? But your Korean is so fluent.”

He rolls his eyes. “Hasty generalization. Just because I can speak the language, doesn't mean I'm good at the other cultural customs, you know.”

Just like that, Joshua expertly makes you forget about all that talk about his family. He distracts you well enough until you finally arrive at the shopping district, and the first thing he does is drag you to a beauty salon.

“Uh, I thought we were buying clothes,” you tell him dryly.

He hums, already signing the clipboard that the lady behind the reception counter hands to him. “Didn’t you say you wanted to get a pedicure first?”

“...I was joking.”

“Well, I’m not.” He grins before pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I’ll come get you in half an hour. That sound good?”

You can’t even let yourself feel the heat rushing to your face because Joshua is already sliding a black credit card onto the counter – the limitless variant that you can only dream of getting for yourself. What on earth is he doing with that bag of cash back in the hotel room when he had one of those the whole time?

“That’s a gorgeous boyfriend you have, miss.” Your beautician sighs as she massages your feet with moisturizer. “I wonder when I’ll get lucky to land a guy that hot.”

You’re compelled to tell her, no. That potential criminal mastermind is most certainly not your boyfriend. But the way this woman’s gentle hands press down on your toes reminds you of the night you met Joshua. How he went out of his way to clean the dirt off your feet without uttering a single word in complaint. How his eyes appeared so disarmingly brown that you can’t forget their color even if you wanted to.

And not to mention that innocent kiss he gave you before making his leave earlier…

Nope. Get it together, you chide yourself. That is the same douchebag that tried to have sex with you the other night. And are you forgetting the fact that he’s hinted at his own criminal activity several times now?!

But in spite of yourself, you respond to your beautician’s words with a gentle smile.

“I’m sure you’ll meet him soon.”

…

“Joshua, this is way too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, thank you for spoiling me rotten, but what the fuck? Who buys a hundred thousand won's worth of clothes for a woman he barely knows?”

“Does it matter? Not to brag, but I’ve got lots of cash to burn, princess.”

“...That’s – That’s not the point!”

It’s not even lunch time but you’re already arguing with Joshua over his irresponsible expenses. Like, sure, this all totally works in your favor, but you still have a shred of decency at least! He’s already bought you three expensive dresses, a nice pair of designer jeans, and some chic-looking heels. He got you the last one from the store the moment Joshua noticed your stare lingering too long on the display window.

You used to joke around with your old college friends about getting a sugar daddy in the past but… Is this really the right way to go about it? Why does it feel like you’re doing something illegal?!

“Don’t you like them?” he asks, lower lip swelling into a pout. “We can always pick out something else. Oh, I forgot to make you choose a swimsuit.”

“...What do I need a swimsuit for?”

He spares you another conniving smile, taking something out from inside his jacket before showing it to you.

“Are those…” You gape at him. “Plane tickets?”

Joshua nods like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Yep. We’re going on vacation to Jeju Island. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

No, it doesn’t! Not in the slightest!! Okay, maybe you’re a bit curious to see what Jeju's famous coastlines have to offer, but… That doesn’t explain why Joshua is so willing to spend unspeakable amounts of money at the drop of a hat. You wonder what’s so damn special about you for him to keep spoiling you like this, but then again, maybe he’s never been frugal to begin with. Unlike yourself – who’s always had to work for every penny just to make ends meet.

The realization dawns on you like a sucker punch to the gut. Sure he’s kind enough (more like, crazy enough) to let you tag along with him, but the fact that the two of you live in completely different worlds only starts to sink in at that moment.

Right now, Joshua is donned with a maroon shirt with the buttons done only up to the middle – giving you a glimpse of those tattoos you’ve never grown tired of looking at. He matched it with a black leather jacket and a nice pair of trousers, looking like a million dollars in every single way. Even if you managed to change into a more stylish fit compared to your hotel clothes, you still feel grossly inferior – not that the two of you were on equal footing in the first place.

This isn’t all that different from that sinking sensation you always felt in the bar – a feeling like you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be. Somewhere you don’t belong.

Joshua is a goddamn big shot, and you? You’re just a parasite. You don’t deserve all of this finery. You don’t even deserve his company at all.

If he notices how you’ve gone noticeably silent as he leads you to an athletics store, Joshua doesn’t bring it up. He merely holds up all the bags of unnecessary purchases in one hand, and your own hand in the other. You don’t fault the lady at the salon for thinking this guy was your boyfriend. To an outsider, the two of you must’ve looked like a couple in their mid-twenties.

But even if he practically jumped you last time, you know better than to expect more than what he’s already giving you. Besides, you didn’t run away with Joshua just to get together with him…

Right?

“Does this look okay?”

You come out of the dressing room to show Joshua the swimsuit he picked out for you. He glances up from his phone, and you try not to let the mesmerized look on his face get to your head.

“You’re looking real sexy right now, princess,” he admits – pocketing his phone as he walks to the front of your stall. “I knew it. Blue really suits you.”

“Quit saying weird things,” you mumble, shyly draping your arms over your chest. “Do you want me to get it or not?”

“More importantly, do you want to get it?”

“H-Huh?”

All of a sudden, Joshua pushes you back inside the stall – locking the door behind him before you can utter a protest. There’s a serious look on his face that you don’t get to see a lot, but you don’t get to ponder on it much. He’s quick to place both of his large hands on your shoulders, making you face the full-body mirror inside without any delay.

“Do you not like receiving gifts, gorgeous?” he whispers, and you hate how your skin prickles at the new pet name. “You’ve been so against everything I bought for you all day, even though you’re the one who picked them out yourself.”

“Joshua –”

One of his hands starts to descend, brushing across your arm and onto the curve of your waist. His other hand teases the straps of your bikini top, sending involuntary shivers running down your spine. To make things worse, your breath hitches as you meet Joshua’s gaze in the mirror – piercing doe eyes holding you hostage with a single glance.

“Or maybe you don’t like receiving gifts from me,” he considers. “Well, I am a bad guy. If you want me to cut it out, you can tell me up front. I just hate seeing that look on your face.”

“...What look?” you whisper – trying your best to distract yourself from the heat of his touch.

Joshua sighs as he rubs your exposed skin tenderly. “The look you make when you’re sad. You’ve always been making that look ever since we left for the city. Honestly, I’ve even considered sending you back home a couple of times -”

“No,” you cut him off sharply. “D-Don’t send me back. Please. Anywhere but there.”

You don’t even notice that your own hands moved on their own accord – palms placed on top of his much larger ones from where they now rest on your hips. Joshua stares at your reflection with wide eyes before he sighs, burying his face in the hollow of your neck.

This is a dangerous position to be in. He easily covers your body with his own, and you can only do so much to hold back the noises threatening to spill from your lips as Joshua massages your sensitive skin.

“Then why do you keep refusing me?” he murmurs, teeth grazing the column of your throat. “From what I recall, you’re the one who came to me, princess. I thought you’d be more thick-skinned than that. Other women would kill to be in your place, you know.”

“That’s because I don’t get you, Joshua,” you argue, biting your lip when he starts to suck on your skin. “Y-You can be an ass at times, but you still do all these nice things for me anyway. You’re even splurging a shit-ton of money for no good reason. I get that you’re loaded but…why? Why are you being so kind to me?”

He lets out a soft laugh that reverberates sweetly across his chest – you feel the vibrations from where he presses himself behind you, and you have to clench your thighs together to stem your pooling desire. “You’re not used to being treated well by the people around you, huh?”

You scoff – the accusation stinging more than it should. “You think?”

Joshua doesn’t respond immediately – letting himself get a feel of your pliant body for as long as you allowed it first. He tries to familiarize himself with how your skin feels against his fingers; where your erogenous zones are, and the other spots that make you blush like a schoolgirl. It’s a bit selfish of him to delay such an important answer, but Joshua is nothing if he’s not selfish.

“When I was assigned to go to Korea, my…employer gave me an ultimatum – one that involves my family back home,” he tells you quietly. “If I don’t go back to L.A. with substantial results, they’ll be the one to suffer the punishment.”

Suddenly, you could see through the sensual haze that hung between the both of you seconds prior. Shock paints itself raw on your face as you blurt out, “You were blackmailed?” God, no wonder he didn’t want to talk about his family.

“Heh. I’m used to being blackmailed, pretty girl. It’s part of my job,” Joshua speaks nonchalantly. “But…that doesn’t mean I didn’t drag my ass here, nearly overwhelmed with anxiety. I’d kill a man if I was ordered to do it, but if my family’s lives are at stake? Anyone would be terrified.”

You feel your heart sink at the way his expression shifts into something more melancholic. Joshua exchanges his suggestive caresses for a proper embrace. He hugs you from behind, breathing in the scent of cheap shampoo still lingering in your hair.

“What does that have to do with me?” you whisper. “I don’t understand…”

“When you bumped into me at Andong that night, you kind of snapped me out of it,” he chuckles. “I couldn’t think of anything else but my job and my parents, but then you came along. Honestly, I was only supposed to help you get away from the assholes chasing you but…”

“I ran after you…” you continue, feeling more embarrassed than you should.

Oh. You don’t even have the right to feel like shit for being with Joshua because you chose to be here, dammit! Why do you keep forgetting that?

“Exactly.” Joshua hums as he snakes an arm in front of your stomach, pushing your body against his chest. “I’m not always this territorial, you know, but you practically offered yourself up. Do you know what that does to a guy like me?”

You shouldn’t find it so fucking hot when his other hand trails up from your navel, your chest, all the way to your neck – thick fingers pressing down your throat with ample pressure. Your gazes meet in the mirror, and you don’t miss the near-manic glint in his eyes as Joshua holds onto you possessively.

“Now tell me, princess. Do you want the swimsuit or not?”

You can’t help the shuddering sigh that escapes your lips. At this point, you have no choice but to let him buy you the damn thing. You’re pretty sure Joshua’s aggressive display is enough to make you soak through your bottoms, and it’s not like he’s going to take no for an answer either.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper as he eases his hand away from your neck. “I’m just…not used to wearing all of this. It’s like I’m not meant to. I’ve always just settled with clothes that go on sale, you know.”

“...Well, how do you feel about the stuff I give you?”

“Um. They’re all pretty, I guess?”

“Do you wanna wear them?”

“O-Of course.”

Finally, Joshua peels himself away – only to twirl you around to face him directly. His tousled black hair is sticking out every which way, but all you can focus on are his rich brown irises, nearly drowning you in those endless pools of honey.

“Then you better wear them unapologetically,” he tells you, tucking a tuft of your hair behind your ear. “A princess needs only the finest garbs. Why do you think I call you that all the time, huh?”

“To get a rise out of me?”

Joshua barks out a laugh. “I guess I can’t say no to that. But anyways, the point still stands: I’ll give you anything and everything in the world. All you have to do is ask.”

After what seems like an eternity inside that damn dressing room, you manage to kick him out of the stall before putting your clothes back on. You end up replaying everything he just told you like a broken record. Anything and everything? This man is a different kind of delusional.

But you can’t really afford to think about it much. Just as you thought, the evidence of your rather…risqué encounter with Joshua is lathered across the inseam of your bottoms, and you shamefully wipe it off with a napkin you nabbed from the restaurant.

When the two of you head back to the cashier to make your nth purchase of the day, you’re vaguely aware of the other sales persons stealing glances at you and Joshua. Well, if you were in their shoes, you’d certainly find it odd why it took almost thirty minutes for you to try on a damn swimsuit. But fortunately, Joshua's reputation precedes him even at a shopping center all the way in Seoul. None of them dare to speak to him, much more raise any complaints.

“Couldn’t you have waited to sit down and have the talk with me back in our hotel room?” you groan once you make it out of the store. “I’m sure those guys think you fucked me in the stall or something.”

“Would you like that?” Joshua teases, and you’re sure he would’ve pulled you close to him if only his hands weren't full of shopping bags. “Does my princess get off on the idea of being fucked silly in a dressing room?”

“Don’t push it, asshole.”

You meant to punctuate the words with a borderline scowl, but all that makes itself known on your face is a sheepish smile that you can’t quite bite down. Joshua notices this, of course, but instead of making you flustered about it like usual, he offers to flag down a taxi on the way back to the hotel instead of walking.

The last thing he needs is to ruin your new pedicure, after all.

...

A week later, you and Joshua arrive at Jeju Island.

You didn’t even consider the possibility of this place having an airport. All this time, you assumed that sea travel was the way to go for them. But you were surprisingly greeted by the sight of a modern-looking terminal as you and Joshua waited for your luggage. He’s been quiet for the whole ride, and you’d be lying if you said that doesn’t concern you even a little. Joshua not running his mouth just to piss you off means something was up.

But when the two of you finally make it outside, he’s back to his usual self.

“So, do you want to sample Jeju's finest mandarin orchards, or do you want to settle down at the hotel first?” he asks with a chipper smile. “Though you do look like you want to take a nap.”

“I do,” you reply, yawning as you lean against his shoulder. “Can’t we just cuddle today?”

“Oh? You’re offering cuddles for free? Who are you and what did you do my princess?”

“...Cringe.”

“Wha – Did you just say I’m cringe?!”

Your banter is interrupted by a man in a suit clearing his throat. You stare at him with thinly veiled confusion, wondering what he needed.

“Sir Joshua. We’ve been anticipating your arrival.”

…Sir Joshua?

“Oh, Chan. I didn’t think you’d be the one stationed here,” your companion greets the man with a smile – plucking your duffel bag from your grasp before handing it to the newcomer. “Tell the driver to bring us to the hotel first.”

Chan nods swiftly. “Understood, sir.”

That’s how you find yourself in the backseat of a high-end limousine – speeding through the scenic roads of Jeju as you and Joshua bask in the silence. He’s busy talking to someone on the phone, but you can’t bring yourself to eavesdrop on their conversation. It feels wrong to do so.

Instead, you let yourself wonder what he has planned. After he fulfills his mission, what then? Is he going to take you back to L.A.? You’re not so deluded to think that he’ll stay here with you when he has a family waiting for him. But the idea of traveling all the way to his homeland makes you a little queasy. You’ve just gotten used to visiting far-away places in Korea. You think you’re going to need a bit more momentum before packing up to the other side of the world.

…Does he work well in the cold? You barely see him sweat even in the humid air of the summer. Maybe Joshua is the type of person who can easily adapt to the current climate. When that train of curiosity starts to pick up, though, you realize that it’s a little hard to stop.

You want to know more about him. About his habits, his quirks, his family, and his work. He obviously likes you enough to keep showering you with gifts. Of course, you’ve tried asking a few questions about those in the past, and Joshua merely brushed them off with a laugh.

But things are different now. Ever since that…fateful encounter in the dressing room, he’s been more open with you. More up front about the things going on inside his head. If you push the right buttons, then you might be able to understand him a bit better.

Joshua pockets his phone about five minutes later, leaning against you before circling his arms around your waist. “Hmph. Can’t believe I’m still forced to think about work.”

“You can always just switch off your phone,” you suggest jokingly.

He only sighs in response, and you pat his head gingerly as a means of comfort. “By the way, I planned on scheduling a trip for Sunrise Peak, but turns out, it's closed to tourists for the weekend.” Joshua looks up at you, pouting. “Sorry, princess. I can only take you to the beach.”

He was planning a visit to Sunrise Peak? Well, you haven’t seen it with your own eyes yet, but the fact that Joshua is intuitive enough to hazard guesses about what you might and might not like…

You want to familiarize yourself with him, the same way he so effortlessly does with you.

Not giving him any leeway to pull back, you grab his face and mesh your lips on top of his. Joshua doesn’t respond for a few seconds – and you can almost imagine him staring at you with wide, brown eyes. But eventually, he laughs into the kiss before pressing his mouth firmly against yours.

“That’s fine by me,” you murmur.

As long as I’m with you.

...

Your hotel room back at Seoul was one of the best you’ve seen, but the one here on Jeju just set the bar even higher.

Once the two of you have settled down in your suite, you gaze around in awe at the interior. Everything is mostly made out of wood, which further adds to the appeal of it all. Seashell curtains, exotic carpets, hand-made wind chimes – they have it all. Not to mention, this room in particular comes with a private pool just by the balcony, along with a view that overlooks the sea. Joshua teases you about how excited you are – just like a kid on a school trip – but you decide to let his impudence slide.

“Aren’t you going to swim with me?”

You gaze at him sulkily by the edge of the pool, watching as Joshua smokes a cigarette on top of a folding chair. He’s already changed into his swimming trunks – having removed his shirt and other accessories. Yet he still refuses to get in the pool with you. Still, Joshua gets up from his chair with a soft laugh, padding closer as he crouches over the edge.

“You should know about the delicate art of having a smoke while watching your girl have fun,” he tells you, taking a drag as if to prove a point.

Your eye twitches. “You’re the one who picked out my swimsuit, so you better have fun with me!”

Despite all his bravado, you don’t miss the look on Joshua's face when you yank on his leg – the forward momentum easily making him topple into the swimming pool. You let out an unflattering laugh as he flounders in the water for a few seconds before Joshua rises back to the surface with an annoyed look on his face.

“Hey, I don’t remember you being this much of a brat, princess,” he grumbles, picking off the doused cigarette floating in the pool before tossing it back on the concrete.

“That’s my way of telling you to quit,” you say, snickering to yourself. “Seriously, it always smells like cigarettes in our old hotel room. The smoke detector must’ve been busted or something… Joshua?”

While you prattled on about the fact that you disliked a habit that he probably formed years before he even met you, Joshua waded through the water and cornered you by the side of the pool. You gulp, observing how the water glistens across his skin as his tattooed chest stands proud for you to see.

“You know, I noticed a little something over the past few days,” he whispers – mouth twitching into a no-good smile as he reaches a hand to cup your jaw. “You really like staring at my chest, don’t you?”

“Wrong. I like staring at your ink.”

“But it’s still staring, isn’t it?” Joshua breathes out an airy laugh before planting a kiss on your forehead – the same way he did that time at the beauty salon. The patch of skin that’s grazed by his lips burns when he pulls away, and you hate how the sensation spreads across the rest of your face.

“How about we get you inked someday?” he offers.

“Me? Getting a tattoo?” You blink. “Uh, I used to think about getting one when I was still in college, but…?!”

All of a sudden, this bastard places his hands on your waist before hoisting you out of the water like you weigh nothing more than a bag of rice. You scowl at him, thrashing around and splashing water everywhere. But Joshua doesn’t seem to be bothered by all your flailing. He even seems to be observing your lower body like he’s trying to figure out how to chop up each part for later.

“Hmm… I think one on your thigh would suit you,” he says, lowering you onto the edge of the pool. “Navel tattoos are pretty hot, too.”

“But what’s the point if no one can see?” you huff.

“Hey, my tatts are always covered,” Joshua reminds you. “That’s because only a select few are deserving to see them.”

His words ignite a surge of heat inside your chest. If you weren’t blushing before, you certainly are now. “...You think I’m deserving, then?”

Your companion spreads your legs wider, easing himself into the space between as he holds your thighs firmly in his hands. Joshua stares into your eyes with a gaze that’s meant to devour. You’ve always found it odd how much self-control he can actually exercise. Apart from the first night he tried to pounce on you, and that little escapade in the dressing room, he never once tried to make any moves on you again. For someone who talks big about how possessive and territorial he can be, Joshua is being awfully ascetic.

“Of course you are,” he murmurs. “Once we’re done here, I’ll bring you to the best tattoo artist in L.A. He’s the one who did both of my pieces.”

Something about the promise in his words makes your heart leap with delight. He’s…going to bring you to Los Angeles?

“Are you going to let me meet your parents, too?” you half-joke, shying away from his intense gaze.

“Why not?” he asks. “My mom loves independent girls. You’ve only been relying on yourself before you met me, right? That’s pretty awesome.”

You shrink away from the compliment, unused to being praised about that segment of your life. “I’m not sure how she’s going to react about me being a hostess, though.”

Joshua shakes his head. “Believe it or not, you’re one of the few people who can put me in my place, sweet girl. I’m convinced that she automatically takes to someone like that.”

“So you’re a problem child, then?”

“Ehh, can’t say I’m not.”

Just when you thought he’ll finally let his self-restraint snap, you and Joshua end up talking about his life in America by the poolside. He tells you about how his father taught him how to fish in the lake the next county over, how to hunt and survive out in the wilderness. He tells you about his mother, and how he’d do anything just to guarantee her safety; even if it comes at the expense of his own. He willingly divulges all his fond memories of his hometown, but not once does Joshua allude to anything involving his work.

You try not to take it so personally. After all, in spite of the drastic development in your…friendship? Relationship? Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re someone he hasn’t really known all that long.

But as the two of you marvel at the twilight sun sinking on the faraway horizon, it seems that Joshua managed to read your mind.

“Can you believe it’s only been two weeks since we met?” he chuckles, hand inching closer to rest on top of yours.

“Nope,” you sigh. “I feel like I’ve known you far longer than that.”

“Heh. Time really flies when you’re having fun, does it?”

You couldn’t have said it better yourself. Honestly, you can’t even recall the last time you had fun. During the past few months, each day passed by painfully slowly. Despite being adored as Rei the hostess, you never had fun back at the bar; nor did you have fun coming home to your alcoholic of a father.

As you glance over at Joshua – whose face is generously lit up by the soft orange light – you wonder if it’s really okay to turn your back on your life and just live the rest of your days by his side. It’s only been two weeks, but there was never a dull moment with him. But can you even afford to be more selfish than you already are?

“You really have a staring problem, you know that?”

“...Do you have a sixth sense or something?”

“I’m a trained fighter, princess. I’m supposed to know when I’m being watched.”

There it is – his first casual mention of his line of work.

You can’t exactly narrow down the possibilities of what exactly it is that Joshua does for a living. You’re pretty sure that he’s in the same type of business as those loan sharks, but on a much larger scale. What’s more is that he’s trained to fight – as if his purpose lies more on confrontation than diplomatic relations. Him being stationed all the way here in Korea gives you a slight clue that he might be trying to settle the score with someone on behalf of his employer, though you can’t really say for sure.

But…you purposely shove all these thoughts in the back of your head as you lace your fingers around his neck – bringing his forehead against yours. Joshua doesn’t resist your advances. He even gazes at you with the prettiest eyes you’ve ever seen, a hint of fondness shining in his vibrant irises.

Before meeting the man in front of you, you’ve always assumed that love takes time. You can’t call it love if you don’t even know the person that well! This is the very same thing you used to tell patrons who wanted to start a serious relationship with you back at the bar. But Joshua?

You don’t know how, but he managed to fill that void that’s long been tearing your heart to shreds. That seemingly ephemeral emptiness; the hollow space resting deep inside your chest – he filled it all up in the span of two weeks. Whether it be with all those expensive gifts and trinkets, or his worthwhile company alone, you don’t feel empty anymore. You feel so blissfully whole that you’d gladly lose yourself in him if it meant you never had to feel alone ever again.

“Shua, can I ask for something?”

“Heh. This is new. You never ask for anything,” he comments, and you still smell traces of tobacco in his breath. “What is it? Anything my princess wants, I’ll give to her in a heartbeat.”

On any other day, you would’ve chided him for saying something so cheesy – as if you haven’t gotten used to the way he speaks to you. But now, with the early evening breeze blowing all around, and the man who reminded you how it feels to be alive sitting so, so close to you…

“Can you make me yours?” you whisper.

Joshua stares at you, a low laugh rumbling in his bare chest. “You were already mine the moment you asked to come with me. Or are you forgetting that?”

Hot. His hands are hot against your hips – going lower and lower as he teases the ridge of your bottoms. God, you just want him to get it over with. You want him to grab your ass and take you by the poolside right here, right now. But you know, all too well, that Joshua isn’t going to let himself fall into the depths of his own depravity like that. Not until you give him a clearer sign.

“No…” you murmur, hoisting your thigh over his hips until you’re straddling his lap. “I want you –” You press your breasts against his lean chest. “To make me –” Your fingers trail up his neck, tangling them in his wild black hair.

“Yours.”

You expect him to tease you like he always does – with that irritatingly handsome smile of his. But Joshua's eyes grow half-lidded as you press yourself closer to him, and you could’ve sworn his grip on your hips only became tighter.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, pretty girl,” he warns you huskily. “I don’t want you to end up being the sore loser after I’m done with you.”

You chuckle, lips grazing his forehead, his eyelids, his nose. When you reach the spot just over his lips, you let your own hover for just a few seconds longer.

“I know,” you tell him. “I know, and I’m ready to lose.”

If it’s you, I won’t ever mind.

Joshua lets out a strangled noise, like he’s barely holding on to what’s left of his own sanity. You’re slightly elated at the information. That just means he’s about to let himself go. To ravage you like you deserved.

You’re not sure if it’s because of his own urgency or he’s just showing off. But Joshua makes a quick display of strength by picking you up while you’re still on his lap and getting back on his feet at the same time. He wastes no time mending your lips together – carnal and hungry and all sorts of impatient. Your legs immediately circle around his hips, and you bemoan all the days you wasted not getting kissed stupid by him.

But you console yourself with the idea that right now, you have all the time in the world.

...

The floorboards are damp with pool water, and so are the sheets. But you hardly notice it as Joshua strips you of the swimsuit he so carefully picked out for you. He tosses the spandex somewhere on the floor, and you even hear the wet plop as it hits.

You feel like you should be cold – fresh out of the swimming pool and all – but the heat of Joshua’s body steadily permeates into yours, and can’t help but lean closer, closer, as close as you can –

“I love you,” you whisper in-between kisses, feeling the evidence of his own arousal grinding against your own. You think the words don’t have as much weight when you’re doing something so openly intimate, but you don’t care.

He laughs, the sound sending tingles straight to your toes. “You sure you’re not just getting caught up in the moment, princess?”

You still have it in you to flash him a sulky pout, bringing his face right in front of yours as you spare him all the adoration you have in a single look. You desperately want him to know just how much you love him. You want him to carve this moment into memory and think of it even when the two of you are apart.

You want to anchor yourself so deep into Joshua that he can’t forget you even if he tries.

“Do you think I’m lying?” you whisper.

He sighs. “No.”

When he mouths the words I love you back in his own lust-fueled kisses, your heart soars; your body heats up – becoming more and more receptive to his lingering touch. Joshua’s lips never stray too far, even as he lathers the slick that’s collected between your thighs. His long fingers tease your entrance with the intention of seeing you squirm, and you hate how much you love it.

“Been waiting for you to come to me…for so long,” he growls, sliding two fingers inside you with embarrassing ease. “Do you know how hard it is to control myself around you? Especially after that time in the dressing room?”

Huh, so even he still thinks about that day. You giggle at the ferociousness of his words, but the wanton look in his eyes softens when you caress the side of his face.

“Two weeks isn’t a long time, Shua,” you tell him.

“It’s long enough if you’re as pent up as I am.”

As he works his fingers between your thighs, you can’t help but sneak a glance at the hard length straining against his abdomen. It’s been a while, so your mouth practically waters at the thought of Joshua sinking his thick cock inside you – fast and hard and everything you’ve ever dreamed.

But your attention is promptly ripped away when he curls his fingers just right, catching on a patch of spongy flesh that has you writhing underneath him. Joshua smirks at that, uncoiling his thick digits as he continues slowly pumping them inside. Your juices are starting to drip on his hand – a testament to just how badly you want him.

When he makes you come, all you see are the vibrant brown of his eyes – like honey in the spring. Joshua looks at you with so much love and longing at the same time, you nearly sob in his embrace.

Despite the implication that he’s no longer going to be patient, Joshua lets you reel your own consciousness back from the throes of pleasure – kissing your forehead tenderly as he caresses your sides.

“Do you want to go all the way?” he asks, but you already see him stroking his own cock from where he lays beside you. “Remember, I won’t force you into anything you don’t like, princess.”

You shake your head, still lightheaded from your orgasm. But still, the clarity of your desire shines through. “I…want you, Shua. Want you inside me.”

He sighs in a way like he just doesn’t know what to do with you. At your request, Joshua reluctantly peels himself away – earning a mewl in protest from you that he appeases with a kiss.

“Stay put, pretty girl,” he murmurs. “I’ll make you feel good in a minute.”

Joshua climbs out of bed and walks over to the dresser buck naked. But you can’t even bring yourself to tease because he’s got such a shapely ass. Not to mention, you get to see the dragon tattoo on his back again. Even if you’ve developed a fondness for the twin koi fish on his chest, there’s just something about this piece in particular that’s always left an impression on you.

True to his word, Joshua comes back to bed with you as he tears a condom open with his teeth. You have half the mind to tell him that opening it like that isn’t very safe, but when he rolls the rubber on top of his throbbing length, you’re suddenly too bashful to speak up.

He spreads your thighs apart, making himself at home in the space in between. You just know he’s getting a kick out of the way your body trembles as he rubs the head of his cock along your glistening seam.

“Shua,” you whine.

“You want this inside you?” Joshua teases, dipping himself into your entrance only to pull away before you can even feel an ounce of satisfaction. “C’mon, talk to me, princess. You know I like it when you’re being honest about the things you want.”

“Please…”

“Hm? What was that?”

You hate him. You hate him so much that the feeling gradually bleeds into love. And if you aren’t already whipped for this jerk, you don’t know what this obsessive feeling inside you is anymore.

“Please fuck me,” you whimper. “Make me come on your cock.”

Joshua breathes sharply through his nose as he leans forward, grabbing both of your wrists as he pins them above your head with one hand. He uses the other to guide his length to where you want him most, and the moment before he finally, finally breaches your entrance, he whispers:

“What the princess wants, the princess gets.”

He muffles the broken moan that catches in your throat with his own lips – his lean arm going around your waist as he presses his hips flush against yours. You’re dripping enough arousal onto the sheets that Joshua doesn’t even have to take it as slow as he expected. You instinctively clench around the hard length inside you, memorizing the way he stretches out your walls, and Joshua responds in earnest with an impertinent groan.

There’s no room for words anymore. All you know is the sound of skin against skin and your mouth almost never parting from his. Joshua fills you until the void you feared might swallow you whole becomes nothing but a tiny speck in your soul. You wonder if it’s enough to be two separate people, and not just one. His touches, his kisses – they aren’t enough. And even when he pushes himself so impossibly deep, you still find yourself wanting, craving, yearning for more.

You’re insatiable. You love Joshua so much that your heart overflows with it. Maybe you’re simply deluded because he’s the first person who’s treated you like you were important; and not just some forgettable girl he met at a bar. But that doesn’t change the fact that you want him to hold you, and touch you, and love you until you forget everything else but the syllables of his name.

He practically folds you into the bed a few moments later as he mouths his professions of love along the curve of your neck. You lock your legs around his waist to keep him as close as possible – not wanting to be apart for even a millisecond. And Joshua seems to share the same sentiments as he embraces so you’d never leave his grasp.

I need you, you wish to tell him. He’s already giving you so much and more, but you still need him. It’s the kind of hankering that nearly scares you because how can you ever live without him now? But the flames of your own, all-consuming desire quickly recede once he captures your lips in a soft, almost sensual kiss.

“I love you,” Joshua tells you aloud.

You know it should be impossible because your lovers from the past have never even tried to get you to orgasm once they were done with you. But the moment he utters those words, and shifts his hips at such a delicious angle, he promptly pushes you over the edge – making you thrash and shudder underneath his weight as you mutter his name like a string of prayers.

You just hope that the gods are generous enough to let you have him forever.

…

The beaches in Seoul and Andong pale in comparison to Jeju's – you promptly realize this when Joshua brings you out to the shore a few days later.

“I’ve never really enjoyed going to beaches until now,” you admit, laughing a bit as Joshua reaches for your hand and twines his fingers with yours. “I’m surprised you even have the time to come all the way here despite being on the job.”

He shrugs casually, and at the same time you care to admire how he looks in a tropical-printed button up that’s completely undone at the front. “Well, my deadline isn’t all that strict, pretty girl. I’m sure I can afford a quick getaway with you.”

You smile at him sweetly while the both of you stroll along the beachfront. Sometimes, the waves reach out to the shore far enough for the water to reach your toes, and you squeal in delight every time you do. You’d be lying if you say you didn’t expect Joshua to tease, but when you look at him, he merely looks back like you’re the most precious thing in the world.

Like all lovers spending their morning on the beach, the two of you agreed to collect the prettiest seashells you can find. Though it was a bit hard, since there are a couple of signs indicating which ones you’re allowed to bring home, and which ones you should leave alone. Something about maintaining the ecosystem around the shore.

But about half an hour before lunch time, Joshua calls out to you at the edge of the property.

The sundress he made you wear today flutters around your thighs as you make your way to his side. He’s crouched down on the sand as he picks up a peculiar brown shard.

“Wait,” you start, taking a closer look. “Is that a seashell? A broken seashell?”

“Seems like it,” he replies, retrieving the other pieces he can still salvage from the sand. “This doesn’t look like all the others we’ve seen though”

Joshua takes your hand and pressing the fragments into your palm. When you take a look at them, you realize the pieces are the same color as his eyes.

“Do you…” you begin shyly, “want to make matching necklaces out of them? They’re a bit jagged now, but I know a jeweler back in Andong who –”

“Oh? So you do want to go back,” he jokes.

“Fine, never mind then.”

Joshua’s laughter is slightly muted by the oncoming waves. Once your momentary annoyance fades, the two of you sit on the sand with your legs sprawled – letting the water tickle your toes.

“I know I made a pretty bad joke just now, but can I ask you something?” he wonders.

“What is it?”

“It’s about the loan your dad supposedly took without your knowledge.” Joshua starts tracing idle shapes in the sand as he speaks. “You seemed in deep shit the night I met you, and I just wanted to know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

With his money and influence, you’re sure that Joshua could pull a few strings to get those debt collectors to lay off you. But it won’t really matter if you never go back to Andong, right? Still, you tell him about the five million won that your father suddenly loaned. How those loan sharks told you that he said that you’re going to pay for it all – on top of your remaining balance for the month. Just recalling it was already enough to piss you off all over again.

At the end of your story, though, Joshua ends up snorting with amusement.

“Sounds to me like you’re being tricked, princess,” he chuckles. “No one can rack up a debt that high unless you’re a trusted confidant. I’m sure the Korean mafia has limits to how much they’re willing to loan other people at a certain given time. Those loan sharks probably tricked you and forged the document because you were paying out the previous debt properly.”

Your jaw practically drops to the ground. “They tricked me?”

“Seems like it. And now, you have grounds for a lawsuit! Maybe. I’m not sure, but I can help you pay for a lawyer if it all gets down to it.” Joshua shrugs. “Anyway, now that you know that the loan was probably a scam, why don’t you go back and talk to your old man? Isn’t he the only family you have?”

Your dad… Well, now you feel a bit bad for judging him so harshly. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s an alcoholic and a gambler, but you do see him trying to be better from time to time.

“Yeah. My mom died when I was in high school, and it’s just been us ever since.” You tell him all this without meeting his eyes, unsure of how to react if he gazes at you with pity. But Joshua doesn’t offer his condolences, nor does he try to cheer you up. Instead, he suggests something that you probably should do.

“You should go back to your father,” he whispers. “I’m sure he’s worried sick.”

The waves wash upon the shore again, and this time, you actually turn around to look at him. Is he serious? Is this the same, so-called territorial man you met two weeks ago? If any of the things he’s told you were true, that’s the last thing you expected for Joshua to say to your face.

“If your father isn’t behind that loan fiasco, then you should at least let him know you’re okay, princess,” he tells you sincerely, rubbing your hand with comforting circles. “You’re the last family he has left, and I’m sure you know what loss does to a person.”

You sit there in the silence, letting Joshua’s words simmer inside your mind. You suppose that he’s right about everything. Those assumptions you made about your father are unfair, and you shouldn’t just abandon him now that Joshua helped clear up the misunderstanding. You know all these things, and you recognize them as what’s truthful and right.

But…why does Joshua sound like he’s saying goodbye?

“Okay, I’ll do that,” you say, forcing your voice not to tremble. “But once you finish your mission, promise that you’ll take me to L.A.?”

He stares at you with equal parts surprise and disbelief – his handsome face twisting with a grin so lovely, you wonder why he never smiled at you like this before. Joshua shakes his head before rising back to his feet, hoisting you up by your waist as he spins you around.

You shriek in bewilderment, telling him to put you back down. He doesn’t relent right away, but once Joshua finally heeds your desperate request he sets you down on the sand – placing a chaste kiss on your forehead.

“Alright, princess. What do you want to do there?”

You puff out your cheeks, not liking how it sounds as if he’s teasing you. Nonetheless, you give him the straightest answer you can manage.

“I want to meet your family. Your parents. Your friends. Everyone,” you tell him. “I want to go fishing because you love it so much, and it helps you meditate.”

Joshua hums. “America is leagues different from Korea, though. You sure about that?”

“Hmph. You’ll make a nice tour guide, won't you?”

“Heh.” He moves closer to wrap his arms around your frame, embracing you so firmly that you can’t help but melt into his touch. “Of course I will, pretty girl. But what do you want to do after we do all that?”

You flash him a puzzled look. “What?”

“Since we’re planning so far ahead, we might as well plan until the end, right?” He chuckles, one hand going to the side of your face as he touches you tenderly. “What else does my demanding princess wish for?”

For a moment, you consider his question seriously. What happens after? Well…

“I want to travel,” you say. “I took up an international relations course when I was in college ‘cause I always wanted to see the world.”

Joshua nods. “And?”

You gulp – unsure if what you’re about to say is a bit selfish or not. “Well, getting to see some places around Korea with you was the best time of my life. And I’m sure it’ll be just as fun if we see the world together.”

It sounds like such a juvenile dream, now that you think about it. But sometimes, even the most childish desires can lead to the most unforgettable experiences. You only decided to tag along with Joshua on a whim, and it turned out to be one of the best choices you’ve ever made.

You just hope he feels the same way, too.

He nods again, a pesky smile rooting itself on his face. When Joshua kisses the hand that isn’t clutching shards of broken brown seashells, you can’t help but blush.

“What the princess wants, the princess gets.”

It’s already high noon by the time the two of you conclude your seashell hunting session, and Joshua is already complaining about breakfast not being heavy enough. You let your gaze linger around the beautiful beachfront just a bit longer, wondering if you can visit this place again with him in the future.

“Joshua?”

He pauses mid-way in his rant, gazing at you with curious, brown eyes. “Yeah?”

You crack him a warm smile. “Can you tell me your real name?”

The ocean’s waves reach your ears again in the silence, as Joshua stands in front of you like you’d just unraveled all the secrets of the universe. You don’t miss the way his emotions seemingly conflict in his eyes, but in the end, he spares you the truth anyway.

“Jisoo.”

“Do you love me, Jisoo?”

He crosses the distance between you before you can even breathe, kissing you so deeply that you’re a little concerned that some of the hotel staff might be watching and judging you on the sidelines. But you know better than to give a damn about what others think when you’re with Joshua – no, Jisoo.

When he pulls away, you can almost see the ocean glimmering in your lover’s eyes.

“More than anything in the world.”

...

Despite that romantic morning, you can’t help but feel like something bad’s about to happen. Your mother used to tell you that you should always trust your gut. And right now, your gut is telling you that everything that’s making you unbelievably happy right now is going to disappear right before your eyes.

The anxiousness that comes with all that foreboding does little to help you keep up appearances, too. During dinner, Joshua – because he asked you to keep calling him that in public for your own safety – was telling you about the time he almost got run over as a kid, and you completely spaced out in the middle of it.

Of course, your sharp-eyed lover is keen enough to notice just how distracted you were. You attempted to make excuses for your lack of focus, but one thing led to another, and you ended up spilling wine all over your new sundress.

And now here you are, sulking in your bedroom as Joshua makes the arrangements to have your dress dry-cleaned on the intercom before you have to leave.

“Is something wrong?”

His voice comes out so softly, you nearly miss it. He sits with you at the edge of the bed, reaching out to clasp your hand in his much larger ones. The gesture is comforting, but your unease doesn’t fade away.

Should you tell him about this weird gut feeling? But you don’t want him to worry about you when this is probably just something trivial. Yet, you’ve always been weak to your own emotions. Before you can even cook up another half-baked excuse, the tears have already started streaming down your face.

“Everything’s going so well,” you sniffle, turning to him with misty eyes. “Y-You’re right in front of me but… Why do I feel like you’re already slipping away?”

Joshua's face doesn’t betray any sort of emotion. His honeyed eyes merely flicker down to where your hands are intertwined, and you don’t know if you should take that as a good sign or not.

“I’ll always be with you, you know,” he whispers, letting one of his hands trail up to the new necklace sitting on your throat before the other moves to wipe away your tears. “Always.”

A traveling jeweler offered to fashion a necklace out of the seashell fragments you found once you got back from the beachfront. And while this isn’t the work of your acquaintance from Andong, they managed to carve out the shell to resemble a heart. They even charged you for the labor only, and gave the chain for free. At first, you wanted to refuse, but these pesky feelings were already bothering you at the beach.

Is it so bad for you to want a tangible representation of Joshua’s promises?

The fact that he wears a similar necklace eases your troubles a bit. It makes you think that maybe it’s really all just in your head. Though you know better than to think you’re out of the woods.

That night, he undresses you with unspoken apologies imbued in each kiss. You wonder if he’s sorry for unintentionally making you feel this way or something else. You don’t know. You don’t care. Because when you’re on the verge of collapsing from all these unpleasant feelings, it’s Joshua who holds you together before you can shatter into a thousand pieces at his feet.

That’s right… Joshua – rather, Jisoo always fills you to the brim. He fills you with so much love that you can almost forget what it feels to be void; what it feels to be empty.

But in the midst of it, he pulls away with a regretful sigh. “We already used up the condoms I have, princess. This is as far as we can go.”

“It’s – It’s alright.”

He snaps his head in your direction, beautiful brown eyes rigid with shock. But you don’t give him any leeway to feel guilt nor hesitation. When you pull him down with you to the bed, he doesn’t strain against your touch.

Jisoo is the reason why the life you thought was so dull suddenly has more color to it now. He taught you to have a little more hope for the future. To reevaluate the past for what it actually is. And most of all, he’s the one who taught you how to treasure yourself as you are in the present.

If this is the last night you’ll ever share with him, then you’re going to make the most out of it.

...

“So we hop on a plane to Incheon, a train to Andong, and talk to my dad.” You list down the day’s itinerary before glancing at Joshua for confirmation. “Sounds like a plan, right?”

“I dunno, princess. Meeting the parents always makes me nervous,” he chuckles.

“...So you have met the parents of other girls.”

“Hey, that was only one time!”

You and Joshua managed to head over to the airport fairly quickly the next day – with a lot of time to kill before your plane actually leaves the island. The two of you decide to hang out in the waiting lounge, but this reminds you to not be too early for your flights next time. Apart from those weird negative feelings you had last night, boredom is your greatest enemy.

About thirty minutes before boarding time, you carelessly let slip that you’re craving some coffee right now. Joshua is quick to get on his feet and get you one from a nearby vending machine, of course. But just when he’s about to take a seat right beside you, he blurts out:

“I’m really glad I met you, princess.” He smiles, handing you your drink. “Even if you’re growing more and more bratty as the days go by.”

“You’re the one who made me like this, so deal with it.” You huff, before following it up with a much nicer: “But…I’m glad I met you, too, Jisoo.”

You half-expect him to clamp a hand around your mouth for calling him by his real name, but Joshua simply lets his head rest against your shoulder, holding your hand as tenderly as he always does.

“Hey, I’m just going to go out for a real quick smoke.”

Joshua informs you of his unnecessary need for a cancer stick just when you’ve settled into your seat on the plane. You scowl at him as he places that knapsack full of cash into your arms.

“We’re about to take off, you idiot!” you whisper. “Can’t that wait until we land in Seoul?”

“Nope.” He beams at you. “I won’t be long, don’t worry~”

And then he’s off.

“Goddamn chainsmokers,” you mutter, angrily plopping the damn backpack to the vacant seat right next to you.

As you watch the scenery in the airport unfold from the window to your left, you catch sight of your own reflection despite the bright light outside. Your hands trail up to the modified seashell around your neck, twirling it fondly between your fingers. This is the first solid proof of the time you spent with Joshua. You’re sure that he’s going to spoil you with even more gifts when you get to L.A., but this one is probably going to be your favorite for a long, long time.

After all, this seashell is the same color as his eyes.

Suddenly, you hear a clicking sound coming from above, and when you glance around, you see that the seatbelt sign is lit up. A soft voice flits through the speakers, informing all passengers that the aircraft is ready for takeoff. Frowning deeply, you call the attention of a nearby attendant.

“Excuse me, my boyfriend isn’t here yet.”

She stares at you, puzzled. “I’m sorry, miss. But we confirmed that all paid passengers are already in their seats.”

At that second, your world crumbles. The void begins to rip itself back into your heart. The attendant asks if there’s anything wrong, but you dismiss her with a shake of your head.

Why do I feel like you’re slipping away from my fingers?

As you sit all alone in that plane, you realize that your mother was right all along.

You should’ve trusted your goddamn gut.

...

Joshua smokes through half his pack of cigarettes when he makes it outside the airport – lingering by the parking lot as he watches each plane soar into the sky. He has no idea which one you’re on, or if you’re even still here on Jeju Island. But with each painful drag he forces into his lungs, he finds himself praying.

Praying that you’ll forgive him for what he just did. Praying that you’ll be able to find happiness even without him.

His phone rings before his guilt gets the better of his emotions. The name S.Coups flashes on the encrypted caller ID.

“Took you long enough to pick up,” the informant sighs. “For someone who’s in dire need of intelligence, you’re acting awfully lax, Shua. Let’s see… You’re looking for Jeonghan. Is that right?”

He kills his last cigarette under his heel – all those feelings you effortlessly stirred up inside him dying along with the waning flame.

“Bullseye,” he replies, voice tinged with his usual mirth despite feeling like he’s just lost everything good in his life. “You got anything for me?”

Yeah, that’s right.

You don’t need someone like him to be happy.

…

The hotel room you booked for the night is small and quiet.

When you shut the door behind you, the sound rings in your ears – loud enough to emphasize that you’re all alone. You decide not to pay it any mind before dragging the rest of your luggage further inside.

When you arrived at Incheon Airport a few hours earlier, you couldn’t even muster up the tears. All you felt was that familiar emptiness that never seemed to leave you alone until Joshua came into your life. A dreadful void that was twice as massive now that you got a taste of how it feels like to be whole.

Once you’ve claimed your baggage, you wasted no time ushering yourself out of the terminal. You’ve long decided to stay in Incheon for a while, given that you couldn’t exactly meet your father in such a state. But before making your way to the nearest hotel you could find, you made it a point to stop by a convenience store to buy a lighter and pack of cigarettes.

For someone who’s more loaded than you could ever hope to be, Joshua liked smoking cheap brands. He told you it’s because those things could easily be bought anywhere. But his reasons for the odd preference were the last thing on your mind as you light up the first stick – taking a long drag that ends up making you cough out smoke and brings tears in your eyes.

You fucking hate cigarettes. This is going to be one of the cold hard truths in your life. You hated them when you still worked as a hostess, and you hated them every time Joshua had the gall to smoke one in front of you.

…But this is the only piece of him that you have left to cling to. You like to think that each stick can help fill the void, even if it’s just smoke and ashes and false hopes. You always wondered why Joshua couldn’t bring himself to forego the habit. But maybe – just maybe – there’s also a void inside him. One that can’t easily be filled, the same one you’ve always struggled with.

Before that train of thought can fester any longer, you kill it along with the fifth cancer stick you’ve had for the day. The ashtray is full of cigarettes you could barely smoke past the filter, but you’re not about to give a shit.

In the solitude of your room, you wonder if you can ever forget those sunsets in Jeju. How your toes sank into the sand. How the salty ocean breeze tossed your hair around. If you close your eyes, you can still feel it on your skin.

But most of all, you ask yourself – can you ever forget Jisoo?

His eyes. His hair. His stupid tattoos. You abhorred how he always smelled like cigarettes, yet you’ve locked yourself up in some fancy hotel room to smoke a few just because you’re left with a ridiculous amount of laundered cash. Along with the bags full of those pretentious gifts he gave you, you selfishly kept the money because you deserve the goddamn means to take a real break from it all.

You don’t pay attention to the rest of your luggage – eyes solely focused on the knapsack lying idly on the mattress. Against your better judgment, you force yourself back to your feet, padding towards the bed as you open the zipper.

Cash, cash, another wad of cash. You scoop every single piece out of the bag for no real reason. Is this solving any of your problems? No. Does it help you vent out your feelings? Yes.

Stupid Jisoo, and his stupid fucking promises. Well, he never explicitly promised you anything, but still! What kind of evil maniac lets a hapless maiden fall in love with them, only to leave them hanging? Not all unfortunate ladies who’ve been pathetically led on by a handsome man were left with hundreds of thousands of won as some sort of compensation, sure. But that didn’t change the fact that you were fucking grieving.

You wanted to shout. To break something. To curse Jisoo Whatever-his-last-name-is so he can never find another woman like you. But once you reach the bottom of the knapsack, your anger is quick to go up in smoke.

There’s a red baseball cap inside – the same one Jisoo was wearing the night you met him.

You didn’t cry when you realized the love of your life had left you without saying goodbye. You didn’t cry as you carried your luggage alone in the airport. You didn’t cry either when you marched into this lonely, lonely hotel room.

But somehow, seeing that bright red cap made everything crash over you like a tidal wave.

“I thought you loved me more than anything in the world,” you murmur to yourself, holding that silly hat to your chest like a goddamn lifeline.

“Was that a hoax all along...Jisoo?”

...

The small village near Silverwood Lake is remote yet accessible at the same time. It’s the heart of tourism in the lesser known counties in California, so it comes as no surprise to see a dozen people bustling in and out of the borders.

In that same town, a young boy with big brown eyes wanders around the market – dark tufts peeking from beneath a tattered baseball cap. Though he seems like any other local his age, he doesn't actually know the language. His English is still a bit lacking, but he swears half of the time that his mother teaches him bits and pieces when she has time.

Right now, she’s somewhere by the lakeside, talking with an important political figure in the town as his entourage shows her around the area. The boy wasn’t a fan of all those pleasantries, so he asked her if he could look around in the market instead. Like all mothers, her initial reaction was to tell him no, but eventually, the puppy eyes he’s practiced on her for years made good on their purpose.

Fine. Just don’t wander too far, Shuji. Promise?

As much as he dislikes breaking promises with his mother – he knows how sensitive she is about those, despite her age – the young boy figures that what she doesn’t know won’t kill her. He’s fifteen now. Even if he’s in a foreign country, he’s smart enough not to get lost in unfamiliar places.

So, when he finds nothing interesting in the market, the boy follows a merchant’s route that bypasses a huge forest. This is the road that he and his mother took on the way to the town, so he’s slightly familiar with the terrain. But still, the perspectives are warped when one traverses it on foot.

He follows the route just like he initially planned – admiring the looming pine trees rising everywhere he looked. His mother has taken him to all sorts of places because of her job, but America might make it to the top of his list at this rate. Though, his eyes are quick to spot a fork in the road – one barely visible unless you know what you’re looking for.

The boy glances around, but no one else is in sight.

Ravens caw overhead as he traverses the stray path. Dead leaves and crunch underfoot as the trees seem to grow thicker around him. Anyone else would feel terrified of being in such a place, but the boy has always had a knack for braving the unknown.

His courage is rewarded once he arrives at the end of the road, revealing a magnificent lake that he could never hope to see if he’d stuck to the main route. This one's different from Silverwood Lake. It's much smaller, and less polluted by civilization.

He stares at the scenery with wide eyes, taking out his phone from the pocket of his jacket before snapping a few pictures to show his mother for later.

“Hey, kid. What are you doing here?”

The boy startles at the sound of another voice, and he realizes that there’s another person sharing this view with him. A man, much older than he is, sits on a foldable chair by the edge of the lake – fishing rod in hand as he tosses the reel into the water.

“Just…looking around.” He only replies with broken English because he doesn’t think the stranger is someone sketchy. The boy even notices the sturdy looking crutch propped against his seat. “What are you doing?”

For a moment, the man simply looks at him before surprising the boy with very fluent Korean.

“Fishing. What else do you think it looks like, kid?” the man says a-matter-of-factly as he rakes his fingers through his dark yet graying hair.

He gulps before switching to his mother tongue. “There’s fish underneath?”

“Of course there's fish underneath.” The fisherman rolls his eyes. “You’re not from around here, are you? You lost?”

The boy shakes his head. “I told you, I was just looking around.”

“Okay. Tell your parents to come get you then,” the man tells him – growing slightly annoyed at his peaceful fishing session having been interrupted.

“My mother’s busy. My father’s a scumbag who left her alone.” The young boy shrugs. “I’m pretty much free to do whatever I want, mister.”

A few moments pass by in silence, and he wonders if he said something strange. But either way, the man’s irritation morphs into amusement. “Shitty dad, huh?” he chuckles. “That’s right. Don’t ever forgive the people who’d hurt your mom. What’s your name, kid?”

The stranger jolts his fishing rod before the boy can give an answer, hauling a fish out of the water right before his eyes before dumping his latest catch in a wicker basket.

“Jisoo,” the boy tells him. “But my mom calls me Shuji”

To his surprise, the man simply nods. “Cool name.”

“Aren’t you going to say it’s weird or something?”

“Now you’re just asking too many questions.”

“My mom said it’s common courtesy to exchange names on the first meeting,” the boy huffs. “So are you going to tell me or not?”

The man sighs. “You’re really demanding for a kid. Kinda reminds me of someone I used to know.”

“...I’m leaving.”

“Ah! Wait a sec, lemme just pack up and I’ll head back to the harbor with you. If you wander around, you might just get mauled by the wolves,” the man tuts, already putting away his reel before folding his chair back up. That’s when the boy notices a glint of brown attached to a cord around his neck. He squints.

Has he seen that necklace before?

But there isn’t exactly much room to ponder about that. The man is struggling to tidy up on both feet – clearly unfit to protect anyone from woodland predators. The boy wonders if he’s injured himself so badly before that the aftermath still lingers. But still, he finds it a bit awkward to just stand around, so he walks over to him with a defeated sigh, offering to carry the fish basket and chair in his stead.

“What happened to your leg?” he wonders.

The man brushes the hair out of his face, looking forward as he leans on his crutch. “Got fucked up by a bunch of…gangsters a few years back. Haven’t been the same since.”

“...My mom knows a lot of doctors all over the world,” the boy says. “I’m sure she can find someone who can help you walk normally again.”

“Hm? Aren’t you being too generous to someone you just met, kid?”

He frowns. “I was taught by mom to treat everyone with basic decency.”

“Heh. You really love your mom, don’t you? Does she travel a lot?”

“For work, yeah. She’s a diplomat.”

The boy wonders if this is really okay. His mother might just be mortified at the thought of her only son talking to a stranger like they’ve known each other for years. But there’s just something about this man that he can’t quite pin down. Something that makes it easy to talk to him, even if they only met literally ten minutes earlier.

Well, his mother was looking for fresh catches to have for dinner anyways. Maybe she’ll let his penchant for making friends in unlikely places slide once he introduces her to this strange fisherman with fucked up legs.

⟢ end notes: if you made it this far, congrats UEYRUEF I KNOWWWW i have a shit ton of wips waiting in line, but i've been contemplating abt repurposing this fic for joshua for SOOOOO LONG. after hearing some advice from a few friends, i decided to just go for it and viola! 18k words shua angst was born out of nowhere. i felt so EMPTY the first time i finished writing it, so i hope you feel the same way too :3c

#svthub #seventeen fanfic #seventeen smut #svt fanfic #svt smut #joshua smut #seventeen joshua #seventeen x reader #joshua x reader #lovelyhan #🐇 500 #full length fic 📚

2K notes · View notes

viranellee · 1 year

Text

i know our mornings (were as good as it ever could be)

synopsis: eddie thinks he's doing a pretty good job at hiding his relationship with the youngest dunne sister. until he isn't.

warnings: smut, dirty talk, usage of alcohol & drugs, billy dunne

a/n: thank you so much for the love on the previous eddie post! this is shit but it's eddie smut and that's all that matters

⁠♡

It all happens so fast you think you’ve imagined it - one minute you’re snorting your (fourth, maybe fifth) line of coke and reaching for another glass of beer, and the next you’re being pulled by your belt loops until you can breathe in the fresh evening air through your slightly powdery nostrils. You’re still looking down at your feet, hands outstretched and trying to regain your balance, which is a surprisingly hard thing to do using a coked-up brain, when the mystery assailant, probably Billy, starts speaking. You sigh and brace yourself for yet another lecture.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Welp, that’s definitely not Billy. You don’t know if you should be happy about it or not.

You look up and meet Eddie’s eyes, his eyebrows so furrowed that the annoyed wrinkle between them is especially pronounced - you want to reach out and smooth it out with your fingers, you want to tell him that as hot as he looks when he’s pissed off, he shouldn’t be getting wrinkles this early on. You don’t do any of that.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” You respond instead, putting a hand on your hip with such force that you make yourself stumble a little bit. In the blink of an eye, Eddie is holding you by the waist, concerned, and you pray to every single entity out there to just make the goddamn sequin dress separating your bodies disappear into thin air, simply to feel his large hands against your skin. “I’m having fun.”

Eddie lets out an exasperated sigh and tilts your head upward, cleaning up the cocaine residue around your nose. A part of you finds it weirdly cute.

“Too much fun.” He tells you and you shake your head.

“I’ve seen you do, like, six lines one after another. You can’t just lecture me when you do the exact same thi-”

“That’s because I’m used to it, I can handle it.” Eddie interrupts, grabbing you by the chin gently. He’s looking at you right in the eyes, wanting to drive his point home, but all you can focus on is his lips. “You could barely handle a shot of whiskey before and now you’re drinking and doing lines like you’ve done it all your life.”

You roll your eyes, although you understand what he’s trying to say.

“Eds, just leave me alone. I’m not going to die or somethin’. I’m just having fun.” You defend yourself, but the hiccups in-between your words do absolutely nothing to convince the man in front of you.

In fact, something flashes in his eyes. It’s a look you see rarely, but one you recognize as the look he gets when he sets his mind to something. You don’t get to dwell too much on it, because he’s crouching and picking you up, and before you know it, you’re thrown over his shoulder with such ease it makes something at the bottom of your stomach flutter.

“Eddie, put me down, now! What are you doing!?” You protest and hit his back with your fists as hard as you can, waving your legs in the air. He doesn’t even flinch and instead places a hand on your calf and squeezes, a gesture you can only interpret as “calm the fuck down” - and something in you listens, despite the drugs and liquors in your system screaming at you to keep acting bratty.

You vaguely recognize Warren’s wolf-whistling at the pair of you, but you don’t pay him any attention - by the time he’s asked for your room key at the reception desk in that deep voice that drives you crazy and you’re in the luxurious elevator, you’re already half-asleep but still have enough leftover energy to complain.

"Can you put me down now? You’ve proved your point.”

In response, Eddie’s hand moves higher up your leg, slipping underneath your dress. You can feel yourself blushing as he starts drawing circles on your inner thigh.

“Hm, I really don’t think I have, sweetheart.” He tells you and you want to strangle him for knowing exactly what buttons to push to make you speechless.

The rest of the elevator ride is spent in torturous silence, as he absentmindedly drags his fingers across your skin and you stubbornly hold in your whimpers and gasps, because you’d rather die on the spot than have him know how sensitive his touch makes you.

Only he can make me feel like this, you think to yourself in a striking moment of clarity.

After what feels like an eternity, you finally arrive at your floor. Eddie confidently walks towards your room and opens it - as soon as the door closes, he strides over to the bed and gently drops you onto it. You’re looking at the ceiling, thinking about nothing and everything at the same time, as he removes your heels. When he stands up and kisses your forehead, ready to leave so you could get some sleep, you grab him by the collar.

Sleep is the last thing on your mind right now.

You kiss him hard, and he responds immediately - you feel his heart thumping when your chests press against each other, and you’re pretty sure he can feel yours too. He moans into your mouth when you tug on his hair and you feel like you’re on the brink of getting what you want - except, he pulls away from you. You look at him, confused, and when you reach out to try and bring his face towards you, he grabs your wrists in one hand.

“You’re drunk, sweetheart. We can’t.” He explains and you want to cry. Why did he have to be so thoughtful?

“But I want you.” You try and he just smiles at you, wide and toothy, as he stands up. You catch his hand. “Can you…can you at least sleep next to me? We don’t have to do anything, I just..."

He turns to look at you and you see surprise painted across his features. You open your mouth to take it back, tell him you don’t know what you’re talking about, play it off as the drugs talking, but he’s already dropping his jacket on the ground and getting into bed with you before you get the chance to say anything.

He opens his arms, inviting you to come closer and you gladly take the invitation.

"You're cold." You tell him when you lay your head on his chest and feel him wrapping his arms around you. He smells like cigarettes and citrus. It’s your favorite smell in the world.

“You’re hot.” He responds, grinning as he kisses the top of your head, and you giggle.

It’s the last thing you remember before you fall asleep.

—

You wake up horny. Not unusual by any means, considering you fell asleep horny and next to Eddie. Still, you know you can't ignore it for long.

As your eyes adjust to the sunlight pouring in through the windows, you feel Eddie, still asleep, wrapping a long arm around your waist and pulling you towards his chest. His gentle hums do nothing except fuel the growing need in you to have him. You decide to do just that.

Careful not to wake him, you slowly move down his body and when you reach the part you're craving the most, you greedily undo his belt like you're opening a Christmas present. You pull his jeans and boxers down at the same time, impatient, and immediately get to work.

You run your tongue from the tip to the base, savoring the shiver you receive in response. You do that a couple of times but as soon as you take him in your mouth, Eddie gasps and you know you've woken him up, because you feel a hand in your hair.

"Shit, baby, good mornin' to you too." He laughs and the rasp in his voice makes you throb.

You take him in deeper, tracing the vein in his shaft with your tongue and Eddie practically howls. Biting his lip, he buries his other hand in your hair too as the sounds of your gagging and his moaning overlap.

"I love this fucking mouth on my cock." He breathes out. "God, I can't get enough of you. Come 'ere."

You shake your head as you press open-mouthed kisses down the shaft.

"No, I want you to cum in my mouth." You declare stubbornly and he swears out loud at your words.

"I'll cum in that pretty little mouth as much as you want me to, but I need to be inside of you right now, baby, please." He almost begs and you look at him beneath your eyelashes.

He's panting heavily, his bottom lip slightly bloody because he bit it too hard, brown eyes glazed over and hair splayed out on the pillow beneath his head like a halo. He looks like a mess and it's the prettiest thing you've ever seen.

Well, how can you say no to that?

You crawl towards him and he grabs the dress you've slept in from yesterday and pushes it up your body, hastily trying to remove it. You help him and soon, the dress is a mere clothing item on the floor. Left in only your underwear, he licks his lips as his eyes look you over. If it was anyone else, you would have felt like a piece of meat being ogled at, but his look only turns you on even more.

You tug on his shirt, wanting it off, and he complies immediately.

As you climb into his lap and undo your bra, Eddie watches, mesmerized, when you start grinding on his cock like a woman starved, your tits bouncing along with every movement. In an attempt to tease him, you reach out to play with your nipples, but he smacks your hands away, shoves his face in your chest and starts worshiping your tits with such vigor you think you can cum from this alone.

"Eddie! Oh!" You mewl and he groans in response, tugging your underwear down your thighs. He rubs a finger against your folds and your head gently knocks against his when his finger glides right inside of you.

"So fuckin' warm and tight and all for me. Only for me." Eddie whispers, kissing your neck. You nod, burying your fingers in his tangled hair.

"Only for you. Always for you." You whisper in his ear and he exhales sharply, relieved, like he's being told something he never once thought would be true.

You don't even notice when one finger has become two, and two has become three in your haze of pleasure until Eddie pushes you down onto the bed, looking at you like you've hung the moon and stars. You smile at him and pull his face down to kiss him, and you can feel him chuckling against your lips. Wrapping your legs around his waist, you melt in his embrace. In response, Eddie grabs your hips, something you've noticed he really likes doing, and carefully enters you. You open your mouth in a silent scream, and he groans loudly, squeezing you so hard you're sure he'll give you yet another pair of bruises. You don't mind though, not at all.

"You okay, sweetheart?"

"Very much am, Roundtree."

---

"What did you just say?"

Warren laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

"Look man, I don't fuckin' know, all I'm saying is that I saw them leaving together."

It's quiet in the breakfast hall as Billy ponders on what to do.

"I get that she's our little sister, but she's grown up now. Even if she is, y'know, sleeping with him, why should that matter? I mean, it's Eddie, do you really think he'd do anything to hurt her?" Graham argues, gesturing with the utensils in his hands as he speaks.

Daisy and Karen nod in agreement.

"He's got a point, you know. I really don't think it's that big of a deal. They've got the hots for each other for a while now, too, it's only natural." Karen adds and Billy's mouth turns into a tight line as he death glares the uneaten toast on his plate.

"Good morning everyone!" Eddie greets his band members when you and him enter, suspiciously cheerful. Billy's glare only becomes more hateful.

"Morning." He greets with gritted teeth, carefully observing the way Eddie gallantly pulls out your chair first, before sitting on his own. Everyone else around him also seems to notice, if Daisy and Karen's quiet giggles and Warren and Graham clearing their throats were any indication.

"Aren't you going to get breakfast?" Graham questions and you smile innocently back at him.

"Nope, I've already eaten." You respond and Eddie adds a "I'm very full, actually."

Awkward silence descends on the table for a moment before Roy arrives as well.

"Hey, Roundtree." He starts, an accusatory finger pointed at the bassist's neck. "What kind of vampire were you fooling around with? Jesus Christ, son, look at the size of that thing."

A beat passes as Graham chokes on his water.

"Roundtree, you fucking son of a bitch, I'll kill you."

---

BILLY DUNNE: The prick was fucking my sister behind my back. Of course I decked him.

KAREN SIRKO: And people call women the emotional ones.

WARREN ROJAS: Dude, I thought I was hallucinating, for real.

DAISY JONES: So overdramatic.

GRAHAM DUNNE: [sighs]

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: Worth it. [smiles]

#daisy jones & the six #daisy jones and the six #eddie roundtree x reader #eddie roundtree #eddie roundtree smut #eddie loving #billy dunne #graham dunne #warren rojas #karen sirko #daisy jones #djats fic #djats

1K notes · View notes

yandere-daydreams · 1 year

Text

tw - implied kidnapping and borderline shit-posting.

"Why all the sudden questions, little rabbit?"

You drum your fingers against the metal slab of his worktable, letting your eyes fall to the scrawled reports he was currently sorting through. The medical gibberish was above your head, as was the scribbled mix of short-hand and abbreviation unique to him and his other sections, but the fact that you were allowed to wander his laboratories rather than locked in your sterile bedroom proved that it was nothing particularly important to him. Or, nothing particularly interesting, at least.

"I'm just curious," you assured him, doing your best to keep up an easy smile. "Wouldn't anyone want to know where the greatest mind in Teyvat got his education?"

He hummed, drinking in the praise unabashedly. He was a narcissist, first and foremost, his self-obsession nearly overshadowing his sadism at times. "Sumeru's Akademiya, of course. I was under the impression that my history was common knowledge."

"I mean, everyone knows you went to the Akademiya. I want to know where you graduated from, though."

His grin took on an odd quirk. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"Well, you're a doctor, right?" He opened his mouth, but you didn't give him time to respond. "Did you go to another university after getting expelled from the Akademiya? Was it in Snezhnaya? I might've gone there, too - I transferred a few times before..." You trailed off, gesturing vaguely towards the metal collar wrapped around your neck. "What was your dissertation on? I'm guessing 'The Benefits of Excessive and Unrestricted Human Experimentation' wasn't a board-approved topic, just yet."

He pursed his lips.

"You did write a dissertation, didn't you?"

he turned his head to the side.

"You did graduate, didn't you?"

His response was low, grumbled, barely audible. "Her Excellency bestowed me with an honorary doctorate. It's the highest distinction a Snezhnayan scholar can receive."

"When they don't have an actual degree, you mean."

"Little rabbit," he started, abandoning his reports completely in favor of resting his cheek on his fist, narrowing his eyes and letting his grin widen into something malicious. "If I hear one more word out of you concerning degrees and universities, consider my next available vivisection table yours and yours alone. Is that understood?"

You nodded, putting on your most obedient smile. "Of course, Mr. Dottore, sir."

"Why don't you head back to your room?"

"Why don't you go back to college?"

"Get on the fucking table--"

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagines #yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin x reader #genshin imagines #genshin impact #genshin impact imagines #yandere genshin imagines #il dottore x reader #dottore x reader #yandere dottore #yanderecore #yancore

2K notes · View notes

dashielldeveron · 9 months

Text

soulmate trope | dabi

Dabi’s route of soulmate trope.

"post-canon dabi? canon isn't even finished as of when this was posted on 30 july 2023!" to you. i know he's doing just fine. and obviously i will be wrong about some things. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to chapter 390: specifically about touya's body but vaguely about ~all of that~. sexual content. food mention/discussion. injury descriptions (burns) that aren't reader's. weeb slander. a note: part of the plot revolves around...analysing anime. i use hunter x hunter here, and if you are not into that, i have, to the best of my knowledge, included neither spoilers (aside from early story arc names) nor information that cannot be understood via context clues. additionally, there is a brief pokemon metaphor that also can hopefully be understood with context clues as well.

~27.7k

You’re being watched.

Or rather, you had the eerily intense inkling that you were being watched, or as if you were some sort of recently awakened sleeper agent—as if you were somehow the key to someone’s spying into U.A., even though the most secretive thing going on right now in 3-A’s common area was that Hagakure’s facial features were somewhat revealed by the drying face mask.

“Jirou,” you said, bookmarking your place, “Would you mind checking for—I don’t know, any kind of outside surveillance devices in here?”

Jirou bit the stem of the carnation she’d been about to weave into Yaoyorozu’s hair and shifted all the strands of the braid into one hand, and she tilted her head to jab the arm of the couch with her earjack. After a few moments, she unsheathed it, the hole in the couch sealing itself, and shook her head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. What’s up?”

Furrowing your brow, you shoved your book between the cushion and arm of your chair. “I’m not sure. It’s—I have this weird feeling that someone’s looking at me. Or through me, really. Both? I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels like someone else is seeing what I’m seeing.”

“Do your eyes hurt, ribbit?” Asui asked from her spot on the floor, where she was sorting her m&ms by colour.

“No. More like I’m hyperaware of them,” you said, “But I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching all of this because of me.”

“What’s there to watch? It’s nothing but a Girls and Todoroki Night. There’s nothing worth seeing and or any big secrets being spilled. Well, spoilers for the New Year’s episode of Kamisama Kiss, but it’s been out for years already,” said Mina, gesturing towards the television, and Uraraka snatched Mina’s hand out of the air and laid it flat on the coffee table again, because she’s not done painting her nails, damn it. Mina sighed dreamily at the sheep whose wool fluffed enough to take up the entire screen. “What I wouldn’t give for my hair to have that much volume.”

“I guess you’re right,” you said, settling down into your chair, pulling Shinsou’s blue-pineappled blanket up to your neck (he was out on his bike, so he wasn’t attending this Girls and Todoroki Night [Shinsou and Todoroki were the only boys allowed, since their presence wasn’t obtrusive or contrary to the vibe. Additionally, Shinsou thought it was funnier if his name weren’t included in the title of these events]). “Y’know, in the manga, the New Year avatar isn’t a sheep. It’s a dragon.”

Mina blew on her hands as Uraraka rebottled the nail polish brush. “Whaaaaat?

“It was changed to a sheep to align with the year the episode was released,” said Todoroki, his thumb and index finger pinching his lower lip with his eyes glued to the screen, “I understand the change on a narrative scale, but I believe the dragon had more of a character arc than the sheep. The dragon didn’t think it was as appealing as other years’ avatars, and it had to learn to accept itself and accept others’ love for it. It was rooted in misunderstanding.”

For some reason, when you looked at Todoroki, you were doused with regret. Sharp and cold, followed by a splash of something more muddled: envy, maybe? Gratitude?

These…these feelings weren’t yours.

***

“I can’t believe I missed a Girls and Todoroki Night,” said Shinsou, grinning, his legs dangling off the dorm’s kitchen counter, “but alas! The night was calling, and I had to go out in it.”

“We will not spoil Kamisama Kiss for you,” said Todoroki. He was crouched in front of the oven, hands clasped as he stared through the tinted window at the browning potato wedges. “You will have to watch that episode on your own.”

“You should really read the manga,” you were saying as you scanned the inside of the refrigerator, looking for anything that might go well with the potatoes—ah, Aoyama’s got some bougie-looking sauce. Savoury, by the looks of it. “It goes farther than the anime covers, and it’s so sweet. The worldbuilding gets better, too.” You took out the bottle and gave it an experimental shake.

“Really?” Shinsou wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know; that villain guy isn��t very fun. Feels like too much time is wasted on him.”

Todoroki’s head snapped towards Shinsou at the same time you slammed the refrigerator shut. “No,” the both of you said at the same time, and you continued. “The anime hasn’t been quite as accurate in tone regarding that character, but he’s really wonderful, eventually. You really feel for what happened to him and for his past relationship to the main characters. Simple but effective job of deconstructing his villainy and granting him humanity.”

“Huh.” Shinsou propped his cheek on his fist, his ankle resting on his opposite knee. “I wonder how much nuance I’m missing because I’m only watching the anime.”

For a second, you felt as groggy as if you’d just woken up, your eyes focusing a bit more precisely, blurring the kitchen tiles for a moment before re-focusing, and it crept in again: the feeling that someone was watching you, that someone else was here.

“Hey, Shinsou, Todoroki,” you said, blinking several times, Aoyama’s brown sauce clutched in both hands, “Do my eyes look any different?”

Both of them looked you over. Shinsou shook his head. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’ve got—” You nodded towards Todoroki. “I have that same feeling from last night. Like someone’s watching. But Jirou said nothing was wrong.” Shrugging, you tossed the sauce to Shinsou and sat in front of the oven with Todoroki. “I guess Kamisama Kiss must bring out the voyeur in me. Or being voyeur-ed. Watched.” You crossed your legs at the same time Todoroki jolted because of a crushed peppercorn popping in the oven. “Maybe we should start reading manga alongside the anime so that we can judge how accurate they are. See how much character nuance is lost or preserved.”

Todoroki’s eyes bulged. “You have no idea how much that appeals to me. I desperately need to discuss the differences between the Hunter x Hunter 1999 anime, the 2011 anime, and the manga. Sero refuses to watch the 1999 version.”

Amusement. Condescension. Bubbling to the top of your consciousness.

Distinctly not yours.

Why would you be feeling these things in the face of something that sounded so wonderfully, uselessly pedantic? A project like Todoroki’s just proposed sounded like an absolutely ideal waste of time that would allow you to be more accurate than the vast majority of people when it came to plot, lore, and characterisation. Why would emotions you’d associate with making fun of someone pop up now? You didn’t want to make fun of Todoroki; you were enthusiastic about joining him in this pointless endeavour.

The timer on Shinsou’s phone blared, and he tapped it off, patting his pockets (?) for the oven mitt, which he spotted on the counter next to him. “Why would Sero refuse to watch the older version?”

Todoroki helped you stand and guided the both of you away from the oven. “To be fair, in the 1999 anime, the animators did take liberties with panel composition and brought in new angles and lines sporadically. Colours are also odd and inaccurate, and those are corrected, for the most part, in the 2011 version. More of the manga is covered, and the animation is smoother in the 2011 version as well.”

Why did you feel the distant sensation of laughing? Nothing about this has been funny, per se, but the…what was going on?

“Okay, I’ll bite,” you said, strangely heavy and hyperaware and surveying the tray of steaming potato wedges as Shinsou shuffled it to the stove, “I’ll do it with you, all this manga accuracy checking.”

“Me, too,” said Shinsou, shaking the over mitt off, “My suggestion is that we keep it to just the three of us, to prevent exhausting arguments, like we’d have in a big group the size of Girls and Todoroki Nights.”

“I can lend you the first few volumes,” said Todoroki, opening a cabinet to search for Aoyama’s sauce bowls, “After that, I have a link to high-quality scans I can send you.”

“Sounds perfect,” you said, reaching for a potato wedge that did not sizzle and screech as much as the others, “Should we watch the first episode tomorrow night?” When you retracted your hand at the burn, you felt your own pain and someone else’s sense of nostalgia.

***

You’d already been on the precipice of falling asleep during Present Mic’s lesson, but when a concentrated shot of fatigue pierced you, you set down your pen and reluctantly resolved to get the subsequent notes from Iida. God, couldn’t this wait until you were out of class? No one needed to see how terrible your own notes were. No one needed to see your drawings in the margins.

Burying your face in your hands, you dug the heels of your palms into your eyes, rubbing them as the lethargy kicked in, and you braced yourself for the uncanny sensation of being your own worst voyeur.

When you opened them, after the lightheaded dots blinked away, you weren’t in the classroom, instead entrenched in darkness. Well, wait—you groped around on your desk: physically, you still were upright in your desk at U.A., able to grasp your pen, set it down, able to faintly hear Present Mic, as if he’s in the next room over.

Blindly, you tapped Mina’s desk behind you, turning your head over your shoulder. “Do my eyes look weird to you?”

“No. Should they?” she whispered back—or maybe she said it at a normal volume, and the classroom had been so far removed the distance silenced her.

Biting the inside of your cheek, you faced the front again. Looks like you have to figure this out yourself, or else you’ll be sitting in pitch black for who knows how long.

A minute passed. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness, shapes appearing—you’re inside. In a room with the lights off. Sideways, for some reason. One of the shapes was so rigidly rectangular that it had to be a shoji divider, and you were just trying to estimate its size when all of your mental facilities halted at a loud, rumbling groan.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” a scratchy, masculine voice said, “Must be my turn, huh?”

He flipped over, and barely cracked venetian blinds behind dark curtains just barely illuminated part of the scene: you were seeing this sideways because he was lying in bed, an out-of-place, opulent, Western-style bed in what you assumed was an Eastern-style room, judging what you could make out of traditional wallpaper and tatami flooring.

“Well, you’re not getting anything out of me,” he said, reaching for one of the many strewn pillows and hugging it—you lost half of your sight when his face sank into it (too dark for you to get a good look at his hands or arms), “Sucks for you, but I’m going back to sleep. Don’t care how curious you are. Not sharin’ anything with someone who can’t cook potato wedges right.”

No, get up. Get up. Say more right now. Who was he? It’s—it’s the middle of the day, anyhow; what is he doing asleep?

“Hah. You’re angry with me.” His laugh sounded more like a hiss, somehow. “Get used to it.”

He shut his eyes. After about a minute, the darkness faded, and Present Mic’s voice hit you at full volume, and you winced, clamping a hand down on your notes when the classroom came into view.

***

“You are not dropping out of school the semester you’re supposed to graduate,” said Aizawa, pinching the bridge of his nose, elbow digging into the puffy leather chair by Nezu’s desk.

“From my perspective, it does not appear you are a liability to U.A.’s security.” Nezu steepled his paws together, his pink toe beans preventing him from pressing them completely flat. “Simply seeing through each other’s eyes and feeling some of his emotions are no cause for the drastic security measures you are proposing. I believe that so long as you have some sort of indicator that either situation is happening, faculty can prepare for your temporary debility.”

“Don’t even think about abusing it to get out of class,” said Aizawa, propping his chin on his fist.

“You think I would? Shocked! Shocked and offended,” you said, “I’m gonna be in class; I don’t trust anyone else’s notes. I want my own interpretations of lectures.” You slumped down in your seat, tilting your head back to stare at the ceiling. “Principal Nezu, do you have an idea of why this is happening to me?”

“I do.” Nezu opened the top drawer in his desk to retrieve a stack of yellow-green papers, torn from a legal pad and crimped because of whatever was spilled on it. “Recovery Girl and Midnight have been analysing the results of Tainted Love’s quirk for some time now. The female rehabilitation centre with which Midnight works, Sakura Grove, has uncovered evidence of two other incidents that caused a soulmate bond with similar qualities to form.”

“What? No,” you said, letting a whine creep into your voice, “That means my soulmate’s a jerk. He was rude to me. He insulted my potato wedge recipe.”

Aizawa raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching upward as he crossed his arms. “You can’t expect there to be love at first sight, can you? Love is a choice. You work at it every day. You have to keep choosing it.”

“Yaoyorozu and Jirou were already dating when they got assigned soulmates,” you said, listing on your fingers, “Midoriya and Uraraka had been pining after each other for years—”

Aizawa scowled. “Stop that.”

“So, do you want me to report anything? Do you want me to duck out of class when he—checks in?”

“If you feel unsafe, let us know. Otherwise, it is of my opinion that you will be just fine,” said Nezu, and he reached for his paw-sized coffee cup to remove the melting stroopwaffle cookie off the top. “Report what you perceive as dangerous, but you deserve privacy. When you decide on your signal that the bond is active, please send an email to faculty members. Whether or not you inform your peers is at your discretion.”

***

So, of course, you told everyone.

Meaning no one batted an eye the next time the soulmate bond activated, which was in class. Feeling the exhaustion and the slight buzz from your soulmate popping in to watch through you, you made the phone call symbol, grabbed a marker from the whiteboard, and headed out into the hall, no questions asked.

“Hey,” you were saying, shoving your forearm against the concrete-block wall and popping the marker cap off with your mouth, “Good to hear from you. Didn’t know I could see through you, too. Excited to see how we’ll deal with that. This is my phone number.” You scrawled it across your arm, along with your given name above it. “If you can’t memorise it now, that’s fine. I’ll write it down next time, too, so you could prepare to have something nearby to record it with. I look forward to getting to know you.”

No strong emotions on his part. But he was there.

“Okay,” you said, and you turned to sink down against the wall to sit in the deserted hallway. “Some basic stuff: I’m a student at U.A., in my last year. I’m in that—uh, I’m in the class that’s gotten into a bit of trouble over the past few years. Midoriya, Bakugou, and all of them, if you watch the news. I’ve just ducked out of class with everyone.” You kept looking at your arm so that he could memorise it. “I don’t really wanna talk about my quirk, since that seems like such a boring, capital-A adult question, but I can tell you about it later, if you really want to know. Oh! I do not suck at making potato wedges. It was just a recipe that none of us had made before, and they were fine. They were good. I—”

And he’s gone, link severed.

Crossing your arms, you slumped against the wall. Did he choose to end it? Could he? He didn’t seem very receptive, so you wouldn’t put it past him.

***

You woke up from a nap watching through him play a video game, some non-discernible, first-person shooter. Again in the dark, but perhaps not in the same room. The windows weren’t open enough to let in enough light to tell.

Your soulmate never acknowledged you were there by gesture or word. Just played his stupid fucking game. You were trying to send him foul vibes of frustration and indignation, but he ignored you.

After a mere six minutes of the world’s worst Let’s Play, you decided you could be a little bitch as well.

***

“Oh! He’s here. Excuse me,” you said to Shinsou and Jirou, making the phone call gesture as you pushed yourself up from the lunch table, “I’ll be back in a moment. Please guard my gummies from Monoma.”

A flash of curiosity, finally, from your soulmate as he got the image of Shinsou and Jirou smirking to themselves and waving you off.

Once you were alone outside in the courtyard, you pulled out and unfolded the piece of pink construction paper, at this point every inch covered by doodles of flowers and increasingly shitty bulbasaurs. You tapped at the writing in the centre. “This is called a telephone number,” you said, “This one belongs to me. If you dial this number into a phone to call it, you will reach me. Then, we could have a conversation and arrange to meet up, instead of this unreliable, one-sided bond.”

You flattened your hand to smooth out the creases, halting midway when it struck you. “I’ve just realised you may be confused by this situation. Don’t worry; I am as well. But be assured, due to a quirk incident, we’ve been assigned soulmates. Yeah, I know they’re fake, but with this villain Tainted Love’s quirk, soulmates are real.”

He evidently was feeling like he wanted to walk straight into the ocean.

“I’m assuming you’re not a U.A. student, so—do you remember breathing in some sort of pink dust? Within about the past—I don’t know, two and a half years? That’s how long Tainted Love was active. She only got arrested about a month or so ago.” You couldn’t garner anything from him except for exasperation, so you continued. “And not, like, snorting a line of pink dust. It would’ve been in a dust cloud. A bit like fog. You would’ve noticed it.”

Staring at your phone number the whole time, you allowed him silence to think. Whatever he was feeling was very subdued, so you couldn’t really surmise what it was, but ten seconds before the bond broke, a livid, fiery ire consumed your whole body in the heat of recognition.

***

Shinsou, Todoroki, and you were all crowded around a laptop in Shinsou’s dorm to watch the beginning episodes of Hunter x Hunter the next time your soulmate spoke to you. He’d gone a couple of times ignoring you in silence, once outside on a walk during the day on a path uptown you didn’t recognise, and the other on some rooftop while playing on his phone and watching a meteor shower. Completely disregarding your attempts to give him your number or talk to him in real time.

It just figured that he bothered to spare you any information when you were trying to see what the next phase of the Hunter Exam was, so Todoroki and Shinsou paused the show for you and waited. With a stab of affection for your friends, you moved to the corner, waiting for your soulmate to say something.

And he was. Your soulmate knew more combinations of swear words and general filth than you’ve ever cared to consider, and you were almost impressed with the creativity of his vulgarity. Outside under the night sky, he was furiously ripping open some medium-sized, cardboard box as he stomped towards a carefully cultivated, lilypad-covered, manmade pond towards the back of a highly organised, traditional garden.

Eventually, non-profanity was added. “Goddamn fucking shit-ass fish and goddamn fucking shit-ass crusty motherfucking doctor can’t take care of his own goddamn fucking pet project.” Tips of his house slippers stopping at the pond only by way of running into the stone wall, he stumbled, growling in frustration, before regaining his balance and yanking out the plastic bag inside the remnants of the box. “Wants a goddamn gift for fucking Mom but can’t be arsed to do it him-fucking-self. Deserves every fish fucked into his respiratory system, clogging up his arteries to give himself a goddamn heart attack. And then I can’t be blamed for—” The plastic stretched, and he ended up tearing it in half above the water, pieces falling atop waterlilies. “Shit on a cuntbag. What the fuck. I don’t deserve this.”

He stretched to reach the waterlilies, cupping his hands to sweep the fish food off and into the water. And—the moonlight struck the gently rippling water, enough for you to see a flash of an orange koi tail break the surface tension, but not enough to see whatever was going on with his hands—not that he was doing anything strange with them (just picking shreds of plastic out of the water), but they somehow were strange. They moved stiffly and had some sort of bumps on them, but—does this guy live in darkness? You couldn’t tell anything about what his hands looked like aside from the shadowed bumps, which could be anything.

“I deserve a lot, but I sure as hell don’t deserve this.” He rounded the pond and punched a few buttons on a small, hidden, monitor, checking the pH of the pool and water levels. “Not my fucking job. Not my fucking job. Why do they think—why am I the one to do this shit. How come I can get in trouble with my fucking brother for him not taking care of his project.” He swatted at his wet bathrobe sleeve, pissed, and shook out some of the water. “Hey, you. I know you’re there.”

Back in the dorm, you jolted in your seat. In the distance, you could hear Shinsou ask what was wrong. “Nothing,” you said, sounding distant yourself, “He acknowledged me is all. Hasn’t done that for a while, so it felt like a fourth wall break.”

Your soulmate sat down on the edge of the pond, glaring out at the rest of the garden (wisteria heavy, vines swaying in the night wind). “Are you hot?”

You’d never wanted to be able to transfer direct words or actions to him so much, because he needed to be strangled.

“I’m not kidding.” He crossed his arms, covered by a dark bathrobe, sticking his hands in his armpits. “Are you hot? I don’t like the idea of being connected to some hideous fuckwad.”

Never mind. Now you have never wanted to be—

“This quirk shit isn’t gonna last long, but if you’re hot, you need to get on my dick before it goes away. I wanna see how it looks giving me a blowjob from your perspective.”

Kill. Destroy. Maim. Eviscerate, even.

“Ooh, watch out. We’ve got an uptight, prudish bitch over here,” he said, and he laughed—again, sounding more like a hiss than anything else. “Well, then. If you’re not gonna put out, then I’ve got no use for you. Don’t need anyone, especially not some goddamn lunatic who claims to be my soulmate. Too many people are interfering in my life, anyway. And to be honest, it seems like you’re dumb and irritating. I don’t like people like you.”

Maybe you’re soulmates because you’re destined to kill him on sight. Your soul, calling out for his to suffer extreme violence. He’d deserve it.

May all his potato wedges burn.

***

Monoma was at the next Hunter x Hunter anime viewing, because he’d been dying to know why you were wearing an actual and literal clown costume, wig and enormous foam nose included.

“I’m liking the new hero outfit,” Monoma said, flipping his hair back with a flourish, “but why are you wearing it during our off-hours?”

“Shove off,” you said, grinning as Shinsou tossed you a pillow to hold, “Did you bring your peach gummies?”

“I did,” said Monoma, sitting next to you on Todoroki’s tatami mats, and he pulled a massive bag of white peach gummies from inside his jacket, handing it to you to open. “May I ask if it’s seriously part of your new uniform, or—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Monoma,” you said, ripping open the bag at the notch, “I’m making a point.”

“Her soulmate,” Shinsou supplied, pulling up the next episode, “He wants to know what she looks like. So, she’s been dressing up in horrible, gawdy shit so that he can never really tell, even around mirrors.”

“He’s pissed,” you said, beaming, digging into the bag and popping a gummy into your mouth, “He wants me to stop playing around, but he was mean to me. Mean to me, unprovoked, and in a way that wasn’t hot. Tomorrow, I’m wearing a sheet and running around like a ghost. I will say nothing to him but boo.”

“I suppose that explains the influx of regular face masks you’ve taken to wearing during class.” Monoma scoffed, his incredulous, open mouth stretching into a grin. “You are impossible. If your humourless soulmate is worth his salt, then he should at least value the effort you’re putting into it.”

“Sero has sent me a message,” interrupted Todoroki, thumb swiping his phone screen, “He says that he has changed his mind and would like to join us. He’s started rereading the series and likes it more this time around.” Todoroki looked up and around his room, lips pursed. “There is not much space for five people. It is getter harder to see the laptop.”

***

The five of you started the Heaven’s Arena arc of Hunter x Hunter in Aizawa’s dorm apartment, seeing as he had the best television setup: for one, having an actual television instead of simply relying on his computer. His sound system held up, too, though you suspected Present Mic had something to do with that, instead of Aizawa’s own preferences.

You, Shinsou, Todoroki, Monoma, and Sero were scattered across Aizawa’s living room, all cosied under blankets and pillows and pointed towards his wall-mounted television, sitting on his cat-hair covered couch and armchairs, mugs and snacks on his coffee table, socked feet loose, and house slippers at the edge of the shag rug. The cats, Dango and Konpeito, chose to snuggle up towards Todoroki and you (beat that, Shinsou!), so you were careful not to disturb them from their slumber on your lap. No sudden movements, even when the tired dizziness of your bitch soulmate faded in.

“Spoilers for Hunter x Hunter, I suppose, even though it’s been out for decades,” you said under your breath, raising your hand to signal to the others that your soulmate was looking in. At your movement, Dango raised her head from her cocoon in your lap to yawn, her face nearly turning inside out, and she flinched, her pupils dilating, at the creak of the door.

Laden with groceries, Aizawa stepped into his own apartment, his brow furrowing at the sight of his students in his living room. “You have ten seconds to tell me what you’re doing here.”

“The fuck?” Sero whipped his head towards Shinsou and back at Aizawa. “Shinsou told us you were okay with it.”

“I said that he wouldn’t mind, which he can’t if he doesn’t catch us,” said Shinsou, bracing himself when Aizawa tugged at his capture weapon around his neck, “It’s my fault, Aizawa-sensei. Please don’t get angry at anyone else.”

Your soulmate seemed pleased that you were getting in trouble. Bastard.

Aizawa set his cloth bags on his kitchen counter, the insides shifting with the weight of the groceries. “Is this appropriate for Eri to watch?”

“Well, in general—”

A character onscreen chose that moment to seductively moan another character’s name, over and over again.

Aizawa winced, scrunching his eyes shut tightly. “Turn that shit off. Find another place to watch it.” Shaking his head, he unbagged the first of his groceries. “Shinsou, never bring anyone, including yourself, into my personal space again with express permission.”

“Damn it,” you said, reaching for the remote. You pressed the power button, watching the screen fade from the vibrant colours of Heaven’s Arena to black, with Aizawa’s living room reflecting back at you. Forlornly, you scratched the back of Dango’s neck, watching her mirrored reaction, before you realised what you were doing: giving your bitch-ass soulmate a clear view of your bare face. Eyes bulging, you gasped and bent over to hide your face, with Dango scurrying away at being disturbed.

The connection cut at the faint suggestion of intrigue.

***

YOU

hey i know we said we’d keep it small but. i think midoriya would really enjoy the battle analysis that the hxh characters are doing

YOU

bc they be doing some QUICK analytic work based on their opponents’ personalities

TODOROKI 💅🎏

Midoriya has been asking more questions than usual during our sparring sessions.

SERO 🧃🍊

ffs why isn’t he already in the group? should’ve thought of him

SHINSOU 💜🍡

want me to add him?

YOU

would that be okay, todoroki?

TODOROKI 💅🎏

There’s more than enough room at our new venue. We should invite him.

SHINSOU 💜🍡

why don’t you text him then? it’s at your place

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Midoriya CANNOT sit next to me

MONOMA 🔇🎭

I’d like to hear the onscreen dialogue instead of whatever he’s saying under his breath

MONOMA 🔇🎭

He CANNOT shut up

YOU

WHOMST won’t shut up??????

SERO 🧃🍊

don’t worry no one will sit next to you

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Good

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Wait

TODOROKI 💅🎏

Midoriya can attend! He’ll be a little late today, but I think we should wait for him, since it’s his first time joining us.

Startled by the waiter, you put your phone down on your notebook and accepted your coffee graciously. You shifted your laptop and notebook over so that you could cup the mug in front of you, its warmth seeping through the sides, and you took a tentative slurp. Interesting. You’ll finish it, but you won’t order this again.

You were killing time that Saturday by getting ahead on your work for Put Your Hands Up Radio: editing and fact-checking news segments that Yamada would read between songs towards the evening. Electing to get some sunshine on your skin before hunkering down with the group again to analyse some anime, you’d chosen to edit the articles outside at a café you’d discovered recently, one at which you hadn’t decided on a regular order yet and were shopping around the menu each time you came. Plus, if you’d stayed on campus, no doubt Shinsou or Monoma would’ve found you to distract you.

The café’s patio with scorching, cast-iron furniture and haphazard parasol installation led to most of its customers sitting inside, but that meant you had space to think, even with the hot groves of your seat imprinting patterns into your skin.

Your soulmate was probably being rude because he was scared, or perhaps he didn’t believe that Tainted Love’s quirk was legitimate. You’d have to assure him that it was, as you’d run through Nezu’s report with Midnight and Recovery Girl, fact-checking that. Either way. Some frustrated guy—living at home, apparently, and pissed about it—was paired out of the blue with some student at U.A. He might be scared that you were a creep.

Tainted Love’s team’s notes on her quirk that Midnight had confiscated explained that each soulmate bond, somehow, was moulded around the pair’s personalities and would fulfil a lifelong need. A lot of responsibility, it seemed, but if it were true—and other pairs proved it true—you would fulfil it naturally, and so would he.

So, even though your soulmate had been rude, you’d give him a chance. The soulmate bond existed for a reason. Plus, he might be a real-life tsundere, and wouldn’t that be fun to crack? To be the only one a rude, evil person was soft for was the ideal, wasn’t it? Someone so naturally cruel and heartless but learning to be kind for you—

Get a hold of yourself. He’s a real guy who will be in your life forever, not just someone you can throw away, like a celebrity/pro-hero crush. Treat him seriously.

“I’m…being serious,” you said to yourself, pouting into your coffee. You hunched in your seat to drink from the mug without lifting it, and you slorped away the neck of the latte art swan the barista had so carefully poured. “He’s probably not even be a sexy sort of cold-hearted. He’s just a type of bitchiness I haven’t learnt how to handle yet.”

Those boys in the anime analysis group? You could play their types of bitchiness like the world’s smallest fiddle. They were all so easy to handle (especially Monoma because of his predictability; Todoroki gave you the most trouble due to his complete non sequiturs), and it was fun bouncing off the petty parts of their personalities. Your soulmate spun things differently, but you’d learn his inclinations in time. If not, it’s not worth your time trying to “fix” someone who has no redeeming vulnerability.

You sighed. Now that you’ve lost your editing groove, you might as well do some last-minute reading before watching the next few episodes tonight. Closing your laptop, you reached down into your bag to get the next volume of Todoroki’s manga, and your vision blurred over, dizziness incoming. Well, at least you’re sitting down.

You held the manga volume in your lap and waited for your soulmate’s line of sight to appear. If he were in a darkened room yet again, you could buy yourself a little treat. The café’s display case had some sort of new chess square that you’d been eyeing. And—shit, sunlight was coming through. No little treat for you.

Well, maybe you’ll get one, anyway. You slumped farther down in your seat, blinking as dappled, sunlight-covered pavement and an empty terrace outside a business across a busy street came into view—your soulmate jumped back off the road when a car whooshed by, and after that, he jaywalked, horns blaring in his wake.

He did a little hop to get on the opposite sidewalk, hands in his pockets, and peered past the iron fence into the window of the shop—a packed coffee shop; maybe you could at least learn his coffee order, because then you’d have some shred of information about him. But no, he unlatched the iron gate and wove his way through the cast-iron patio chairs and tables, and—

You’re staring right at you: sitting, legs crossed, not taking up space, stuff spread out over your table, and he’s gaining on you. You flinched, watched yourself flinch, and your gaze darted around until you were able to meet his (your) eyes (your head making minor, nervous movements you wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t seen them), expression cautious, curling in on yourself on impulse. When you saw how, through an outsider, that made you look small, you made the effort to sit up and roll your shoulders back, elbows on the table. You watched yourself recoil at the heat of the iron, and you had to use his perspective to know where your notebook was so that you could rest your arms on it.

He brushed past your table’s open chair, instead yanking the table by the edge away from your lap so that he could stand closer to you and grabbing your face. He first cupped your jaw with his whole hand, pale skin and leather of a fingerless glove cold to the touch, and then, when he seemed sure you weren’t going to protest (his vision turned slightly to the left—he must have tilted his head), he narrowed his grip in little jerks of his hand, sliding erratically from gripping your jaw to just tilting your chin upwards towards him. He turned your head to the left and to the right before returning to centre to stare you down (you’d been pliant under his control, because the doubling of you watching you do things was throwing off your senses of balance and direction).

“Not as hard as you fucking made it out to be, huh?” His thumb rubbed over your chin. His nail was cracked. “Now, are you gonna stop acting like a little bitch, or are we gonna keep playing your stupid game?”

“First of all,” you said, fascinated by the way your lips curled in under your teeth to shape the consonants, and judging by where your soulmate was looking, he was, too. “It’s not an act. I am a little bitch.”

“No more of that hiding shit.” He tapped your cheek a little harder than he needed to with his middle two fingers. “Don’t know why you’d wanna hide this, anyway.”

You wouldn’t’ve said you winced at his rough touch, but you noticed enough of an aggravated microexpression around your eyes that you could tell you didn’t like it. “You’re doing the same. Hiding what you look like from me.”

“And I’m gonna keep doing it. You get nothing. There is no us. Soulmates don’t exist, and even if some hack fraud’s quirk has paired us off, I don’t need anybody, least of all you.”

“Well, maybe you don’t need anyone,” you said, your eyes dipping to see more of his hand (hot damn, we forgot we can’t see through our own eyes that quickly?) and then raising them to look directly into your soulmate’s—hyperaware of the way your eyelashes fluttered against your skin, of the slight pinch of your eyebrows, of the way the sun struck your cheeks, “but you could want someone.”

A sliver of a cool breeze wove its way through the patio, some of your hair swaying with it.

“I won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want,” you said, lying, “but at the very least, we could communicate enough for this to be easy for us. Please let me give you my phone number, and please save it this time.”

His thumb inched up to press into your lower lip.

“Please,” you said, eyes dark but slightly glassy, letting your tongue tap the tip of his thumb, so lightly wetting it that it was as if you hadn’t touched it at all.

Your soulmate tilted his head again, lurching to the side as he shifted his weight to lean on the table. He knocked your pen onto the ground, and when you made the slightest movement to grab it, he pressed his thumb harder against you to still you, and he shook his head.

Your throat ran dry. Your (his) eyes honed in on the bead of sweat dripping down it and into your blouse. “Give me your name, then. A name, if you hate me that much.”

“It’s Touya,” he grumbled, and he closed his eyes in the moment before he kissed you, cold lips open before even touching yours (both rough, but his lower lip was much rougher for some reason). Blind, you startled back at the initial touch, but he held your chin firmly near his, sliding his gloved hand to your cheek as his tongue did into your mouth, pressing against the roof of your mouth and along your gums, alternating pressure where he pleased, not seeming to care what you did with your tongue—not that you were doing much at all due to surprise, but you at least had the mind to press your lips back, because while yes, his style was unorthodox, it still felt good. He laughed through his nose, once, when you slid your tongue against his, but when you raised a hand to cup his cheek, he pulled away before you could do more than graze him.

“Touya,” you said, and now that he was looking at you again, you—well, you looked kissed out, leaning towards him to chase that feeling, to encourage him to touch you again, and you looked fucking hot (the hell? It took a lot for you to think of yourself that way, and today hadn’t even been a good day for you, but now, freshly kissed, saying your soulmate’s name, you found yourself thinking you were pretty. Uh. Could this be what he was thinking instead of you? You couldn’t tell; it felt like it was coming from somewhere deep in your gut). “Touya. Let me write—”

You watched yourself grapple for your pen for a while. He huffed, crossed his arms, and bothered to look down where your pen was for you, and when he did, you finally grabbed it.

“Touya,” you said, uncapping the pen and hovering over your notebook, and you paused after the first stroke. “Touya spelled like that Todoroki Touya who released that Endeavor video during the war?”

The ink bled through the sheet of paper from being pressed in one spot for too long.

“Yeah,” he said eventually, voice rasping, “Spelled just like his.”

“Okay,” you said, bending over your paper and writing based on muscle memory, and under his name, you wrote your phone number for him again, with your name written beneath it, just to hammer it in. You ripped the page out of your notebook with some difficulty before passing it to him.

Touya scanned it and rubbed his thumb over your name, the leather of his fingerless glove catching on the uneven tear.

Cute. Nerd. “Do the gloves have something to do with your quirk?”

“What? No,” he said, crumpling the paper and stowing it in his pocket, and he kept his hands there, hiding them, “I don’t have a quirk.”

Okay, so Touya spoke in a rush and concealed evidence. Sounds like a lie. Monoma took that route on occasion, so the obvious thing for you to say was “Oh, so you wear them because of Naruto? Do you run like him, too?”

“Fuck off,” he spat, and you watched yourself grin: you’ve got him. “As if I had time to be a fuckin’ otaku.”

“Good to know,” you said, “So, all the manga re-analysis I’ve been doing with my friends is new to you? I hope you’re not planning on reading or watching any of the works that we’re covering, then. Unless you wanted to read along with us?”

“I don’t need that shit to scorch my brain.” For some reason, he winced, scrunching his eyes shut for a moment, and you waited in the dark for him.

“You have enough going on?”

He pried his eyes open, blinking blearily at you, still grinning, still smug. “Yeah,” he said, and he dug his left hand out to stare at the back of it, leather shining in the sunlight while he wiggled his fingers. He bent across the table to grab your coffee, fingers spidering over the rim to grip it, and he brought it to his mouth. “This is fucking awful; what’s wrong with you?” he asked after an audible swallow.

“It’s not my usual order.” Closing your notebook, you crossed your arms, staring down at you and feeling more and more like you’re in a dream. “You can either tell me what your quirk is, because I know you’re lying, or you could stay? For coffee? I’ll buy you something better.”

(You would have asked what’s up with his appearance that he didn’t want you to see or feel, but considering how early in your first official meeting it was, the question may be too insensitive, especially if he were born with it.)

Touya glanced over his shoulder, saw something you couldn’t, and set your mug on the iron table with a quiet clink. “I’ve got to go,” he said, and he spun around, taking the first step away.

You slammed a hand on the table purely on guesswork based on where he left your mug, and the sound of shaking iron and tinkling porcelain resounded, distant when you heard it through his ears, yet feeling the vibrations travel through your own arms. “Tell me your goddamn quirk, you daft fucker.”

Touya paused, and he turned back to you. “That’s more like it.” He sat on your table, at the place over your lap, and he reached out towards your face. You saw yourself lean back, eyes wide, but he simply dug his fingers into your hair at your hairline, scratching your scalp and digging his nails in enough to hear the movement.

(You saw yourself frown the moment you noticed his skin was colder than the glove.)

“Barking at me like that is how information is usually torn out of me. Makes me feel at home,” he said, a bit too cheerfully for your liking, “You can be trained to be a bitch towards me yet.”

“Touya,” you said, raising your head to embolden more of his touch, “Who’s—who’s been treating you like that? You don’t deserve it.”

“Shut up.” Touya laid his hand flat atop your head, the weight of it pushing down on you. “Sure, I lied. Said I didn’t have a quirk. Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.” Your tongue swiped over your lower lip, and Touya’s gaze darted to it. “I want any scrap of you I can get. Everything I’ve already learnt I’ve filed away in my heart: your name, the way you speak, your hatred of your brother’s fish and living at home—”

The hand on your hand slipped to slap over your mouth. “Jesus Christ, stop noticing things about me. Freak. Goddamn.” Touya lifted his hand off of you, and based on his perspective, he ran it through his own hair. “So that you don’t go making your own intrusive observations, I’ll tell you about my quirk: I effectively don’t have one anymore. I used it a lot, and it fucked me up. So, for my own self-preservation, which I’ve been told I should value, I can’t use it anymore. Good enough for you?”

“Great enough for me,” you said, “I’ll take care not to talk about my quirk or hero course stuff too much. I don’t want you to feel left out.”

“Holy shit,” said Touya, and he broke eye contact with you to stare at his boots (scuffed, black, but new, so the scuffing must be intentional), blinking rapidly before pressing—probably—his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids.

Something was deeply wrong with this man. You needed him to kiss you again. You opened your mouth to ask him to, but wooziness and your dry throat called; the ripped page of your notebook you’d been staring at dripped back into your own perspective at a glacial pace. You heard the scuffle of his shuffling off the iron table and the grit of his boot against the concrete, and when you grappled for him in the dark, your hand clenched around nothing.

You rubbed your eyes until the vertigo passed, and when you opened them, Touya was gone.

***

Later that afternoon, you were scrolling through your phone on the end cushion of one of Todoroki’s couches in the living room in a poor effort not to gawk at everything. You expected some of it could be excused, since it’s your first time at his house, but good God, rich people were insane. This was the biggest, traditionally-styled building (estate?) you’ve been in since you toured a castle preserved from the Edo period—but it was apt, you supposed, since Endeavor had been acting as a sort of daimyo of his own.

Dormer gables. Hip-and-gable roofs, with golden shachihoko shibi cupping the corners—though instead of the customary sea monsters, if your eyes weren’t deceiving you, they appeared to be made for flame-swimming instead of in water. A recessed entryway, its wooden flooring tiles hand-cut in tiny designs to make you aware of the space, with brand-new guest slippers already provided before you could ask. Todoroki’s house (estate?) screamed business, or at the very least, don’t touch anything.

At least the living room in which you sat stiffly had a touch of clear modernity—and so it seemed that the inner rooms actually revealed that they were living in the modern age, but the barrier of traditional architecture to get to actual living space heaved a hyperawareness of outsider onto your shoulders.

Todoroki himself, bless him, moved around like the elegant austerity didn’t even occur to him. Waiting for Midoriya with the rest of you, he’d helped everyone spread out their notes and manga over the short table and floor, gathering blankets for everyone when it occurred to him that not everyone’s body tolerated temperature like he did (since the house was kept oddly cold), and, instead of offering tea, like he’d said his sister would expect him to do, he provided a peculiar but pleasant combination of snacks: cheap-ass cup noodles, strawberry chardonnay-flavoured cheese on soup crackers, old mooncakes that had been in the fridge for a month but he declared were still good, and gummy worms for Monoma.

The bitch even bought everyone a fancy little drink according to personal preferences—and no one had even requested them or informed him what to get, but he’d gotten everything right, regardless (you suspected he’d asked Shinsou for help).

“Thank you,” you said, turning over in your hands the poshest bottle of pink lemonade you’ve ever seen, “You’re a very gracious host, Todoroki.”

He slurped his own caramel frappe. “I’m very excited to have so many friends over at once.”

“Of course,” you said, your weight jostling on the couch cushion as Todoroki sat next to you, “I can’t believe we didn’t think of going off-campus to watch this shit earlier. There’s way more privacy here.”

“Our doors are always open nowadays,” he said, and when Sero tapped Todoroki on his shoulder to help open another package of cheese, he held up a finger to pause your conversation.

Smiling softly, you twisted off the bottlecap of your lemonade, holding it up to your nose to inhale that pressurised burst of lemon scent, and—oh, hey, you felt a little lightheaded as you did so. Two times in one day? That’s new. At least it was from your perspective this time, so you didn’t have to worry about knocking anyone’s drink over.

“Hey,” you said, snuggling down into the couch, your palm atop the opening of your drink (when Monoma shot you a questioning look with the phone call hand signal, you nodded, and he relaxed and leaned towards you, his teeth cutting into his lower lip as he grinned). “Funny how we keep meeting like this, yeah?” you asked, feeling soft and full of love for this fucker, and you reached towards the coffee table to set down your drink and grab a flower-shaped mooncake. “I guess I can stop hiding from my reflection now, sweet boy.” You made eye contact with yourself in the reflection of the Torodokis’ enormous flatscreen, and you held your mooncake up in a toast before biting into it. “Hope you’re well. You seemed stressed earlier. I’m currently—”

Your phone rang in your lap, and you narrowed your eyes at the unknown number before answering it. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you right now?”

“Wow,” you said, chewing, “No greeting, even? No mention of how much that you miss my voice or my lips now that you’ve—”

“Just tell me where the fuck you are,” said Touya, at the same time that Monoma’s eyebrows shot to his hairline at the kissing implication, and he thumped Shinsou in the chest for him to look up from his phone.

“Does it matter?”

“I told you my quirk shit when I didn’t want to, so fucking tell me,” said Touya, sounding muffled and, again, like he stood near traffic.

Swallowing mooncake in a rush and choking a bit, you cleared your throat and said, “Fine. I don’t know why it matters that much to you, but I’m at a friend’s house. Our anime analysis group has gotten too big for the dorms, so we’re trying out his place.”

You had to ensure the call hadn’t dropped due to his long response time. “What friend?” he asked.

You raised a brow, though he couldn’t see you. “I doubt you would know—shit!”

Struggling to tear the plastic covering the cheese, Todoroki had accidentally slammed his elbow into your collarbone.

“Geez.” You winced at Todoroki and rubbed the spot. “No, no, I’m fine,” you said when he reached towards your collarbone, his fingertips already icing over, “You may want to go get a knife to open that, though.”

Nodding soberly, Todoroki lowered his thawing hand and rose from the couch, tossing the cheese to himself. “I’ll do that. Anyone need anything from the kitchen while I’m up?”

While the others answered, you spoke into your phone again, hand on your chest. “Sorry about that. I guess if you paid attention to the news last year, you’d know him: one of Endeavor’s kids, Todoroki Shouto.”

The soulmate connection started to trickle away, but Touya stayed on the phone. “Do you not have any other friends who have a place?” Plastic crinkled on his end, along with a car horn in the background. “Hell, the library downtown rents out portable TVs—”

“Why should I be at another friend’s house?” Touya wouldn’t be able to see the reflection of your self-satisfied smirk now, but surely he could hear it in your voice. “Jealous that I’m at the house of another man?”

Touya gagged into the speaker. “Someone’s full of herself. Don’t wait up for me,” he said, and he hung up.

You pulled your phone away from your ear, pouting at the call screen before creating a new contact.

“You didn’t tell us you’d met your soulmate,” said Shinsou.

“It only happened this afternoon,” you said, saving his number under Touya 🐠🚷 (the fish for the koi pond he hated, and the no pedestrians sign for his apparent propensity to jaywalk), “and I’m not sure what to make of him. I was hoping to form my own opinion before telling all of you.”

Todoroki perked up and tilted his ear skyward at the sound of the front door opening. “I’ll get it,” he said, standing, “I bet that’s my brother. He’s back four hours late from physical therapy; I hope everything’s okay.”

Your eye twitched.

(Todoroki had warned everyone before coming over that his family would probably be in and out. Less so Fuyumi and Natsuo, because Fuyumi had recently moved in with her significant other and Natsuo had his own place near campus, but more of his parents and Dabi. Well. Touya, now, but you had your own Touya to worry about.

You’d met Dabi. Twice, during freshman year. When he’d been a villain, instead of whatever was happening with him in recovery. Rather formulative experiences for you, ones you only permitted yourself to think about in the hollowness of lonely nights—but you didn’t need those memories anymore, because you had your Touya now.

Remember? You have your own Touya. You don’t need another.)

“Do you want me to carry that for you?”

Todoroki’s voice trailed behind boot scuffing and a sliding door, and in Dabi/Touya shuffled—hoodie yanked up (layered over a longer coat?), strings pulled firmly around his face, plastic bags from the convenience store down the street on his wrist, very determinedly staring at the floor as he strode past behind the couch instead of at the four of you strewn across his living room, ducking into the kitchen as soon as possible.

You’d barely seen him for five seconds, and your heart was going to beat out of your chest. Or maybe that was just the bruise forming on your collarbone.

Todoroki nodded after his brother, standing behind your place at the couch. “There’s no ceremonial introduction, I assume. That’s my brother, Touya. You’ve all,” said Todoroki, scratching the back of his neck, “met him before. But! If you’re nervous, we will not be seeing much of him. He doesn’t spend much time in the main house; he lives in the old-fashioned teahouse towards the back of the garden. Privacy, you know, even though we’ve got to keep him close.” Todoroki wetted his lips as he looked towards the emptied shrine on the far wall. “He shouldn’t be any trouble, but I may have to zip out on occasion to help him. Not all of his skin grafts are taking.”

The doorbell rang, and Todoroki started towards it. “That must be Midoriya. Sero, would you please pull up the next episode?”

When Todoroki stepped into the entryway to greet him, you couldn’t suppress your curiosity. “I’m gonna go pour this over ice,” you said, gesturing with your pink lemonade bottle, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Shinsou—the only one whom you’ve told about what happened with Dabi back then—shot you a crooked grin, but he distracted Monoma from noticing exactly what you were doing while you sneaked away down the hall.

His back was to you. Water flowed out of the kitchen faucet while he yanked his hoodie over his head and tossed it over the back of a chair, and he did the same with a longer, black coat—similar in shape to the coat he’d worn as a villain but not the same one. Maybe he’d grown accustomed to having the weight of it on his body, so what he wore now was a type of security blanket. While he ran a spoon under the faucet, he fumbled behind himself for his plastic, convenience store bag and fished out a pudding cup.

Backtracking a little, you purposely made your footsteps audible so that you wouldn’t startle him, and you entered the kitchen, shaking your lemonade for more noise to alert him of your presence.

His white brows pinched when he saw you, and he hastily shut the water off and scooted off to the edge of the counter while he put his stuff away, his movements rigid and close to his chest.

“Hi,” you said (oh, my God, you were talking to Dabi; holy shit), “Where do the cups live?”

Dabi blinked slowly, unable to look at you, and he peeled the lid off of his pudding cup. He glanced towards the door and back towards his stuff on the table, and he pointed towards a cabinet, his finger returning to his fist in a rush to get back what he was doing.

“Thank you,” you said, opening the one he’d pointed to. Oh. Fancy. Lots of choices. “I hope we’re not bothering you. We can—we can always leave, if you need us to. Or you could join us, if you like.” You turned around in time to see the flat of his tongue lick pudding off of the lid, stitches showing at the back of his tongue, and in the moment where he ducked his head, the tiny, unblemished part of his skin near the corners of his eyes blazing pink, your brain short-circuited.

(Dabi had been your first kiss.

During freshman year, in the week of that first round of internships, you’d been planted in Hosu City, around the time Stain closed his fist around the public consciousness. On a night patrol, your mentor had slipped into a restaurant that the yakuza frequented and stationed you in a nearby alley to watch for other yakuza incoming from the employees’ entrance.

An official sidekick had caught up with you—late forties, spandex, unrecognisable. You’d been terse in your replies, since he’d been essentially blowing your cover, but he couldn’t take a hint.

It’d only occurred to you that he’d been hitting on you when he’d propped an arm on the brick wall above your head to dominate your personal space, and an all-consuming dread had erupted in your stomach when he’d said, moving to take your chin in hand, “You know, you remind me a lot of my daughter.”

Before he’d been able to touch you, something rabid and ravenous about the size of a labrador had tackled him to the ground, the force knocking him almost two whole meters away, and the thing ripped into the sidekick’s chest, blood spewing—and somehow having the sense to cover his mouth to stifle the shouts.

In the moment you’d moved to get a better look at what was, in retrospect, a nomu, another figure had stepped between you and the sidekick, his own arm resting on the wall to keep you from getting closer.

“Hey,” Dabi had said, an easy grin stretching across his face, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about anything. Just testing some shit out for someone. So long as you don’t go making any noise, I’ll let you walk away.”

Dabi hadn’t made his villain debut back then, but even so, it hadn’t seemed like it was just testing something out for someone; this guy had seemed his own brand of dangerous. Your gaze had started to creep towards the source of crunching, but he’d tapped your cheek, making you look at him. “Nuh-uh. Keep your eyes on me. If you don’t know anything, I don’t have to kill you, do I?”

“I, I’m—” You’d steeled yourself somewhat, your hands clenching into fists at your sides. “I’m not just gonna let you kill a hero while I stand here.”

Again, Dabi had stopped you before you could take a full step, this time by gripping your jaw, letting it rest in his palm while his fingers dug into your cheeks. “Can’t call him a hero. Was comparing you to his daughter—didn’t you hear? And it looked like he was gonna assault you. Some guys aren’t meant to be fathers.” His syrupy gaze had fallen to your neck, and he’d squeezed your face. “Jesus, your heart is beating like crazy.”

“I don’t normally calm myself down to the sounds of someone getting maimed,” you’d said, blood splattering in the air behind him, “Oh! Fuck.” You’d scrunched your eyes shut and curled in on yourself, trying to block out the sound of bones snapping.

“Some hero you are.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you’d said, “You’re more of one than I am, tonight. Thanks—?”

“Dabi,” he’d said, and at the time, it had just been a name. When you’d pried open your eyes, he’d been smiling, mouth closed, head tilted at being called a hero. You’d smiled back, but at an enormously strident crack from behind him, you’d had a full-body jolt. “Fucking hell, calm down,” he’d said, his arm sliding from the wall to your upper arm, “For once, you’re safe with me.” Seeing you try to look over his shoulder again, Dabi had dragged you forward by the jaw to kiss you, closed-mouthed but hot, leaning into you, his mouth overwhelming you with hardly any effort on his end, and he’d kept kissing you, stroking your cheek with the back of his hand, until the nomu slinked into silence.

Dabi had broken off when the nomu scuttled farther down the alley. “Right.” He’d taken a deep breath. “You gonna tell anyone about me?”

You’d shaken your head, confused as to why he seemed more concerned about descriptions of him rather than descriptions of the murder. But he’d been nice to you. Had given you a hell of a first kiss. “I can say someone in the yakuza killed him.”

He’d roughly patted your cheek and dropped away from you, stowing his hands in the deep pockets of his coat. “His death isn’t worth reporting, but I’ll take it.” He’d spun on his heel, raising a lazy hand in a wave as he disappeared into the night. “You’d better hope you never see me again.”)

And now, here he was, hunched over shitty gas station snacks in his family kitchen, a spoon hanging out of his mouth while he stowed things away. His naturally white hair showed now, and…he seemed terribly shy. Dabi, shy. Fucking ridiculous. But, you supposed, there’s guilt and shame around, uh, doing what he did. And—and his body was horribly, horribly mangled and mottled. He might not think anyone should look at him.

Todoroki (Shouto, you supposed you should think of him as, since Dabi was a Todoroki, too) had mentioned not all of Dabi’s skin grafts were taking. It was obvious. He’d burnt up during the war, and while you’d heard Recovery Girl and Eri had worked on him, despite outside protests that he wasn’t worth it, he still was very clearly cobbled together.

He still had a lot of staples, though faded stitches filled in new gaps, and those that remained had been replaced with medical-grade staples that wouldn’t get infected. Patches of successful grafts left a waning diamond pattern, particularly around his neck. Very little purple, overall, but going by the scars, you could still tell where it had been. Based on his appearance, he shouldn’t be alive, let alone able to walk around.

But he scooted with such speed out of your way when you got ice out of the freezer. “But really, you could stick around with us, if you wanted to. No pressure, though, if you want to be alone.” Calmly. You were calmly popping ice out of a tray and letting them clatter into your glass. “We’re watching Hunter x Hunter right now, if you’re interested. Have you read or watched it before, either the 1999 or 2011 version? Do you have a favourite character?”

Dabi clutched his snacks and discarded clothes to his chest, almost at the door, with his eyes darting all around the kitchen except on you.

Yeah. Must be shy. You were one of the U.A. students who fought in the war, after all, even though you didn’t personally fight him in the end. Probably feels guilty about the whole thing. Shy could be refreshing, after those bitches in the living room and your cunning soulmate.

Finally, tentatively, Dabi shifted his belongings to his right arm, and he raised his left to pat his throat, swallowing so that his Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Oh,” you said, ice melting in your hand, “I’m sorry. Are you on vocal rest? Vocal cords messed up somehow?”

After a moment, Dabi nodded. He edged towards the hallway.

“Okay. I hope you feel better soon,” you said, and you poured your lemonade over the ice. “I’ve kept you long enough. Please go rest; I hope we don’t disturb you further.”

Before you finished, he’d already skibbled off, his house shoes slipping on the wood.

***

(The second time you’d met Dabi hadn’t been as hands-on, but it’d still left an odd impression.

It’d been in an urban jungle-type battle, after knowing his involvement the League but before his backstory reveal, and you and some classmates had been fighting a handful of PLF-aligned villains.

You’d slithered underneath a lean-to created by a partially collapsed building to catch your breath, along with shielding yourself from an explosion Bakugou had been building up. You hadn’t even known Dabi was in the group you were chasing, but he’d slinked underneath the same, protective ruins as you had, barely slipping underneath the cover before Bakugou’s explosion had shaken it.

Dabi had braced himself on the crumbling entrance, scrunching his face away from the explosion, and once it’d stopped, he’d noticed you were barely two paces away from him, sweat dribbling down your face the same as it’d been down his.

You still didn’t know if his startled, constipated expression had been of recognition or simple surprise to see someone else taking cover under something that could collapse and kill them. He’d taken in your U.A. gym uniform—your personal hero costume had been in repairs that week—and there’d been a couple of heavy seconds where neither of you had done anything besides pant and let sweat drip onto the rubble.

He'd slipped out first, since he’d been blocking the entrance, and you’d left soon after. You hadn’t been five steps out of the lean-to before someone on the PLF side had destroyed it, and in the privacy of your heart, you liked to think that Dabi had waited until you were out to raze it.)

***

You made it a habit to call Touya whenever the soulmate bond activated. Though he never initiated a call, he answered most of yours. What else was he going to do, if it were on your side, besides sit there in the dark? He continued to be hold information about himself like a miser clutching coins, but you found it refreshing to have a charismatic grouch of a pseudo-pen pal.

You’d closed the door of a library study room behind you as you called him this time, setting your stack of books on the table.

“You’re finally reading something besides manga? I thought your brain was gonna rot,” he said upon picking up.

You slung the strap of your purse over a chair. “No greeting? No admittance of missing the melodious sound of my voice?”

“Why in the hell would I do that,” he said over the screech of pulling out your chair.

“Because you missed the melodious sound of my voice?” You pulled out your notebook, flipped it to a new page, and fossicked around for a pen. Clicking the one you found, you reached for the first book in your stack, a rudimentary sign language dictionary, and you jotted down a list of common words as they came to you, such as thank you, help, and, of course, the all-important cat.

Touya clicked his tongue. “Are you seriously gonna make me study with you?”

You made the final stroke in the word pudding. “I don’t expect you to absorb the information. If you rather I read manga, I can go to that section for a while. Pick out a shoujo.”

“Get fucked with that otaku shit,” said Touya, and—he must have had his phone on speaker, because a couple of people were speaking to each other nearby about what must be the latest Assassins’ Creed, and the sound changed after some scrapes, with Touya sounding closer. “Why study sign language?”

“There’s someone in my life who recently became unable to talk all of the time,” you said, “and I’d like to help give him some way to communicate.”

“Just text him,” said Touya, “Well—never mind. Who’d wanna text you, anyway?”

“Sometimes, people put away their phones, Touya. Have you heard of it?” You drew a line down the half of your paper to make a new column, one sorting the words in groups—places, family members, requests, and the like.

“What are you getting out of it?” Touya must have scratched somewhere on his face, the sound coming over the phone. “You makin’ fun of him? Making him feel bad? If he wants to talk to you, he can just write shit down.”

“I think he might hate it because of how slow it is. And what if I luck out, and he knows sign already? Then half of my work is done for me,” you said, listing off all of the terms for family members, “Text-to-speech may be okay, but I don’t know. Still slow.”

“He probably doesn’t even want to talk to you,” said Touya, “let alone learn something for you. That’s a lot to ask for someone you ain’t fuckin’.”

You hummed and ignored him. You titled a new column Body, and the first word under it was burns. Followed by healing, surgery, hands, skin, hurt, and rest. For the first time in a while, Touya’s emotions were strong enough for you to feel, but you couldn’t name them. More like some pitiful, fearful soup, if anything, and other stuff you couldn’t put your finger on.

His voice still came in confidently derisive, though. “What kind of fucked up guy are you spreading your legs for, since those are what you’re writing down for his body? Seems like you’d be better off as a cocksleeve for someone else actually capable of fucking you.”

“Oh, rude! Rude!” Scowling, you set down your pen. “That’s rude to both me and him. I’m not talking to you anymore. Enjoy studying, asshole.” You flipped to a random page in the dictionary and started memorising, a bit too pissed to be productive for real, and you kept it up—if Touya were going to be here, then he’s not learning productive sign language, either. Try using marble and mare in everyday conversation, jackass.

Later, you caught yourself zoning out while staring at an entry, only shaking yourself out of it when Touya grumbled under his breath for you to turn the page already.

***

Todoroki paused the episode when the pizza arrived.

Moaning way too sensually, Kaminari stretched his arms above his head and arched his back. “My electricity is cooler than Killua’s, right? I have more swag than him?”

“No.”

“In your dreams.”

“Yikes.”

“Wrong,” said Shinsou, pelting him in the face with a popcorn kernel.

Kaminari picked it up off the floor and ate it mournfully. “I’m getting beaten by a fictional twelve year old.”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you announced, pushing yourself up from your seat between Shinsou and Monoma (which was just as well, since they were comparing scans of the current manga chapter over your lap), and you set off with the intention going to the farthest bathroom to increase your chances of bumping into Dabi.

No such luck, even though you deliberately stomped your slippers as loudly as you could to try to draw him out. Sighing, you backtracked to a tiny bathroom you’ve used before, one that wasn’t as intimidatingly wealthy as the rest of the house and therefore actually felt like it was meant to be used, and you opened the creaking door onto an exhausted, shirtless Dabi trying to rub some sort of cream on the back of his neck, a massive jar open on the sink, blood seeping down his biceps at the strain around his staples.

Both of you froze. He took a quick glance to the gobs of cream on his hands and managed to kick the door shut from his seat on the closed toilet, but your foot caught in the door, which struck your nose and cheekbone, with you yelping and clutching the area.

“Sorry! I’m sorry,” you said through the crack in the door, shakily dragging your bruised foot out of it, “I didn’t know anyone was even in this side of the house. Are you okay? No, wait, sorry again—you’re bleeding; of course you’re not okay. I’m sorry.” You checked your nose for bleeding of your own, but nothing leaked out of your nose. “Can I—may I help with whatever you’re doing?”

No answer. But he hadn’t shut the door.

“Fine,” you said, and you spoke into the crack, only able to make out the granite on the near side of the sink. “I don’t know what’s going on with you nowadays, but I hope you’re doing okay. Or that you’ll be okay soon, at least. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through, and I’m sorry you had to go through it. But I can grasp, I think, that having a bunch of your brother’s friends over can be intimidating and isolating. If nothing else, I’d like to get to know you better—or you could just get to know me better, if you don’t feel like sharing—so that having all of us over isn’t as terrible. I’m sorry we’re bursting into your life when you’re working out a lot of stuff in recovery—”

Dabi yanked open the door, brow furrowed, and instead of looking at you, he clamped his slimy hands on the sink and stood on his toes to arch towards the mirror, opening his mouth wide to breathe hot air onto it, teeth bared, as if he were roaring. In its fleeting fog, he traced out kanji, streaked with lotion and hidden by his left hand as he wrote, and he blew over it a final time before stepping back and jabbing at the message.

Stop apologising.

“Ah—oh,” you said, while Dabi squatted and rooted through the cabinet under the sink, “Okay. I’ll try. Thank you for saying so.” How do you talk to someone who was formerly 1) an S-tier villain and, more importantly, 2) your longest-running crush?

Dabi plopped a meagre first-aid kit on the counter and pointed to the source of bleeding on one of his arms, the inside bicep where two staples had come loose.

“I don’t know shit about first-aid,” you said, reaching for the kit anyway, “I know you have to keep pressure on it, and stuff, but—”

And so the first time Dabi looked you in the eyes was to shoot you an incredulous, suspicious glare that accompanied his snatching the kit back from you, clutching it out of your reach. Relaxing once it was in his hands, he hesitated a moment, shifting his jaw, before nudging the open jar of lotion with his knuckle, reverting to his fixed gaze on his feet.

“I can do that,” you said, heart racing, “You wanna—why don’t you sit back down?”

Not lotion, you noted, as Dabi pulled out disinfectant wipes and a roll of gauze near its end, burn cream. Aw. You dipped your first three fingers into it (heavy, roll-around slimy, like holding a frog) and hoped to God that your soulmate didn’t tune in during this. Touya didn’t like a lot of things you did, but he’d probably loathe your gawking over the scarred back of someone who wasn’t him.

Yeah, Touya would probably hate how you would hone in, laser-sharp, each time Dabi’s muscles flexed as he wrapped his wound, how the space between his shoulder blades with the tiny dent along his spine (well, his spine indented at the top of his back, where he was broader and still held muscle, and poked out towards his lower back as he bent over) held your focus far too long to be impersonal—and you got to touch it. You kept the contact to your fingertips, because as much as you wanted to flatten your hands to feel every moving tendon, you didn’t want to scare him. He’s probably not used to outside touch, and you shouldn’t come on too strongly, especially when someone else’s soul was fucking bound to yours.

But as your fingers smoothed over the marks around his shoulders where burns used to be, skin cold to the touch, as Dabi turned his head to the side just barely so that he could watch you out of his periphery, you found it hard to remind yourself that you already had a Touya. Can’t have two.

“I know it’s none of my business, but, uh, if you’re on vocal rest this often, I could—I could help you learn some sign language?” You scratched underneath your eye in a nervous gesture and smeared some of the burn cream on your cheek. “Nothing intensive. Only simple, everyday stuff, like—well. I don’t know what frequents your vocabulary. You don’t have to, but I’m offering. Just in case.”

In the mirror, Dabi halted in tying the gauze to glare up at you, his lip curling up in flash of a sneer.

“Okay, that’s cool. That’s fine. I can—I can leave a sign language book with your brother, if you—if you ever change your mind.” You nodded, just to have some sort of reaction he could see, and he tucked away the disinfectant wipes and tossed the empty roll of gauze into the trash bin. “Hey,” you said, noting how he’d only bled at his left arm, which was covered with mottled patches of skin, staples, and stitches, along with the faint diamond-pattern of skin grafts, while his right arm needed no medical attention, pale and unblemished without any sign of damage, “What’s up with—if you’re comfortable with sharing, why doesn’t your right arm have any scars? Was Recovery Girl able to heal that more effectively, or something?”

Holding your gaze in the mirror, Dabi raised his eyebrows, nearly vanishing under the drooping, white spikes of his hair, and he reached over with his left hand to rub his thumb over his right shoulder and curving down into his armpit.

He actually laughed (a laugh through his nose, yes, and one without the humming sort of vocalisation usually accompanying a laugh through a nose, but a laugh nevertheless) at how hard you jumped when he popped off what was apparently a prosthetic.

***

“If you hate gardening this much, why keep doing it?” you asked, once again trapped in Touya’s perspective late at night while he tended to a traditional, Japanese garden. You lay flat on your back in bed, hands and phone resting on your chest (laptop closed to the side. Your essay was due at eight o’clock in the morning. Would Present Mic accept late work due to soulmate interference?).

“Lots of dumb fucking reasons that all fold in together,” said Touya, shovelling gravel out of a wheelbarrow and into the man-made brook he was trying to shape, “One: my stupid fucking family has decided that doing this earthy shit would calm me down. Zen gardening, or whatever.”

“Oh, do you have issues controlling your anger, Touya?”

“Stop that. Two.” Gravel pittered off the shovel blade, falling into the trickling water with a series of tiny plops. “One of my brothers brought up how Mom always liked the garden but was stopped from taking care of it herself, and since I did some shit to—it’s not like I could’ve helped it; they were keeping stuff from her, too. Anyway, Mom’s fucking sad nowadays. Better, but sad.” Touya sank the shovel into the gravel to lean on it, tracking the flow of the water for a moment, twisting through the previous path currently being overtaken by moss and fallen stone. “And my brother thinks the garden being fancy again will make our mom happy, especially if I’m the one to do it. Dick. Saying if we hired people to do it, it wouldn’t be the same. Started with just the damn fish, but now the whole fucking thing’s my job. It’s fucking shit. It’s blackmail and family obligation and rent all at once. It’s a fuckin’ nasty trick.”

Touya dug into the wheelbarrow again. “And my fa—that guy had the nerve to suggest that I needed something to do during the day. As if I’m not busy enough.”

“During the day? Touya, I’ve only seen you garden at night.”

“Because it’s too damn hot outside all the time. And I don’t want anyone watching me. I’m no one’s business. But I bet they’d like staring out of a window at me, while I break my fucking body again moving all of these shitty rocks and shaping Mom’s fucking evergreens.” He shovelled with deep malice. “Did you fucking know that there’s goddamn symbolism in these shitty gardens? That you can’t just put things anywhere without it meaning something? Somehow ponds are supposed to be oceans. Rocks are supposed to be mountains. Forced perspective shit, paired with tenets of Zen and Shinto, and it’s the pettiest, most unnecessary bullshit I’ve ever had to deal with, and I dealt with a friend’s abominable driving for years. Never got any better at it, even though I got fucking motion sick.”

He knelt, and when two, fat glops of Touya’s sweat dripped onto the stone at the impact, you rather enjoyed the gentle wafting about your dorm room at the blades of your ceiling fan.

He must have felt your appreciation. “Stop that. I’m making a point. Look at this shit,” he said, gesturing to the brook and then up at the three-quarter moon, “I’ve gotta change the course of the water, because it’s better to face towards the moon to capture its reflection, and I’ve gotta make it somehow cascade or waterfall at some point over there.” He pointed far across the garden towards a flickering pair of stone lanterns. “How am I supposed to do that? I can’t even make it flow through gravel right. I might have to move some of the stepping stones again. I fucking hate those things. They’re too heavy for one person, and I’ve already had to rearrange them because some of them weren’t fucking weathered or natural-looking enough.”

“Sure. Death to aesthetics,” you said, blindly feeling around for a pack of gum you kept in your bedside table, “I’d come help you if I could, but somebody—”

“You’re not getting a location out of me, princess.”

You paused, hand on the knob of the first drawer, and a wide, smug smile broke across your face (Princess, Touya? You’re gonna call me princess? You sure you don’t care about me?).

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“I could feel it,” said Touya, flexing his fingers on his knees, “so shut up.”

Gloved hands clenched into fists, he glared at the brook, the gravel, up at the moon, and back into the water.

“You know, it looks like if you moved most of the gravel to one side, the water might flow the direction you need it to.”

“Who’s the one busting their ass here, me or you?” But he plunged his hands into the water, grabbed heaping fistfuls of rocks, and patted them onto the far side of the stone bed.

“Touya,” you said, feeling around in your drawer for the pack of gum, “Take your gloves off! You’re gonna ruin the leather.”

“Like I care.” He dragged more gravel underwater. “If I took ’em off, you’d see my hands.”

“Come off of it, Touya. I bet they’re perfectly fine,” you said, successfully grabbing gum and sliding your drawer shut, “Hands are often the most attractive part of a man.”

He paused, water flowing around his arms up to his elbows (he wouldn’t roll up his sleeves, either. Stubborn boy. He must hate whatever’s going on with him). “Not the dick?” He sounded like he was grinning.

“Not always. Some of them look like sad, sea creatures,” you said, unwrapping your gum into your phone’s speaker to annoy him, “It takes talent to have a pretty cock. Hands, however, can easily be lusted over because of what they’re capable of. Or what you know they’ve done.”

(Hee hoo hah, like burn down a city. You’re so normal about it.)

“Not how they look?”

“Appearance can help, but it’s not the whole cow,” you said, chewing while the flavour faded fast.

Touya scoffed, his fingers sinking into gravel. “You makin’ fun of me?”

What? “Of course not. Why?”

“Don’t say shit like that to get on my good side. I’m more than aware I ain’t got anything besides my shitty personality goin’ for me.” He cleared his throat. “That sign language guy got anything I don’t?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You sure seem obsessed with him,” said Touya, leaning more deeply into the water, soaking his hoodie even more, “even though he sounds pathetic. You tryin’ to fix him to make yourself look good?”

“Of course not. I know no one can fix anyone else. He has to choose to do that himself,” you said, “Not that there’s anything about him that merits fixing.”

Laughing (oh? hot), Touya scooped a handful of gravel out of the wheelbarrow to add it to the far side. “Yeah, you’re fucking obsessed with him. Am I not your soulmate?”

You rolled your eyes, even though he couldn’t see it (and…you…couldn’t see it). “You haven’t given me anything to obsess over, unless you want me to research gardening tips or how to breed carp.”

“I would love for you to be obsessed with breeding, sweet—”

“Oh, my God, you have to ease into that sort of thing, Touya.”

He pulled his hands out of the brook, drenched sleeves gushing water back into it. “D’you want me to start with how much I wanna suck on your perfect tits?”

“Touya,” you said carefully, shoving the gum to one cheek, “Is everything okay? You’re acting—strange.”

“What do you—”

“Where’s the blind hatred for me? Where’s the disdain?”

Sitting back on his knees, Touya shoved his leather-wet-dripping hands into the damp, double pocket of his hoodie with a muted slosh. “You think I hate you?”

“You’re that rude to people you don’t hate?”

Water seeped through the pocket and through his jeans, visibly darker in the moonlight and soaking his thighs. “Fuck off. I mean—what I mean is that I’m not used to people like you. Who don’t talk like me. Who aren’t mean to me back. Or who don’t seem to want anything from me. Didn’t know you really thought I was rude.”

You screwed up your face. “Who have you been hanging out with? What the hell is wrong with you? Spend time with people who like you, please?”

“No one likes me—”

“Get your head out of your ass, edgelord,” you said, sitting up in bed and holding the phone up to your mouth, “Newsflash, dipshit, it sounds like lots of people like you. Your brother, who wants to help you make your mom happy, in an easy, physical way that you’re more than capable of. Your mom, who sounds like she’s happier now that you’re back in her life. The rest of your goddamn family, who want you close by so that they can help you if you ever fucking accepted it. Your stupid friends who are into Assassins’ Creed.”

“Stop fucking noticing things about—”

“And me. I like you, dipshit. Get over yourself. You’re digging yourself your own lonely, self-deprecating hole, where I guess you’re at your most comfortable. But tonight alone you’ve shown in your garden that you fucking hate digging holes. They mean unnecessary work.”

Inhaling sharply, you threw your phone into the bedspread, but all that came through was a distant deer scare, bamboo hitting rock.

“Since when do you like me?” he asked, pushing on his knees to stand.

The artificial-yellow light from your lamp starting creeping in around the rim of your vision, blotting out parts of Touya’s silhouette in the moonlight. “I talk to you, don’t I? I wouldn’t even acknowledge the bond if I weren’t open to—we’ve been hanging out. You didn’t know?”

“Like I would know what that looks like,” said Touya, the walls of your room coming into view while Touya pulled his own phone out of his inner pocket, tapping the screen to see how long the call has lasted, “Like I would know how someone like you would behave when they like me.”

“Stay on the goddamn phone,” you said in the moment his thumb hovered over the end call button, the last thing you made out before fully sinking back into your dorm room, “If you don’t know what I—well, what does your love look like, Touya? What do you do when you like someone?”

“Sexually? Romantically?”

“Not necessarily,” you said, pissed to have the connection severed and sliding off of the bed to turn off the lights, “Just when you care for someone at all.”

“Gimme a minute,” came Touya’s voice, and after you flipped the lights and the ceiling fan off, you wandered over to your window, switched your phone off speaker, and held it to your ear as you stared up at the same moon Touya was under, and you waited.

“Right, I don’t know for sure,” he said after a while (but it sounded like he’d stopped dealing with the gravel to think about it), “but this is the only thing that’s coming to mind. Before I was living at home again, me and some friends didn’t have consistent sources of food. Don’t interrupt to say you’re sorry. But. So, whenever I’d, uh, buy stuff. From a store. I’d make sure I got some sort of snack for whoever I was with, even though we were all too proud to ask for shit. Didn’t really think about doing it on purpose. But I guess I did.”

“You are deliciously, delightfully, tender as fuck,” you said, clenching a fist over your heart, your boob jostling with the fervent impact (and it pleased you knowing that Touya would’ve laughed if he’d seen), and you kept talking over his sounds of disapproval. “And I am gonna cook for you. I am going to set you a table so vast that you’re gonna be eating off it for a long, long time. You’re never gonna be fucking hungry ever again, Touya.”

When he didn’t answer, you worried you said the wrong thing, but you stayed on the line, listening. Two minutes later, he hung up, and you could have sworn he cut off in the middle of a wet sniffle.

***

What can you cook? What were you good at cooking that actually constituted a filling meal?

Start small, you supposed.

Fuyumi kept the Todoroki kitchen much more well-stocked than the kitchen to which you had access, and so, with welcome permission, you headed over to the estate earlier than the scheduled viewing time to prepare, with Shinsou and Todoroki hanging out in the kitchen with you.

“Jirou says she can attend,” said Todoroki, thumb swiping across his phone screen, “Turns out her tipping point was stating the merits of studying Melody’s music powers. She’s asking if Yaoyorozu may attend as well?”

“It’s your house.” Shinsou was folding his napkin into an origami frog. “If there’s a need for excuses, you can always say Yao might like—I forget his name, but he’s that character in the Phantom Troupe whose hair looks like a mop? She might like analysing how his power lets him copy anything, even though it doesn’t have the same limitations like her quirk.”

“I will mention that,” said Todoroki, nodding sagely.

The plan was simple: with a captive audience of anime nerds, you could get feedback on your cooking until it was good enough for Touya (a small part of you still cringed thinking about how he reacted to your potato wedges). You would lure your friends into a state of complacency with your smaller dishes—baked goods, and the like—until there was no escape when you served them something more filling, like soups.

Today, you were making teeny little lemon ricotta pancakes (the recipe called for them to be regular-sized, but if you made them around the size of a potato chip, it would be more accessible to eat with fingers in the living room) that gave you the air of being fancy but were actually mindless to make, it turned out, and right now, you were stirring the stewing blueberry syrup that you’d decided would be a dipping sauce rather than drizzled over—the Todorokis had an excess of white furniture, and you would like to be invited to use their kitchen again.

“I think,” you said, once the syrup was behaving like syrup when you let it dribble out of the ladle back into the pot, “I’m gonna take some to your brother. I don’t want him feeling left out, if he comes through. He’s home right now, yeah?”

“He’s in his teahouse. It’s towards the back of the garden.” Todoroki got up from the table. “Do you want me to show you?”

“I’m sure I can find it, since it’s the only building not connected to the main one,” you said, but you did accept his help finding a tray and sauce cup for the syrup, and once it was set, you picked up the tray and strode with purpose towards the garden.

Walking through its seemingly-natural landscape while balancing food and liquids proved to be miraculously easy. Their hired gardeners must be doing insane upkeep to ensure its deliberate, natural-but-not cosiness. You made a mental note to ask Touya what some of the structures symbolised, like the recurring patterns of three rocks of different heights close together. He’d know, reluctantly, since he did stuff like this, and you considered his work to be superior to this, anyway.

In the blistering sun, you had to narrow your eyes to slits, regretting that both of your hands were full so that you couldn’t shield them from the light, and you found a gated, stone path to the teahouse. Clearly, it had once been slightly dilapidated but had since been worked on; another room had been latched on to the side to double its size, judging by the change in architecture styles, and the roof reflected sunlight a little too well for its polished, stone tiles to be less than a year old.

Bracing the tray, you took the steep step onto the neatly swept, bamboo engawa running around the edge of the teahouse, and you—was the door around to the side? Around the left side of the original part of the tearoom, two shoji panels had been spread to let in sunlight upon an empty room with an actual fucking sunken hearth, unlit, with one of the same fire-fish as on the estate’s roofs for the crank’s lever. Behind what would have been the seat of honour stood a dishevelled tokonoma, devoid of scrolls or incense burners but instead housing an unzipped backpack atop a long coat, its sleeves trailing onto the floor outside the tokonoma, with sticky notes taped to its inner wall. A red-tinted wood dresser had been pushed into the corner, tissues and hand sanitiser atop it and a single stack of books propped next to it.

A pair of boots was tucked inside the open shoji. Maybe he’s asleep.

At your first step inside, you jolted so hard you had to struggle to hold onto the tray—the floor had chirped at you. Dead ringer for a bird call. Tentatively, you took another step, and it chirped again, this time with a bit of a wheeze, more artificial-sounding.

You jumped and stumbled again at another wall sliding open, giving the impression that a flock of birds had flown inside, and Dabi poked his head through the gap (you could make out the gleaming pause screen of a gaming system in the newer room behind him). His face had relaxed when he’d seen it was you, but it pinched into a strange, unnameable expression when he saw what you were carrying.

“Hi,” you said, holding out the tray, “I’ve made too many snacks for the anime group today, so I thought you might like some? I can take it away, if you don’t want any.”

Since he probably didn’t know the amount of people attending nowadays, he probably didn’t recognise your lie. Dabi held up a finger for you to wait while he exhumed a short table and two floor seats from storage in the walls, and he waited for you to sit before he did, slowly, crossing his legs on the cushion, his joints creaking.

“They’re little lemon ricotta pancakes. Todo—Shouto told me you didn’t have any food allergies, so it should be fine. That’s blueberry syrup,” you said when he pointed at it. “I’m—I guess you could say I’m practising recipes for cooking for someone else. If you don’t like it, please let me know. I’ll make it better next time.”

Dabi fiddled with two of the tiny pancakes before selecting one, inspecting it in the sunlight, and dipping it into the syrup (you went a little crazy when it dripped onto his tongue stitches, but you managed to suppress it). As he chewed and swallowed loudly, Dabi’s eyes bulged, brow furrowed, and he, panicked, fumbled around for probably his phone, patting the pockets on his jeans. Hands pausing after slapping the empty pockets on his ass, he sprung up, grabbed a pen off of the dresser, and snatched a sticky note off of the inner wall of the tokonoma. He returned to the table and knelt half on the seat, scribbling furiously, and when he pushed the sticky note to you, under a crossed-out potting soil, sledgehammer, he’d written fuck you marry me NOW.

There’s a moment in which you forgot, a moment in which you laugh, head tilted back, flooded with endorphins at your long-time, pseudo-celebrity crush liking something you made to even joke about being in a relationship with you. You opened your mouth to make some joke about how you’d like to go on a few dates first, to have some sort of courtship, but you stopped at the first word: “Touya.” You cut yourself off, brow pinched. You can’t have two.

Not that…not that Dabi/Touya could ever genuinely like you, who fought against him and now witnessed his debasement, but in the far-flung chance that he could, you should clarify about your Touya.

“Touya,” you said again, this time sober and grim, hands folded on your lap, “I know you were only joking, but I was in a quirk-related incident a while ago, and it assigned me a soulmate. So, even if you could like me, I’ve got someone waiting. Presumptuous of me to say, I know, but. I want to treat you with kindness and not make you wonder, in the case it arises. Funnily enough, his name is Touya, too—”

Your phone rang loudly in your back pocket (you kept it on loud nowadays so you could easily feel around for Touya’s call, but it’d led you to awkward moments like this, too). Dabi scowled when you brought it out to silence it and dipped another pancake in the syrup, letting it absorb what it could to tinge it purple.

“It’s him, actually. Odd timing.” Lying flat in your palm, your phone flashed an incoming call from Touya. Leaning across the table, Dabi grabbed it out of your hands to answer it, put it on speaker, and lay it in the centre of the table while he ate his soggy pancake, shaking his head when you moved to undo all of that.

“Hey,” came a tinny, raspy voice that was very much not your Touya’s, “You’re the soulmate, right?”

Dabi shouldn’t have to hear this. Before you could tap the speaker button again, Dabi swatted your hand out of the way, gesturing for you to answer.

“Uh, yeah,” you said, shifting in your seat, “Who are you? Where’s—”

“Tell Touya he left his phone at my place the next time you see through him.” A repetitive, techno instrumental played in the background (video game music?). “At Shiiiiiiiimura’s place. Yeah.”

“I can do that, Shimura,” you said, unsure if you should hold out the vowel as long as he did, and perhaps you can take advantage of the situation for a brief moment, because Dabi was staring at your phone with a constipated sort of expression as he listened. “I can’t control when the bond activates, but I’ll let him know. Do you know what sort of food he likes?”

Shimura barked out a laugh, filling the room in a wide, cleansing way you wouldn’t expect from someone with his scratchy voice. “I heard your potato wedges are shit.”

You sputtered, “He didn’t even have any—”

Dabi ended the call, frowning, shaking his head, and tipping your phone off the table to gently bounce twice when it hit the tatami. He held up a tiny pancake and made a show of looking at it, at you, and back at it, and he shot you an aggressive thumbs-up.

***

Uraraka spent an entire patrol gushing about how she would fuck the author of Hunter x Hunter if she could, so she showed up to the next get-together, along with Asui, whom everyone already thought would be friends with the story’s protagonist if he were real. When you Aoyama caught you in the act of stealing one of his posh cookbooks, you explained the situation to him, and so he tagged along to taste what you were cooking, along with supplying some of the fancier ingredients you wouldn’t’ve known how to obtain. Then you’d asked Sato for advice on how to make the swirl in a strawberry swirl loaf not go to shit, and then the group had spent a few hours discussing the good relationships with animals that Hunters are inherently supposed to have, so Kouda was summoned for his opinions.

The long of short of it was that there were many more spectators than necessary to when Dabi strode into the viewing room, drenched in sweat from his walk back home, to pelt the back of your head with a two-pack of Sakeru cheese. As you rubbed the back of your head, pulling the cold plastic from between your shirt collar and skin, he at least had the decency to drop the single-wrapped fish bread into your lap.

“Hey, Touya,” you said, grabbing his hand before he could skitter away as usual (his wide eyes couldn’t decide to look at both of your hands or at your face), “I’ve set aside slices of both strawberry swirl bread and garlic bread for you in the kitchen. I recommend heating the garlic bread up so the cheese gets all melty again, but it’s good at room temperature, too. Thank you, by the way. For these.”

Nodding hastily, Dabi tore his hand away from your in two, spasming jerks, and he slithered into the kitchen.

Though the rest were watching the show, Shinsou was turned towards you, his head tilted with an incredulous sort of smile. You stuck your tongue out at him and crinkled open the cheese.

Dabi returned with both slices on a paper towel and stood behind you at the couch for a minute, watching the episode. Shifting his weight, he pulled out his phone. “This is garbage,” came a droning, text-to-speech voice from behind.

He stood behind the couch for three more episodes.

***

Through another moonlit, soulmate connection, Touya was failing to prod stray ducks out of the koi pond with the skimmer.

“They’re tenacious little bastards,” you said, sitting on the counter of the dorm kitchen and praying to God that the oven timer wouldn’t go off while you couldn’t see.

“Why. Won’t they. Move.” Touya nudged a duck with the flat of the skimmer, its width as long as the entire duck, and the duck kept gabbing to its friends. “I have no idea if ducks upset the chemical balance of the water enough to kill koi; I’ve never seen them in here before ten minutes ago. Goddamn.” He waved the skimmer over the water’s surface, filtering some debris, and he flipped it onto a duck, who remained vexingly apathetic at the new source of wet. “Tonight was gonna be easy; I was only gonna put up windchimes; I was gonna get to go to bed early. Now I—no, no, no, don’t—!”

One duck bit at the skimmer net, and having pierced it, the duck led the rest of them to the centre of the pond, where the skimmer couldn’t reach, no matter how Touya strained.

“I fucking hate birds,” said Touya, slamming the skimmer on the ground, “and I fucking hate fish. They’re not even good when they’re alive.” Seeming to have a change of heart, Touya picked the skimmer up and took care to lean it against the stone wall of the pond. “Tell me something good, won’t you?”

Does that imply you don’t have to work on any fish dishes? “You’ll be thrilled to hear that my little anime analysis group is almost through the Hunter x Hunter anime, probably. We got to the end of the 1999 version last night.”

Touya sat and splayed his legs on the koi pond stone, watching the moon’s reflection ripple as koi tails broke surface tension. “That’ll only make your process more streamlined, since you’re not watching two episodes covering the same chapters in conjunction anymore. The Chimera Ant arc takes forever, though. You’re not almost done.”

Groping around for your oven mitts, you smiled. “How do you know that, Touya? Thought you hated—”

“What are you going to watch next?”

Stupid boy. Shy boy. “Well, Sero is pushing for Pokémon since there’s so much of it.”

“God, no,” said Touya, leaning back on his hands, “Iconic, yeah. Fun, not really, because in the games, you’re the one getting to battle and bond with the things. It’s not fun to watch someone else get to do it.”

“I can rely on you for negative reviews of everything.” Oven mitt? Oven mitt. Now, where’s its pair? “You want a pokémon, Touya? Which ones?”

“You are such a fucking child—”

“You want a pikachu, don’t you?”

“Hell, no,” Touya spat, “None of that cliché shit. Pikachu isn’t even that good. I—” Cutting himself off, he hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his gloved hands together. “You’ll shit on me for it. Forget I said anything.”

“Should I let you make fun of me first?” You slipped on the other mitt. “I’m cliché as hell. My top choice is either a certain starter or an eevolution.”

“No, I—”

“All right. How about you tell me your favourite as a kid and the one you would choose now?”

“You’re pushy as hell. When I was a kid, I wanted a Ninetales. I was—my mom had read enough for me to know about traditional kitsune,” said Touya, and he ducked his head to stare between his legs (crotch unfortunately hidden in shadow), “and Ninetales is immune to fire. It can use it and not burn up, and it’s not affected by outside fire attacks.”

The memory of rubbing burn cream across Dabi’s shoulders and how delicate his skin looked surfaced. You wouldn’t wish that on anyone. “You scared of being burned, Touya?”

Touya kicked the stone beneath his boot, scuffing it. “Just seems like it’d be neat.”

“Perfectly reasonable,” you said, wrapping your muppet-y, mitted hands around the oven handle in preparation for whenever it would go off, “and a perfectly logical pokémon to latch onto. It’s fairly popular. I don’t see how I’m supposed to make fun of you for that.”

“Sure.” Touya bent farther to re-tie his bootlaces. “I like my current choice for a dumb as hell reason, though. Shiiiiiiiimura,” said Touya, yanking the laces tightly (and he dragged out Shimura’s name, too. Was that the proper pronunciation?), “was trying to hype us up for something stupid we had to do that some of our friends were scared of. Shimura’s teacher—’scuse me, abusive fucking manipulative shithead of an adoptive father—wanted him to make a speech to show leadership, or some bullshit. Instead, Shimura pulled out his phone and showed us someone’s video of playing one of the early Pokémon games, for the battle at the end to win the game. And to defeat the last boss’s toughest Dragonite, the player used this…this fuckin’ weak-ass, all-around insignificant pokémon picked up from the beginning of the game, and it fuckin’ won. It won against the toughest opponent, and—and Shimura was saying, oh, the Venomoth is us, and we can win against our big-ass enemy, oh, ho, ho—”

“Excuse me. A Venomoth? You only use them temporarily at the beginning of the game, when you don’t have anything cool yet. They fucking suck.”

“See, you’re making fun of me. I’m not going to say anything else.” Touya leant back on his hands again, this time crossing his legs to prop his ankle on his opposite knee.

“No, I’m—I’m sorry. Sorry. First impressions. But you’re convincing me. Go on. I’m listening.”

Touya flicked water towards the ducks. “Are you gonna keep insulting—”

“I won’t! I won’t,” you said, sliding off the kitchen counter to stand directly in front of the oven, “So, Venomoths. I hear they’re fantastic.”

Touya rolled his eyes, and it was cute, you thought, how you had to follow the motion, seeing the moon at the upwards roll and back at its reflection in the pond. “Yeah. I bet Shimura’s forgotten all about it, but it stuck with me. Not immediately—at the time it was stupid, and to be fair, it’s still stupid. But now that I’m back here, living at home, it’s—it’s stupid. It’s, like, if that stupid fucking bug can defeat a goddamn dragon, then I can tend the garden. I can keep that stupid tsukubai clean. I can hang out with my brother. I can fucking—” He cut himself off again, this time striking the water hard enough to splash one of the ducks (it quacked at him with disdain and simply swam a couple of centimetres away).

“Do what, Touya?” The oven timer started beeping, and you tensed. “Hold on; don’t say anything. Don’t say—I have to concentrate; I’m getting stuff out of an oven.”

Touya stirred the pondwater with his ring and middle fingers while you blindly approximated the logistics of getting the tray out of the oven, and by standing at the oven’s side inside of reaching into it from the front, you were eventually able to remove the tray and rest it on the counter above it—you’re not going to bother feeling around for the pot holders.

When you sighed in relief once you’d closed the oven again, Touya asked, “What are you cooking?”

“Strawberry cheesecake muffins,” you said, frowning in the tray’s general direction, “They’re supposed to have a marbling effect, and I’m supposed to be putting on some sort of streusel-type sugar on top right now, but I’m not gonna risk it. I hope they’re done. You have to trust the recipe’s bake time with cheesecakes exactly, so I’m hoping it’s the same for—”

“I am gonna make you come so hard,” Touya was saying in a strained sort of way as he ran his hands down his face, “I am gonna fuck you so hard that you leave in a permanent dent in my mattress. I am gonna hold you and kiss the back of your neck and make you cry out as you gush around my fingers. You’re—you’re so fucking per—I am gonna take care of you back.”

“Cool.” Right, so bake the muffins again at some point. “Do you have any food allergies?”

“I’m allergic to you not saying anything hot in response to what I just said.”

Sure, Touya. “I’m also gonna make you this really sexy tomato soup with what the recipe calls a grilled cheese top. It’s got cheesy bread cut into chunks that coat the surface so that you can’t even see the red, and it melts into the soup—”

“Stop, I can only get so hard—”

“Show me your cock, then.”

“No,” said Touya, deliberately looking at a trio of fish convening near the pond’s surface, their o-shaped mouths blorbing and blobbing underneath the water towards Touya’s waving fingers, “I meant—well, first, you are gonna make that soup, pl—please—but I meant that—I mean.” He twirled his finger under the water, and the koi were fascinated. One of them kissed his finger. You were feeling a similar impulse—and perhaps that’s what prompted Touya to continue. “I came the first time someone stuck their tongue in my mouth.”

It occurred to you that anyone could be walking by the dorm kitchen to overhear. Now that the muffins were out of the oven, you elected to turn off the speaker setting to hold you phone to your ear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I was sixteen and insane with hormones, and it hadn’t been long since I’d woken up from—well. When someone kissed me with tongue for the first time, I came in my pants. Taken completely by surprise that someone was even kissing me, that someone could even want me when I look like—and then that. We were outside, on a public bridge, during the day. I haven’t seen that fucker since.”

You had been contemplating whether it’d be worth fumbling around for a knife to ease the muffins out of the tray, but all cogs stopped at Touya’s story. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So you’ll tell me something back. I already told you some embarrassing shit about pokémon and shit, so you have to embarrass yourself back. You’re the one who brought up cocks, anyway. So—so you have to share something back,” said Touya, allowing a fish to rub up against his hand in a pseudo-sort of petting it, “Something about when you were young and stupid.”

“And preferably sexual, right? I know what you’re about, you shy, baby boy.”

“Ffffffuck that.I ain’t shy—”

“You won’t show me your face, Touya. You’re scared for me to see it. Shy boy.”

Touya scratched along the side of the koi like it wanted, and another nudged the back of his hand to be scratched, too. “Fuck off.”

“I’ve only told one other person about my first kiss,” you said, moving to sit on the counter again, “Wanna hear that story?”

“Fine,” said Touya, and he pulled his hand out of the pond, flicking water off his fingers and into the open, mournful mouths of the koi he’d been petting. “You had better be about to tell me about seeing through me at that coffee shop.”

“Come off of it, Touya; isn’t it better for me to have outside experience and still choose you regardless? My first kiss was way before that,” you said, hoping how pleased you were at his mild possessiveness was being transferred to his side of the bond, “and I didn’t even know the guy’s name at the time. And it was—it could’ve turned really bad, really quickly. Because my first kiss was with Dabi, before he made his villain debut.”

“Do—huh?” Touya shook his head, causing you to wince and steady yourself at the dizziness. “Beg pardon? Beg your fucking pardon? I didn’t—know that that Dabi guy went around kissing people.”

“He did at least once. It was back in freshman year, and I was out at night during my hero internship.” Getting comfortable on the kitchen counter, you crossed your legs and leant against the cabinets to support your back, exhaustion kicking in. “Some older sidekick hit on me in what was an exceedingly creepy way—he made it pseudo-incestuous by saying I reminded him of his daughter. In retrospect, the interaction could have gone much, much worse, if Dabi hadn’t inadvertently rescued me—scratch that, it may have been intentional, looking back, because he’d said stuff about the sidekick being a shitty father, and now he’s, uh, let us know about his own dad.”

It took Touya a moment. At least he wasn’t shaking his head anymore. “Are you saying Dabi burnt some guy to death in front of you, and you still kissed him?”

You sucked in through your teeth. “Not exactly. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was testing out a nomu, and that ripped the other guy to pieces. And—this is gonna sound wild—I think Dabi may have kissed me to comfort me? I know it was a distraction from the gore and from getting a good look at the nomu, but I think he may have also done it to calm me down. It was—oddly sweet.”

Touya gripped the edge of the stone wall, his fingers dipping into water (but not deep enough to remoisten his leather gloves) and koi swarming. “What did the nomu look like?”

Even though you couldn’t see it, you held your phone away from your ear for a second to shoot it an incredulous look. “Wha—Touya, weren’t you going to ask if he were a good kisser, or something?”

His knuckles popped when he clenched his fingers and asked flatly, “Was he a good—”

“You’re better.”

“Thanks,” he said, not sounding like he cared about that at all, letting a koi drag his hand into the water by biting his finger, “What did the nomu look like?”

“God, I don’t fucking know. That wasn’t important to me. I, uh—it was around the size of a good-sized dog, like a golden retriever or a lab. I don’t—I guess it walked on all fours,” you said, wondering why the fuck—oh, the dizziness must not have come only from Touya shaking his head, because it’s sweeping over you again, waves emanating from the bond. “Now that I’ve seen other nomu, I can recognise that its head looked whacky because its brain was exposed, and I think its skin was more green-tinged than the others who had that navy-black colour going on. Honestly, Touya, I wasn’t—”

Through the phone came such a strident, alarming crack that you halted mid-sentence to listen for it again. It’d come from Touya’s side, clearly, but nothing in his line of vision betrayed its source, although—and you would not have noticed this if you hadn’t been scanning his environment for any hint—something that looked like split glass frosted the inside of Touya’s fist before he unclenched his hand a second later, any illusion of something there melting into the water.

But something was wrong. “Touya?”

“You still see that Dabi guy when you watch anime at Shouto’s house, yeah? Stay on the line,” he said, darkness of the bond fading drabbling at the edges of his vision from your perspective.

“I am,” you said, uncrossing your legs, “I do.”

“What do you think of him? Ugly fucker, isn’t he?” Touya fell still as a duck approached him as it navigated through the water lilies, and Touya’s outstretching his hand to its head was the last thing you saw before the bond gave out. “Still as pathetic as he was in the war? Think he should be in prison?”

“Negative reviews of people, negative reviews of television, negative reviews of potato wedges—so cool, bro. Now say something true and beautiful.”

“Answer me, damn it.” A disgruntled quack.

“You’d better not be strangling that duck.”

“You think so little of me? Do you want me to put the duck on the phone?”

“I don’t think it could sit comfortably,” you said, pushing yourself off the counter and walking to the knife drawer now that you could see, “I see Dabi every once in a while when I’m at Todoroki’s house. He’s shy. I don’t mind. It’s not my place to assume anything, but. I don’t think he’s doing okay, since it seems like he’s spent a good part of his life wanting someone to look at him, to pay attention, and now he’s getting that in a way he probably didn’t anticipate, and I want him to be okay. I think I’d like to help him get there, if he’d let me. But I know I’m nobody important to him, and that’s fine.”

“Sounds a lot like pity,” said Touya, and when you made a noise of protest, he kept going. “Or maybe you’re fucked up enough that you like him? From when he kissed you?”

You couldn’t exactly tell your soulmate that you’ve been suppressing naïve, celebrity-crush-type feelings for someone else. “Well,” you said, grimacing as you slid knife edge between a muffin and the tray and started to remove it, “He’s very babygirl-coded.”

***

TOUYA 🐠🚷

looked it up. definition of babygirl does NOT help

TOUYA 🐠🚷

incidentally

TOUYA 🐠🚷

what should a guy wear to impress someone

YOU

a guy? or you specifically?

YOU

because i am, of course about to suggest the golden standard of rolling up thy sleeves to thy elbows, but you won’t even showing your fucken hands asldkjfa;

TOUYA 🐠🚷

gloves necessary.

TOUYA 🐠🚷

but think formal. formal setting.

YOU

why are YOU going to a formal event?

TOUYA 🐠🚷

have to. blackmail/family obligation/rent.

TOUYA 🐠🚷

open to suggestions. about style more than brand, because if I go too expensive, my dad will think I’m making him pay a lot as sabotage.

YOU

and here i was about to recommend that you go skinny-dipping in a vat of liquid gold

TOUYA 🐠🚷

you just wanna see my cock, don’t cha

YOU

what makes you think I’D be invited to some shitty formal event

TOUYA 🐠🚷

I’m betting you’d hear about it on the news

YOU

i think i’d be more interested in what food is provided

TOUYA 🐠🚷

…

TOUYA 🐠🚷

no, I shan’t say

YOU

is this a cum joke

TOUYA 🐠🚷

but seriously. what should I wear. assume I will do something awful and evil and that you will see the outfit on the news when I get arrested.

YOU

touya, how would i recognise you. idk what YOU even look like. not that it matters, i guess. all that matters is that you wear something that fits you well. you don’t need to impress me; you’ve already won me over

TOUYA 🐠🚷

i what

TOUYA 🐠🚷

wait what do you MEAN it doesn’t matter

YOU

does it help get it through your thick head if i tell you that you are also babygirl-coded? perhaps not even coded but genuinely babygirl??

TOUYA 🐠🚷

it does not.

***

Adjusting your lace shawl, you gripped Shouto’s arm as the both of you furtively sneaked away from the hordes of pro-heroes, industry workers, and flashing press to slink back to the enormous table of hors d'oeuvres to see how many of them you could pack into your purse and his strategically planned inner coat pocket, sewn into the inside of his lapel for the occasion.

When Shouto had invited you to this ghastly awards ceremony for Endeavor, he’d claimed his motivation was that so he could talk to you about how the 2011 Hunter x Hunter anime was wrapping up, since he (flatterer!) said you had the best interpretations of certain characters, unlike some of your classmates, and Shouto tempted you with how you could stake out whatever posh food they had for you to try to recreate later. So, you’d dug out the dress you’d only worn to All Might’s official retirement party and agreed to attend.

Those present were a strange conglomeration of people, since the public opinion of Endeavor has been odd and tenuous lately. Essentially, the handful of attendees you knew were busy ingratiating themselves to people you’ve never seen before but they evidently were acquainted with, so those with whom you could hold an actual conversation with were scattered and few.

However, you didn’t even need to bring a book, because once you and Shouto had settled at a back table with both of your plates stacked with the most variety you could fit on them, he deadass pulled out his anime analysis notebook, which was starting to resemble Midoriya’s quirk analysis notebooks in terms of extensiveness and insanity, with lines crossing several pages to connect ideas. As you discussed where the two of you thought the characters were going, you had your own notebook—a new one, this one for recipes, and whenever either of you thought one of the appetizers was interesting, you wrote it down.

You were chewing on what Shouto had informed you was a water chestnut when the chair on your other side was pulled out with a screech against the tile, and Todoroki Touya plopped into it, his legs hardly having the time to spread before swiping a piece of candied salmon from your plate. The instant he bit down into it, his nose scrunched up.

“It’s fish, Touya,” said Shouto, dipping his own crudité in a tiny bowl of raspberry vinaigrette, and he passed his napkin to him. Touya spat the salmon into it, bunched it up, and edged it underneath the edge of your plate.

On your list, you wrote no fish! at the top, but before you even lifted your pen from the paper, you froze. The list wasn’t for this Touya; it was for your Touya. You crosshatched it out, trying to remember if your Touya had ever said anything about liking fish. He’d said he hadn’t, right? He didn’t like them alive, at the very least.

Shouto chomped down harshly, the crunch of raw celery distinct even through his closed mouth. “What brings you over here, Touya?”

He already had the text-to-speech function pulled up on his phone, and he held a parmesan palmier between his teeth as he typed. “People were asking Natsuo and Fuyumi about what they’re doing with their lives. It was only a matter of time before they got to me. Don’t wanna hear anyone else describe the nothing I’m doing. At least I know you guys are too busy talking about nerd crap to shit on me.”

“Oh, sweet boy,” you said, pursing your lips, “You’re in recovery. That’s enough. You don’t have to do anything to be worthwhile.” Wait. Fuck. You don’t talk to this Touya this way. Reel it back.

Crumbs fell from his mouth to the tablecloth. “The hell is wrong with you?” he typed.

Yeah, reel it way back. You elected not to respond, instead biting with difficulty into a brie/fig/prosciutto crostini and not being able to taste any of it.

“Would you like to discuss some so-called nerd crap with us?” Shouto arranged his notebook father across the table to be more in the middle of the three of you. “I know it’s been a while since you read Hunter x Hunter, but it’s been on hiatus so long that there’s not much new information that you need to know.”

“Hey,” you said, rushing to swallow, “You’ve read this before? How come you haven’t been sitting in to watch stuff with us?”

Touya shot Shouto a dark look, tongued a chunk of palmier into his cheek, and furiously typed on his phone. “I’m not interested in that shit anymore. It’s for kids.”

Shouto looked taken aback. “This is news to me. Do I have permission to take your manga volumes out of the house, then?”

“Fuck you,” Touya had already typed while Shouto was talking.

You bit back a smile. You’ve been borrowing a former, major villain’s manga? Cute. “But if you read it a while back, that means you’ve had more time to think about the characters,” you said, resting your elbow on the back of your chair as you shifted to face him, “Most of us are absorbing the story for the first time. It’d be cool to hear what you think.”

That parmesan palmier had looked good. Trusting this Touya on his taste, you wrote it on your list to investigate later, while he typed his response.

His expression fell flat enough to match the robotic tone. “Do you just want to hear me project my daddy and mommy issues onto the characters in the Zoldyck family?”

“No, Touya,” you said, laughing, “You have valuable things to say across the board, and I want to listen.” You almost nudged his knee with yours, but you had to stop yourself, something dark swirling in your chest. This wasn’t your Touya. You’re not allowed to.

His eyes flicked down towards the movement, but he didn’t comment. Shifting his jaw, he slipped off his white tuxedo jacket to drape it over the back of his chair, and for some reason, his gaze kept darting to you while he rolled the sleeves of his button-down up to his elbows, but he tried to give the appearance of being very focused on whatever skewered meat and pineapple was on the rim of your plate.

You were frowning. Fuck this. Fuck him. Touya was probably one of those guys who knew their effect on women, so he would know about the rolling-sleeves-to-elbows move. And fucking hell, was it effective for him, because the way he’s lost a lot of weight but was currently gaining it back made the tendons in his forearms much more noticeable when they tensed and strained, and the asymmetry of the burns and scars up his left arm in comparison to the smoothness of his prosthetic right only made him even more horribly, horribly attractive, and you were pissed about it, only getting more furious as he wrapped his tongue around the base of the first pineapple chunk and used his teeth to maneuver it off of the stolen skewer, hooded eyes staring you down. This Touya can act like a fucking slut, sure, but your Touya won’t even show you his goddamn hands.

“Hey, watch out.” You scratched your forehead in an attempt to conceal how enraged you were. “I’ve already had one of those. That lump at the end is an overly-breaded coconut shrimp. So—fish—be careful,” you finished lamely.

Touya’s hands and mouth were full with the skewer. Unable to type on his phone, he shifted the skewer to his left hand, flattened his right, and tapped his left wrist with it—the JSL sign for thank you.

You nodded and didn’t think anything of it for a moment, but when it hit you, you seized up and stared at him, chest swelling, proud and confused and frozen. Getting a little lightheaded, actually, but oh, God, who wouldn’t at the sight of Todoroki Touya, quiet and subdued but still suave as fuck, sitting so close to you in a freshly dishevelled white tuxedo that fit like it was custom-made for him, smelling so, so good and smiling with his perfect teeth (how are they that good when he was with the League for so long?), leaning towards you to steal your food and showing that he’d been paying attention to you, that he’d taken the JSL book you’d left with Shouto, that he’d thought about you when you’ve been apart and cared enough to try to learn something new with you, and you were going to kiss him; he deserved it; you were going to grab that stupidly adorable face and—no, that lightheadedness was also stemming from the soulmate bond activating.

Nausea swept through you for more than one reason. If your Touya discovered you were fighting the urge to kiss someone else, let alone the other Touya, then—you didn’t know. You didn’t know how you’d ever recover. Please let this be from your perspective, so he can’t feel your feelings, please.

“I have to go,” you said, pushing up on the table to stand, not even bothering to flash Shouto the soulmate hand signal. You had to get away. No matter if it were from your perspective or his, distance would help you suppress your fucking shameful crush on your friend’s older brother.

Good God, you were crossing the streams, you noted and fumed as you escaped onto a vacant alcove. Because they have the same goddamn name, your brain has been conflating the two of them. Shut up. You’re only allowed to have one Touya. Two would be greedy and dismissive of the soulmate bond in the first place.

Vertigo struck you so severely that you had to brace yourself against the nearest column, but you swopped to the balcony railing because you could grasp it and put most of your weight on it, and because your brain was swimming, you hand to get on your knees to wait for it to pass. “No, you can’t,” you said, trying your hardest to push thought of that Touya out of your head in case your Touya could feel them, “You can’t—that one doesn’t need to be in a romantic relationship right now. He’s working on himself. It’d fuck him up.” And ohhhh, you left your phone at the table, so you couldn’t call your Touya, and fuck, you didn’t want him to feel confused or betrayed because you weren’t calling him—

“Whose future are you deciding, here?”

Your Touya. He was here?

You opened your eyes to the sight of the balcony and the garden below, thank fuck. Okay, you could work with this. You could work with this; he’s not supposed to be able to feel—

His voice came from close behind you, as if he were leaning on another side of the column. “What’s got you feeling this guilty?”

Holy shit holy shit, has the bond evolved? Can feelings be felt from both sides regardless of perspective? “Hey, Touya.”

“Don’t turn around,” he said, even though you’d made no movement to.

“Can you see?”

“Only through you, angel. Otherwise, I’m in the dark.” With the sounds of clothes shifting, Touya must have crouched behind you, joints cracking. A fingerless-gloved hand brushed down your arm, and he moved your lace shawl out of the way to stroke your bare skin. Your mind was already going haywire at your betrayal, and his cold, gentle touch was not helping. “What’s wrong, hm?” He adjusted himself again behind you so that he could wrap his other arm around your waist, pulling you back into him, and his cool, rough lips pressed against the curve of your neck as he rested his head there.

You were going to cry. You’ll do it. For real, this time.

“Did that Todoroki Touya guy bother you? I saw him sitting at your table.”

God, no, he brought up whom you were trying to avoid, and you cringed, hating yourself as Touya’s hand sank down your arms to entwine his fingers with yours, rumpled shirtsleeves grazing your bare skin and leather gloves curbing the maximal skin-to-skin contact.

“He’s so fucked up that I wouldn’t be surprised if you hated him,” Touya was saying into your ear, “I could grind him into a pulp for you. He’d deserve it, wouldn’t he, for what he did to everyone? And I was burning up with jealousy from across the room; someone as pretty as you shouldn’t have such a hideous thing by your side.”

You made a noise from the back of your throat. You didn’t know, and you especially didn’t need the one person you were trying to hide your internal conflict from while you were actively trying to work out the internal conflict. First things first, you supposed. “Touya’s not fucking ugly.”

Your Touya snorted against your neck, hot air washing down the hollow of your throat. “I forgot how twisted you are. But there’s no way you could actually like him, right?”

“I can’t,” you said, releasing the balcony to clench your fists on your knees, “I can’t like him. He needs to discover who he is as an individual before he finds out how he functions in a relationship. He doesn’t need romance—or me, at this point in his life.”

“Interesting,” he said, more clearly now that his mouth wasn’t muffled against your skin, “Sounds like you think something’s wrong with him. Like he’s not whole. And isn’t he broken? You’d have to be, if you pulled the shit he did, burning cities to the ground and murdering—”

“Shut up,” you said, hunching in on yourself, “You’re don’t know. You’re believing what other people have told you about him. You’re just—you’re just like people who talk about that nerd shit you hate without checking the source material. They’ll talk about certain characters in terms of false narratives they’ve crafted, and they’ll talk about them for so long that the false information becomes conflated with the characters, with everyone thinking the wrong stuff is real. I—fuck.” You winced, but he was listening, his free hand winding around your neck to adjust the migrant clasp on your necklace to the back of your throat. “I know my ideas of Touya stem from propaganda, but I want to learn about him from him. Just based on what I’ve seen, there’s so much out there that’s wrong—it’s even subconsciously perpetuated in his own home, since the shrine where his family mourned him is still there. And I hate it. I hate it, because he seems so lovable, but so are you, and I hate myself because I want to love only you, because you’re my soulmate, and I’m so, so, so goddamn terrified that you’re gonna reject me and leave me alone forever now that I’ve betrayed you. By feeling stuff for someone else.”

You were crying. You were crying, nose stopping up, and Touya kissed your throat, over the clasp of your necklace. “Rejection’s a bitch. I know that,” he said under his breath, “So, I’m not gonna do that to you, even if…” He trailed off, instead latching his mouth to your neck again, letting his tongue flick over your skin once, as if it were an afterthought. “You really like him?”

“I’m scared that I do,” you said, taking a corner of your shawl to daub at your tears.

“The only thing to do is feel it out, I guess.” Touya settled at last, shifting weight and moving his legs so that they’d be on either side of you, and his left arm joined the other around your waist to hold you close. “Or let it die, if you want. The soulmate bond doesn’t matter in the end. You don’t have to love him or me.”

“But Touya,” you said, sniffing, dying to look back at him but restraining yourself, “I do.”

***

Later that night, you were researching how to make little cheese balls that were shaped like pumpkins like they’d had at the awards ceremony when you felt the familiar wooziness. Funny. It’s not often that the bond activates twice in one day. You closed your laptop and set your notebook aside, waiting for the slow, drowsy fade into Touya’s eyes.

Tonight, it’s a jarring, instantaneous slam into his perspective, and you felt like you’d been knocked about in the baggage rack of a train. You threw out your hands to balance yourself, even though you hadn’t been physically moved, and the queasiness made it hard to concentrate, blackness blotting at the edges of your periphery.

But the darkness of Touya’s bedroom wasn’t helping, with only partially drawn curtains letting in moonlight, and—and oh, my God, he’s flat on his back in bed, tousled bedsheets, cock out, and it’s so pretty, unfairly pretty, thick as hell but thicker at the head than the base, blushing deep pink, leaking onto the faint lines of re-developing abs and a vaguely red trail of hair, and—

The hand touching it has skin grafts.

“—ugh, darlin’, fuck, you know what I’m gonna—gonna do to you, angel?” Touya was muttering to himself, too caught up to realise you were there. “You don’t—you don’t know what you do to me.”

You’d registered his pubic hair as vaguely red because, now that you were staring, only the very tips of the untouched hair trailing down his stomach were red, with what he’d probably shaved at some point lower on his body snowy against whatever unburnt skin could still grow hair. He’s gripping himself at an angle that doesn’t make him rub against a strand of load-bearing staples on his upper thigh (did someone say load?), connecting a stretch of familiarly burned skin to a healing graft, diamond-speckled and twitching with his cock the closer he drew to orgasm (from the back of your mind surfaced a questioning thought of if he’d advocated for healing his hands first, since staples would hinder smooth masturbation). His prosthetic arm lay unattached at his side.

“Hahh, I wanna,” said Touya, drawing in a ragged breath, “wanna make a mess outta you, y’always too put together, too fuckin’ pretty for y’own damn good, fuck.” He rubbed his thumb over his tip, the skin there giving everso slightly at the pressure, with another bead of precum swelling before it dripped onto his stomach. “Gonna find wha—whatever I can do to make you fuckin’ whine, and I’m gonna, hah, follow that sound for the rest of my goddamn life, and, oh—fuck, fuck, how, how sweet you’d feel wrapped around me, how much I don’t fuckin’ deserve—”

He cut himself off to take a deep, stuttering breath, and you saw the gates of heaven in the way his chest surged forward when he arched his back, lines of burns and scars carved into his skin like a roadmap. And Touya moaned for you, and you didn’t know how much you’d needed to hear both Touyas do that until now, but before he could finish the first syllable of your name, you were lurched out of the bond and back into your room, just as abruptly as it had begun.

Your hands were shaking as you tied your shoelaces, aware of the leak into your underwear when you bent over, and you dashed to the nearest train depot, navigating in fervent, distant buzz all the way to the Todoroki estate. You must have appeared sufficiently crazy, because the only vacant seats on the train were next to you.

(In your heart of hearts, you had known.

If you’d put it into words, consciously, where both Touyas overlapped, it would’ve been too hard to bear if they’d been different people, which was, regardless, the most logical situation. Getting excited for your soulmate to be your former crush and then being disappointed when it wasn’t him felt like a betrayal to your soulmate. You hadn’t wanted to set yourself up for disappointment or betrayal, because you shouldn’t feel guilt when you look at your soulmate. Someone who holds your heart in his hand should never be second best to you. Touya’s had enough of not being enough in his life.

Surely the random chance of a stranger’s quirk wouldn’t be so kind to give you whom you’ve been wanting. You haven’t allowed yourself to hope.)

You didn’t even go in the front door. You clambered over the garden wall and berated yourself for not recognising Touya’s garden earlier, even though you’ve usually been around the kitchen and living room when you’re here. It took you longer than it could’ve to get to his teahouse, because you were deliberately staying on the garden path instead of walking on his hard work, but you didn’t even take off your shoes at the entrance, the nightingale floors chirping out in the night as you surged towards his bedroom door.

Touya lay facing the window in his very Western bed that took up most of the room—and much of his bedroom was like that, with his modern belongings scattered across other outdated furnishings, clean but cluttered, thought it startled you to open the door onto a Naruto poster taped in the space designated for a hanging scroll.

You only had time to absorb poster and lived-in before you saw the face of God in how Touya stretched and groaned in bed, arching his back and holding it until his back popped (a little too fixated on his moonlit nipples, like seeing them would fix you, flip you back to your factory settings). “Natsuo,” he said, coming out of his groan, eyes scrunched shut, “Don’t say you’re here to make me re-hang the windchimes. I spent all day tracking how air flows through the garden.”

You sat at the foot of his bed, mattress dipping slightly, still in your coat and shoes and hesitant to spread dirt, but the need to be near Touya, even if it were through blankets, consumed you. Hands folded behind his head, Touya cracked open an eye at the weight, and he froze.

You hadn’t prepared any confession on the train. You’d been too focused on the memory of his thighs. So, what garbled nonsense that came out of your mouth was “I figured your dick would be pierced.”

Touya appeared to snap back into reality, and he sat up in bed, pulling the blankets up to cover more of his bare chest (mourning for his nipples. Inconsolable about it, even) and quite obviously tried so hard to be chill (the way his leg started jiggling underneath the covers and how he wouldn’t look you in the eyes for more than a couple of seconds gave him away, though). “Is that what they say about me?”

You folded your hands in your lap, bent over for a swift escape in case he wanted you to leave “Jirou conjectures that you have a Jacob’s ladder.”

“Just what I need. More holes in my body.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip—much more scarred than the upper one, clarifying some things about kissing him. “Don’t know how to take that a bunch of kids who resent me talk about the state of my dick. You a part of that crowd?”

“I was shown a picture of what was advertised to be a very realistic dildo,” you said, scooting your ass farther back onto the bed now that he wasn’t going to send you away, “It had many, many piercings. It wasn’t as thick, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does not,” said Touya, brow pinched. He brought his legs up to hug them to his chest, but he must have changed his mind, instead just letting them block your view of him, hiding behind the cover of the lumpy comforter.

You waited for him to elaborate. His tuxedo was thrown over a wicker trunk, bowtie tossed onto a kotatsu, even though it wasn’t cold enough outside, with his gaming controller next to it and an open can of black tea. Two floor seats were haphazardly tucked underneath the kotatsu’s blanket, the one facing the TV flatter and duller than the one nearer the door. His only bookshelf had the illusion that it was constantly being added to, with the first shelf arranged neatly and the rest completely shoved together, the lowest one still mostly empty—your sign language book lay horizontally on it.

He should’ve said something by now, right? Antsy, you shifted your weight, staring down at your shoes. To have something to do, you slowly took them off, lining them up with Touya’s house slippers (with seahorses on them?) next to the bed, and you swallowed your pride to break the ice. “I’m glad it’s you, by the way. Very glad.”

Touya grunted and draped an arm over his knees. “Did you know?”

“I will be generous and say not really,” you said, shuffling off your coat to hang on the bedpost, “I didn’t permit myself to make the connections.”

“Eh.” He shrugged with one shoulder—the left one, the natural one. He’d reattached his prosthetic in the meantime. “There are around one hundred Touyas in Japan, according to the last census.”

“Sounds like a prepared statistic,” you said, holding back that the name frequency has probably plummeted in the last few years, “I’m serious, though. I wanted my Touya—soulmate, you, Touya—to be Todoroki Touya. So badly.”

He covered his mouth, thumbing at his lower lip and simply staring at you. In the moonlight, his eyes were as fucking bright blue as—well. As his flames. More things were clicking into place.

“Really, Touya,” you said, desperate for him to believe you, “I liked you as the stranger in the alley, and I liked you as Dabi, and when my soulmate seemed to share some traits with the other Touya in my life, I didn’t give myself permission to think about it. Because I was growing fond of the you that spoke to me, that I was getting to know, and while my feelings for the other you were being rekindled, too, I wanted to love the soulmate you more, because it's become fucking evident to me that I was made to love you, even without this soulmate stuff. You’ve been scattered throughout my life, anyway. It just happened to speed things up, since it forced you to talk to me. Otherwise, you’d probably still be at the point where you’re the brooding-older-brother figure who isolates himself in his room when his brother’s friends are over.”

Touya was frowning, but you waited it out entirely this time. “You saw…all that,” he eventually said, gesturing down himself, “and you still want me?”

Biting back a smile, you lifted your knees to the bed, moving slowly to gauge his reaction before getting closer to him. “I saw you decapitate someone, and I still want you.”

“You’re insane,” said Touya, tensing up as you neared him but twitching into a nervous grin, eyes falling to your boobs, away to the window, and back to your face.

“Correct,” you said, and you knelt next to him, taking all of your restraint to keep from reaching out the final few centimetres to run your hands down his chest. “Don’t you need someone a little insane, though?”

The comforter fell a few inches down his chest, and you throat ran dry at the long line of fading stitches and staples.

You raised a quivering hand to his face, and it’s strange: both of you flinched in the moment your fingertips felt the tiniest bit of body heat emanating from his cheek, and it’s strange: it’s the first time you’ve felt any heat come from Touya at all, and it’s strange: you could see yourself so clearly waking up next to him every day, putting your chin on his shoulder while he picked out fruits at the grocery store, feeding the koi late at night together while you lured the ducks away, watching his eyes soften in the same way both when he sinks his teeth into something you’ve baked and his cock deep into you while he cradled you closely to his chest, but at the moment, it might be too much for you—and perhaps Touya as well, judging by the nearly incomprehensible, jumbled sort of expression—if you even touched his face.

Perhaps the prospect of romance was too much for him at this point in his life. The last thing Touya should be feeling about that was guilt.

“I don’t mind being on the backburner while you figure things out,” you said, returning your hand to your lap and trying very hard not to look at his nipples, “I’ll wait for whatever you need to do. I’ll—”

“No,” said Touya, shaking himself out of whatever spiralling dive he’d been leaning into, “Hell, no. No fucking—” He snatched the hand you’d almost touched him with and clenched it hard, smushing your fingers together (startled by the physical contact, even though he’d initiated it), and after a flash of frustration at his prosthetic arm, he passed your hand to his left. “You’re fucking sticking around. You—you don’t just look at me; you see me, in such a different fucking way than anyone else, and you did it immedia—it took my family so long to look, and you—you’ve been watching. Been paying attention. It’s all I’ve ever—” He frowned, rolling his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “It’s good to have you around while I dig myself out of this hole,” he said, squeezing your hand harder but glaring outside through the window, “I wish I had known you sooner.”

“I’m here now, and I want to get to know you better. I want to hear more about you, things that are true,” you said, “and don’t start with anything self-deprecating, Touya. The next time the bond lets you see through me, I’m gonna show you what you look like through my eyes. And I’m not lying to you when I say you are so very, very pretty.”

Grunting, Touya fidgeted in bed, the covers slipping down to his stomach, drawing your hand closer to him, with your body leaning in to follow his pull. “Shit,” he said, “Don’t say shit like that right now.”

“Touya, I am gonna tell you how gorgeous you are until you believe it, and that starts now.”

“Not tha—well, yes, that, but I—” He sucked in through his teeth (also sucking in through a tiny hollow in his cheek caused by a loose staple, with a faint, wheezing whistle) and threaded his fingers through yours, pulling your hands towards his shoulder so that you loomed over his chest, “I have a hell of a refractory period now. It’s fuckin’ hard for me to get hard a lot, and you saw me; I just—” Inhaling sharply, he jerked his hand away from yours and frantically started wiping it on the blankets. The new skin around the tips of his ears bloomed pink. “I haven’t washed my hands.”

“Touya,” you said, “Like I care.” You took the hand he was trying to hide in the folds of the blanket and licked up his palm, holding eye contact and relishing the way the blush spread to the untouched skin around the corners of his eyes. “I want all of you. Both sides you’ve shown me, and more. So long as it’s real. So long as it’s you.”

“All right. First step is getting on top of me,” said Touya, and, palm wet, he took your hand again, and he tugged on it, guiding you into his lap, other hand sliding down the thigh you swung over him. “Makes it easier to talk, y’know. To look at you.”

“Oh? Are we starting with your tragic backstory? If you’re taking requests,” you said, sliding your hand up and over his shoulder to run your fingers over his collarbone (jutting out from under both burnt and new skin), “then I’d like to hear your perspective of when you first kissed me.”

Touya lift his prosthetic hand to your cheek, just as cold and strong as his real one, and he placed his thumb at the corner of your lower lip, tip breaking the seal of your lips to press in just barely. “Actually, I think we’ll start with this pretty mouth of yours.”

***

Iida was shouting and gesturing from the living room that you only had fifteen minutes before the episode viewing was scheduled to start, and Shinsou shut him up by reminding him that Tokoyami had to pick up Ojiro and Hagakure from the floristry across town and that they’d start watching whenever they started watching, so chill out, Iida. Go help Mina pick the bugles out of her hair, or something.

You and Touya crouched together in front of the oven, staring through the glass at the rows of potato wedges—the recipe he claims his mother made when he was five, but surely a woman as sensible as Todoroki Rei wouldn’t put that much fucking cayenne pepper or paprika or chili sauce or—listen, it was a lot.

“C’mon, pretty boy, tell me something else true about you,” you said, nudging his shoulder with yours while you made eye contact with him in the oven’s reflection.

“Hm,” he said, scratching the underside of his chin with a bare hand (the gloves lay folded back on the teahouse dresser), “I hate fish.”

(Here you sighed dramatically, because you obviously already knew this. His loathing was intensified at the moment, though, because he’d had to get up and leave you in the middle of the night last night because the koi pond monitor was blaring at a stupid clog in the filter.)

“Tastes fuckin’ gross dead. Bitch to take care of livin’.”

You pushed on your knees to stand, and you held out a hand to help him up. “Enough with the negativity, dickhead. Tell me more about what you like.”

“Besides you?” He took your hand and grinned, putting all his weight into it as you strained to lift him, and when the oven timer beeped and you’d shot a few choice words his way, he had mercy and stood up by himself. He grabbed the oven mitts and tossed them to you, and while you removed the tray from the oven, he ran his hand through the sharp, white spikes of his hair, inadvertently wiping specks of paprika into it.

You set the tray on a cooling rack. “C’mon, Touya. No need to be so cheesy.”

“I can be worse,” he said, winding his arms around your waist before you could even take off the oven mitts, cradling you close to him, no room in between, and he propped his chin on your shoulder. “I can even incorporate—you call me cheesy; you’re the one who called me pretty boy not a minute ago.”

Blindly, you raised a hand to run it back through Touya’s soft, soft hair, and you gently bumped your cheek against his. “I am not being cheesy by simply stating the truth. You’re gorgeous, Touya.”

“Bet I’d look even better throbbing inside you.”

“Please follow a logical flow in conversation like the rest of us,” you said, and when you couldn’t grasp the spatula you were reaching for, Touya grabbed it for you, scraping up some of the first row, having to release you during the process.

Leaning on the counter to face him, you flinched at the heat before pinching a potato wedge between the tips of your fingers, but Touya held one like it was completely cool. It had almost touched his tongue before he paused and waited for your reaction to his recipe.

His potato wedges were bad. Too crunchy on top because of the odd broil time and not-fully-ground peppercorns and too soggy and soft underneath, especially in the part where it’d stuck to the tin foil and peeled off, and the combination of spices didn’t quite mesh together well. With a sliver of quiet triumph, you swallowed a bite of potato wedge decidedly worse than the ones you made.

But Touya was looking at you, eyes brimming with hope despite his otherwise carefully cultivated cool exterior, watching, waiting for you—and it was Touya, after all; Touya was the one who cooked these—made them for you, deliberately, on purpose—and so that made what words were about to come out of your mouth true and beautiful.

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair, @tiredkittykat, @cheshireshiya, @90s-belladonna, @infjsnightmare

#bnha #dabi #dabi x reader #dabi/reader #dabi imagine #dabi fic #mha #dabi headcanons #dabi fanfiction #dabi fanfic #soulmates #soulmate au #soulmate #dash it all

480 notes · View notes

bookworm551 · 2 months

Text

Take the Edge Off | Part 10 | Terrors

Summary: Late at night, Miguel confesses something that haunts him.

A/N: well, it’s time for me to post my bi-monthly part since I’ve been slacking sm lately. No good excuse, I’m not even sure if ppl read this anymore but oh well, enjoy

Warnings: smut, oral f-receiving

Word count: 8.4k

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

You were sleeping peacefully when the sound of quick rustling startled you awake.

Something was thrashing beside you in bed, quick and panicked. You blinked your eyes open, your sleep-addled mind trying to process what was happening. You felt disoriented as you tried remembering where you were. The bed and sheets were most definitely not your own, yet they were somehow familiar.

Miguel. This was Miguel's bed.

Since your talk with him about being more than just fuck buddies, Miguel had actually kept his word. He communicated more about where he was, what he was doing, how late he'd be out. There were even a few nights like tonight where he'd let you stay with him in his room.

It was Miguel who was causing the rustling that now pulled you from your sleep. He was muttering something unintelligible as his legs kicked at the sheets. You rolled over to face him right as his form shot up from the bed. Through the darkness, you could hear his ragged breathing as he gasped for air, and you could vaguely see his silhouette hunched forward next to you.

Instantly, you felt awake and alert. Pushing yourself up from your pillow, you were immediately at his side. "What's wrong?" You asked, placing a worried hand on his shoulder. Under your palm, you felt the sweat that slicked his clammy skin.

Miguel flinched hard from your touch and jerked his arm away from your hand, still breathing in sharp, uneven gasps. Instead of replying, he turned his body away from you, ripping the covers off himself and moving to sit at the edge of the bed as he fought to steady his breathing.

You'd been in his position enough times to know exactly what was wrong. Nightmares had plagued you endlessly since the first time you lost someone you tried to save, and they didn't get easier with time.

"Lyla, turn the lights to 20%," you said softly. Immediately, a faint glow illuminated the room, and you could see Miguel's trembling body in the faint light. He was rocking back and forth slightly as whatever vision he’d had faded from his mind, and he didn't say anything as his heaving chest began to grow steady again.

You scooted closer to him but didn't touch him. You knew all too well that sometimes you needed a moment to understand that the terror in your chest was unsubstantiated, and so you gave him a second to deescalate before whispering, "Are you okay?"

He ran his hands over his face once before muttering, "Fine." He did not sound fine at all, but you weren't going to point that out to him. Instead, you carefully placed your hand on his shoulder again. He didn't flinch this time, so you slowly let it wander across his bare chest, wrapped your arm around him, and pulled his back against your body.

He still didn't say anything, but he lifted a hand to grab your arm and held it for a moment as a comforting gesture. "What was it?" You asked quietly, hoping that he'd open up to you. Under your palm, his heart was still racing, though he seemed to be calmer than before. He held onto you for a moment before letting his hand fall away, and he stood up from the bed.

"It was nothing," he muttered. "Go back to sleep."

You watched as he stalked over to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. Clad in only a pair of black briefs, his whole body was shining with perspiration in the dim light. He was clearly rattled by whatever night terror had taken over his sleep, but you knew he wasn't going to open up so easily.

Rather than listen to his order to go back to sleep, you waited for him to return. His face looked haunted and drained of color when he came back and slipped under the covers again. You slid next to him, snaking an arm across his torso and pulling yourself close to him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder. Miguel tensed at your touch, but he didn't try pushing you away.

You settled in silence for a while. Tilting your head up to look at him, you saw he was staring absently at the ceiling above, not even trying to fall back to sleep again. You understood that, too—the fear of sleeping in case the same nightmare took over again. You'd lost hours of sleep that way, refusing to close your eyes to keep away the monsters that plagued your dreams.

You quickly realized that Miguel wasn't going to talk unless you did. "I have them too, you know," you whispered, breaking the silence around you. His face didn't change, and after a quiet moment, he replied, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Talking about it helps," you offered. "Even if it doesn't make them go away." You watched his face carefully for a reaction, hoping he'd open up. Still, his faraway gaze never shifted, and he gave a barely-perceptible shake of his head.

Sighing, you looked back down at his chest, littered with faint scars from his time as Spider-Man. You wondered about the stories of how he got them. No doubt it had taken years to accumulate them all, each one a tiny reminder of the amount of traumatic events he had lived through. You had your own reminders too, and not just the scars on your body.

"Mine are usually memories of people I couldn't save," you admitted quietly. "Sometimes, it plays out exactly as it happened, sometimes it's a bit different. I used to tell them to my best friend, and it helped."

Your throat tightened as you thought of your friend. She was the only one who had known about your secret life. She had been the one to confide in, the one who listened. Late at night, when you couldn't stop shaking from the nightmares, she would answer your calls, no matter how late it was or how early she had to get up the next day. She had done so much for you.

And in the end, you had failed her.

"Then, I couldn't save her either," you continued quietly, a slight warble in your voice, "and the nightmares got...so much worse."

You felt Miguel's head shift to look down at your face. It was now your turn to avoid his gaze. Guilt and shame washed over you as you replayed that terrible day, the day you lost the most important person in the world.

There was a beat of silence, and Miguel's hand slid under the fabric of your shirt and began slowly rubbing your back across your skin in a comforting gesture—ironic given that he was the one still shaking off the effects of his nightmare.

"My worst ones are about her," you finally managed to say, still avoiding his gaze. "It's usually her on the ground, dead—" you took a shaky breath, "—but then she looks at me and asks why I didn't save her."

Over and over again, she would say it, and even now, you could see the scene clearly. Her body, sprawled and broken, her dead eyes glazed over lifelessly while her bloody lips moved and ask, Why didn't you save me? Why didn't you save me?

A shiver ran through you at the memory.

"I just had that one last weekend," you confessed softly.

There was a pause, and you could practically hear Miguel putting together the fact that you had been with him then, in that very bed beside him. You had woken up shaking and nauseous, but since he had still been sleeping, you had let him be while you stayed up for hours without closing your eyes again.

Miguel finally broke his silence. "Why didn't you tell me?" He asked. You gave a weak shrug. "Same reason you're not telling me yours," you countered. "It's not easy to talk about."

He didn't reply, but he did pull you closer to him so that you were lying halfway on his body, one of your bare legs draped over his.

Neither of you said anything for a long while.

You reflected on what you had said to him. That was the first time you'd ever told anyone about that particular nightmare. What you had said before was true—it's not easy talking about the things that scared you the most. Even just recalling it out loud made you want to curl up in a ball and hide under the bed, but now, you couldn't deny that you felt lighter, less burdened, less alone.

"It was you."

Miguel's voice was barely above a whisper when he finally interrupted the silence. You raised your head to look at his face again.

"Me?" You repeated quietly.

"You—something was coming for you. I don't know what it was, but I knew it was going to kill you."

His fingers curled into your back like whatever phantom had plagued his dreams was coming for you again. You were silent, barely daring to breathe. You were afraid that if you so much as blinked, he'd clam up again and refuse to tell you what was lingering from his dream.

"I tried running to you," he continued slowly, "but every step, I pushed you further towards whatever...thing was coming for you. And when it got to you..."

He didn't have to finish his sentence. You could see from the shadow that passed over his face that whatever he had seen in his dream hadn't been pretty. He just sighed and stroked your skin slowly.

"Have you ever had that one before?" You asked softly.

He shook his head faintly, and you held him a little tighter. The first time having a particular nightmare was always the worst, the hardest to convince yourself it wasn't real. It was no wonder he shook you off before. In his confusion, he probably still thought you were dead.

"It's over now," you told him quietly. "I'm alright."

Miguel said nothing, his eyes still fixed determinedly on the ceiling. His absent gaze didn't waver for the few heartbeats of silence that followed your words, and you were sure he was replaying the vision of whatever darkness had consumed you in his sleep.

Lifting your head up from his chest, you tried to capture his gaze with your own, but he refused to look at you, almost as if he was afraid that your eyes would be as lifeless as he had seen in his dream.

You cupped his cheek with one hand and gently pulled his face to look at you. He didn't resist, and his eyes finally blinked and met yours.

"It's over now," you repeated softly, "and I'm right here."

Miguel took a moment to study your face, like he was trying to memorize every line and curve that made up your appearance. You didn't move, didn't flinch from his gaze, letting him see for himself the life that still flowed inside you.

After a few seconds, you lowered your lips onto his to let him feel the warmth of your mouth, the heat and desire you had for him. Miguel responded by subtly pulling your body tighter to his as he moved his lips against yours.

Breaking away from you gently, there was the faintest softening of his face. "I'm glad you're here," he murmured quietly.

You felt your face glow at his words. You understood that he meant more than just you being there with him at the moment. He was glad you were alive, glad you were with him through all the shit you both had to deal with.

"Me too," you replied before placing another quick kiss to his lips again.

Settling back down at his side, you casually traced your fingers over his chest. So many reminders, so many terrors. You thought about all the sleepless nights you'd experienced since becoming Spider-Woman, all the strange visions that came to you in your dreams.

"I once had a nightmare that I had to shoot webs out of my ass," you told him in an attempt to lighten the mood.

There was a pause before Miguel huffed out a single, soft breath. "You too?" He replied. Your eyebrows shot up. "You too?" you repeated in surprise, a smile pulling you out of the somber mood. "It must be a canon event for us Spiders."

Miguel hummed and looked up again, and even though there was still that lingering appearance of melancholy, his face seemed more relaxed now. Your ear was pressed against his chest, and you listened to his steady heartbeat. His hand still rubbed your back slowly, the feeling apparently grounding him back to reality.

"You should go back to sleep," he told you. You shook your head. "I'm not tired," you replied. "Are you?"

"Even if I was, I couldn't fall asleep," he said, his eyes fixed on the ceiling above. You nodded. "I get it."

Silence returned.

Your fingers continued stroking his stomach slowly as you replayed his words, and your chest felt warm by what Miguel revealed to you.

He was scared of losing you. The fear of it made stole his breath away and caused his body to quiver. His face had looked haunted as he recovered from his night terror. It was such an intense and visceral reaction to the idea of you dying.

Soaking up his warmth against you, you knew you felt the same way—the same fear, the same helplessness at the thought of losing him. You hadn't even realized how deeply you had fallen for him, hadn't realized how important he was to you until recently. It consumed you so completely that the idea of him not being here with you made stomach tighten nauseously.

Turning your head, you brushed a kiss to his chest. Just a simple touch, just to remind both you and him that he was there now. You felt him shift to look down at you, and you were somewhat surprised when he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. His lips lingered for a moment before he breathed a sigh against your skin.

Facing up at him, you met his gaze in the dim light. His eyes took in your appearance, and you took in his. An understanding passed between you, one that acknowledged what you were feeling, the fear and anxiety as a result of your feelings for each other. One look that told each other everything you were too afraid to say.

Your lips met his in a soft kiss—slow, gentle, comforting. You broke apart for a mere second before moving into another one, and then another, until he was leaning forward and pulling you in harder against his mouth. Your hand rubbed against his chest more intentionally while his tongue teased at your lips, and you parted to let him taste your mouth with a small moan.

Your heart began pounding in your chest. Each movement he made was slow and sensual, and he took each touch to remind himself that you were alive. His hand roamed up your back to feel your warm skin, and your loud sigh was proof of the breath in your lungs.

Your hand wandered lower and lower down his abdomen, the hard muscles flexing beneath your touch. You reached the band of his briefs before you stopped. Any other night, you would've jumped on him without hesitation, but you found yourself pausing and wondering if making a move for sex was wise.

Pulling away from his lips, you whispered, "Would this make you feel better?" You didn't need to clarify what you meant.

Miguel's eyes were half-lidded as he stared at your face. A faint smile pulled at his lips, the first crack in his wall of gloom, and he raised a hand to brush his fingers across your cheek. "It definitely wouldn't hurt to see," he breathed in reply.

A smirk pulled at your lips. "It could hurt if you want it to," you mused. "Just a little bit." His lips curved up a little more at your implication. Before he could reply, your hand pressed down on his cock over the materials of his briefs.

Miguel bit back a groan. You rubbed your hand over him with tantalizing slowness, watching his face as he closed his eyes and pressed his head back. Kissing his exposed neck, you reveled in his pleasure and pushed down harder against him.

"It doesn't have to hurt, though," you continued quietly in his ear. "It can be soft and gentle." You kissed him again just under his jawline. Under your palm, you could feel him growing hard. You smiled at how your words and some simple touches made him crave you.

"Or it can be hard and rough," you continued, your hand pushing down against him harshly, and you nipped at his ear. Miguel sucked in a sharp breath and pushed his hips upwards into your hand. He groaned your name softly, and just the sound of it made your core grow hot.

You slipped your hand under the black material that strained with his growing bulge. Miguel's breath stuttered as you wrapped your fingers around his hardening cock. "We can do it however you want," you finished with a smug grin.

You could feel his jaw clench under your lips. "Fuck," he breathed softly. You let the single word fuel your movements. You squeezed tightly as you slowly pumped your hands up and down his length. Another soft groan sounded in his throat, and he turned his head to kiss you again.

Still stroking him steadily, you broke away from his lips to ask, "So, how do you want it? Gentle or rough?"

His breath was hot against your mouth before he murmured, "Why choose when we can do both?"

A wicked smile grew on your face, and in a heartbeat, your lips were crashing down on his, devouring and exploring every inch of him. Your hand followed after your mouth's eagerness, stroking him with a stronger need.

Miguel pushed his hips up off the bed in encouragement, and in the same motion, he tugged off his briefs to free himself from the constricting fabric. Now, you could see his full length, so large and stiff that it made you ache.

Your breath grew heavy as your hands continued smoothly sliding up and down his cock. Turning your head, you nuzzled your face beneath his jaw and sucked at the skin of his neck. Miguel seemed utterly paralyzed, and his deep moan tickled your lips.

"Relax," you purred. "I'm gonna take care of you."

Miguel's hand moved under your shirt—his shirt, actually—and up your back. His callouses felt rough against your skin, and they wandered across your body and pulled you closer to him. You nipped gently at his throat, and Miguel's fingers dug into your back.

"Does that feel good?" You asked smugly, already knowing the answer. He nodded in response, his eyes closed tightly as his chest heaved uneven breaths.

"Talk to me," you implored in a smug voice, never slowing your hand's pace. "Does it feel good?"

Miguel was trying his best to answer you, and through his stuttering breath, he managed to sigh, "Yes. God, yes."

You loved the desperate edge in his voice. It sent a thrill running up your body. You lowered your face from his neck to his chest and placed long, wet kisses all over him. A growl sounded in his back of his throat. When you glanced up at his face through your lashes, his eyes were closed, and his head was straining against his pillow as his muscles flexed in pleasure.

"I love hearing you," you murmured against his skin, never ceasing for a moment the stroking movements of your hand. "It makes me so wet, every sound you make."

Hearing your words, Miguel actually moaned, and he pushed his hips up into your hand. The sound went straight to your core. Your blood was growing hot, and the deep throbbing between your legs was almost unbearable. You squeezed your thighs together to try and gain some relief, and you let out a quiet moan of your own.

Miguel must've heard you because something in him snapped. His eyes fluttered open, and he pushed himself up to capture your lips. Your hand increased its pace as Miguel explored your mouth with desperation.

He broke away from you for a second and gasped softly, "I need to feel you."

You smirked and lifted yourself up off his body. His impatient hands began tugging at your shirt, and you had to move your hand away from his cock to allow him to rip it off your body. With the shirt gone, you were left in only a pair of underwear.

Miguel was eager to feel you. He rolled his body onto yours and settled between your legs. As he hovered over you, he had one arm planted on the bed to support himself while the other wandered up your body, feeling your bare skin beneath his palm.

Another soft moan escaped from your lips as his rough hand slid over your body, kneading at one of your breasts as his lips latched onto your neck. Your thighs squeezed around his hips reactively when you felt his hardened length nudging against the soaked fabric of your underwear.

Your desperation to feel him inside you was overwhelming. Letting go of Miguel, you started tugging at the band of your underwear. He knew what you were doing, and so his lips broke away from your neck as he hooked his fingers around the top of your underwear. Sitting up off your body, he pulled them down your legs and tossed them aside.

Miguel stayed sitting upright for a moment, drinking in the sight of your bare body before him. Even in the low light, you were able to see how his eyes burned with desire, how they took in every inch of you with longing.

You looked up at him, too. His body towered over yours. The contours around his muscles were exaggerated by the soft light overhead, making him look like a god. His dark hair was mussed, and strands of it had fallen over his face. Between his powerful thighs, the sight of his cock made you ache.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to how good you look," you said softly.

Miguel's eyes flicked up to your face, a small hint of surprise in his expression. You didn't praise him often enough, you realized. So often, he was the one idolizing your body while you were rendered speechless from his touch. Seeing him now with his god-like physique, you realized Miguel deserved to know how much you loved being with him.

Sitting up, you ran a hand up his sculpted body, feeling the muscles underneath his warm skin. He flexed reactively as your fingers skimmed up to his neck, and you pulled him into another slow kiss.

With your other hand, you reached down and stroked his cock. Miguel let out a low moan against your mouth, making you smile. "I don't think I'll ever get used to how good you sound," you whispered, pulling him back down to the bed.

He followed after you eagerly, his body hovering over yours as he continued kissing you ravenously. Despite being on top of you, Miguel was following submissively with your every physical direction. He was propped up on one elbow while his other hand held your thigh. His body was practically trembling in anticipation while your hand continued stroking him slowly, but he remained hovering over you and waiting for your permission to enter you.

You were just as anxious to feel him inside you. Pulling his head down with one hand to kiss you again, you guided his cock to your soaking entrance.

"Now, remind me of how good you feel," you told him quietly.

Miguel didn't need any more prompting. In one smooth movement, he pushed into you. Your head fell back against the bed with a loud moan as his cock stretched you out. His breath caught in his throat for a moment as he felt the wet warmth of your pussy around him.

"Mierda," he breathed against your neck as he began pumping long, smooth strokes into you. You couldn't even speak from the pleasure that overwhelmed your senses. The most that you could do was force yourself to take ragged breaths while Miguel continued rolling his hips into you, in and out, over and over.

He whispered your name as he pushed himself into you over and over again. You whimpered softly. At the sound of it, Miguel's lips came crashing down against yours, and his tongue explored your mouth with a growing desperation.

"More," you whined into his mouth. "I need more."

Miguel groaned. His movements evolved from strong, steady strokes to relentless, harsh thrusts. You cried out as the sound of him pounding into you echoed around the room, his cock sending pleasure pulsing through your body.

Miguel shifted his body above you. He pushed himself up off his elbow and up onto his knees. With his hands, he gripped you by the waist and hoisted your hips effortlessly into his lap, your back now arched with your shoulders still resting on the bed. Holding you firmly in place, he ever-so-obediently began fucking you mercilessly.

The air was snatched from your lungs as he began driving his cock into you with unrelenting desperation. One of your hand reached up and grabbed the edge of the headboard while the other clawed at the sheets.

Whatever amount of control you'd had over Miguel vanished, and any sort of restraint he'd had before snapped. His cock buried deep inside you and pounded against your G-spot mercilessly. Ragged cries tore from your throat as your whole body began trembling.

“Fuck,” you managed to groan, your fingers clenching around the sheets beneath you. Miguel was ravenous. His large cock stretched you out until it nearly hurt, and his fingers threatened to leave bruises on your hips.

“Like that?” He asked smugly, his words breathless as he continued slamming into you. You whined and nodded, your arms shook with the strain of their grip on the bed. Miguel leaned over your body while keeping your hips up on his thighs, one hand supporting him above you. His lips found one of your breast, and as he fucked you, his ran his tongue over your nipple.

Moaning salaciously, your body trembling as he completely overwhelmed your senses. In his throat, Miguel growled in approval of how you responded to him. His cock continued pounding against your G-spot, and he pulled his head up for just a second to watch your face before he bit down on your nipple.

You cried out as pleasure coursed through you, sending you hurdling into your release. You barely registered how you moaned his name as your climax took over your every faculty. Miguel noticed and gave a few more hard thrusts into you, drawing gasping cries from you.

You were seeing stars as you lost yourself in your bliss. Your body felt electric as Miguel slowed to a stop and pulled away from you, watching you slumped on the bed, unraveling underneath him.

"You look so beautiful when you cum like that," he panted, slowly moving his body further down the bed. "I can't get enough of it."

You moaned, unable to respond to him otherwise. Your heart was pounding furiously in your chest, and you were gulping down deep, uneven breaths. He lowered his face to kiss your neck softly, and you threaded your fingers through his hair. He made you feel like a goddess, and he was your most faithful worshipper.

Your body was still trembling while he placed kisses between your breasts to your stomach. As he moved lower, your eyes fluttered open to look down at him. Through his dark lashes, Miguel was watching your face as his lips trailed lower and lower down your abdomen.

Your body shivered when you realized what he was going to do. "Wait," you gasped quietly, squeezing your legs together around him. Miguel paused right as he was beginning to wrap his arms under your thighs, his gaze restless. He seemed to be exerting all his will to obey your single-word command.

"It's- I'm—," you fumbled for the right words in your unfocused state. Damn him for melting your mind like this, any semblance of rational thoughts shattered by his cock. Taking a steadying breath, you managed to say, "I don't think I can take that right now."

You knew exactly what he could do with his head between your legs, but you were currently still piecing yourself back together, and the thought of him ravaging you with his tongue while you were still coming off of your climax seemed torturous.

Miguel didn't move, but you could see in the dim light how his eyes flashed with need. "I'll be gentle," he promised in a low voice. "I'll go slow. I just want a taste." He shifted, and you noted the restless movement along with the desperate edge in his voice when he added, "Please. Just a taste of you."

Fuck. There was no way you could say no to the sounds of him begging.

In silent reply, you relaxed your legs. Miguel slid his arms under them, his powerful hands gripping your thighs as he pulled them open, baring your soaked cunt before him. His eyes never left yours as he lowered his face down and took a long stroke of his tongue up your pussy.

You couldn't suppress the cry that wrested from your throat. Your whole body felt like it had been set on fire as he licked at you again, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat as he tasted your desire for him. Your eyes squeezed shut, and your legs fought the iron grip of his hands.

Slowly, gently—just as he promised—Miguel explored your pussy with his mouth. His tongue trailed between your folds, avoiding the very top where your swollen clit was still too sensitive for his touch. You sighed at the feeling, the warmth of his tongue sending delightful shivers across your body.

Moving lower, he slid through your wetness until the tip of his tongue teased the outside of your entrance where his cock had been mere minutes ago. Your breath hitched at the feeling, and Miguel took that as a sign to push his tongue in as deep as it could go.

Your back arched off the bed as he pushed into you slowly again and again. You moaned his name as he tasted you so passionately. Miguel's hands pulled your legs open further while he fucked you just like that, his tongue sliding in and out of you at a pace just inside of what you could handle.

"Mmm, Miguel," you whined, one hand gripping at his hair while the other reached for the headboard again.

It felt so good, impossibly good. Everything he did to you made you wonder how he could possibly be real, how he could possibly be with you. Your first time together, you hadn't thought it would ever happen again, let alone evolve into what you had now. What had started as a one-time fuck was now a constant need to be with each other, to hold each other close and never let go.

Your hips began shifting restlessly under his mouth. Your very blood felt as if it were on fire. Already, he had brought you from being overstimulated to craving another release.

Miguel lifted his face from your pussy for a moment. His glistening lips were parted as he panted lightly, and his eyes were glazed over with lust.

"You taste so good," he murmured, his voice hoarse with desire. "I could eat you out every day if you'd let me." You moaned softly at the thought of it. "I'm not stopping you," you replied breathlessly.

His lips curved up into a smirk before he lowered his head down again to drag his tongue up your cunt, carefully testing your sensitive clit. Your body squirmed under his firm grasp, and you gasped at the hot pleasure coursing through your veins.

Miguel seemed satisfied by your reaction. He took another slow stroke over your sensitivity again, trying to gauge how much you could take now. To answer his unspoken question, you groaned and pressed his head down harder. You felt more than heard his deep chuckle at your wordless instructions, and he obliged you by sealing his lips over your pussy and pressing his tongue against you.

You writhed on the bed, your thighs straining against his hands as he ate you out with greater fervor. Your whines and sighs filled the room, and your grip on the headboard tightened to an almost painful degree.

Miguel sucked, licked, and wholly devoured your cunt. You could feel the pleasure beginning to coil deep inside of you, and he seemed to read it in how your body struggled in his grasp. Falling into a steady pace of strong, even strokes, he moved tirelessly to earn more moans from your lips.

Your fingers gripped his hair tightly, and you glanced down at his face between your legs. His dark eyes were half-lidded and unfocused, completely pussy drunk. In them, you saw his utter surrender to your taste and the complete abandonment of his restraint.

Despite your legs still struggling under his grasp, he released one hand from your thigh, and before you could understand what he was doing, he inserted two fingers into you.

Your hips arched off the bed as a shuddering cry tore through you. His fingers curled inside you, working in tandem with his tongue still swirling around your clit. His pace was unrelenting, desperate, like he needed you to fall apart as much as he needed to breathe. Every nerve was on fire as you felt yourself completely lose yourself in the pleasure of his mouth and fingers.

You might have been screaming, you weren't sure. Every thought and scrap of awareness was washed away by the tidal wave that was your orgasm. Your body felt like it was shattering, and you lost all control of yourself as you lifted your hips off the bed with trembling effort. Miguel stayed securely attached to you, his tongue and fingers working you through it with a final desperation.

"Miguel!" You cried out as you struggled against him, your pleasure an overwhelming force that threatened to tear you apart. He slowed his hands to a gradual stop and raised his head up off of you, his eyes drinking in the sight of you unraveling under him.

"Beautiful," he purred, watching your body as the trembling finally eddied away. "Did that feel good?"

You were still gasping for air, and it took every ounce of your focus to reply, "Yes. Too good. I—I'm gonna need a minute."

His lips curved into a self-satisfied grin, and he placed a soft kiss to the inside of your thigh. "I'll take my time," he replied smugly. He placed another kiss a little higher, and then another on your lower stomach, until he was trailing his lips slowly up your body.

You groaned as he moved higher. Your body was thrumming with the aftermath of pleasure, and you were still breathing heavily when his mouth pressed over one of your breasts. You shivered at the touch of him, his warm tongue swirling around your nipple in lazy circles while his hand palmed your other breast with greed.

"You're insatiable," you groaned. You heard him chuckle quietly. "You say that like it's a bad thing," he said against your soft skin. You hummed, unable to keep the smile from growing on your lips. "It's not," you replied, "but I might not be able to walk tomorrow."

Miguel turned his face up to look at you, a smug grin tugging at his lips. "You need me to carry you around the base?" He asked in amusement.

You actually laughed at him. "Mmm, no. I'd hate to hurt that hard-ass reputation of yours," you told him. He hummed thoughtfully, pressing another kiss to your breast. "I think your reputation would be the one at stake," he replied. "After all, what would people think about you being with a hard-ass like me?"

You chuckled, bringing a hand up to run through his hair. "They'd be jealous," you stated. "I mean, half the Society wants to sleep with you, and the other half is lying about not wanting to."

That earned a low laugh from Miguel, his eyes sparkling in the dim light. "Well," he began slowly, bringing his face up to yours, "I don't want to be with half the Society, or the other half." You smiled up at him, your eyes never leaving his as he rested his forehead against yours.

"Just you," he whispered.

You held his stare and soaked in his presence, the lingering hum of pleasure in your body, the feeling of his heat pressed over you. Your hand slid down from his hair to cup his cheek. If you could stop time and hold onto a moment forever, it would probably be this one.

Gently, you pulled his face down to yours and kissed him. Your taste still lingered there, and after a second, you broke away to whisper, "I was hoping you'd say that."

He chuckled, and before he could respond, you pulled him back into a deep kiss. He parted his lips to slide his tongue against yours. You made a soft noise, and your lips moved against his smoothly, your kisses running together until your breathing grew heavy again.

Miguel, you could tell, was more than eager to be back inside you. His hand palmed your breast hungrily, and his whole body moved with anticipation. You quickly realized, however, that he was still holding out, waiting instead for you to give him permission to continue what you had paused.

You shifted your hips up to him, moaning softly when his cock brushed against your entrance. His breath shuddered, and he looked down at you to read your face. You nodded, answering his silent question before kissing him again.

You moaned into his mouth when he pushed into you once more. He moved slowly, so slowly inside you. Every thrust was long and deep, like he was trying to feel every inch of you. Your breathing was heavy as your fingers dug into the skin of his back.

The pace he set was vastly different than before. His pace was controlled and even, withdrawing all the way to the tip before pushing all the way to the hilt. This wasn't just fucking, you realized—it was love-making. Watching your reactions, waiting for your command, doing everything in his power to please you—Miguel completely encompassed what it meant to be a lover.

He broke away from your lips after a moment to catch his breath. You were both breathing hard, and as he continued moving steadily inside you, his eyes blinked open. They met your own, and he stared down at you with something like reverence in his gaze.

"I'm glad you're here," he gasped softly against your lips.

Your heart skipped a beat as he repeated his words from before. It was one thing hearing it in the quiet calm of lying together, but in the midst of the heat and passion, hearing them again gave them more weight, more substance. Even as he was deep inside you, he was still thinking about how grateful he was for you, that you were with him.

"I'll always be here," you promised quietly.

He let out a soft grunt at your words, his hips driving into with more force. Your eyes rolled back into your head as your whole body moved with each thrust. The rhythmic slapping of his skin against yours filled the air, and you couldn't help the quiet whine that left your throat as he pushed so deeply into you.

Your lips met his again in a desperate kiss. His hips thrust into you harder and faster now. You gasped as he pushed into you with greater need. The feeling of his cock moving deep inside of you was driving you insane, and your desire felt insatiable.

Miguel lowered his head to your neck, his hot breath fanning your skin as he continued passionately driving his cock into you. You felt his teeth graze against you, and a small whimper sounded in your throat. He growled at the sound and nipped gently at your flesh. You gave another small cry at the sensation, your fingers digging into his skin.

"You're so responsive," he murmured without lifting his head. "Every noise you make drives me crazy."

You moaned again for him. "It's because you feel so good," you whispered to him. "God, how do you always feel so fucking good?"

He groaned, thrusting into you over and over again with endless passion. Under his breath, he whispered your name. You could feel his hand sliding up your torso, until at last it found your own hand. His fingers entwined in yours and pinned it to the bed above your head.

You stared up at Miguel when he rested his forehead on yours. His eyes were closed as he fully immersed himself in the pleasure of your cunt. Small grunts sounded in his throat as he moved passionately in you, growing more and more hungry for his release until he couldn't hold back his sounds anymore.

With every thrust, he groaned softly in your ear. You wrapped your legs around his waist, urging him to push deeper. You could feel how the hand that was entwined in yours trembled, and his arm that supported him above you buckled at the elbow.

"Fuck," he whispered, his voice taut. "I don't think I can last—"

You didn't let him finish his sentence before you yanked his mouth down to yours again. His moan tickled your lips as your tongue slid against his, and he shifted his body to release your hand. Before you could mourn the loss of that intimate connection, Miguel's hand drifted down your body until his thumb brushed just above where his cock was moving in and out of you.

You gasped as white-hot pleasure shot through you. Your thighs trembled with every circle he made over your clit, in time with each drive of his cock. Digging your fingers into his skin, you held him tightly while you cried out at his perfect touch.

"Oh god, Miguel," you whined, unable to say anything else. His thumb worked rhythmically, pressing down just hard enough that your hips bucked against him. He was breathing hard above you, thrusting with deep, hard strokes.

Your body tightened, and your breathing was growing shallow. You could scarcely think about anything as you felt yourself growing closer and closer to the edge of your release. Miguel, you knew, was also growing closer based on his grunts of pleasure.

You managed to look up at him and were immediately captivated by his face. His dark hair had fallen over his forehead which glistened with sweat. His full lips were parted as he panted, and his eyes were focused on you. His gaze was electrifying, and as he stared down at you, he whispered your name so softly, so reverently, that you could barely hear it over the sounds your bodies were making.

That was all it took to send you over the edge. You were barely able to make more than a strangled cry as your climax racked your body. Every nerve was set ablaze as wave after wave of indescribable pleasure crashed over you. Your back arched off the bed, and you pulled him down in a tight embrace, your shuddering body pressed against him.

Miguel became ravenous at the sight of your undoing. His hand moved quickly from your clit to wrap under your back as he gave himself over to his desire. His hard thrusts had you clawing at his back, completely overwhelmed with the sensation of his cock slamming into you.

Just as you were coming down from your high, Miguel found his. His body tensed and stilled, a loud, gasping moan filling the air as he spilled himself inside you.

Your body still trembled against his while you both gasped for breath. His skin felt hot and alive, and in the stillness between you, he pressed a sloppy kiss to your neck. Against your chest, you felt Miguel's erratic heart hammering in time with yours. You moaned as he rolled his hips into yours with a few lazy thrusts before he pulled out of you entirely.

You remained sprawled out on the bed while Miguel collapsed next to you with a grunt. For a while, it was silent except for the sounds of your heavy breathing. One of your arms was pressed against his, and the other was draped across your face as you recovered from the intensity of what he had just done to you.

Noticing your posture, Miguel turned to you and brushed his fingers across your cheek. "Are you okay?" He asked softly.

You huffed out a breath, your arm sliding off your face as you looked at him with a smirk. "You just made me cum three times," you told him. "I would say I'm better than okay."

His lips tilted up in a smile at you, and his eyes studied your face intently, taking in every detail of your features. You remembered then why he was even awake, how you were startled from sleep by his thrashing. You had almost forgotten about the terror you had seen in his face earlier that night.

As you leaned your face into his hand, you asked, "Are you okay?" He considered you for a moment, his subtle smile still on his lips. "I just made you cum three times, I'm better than okay," he replied smugly.

Your smile widened, and you rolled your eyes. "You're unbearable," you mumbled, causing him to chuckle. His fingers still traced over your skin, and he added quietly, "I'm always okay when I'm with you."

Your face softened. In the low light, you could just make out his features, the shape of his lips, the angle of his cheekbones, the honesty in his eyes. He was only ever like this, open and vulnerable, with you in bed, still coming off of the high of an orgasm. Outside of sex, he mostly interacted with you through sharp wit and banter. This was the only time he ever lowered his walls enough for you to see soft side of him.

Instead of responding to him, you moved closer until your lips met his gently. You held the kiss for a moment before resting your head down on the pillow next to him, looking into his face with admiration. He stared back at you for a moment with a faint smile on his lips until he closed his eyes as his smile faded, and he let out a deep sigh.

"Hmm?" You hummed questioningly.

"Hmm?" He echoed back, his eyes still closed.

"That sigh—what are you thinking about?" You asked him.

The corner of his lips quirked up. "Maybe I'm sighing just to sigh," he pointed out. You gave a disbelieving scoff. "A likely story," you replied sarcastically.

His smile widened, and he finally opened his eyes to look at you again. You stared at each other for a quiet moment, each waiting for the other to say something. Finally, he sighed again, and you smiled up at him questioningly.

"What?" You prompted quietly.

His faint grin disappeared from his lips, and his eyes roamed over ever inch of your face. "I just—I don't think you realize," he said at last, "the power you have over me."

You blinked in surprise. Whatever you had expected him to say, it wasn't that. Miguel must've read the emotions in your face because he smiled softly again and closed his eyes. "Too much power," he added quietly.

Your heart fluttered in your chest, and your cheeks grew warm. He so rarely ever admitted that he cared about you. Despite all the nights like these, sweaty and breathless, and despite the pretty things he’d say in the heat of the moment, and despite the special gifts and treatment he gave you, Miguel hardly ever expressed with words how he felt about you. So, when he did, you often found yourself flustered by those rare confessions.

"Well," you began slowly, "I've heard that with great power comes—"

Miguel groaned, cutting you off. "Don't finish that sentence," he grumbled as he pulled you over to him so that your back pressed against his chest. You giggled, knowing that Miguel had probably heard every variation of your mantra during his time in the multiverse.

He nestled his face against your neck and wrapped his arm around your torso. His warmth enveloped you, and his breath tickled your skin. You rested your arm over his, entwining your fingers together.

"You have power over me, too," you told him quietly. "Way too much."

Miguel didn't say anything in response. A small part of you wondered if he had heard you, but then, he placed a lingering kiss on your shoulder and sighed.

"You should get some sleep," he said at last. "I'm sorry for waking you." You chuckled. "Well, I'm not," you replied wryly, earning a huff of amusement from him. "And I need to get cleaned up."

He grunted his understanding, tightening his hold on you for just a moment before pulling his arm away to allow you to slip out of bed to the bathroom. When you returned, Miguel had the covers pulled back up, and his breathing was deep and slow.

You slid between the sheets and curled against his side. Even as he was drifting off, his arms pulled you into an embrace. Your own eyes felt heavy now that all your arousal had been satisfied. As you drifted off into sleep, you couldn't tell if you imagined it or if he really did mumble one last time, "I'm glad you're here."

176 notes · View notes

gilbirda · 1 month

Text

Friendly neighborhood vigilante. Chapter 24

BatmanxDP crossover. JasonxJazz

Link to Jazz's armor design and ramble about ideas >>HERE<<

[Read on AO3] [Read on FF.net]

Based on this post

First chapter || << Previous chapter || Next chapter >>

---

Bruce sighed. Danny choked.

“You— You guys had bets going on?”

Dick stopped his celebratory dance to have the decency to look ashamed. “I mean… Maybe?”

Danny’s smirk replaced his worried face, and the mischievous little brother was back; wearing a heavy and clearly magical armor from another dimension, but still the same person.

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much was the bet?”

“There were a few,” Dick explained, ignoring Bruce’s tired sigh in the background, “But Stephanie thought Jazz was the King. She bet twenty bucks.”

Danny scoffed, crossing his arms. “I’m offended. I’m worth more than twenty.”

Jazz joined Bruce in the tired sigh department. She even placed her hand on her forehead.

“Wait,” Duke perked up, glancing at Jazz trying so hard to keep it together next to a smirking Jason, “if he’s the Ghost King…”

Jason was the first to catch on. “It means Jazz is—”

“The Crown Princess of the Infinite Realms, yeah!” Danny chuckled and pointed a finger at his sister.

“Don’t you dare!”

“Uh-huh!” He answered, the tip of his finger lighting in more green fire.

“Danny, I swear—!”

She couldn’t finish. Danny shot the fire at her, and immediately the flames spread across her body, revealing armor the same way it did for Danny. On her chest, her comfortable long sleeved blouse was replaced by a crimson red chest piece and dark metallic shoulder armor pieces. Her hands and forearms were covered by more red metal, dented and dull with use, up to her elbows.

On her legs, a pleated skirt made of the same dark gray armor reflected the sunlight when she quickly readjusted her legs to stand up, crimson red boots appearing down her legs from her mid thighs.

As the fire retreated over her face, Jazz was already baring her teeth at her brother.

“Danny!” She growled. “That was unnecessary!”

He chuckled again. “If I have to stand here wearing a stupid outfit then so do you.” He approached her and patted her on the back so hard she grunted and stumbled forwards. “What was the thing? ‘A true warrior shows their armor with pride’?”

She rolled her eyes and moved one hand to pull back some strands of hair that had gotten on her face. Jason followed the movement to the bright red headpiece framing her eyes, and extending into points on the sides of her head. They burned with green flames like Danny’s crown did, as if their transformation were condensed in the pieces of metal.

He also noticed the exposed skin of her arms, how his assessment of her turned out to be true, watching the muscles flex with the small movement — and the scary amount of scars she apparently hid under her clothes. He didn’t miss a big burn scar peeking from under one shoulder piece.

“Man, I wish Steph was here,” Dick took everyone’s attention away from the siblings, “because I was also right on the princess thing.”

“So… This is really nothing to you? Like, it does nothing?” Danny’s wide smile was more amused than it should be. “We are literally interdimensional royalty, here, standing in your fancy mansion,” he did a gesture encompassing the whole room, his sister, and himself, “and nothing?”

Jazz sighed again, the flames on the tips of her headpiece burning a little bit brighter. If one squinted, the vague shape of a circle was starting to form with the fire. Her crown?

“Danny,” Jazz made a gesture towards the not at all surprised Waynes sitting in front of them, “there is something you should know about them.”

“Aha?” He glanced at her, but kept his eyes on the others.

“The Waynes are also heroes. They are—”

“No fucking way.”

“Yep.”

“Jazz,” Danny crossed his arms again, but he was smiling, “you had one job. What was it?”

“To not be noticed by Batman.” She looked away, ashamed.

“And what happened?”

“It was— I was careless. I’m sorry, okay?” She closed her eyes and pinched her nose. “Can we drop it? Please?”

Danny was not going to drop it, but Jason got his attention and made a signal to cut it out. Fortunately, the young King made the decision to listen. The little frown told them it was only temporary.

“Okay.” Nobody missed Jazz’s shoulders immediately relax at the word. “So you guys are the bats and birds, and have known about us for a while—”

“Suspected.” Bruce spoke for the first time since reveals started happening. He cleared his throat. “Jasmine, she— She explained some things, but warned that there were things she couldn’t say due to safety reasons and needed to wait for you.”

Danny raised his eyebrows, looking back between Bruce and his sister. Did he know that there was more story behind those words? No doubt he would ask her more details about how they found out — that’s what he would do — so he wasn’t sure the siblings were going to be this amused and relaxed in their— in his presence anymore.

As much as it pained him, maybe this would be the last time they could get answers.

“She talked about the GIW,” Danny tensed, Jazz pursed her lips, “and warned us about Vlad Masters.”

Like the flip of a switch, any amusement left Danny and he donned a persona they haven’t seen yet: the King. It was subtle, but they were so used to reading body language that they could see the shift happen as clear as day.

“Is that so?” The flames of his crown flared for a second. He glanced at Jazz. “When you said the situation had changed…?”

“The GIW and potentially Vlad are… they know I’m here.” She winced. “They will, when they get here. And Jason—”

“I’ve noticed.”

All eyes went to the mentioned. Danny’s new attitude made his piercing green eyes drill holes on Jason’s skin. If he felt poked and prodded when Jazz watched him, it was nothing next to how he literally felt Danny’s consciousness somehow touch his.

He jumped. “What the fuck was that?”

“Interesting.”

“Don’t ‘interesting’ me! What—”

“Darling,” Jazz sat back down next to him, “it’s okay.”

She took his hand, which helped a lot, but still he glared at Danny as the presence came back. At least now that he expected it he didn’t feel so violated.

“What an interesting case.” He tilted his head. “You sure know how to find them, Jazzy.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“What do you mean?” Jason tried to keep the conversation on track. “What’s interesting?”

Danny licked his lips and shifted his weight from one foot to another. The armor barely made a sound, even if it was expected from such heavy metal.

“You died.” It wasn’t a question. “And your resurrection was painful. What has been done to you was incomplete, tainted, and has left your ghost development stunted.”

That explained absolutely nothing.

“I gave him one of my vials.” Jazz interrupted before he could complain.

That didn’t please her sibling. “Jazz—”

“I know.” The hand that held Jason’s twitched for a second. “But it was an emergency. Would that affect him?”

Danny pondered the question, one hand on his chin. “Maybe. I don’t know. We should check with the yetis.”

“Thought so.” She glanced at her boyfriend. “Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry. I told you if there’s no blood, there’s no need to say sorry.”

“As cute as this is, we need to focus on the important part here.” Danny got his sister’s attention. “Situation has changed.”

“Yes.” Jazz took a deep breath. “GIW is coming, Vlad may be as well, and I can’t just—” she rubbed her face, “We need to re-negotiate, re-strategize and move up The Plan.”

“The Plan?” Bruce leaned in, catching on the capital letters.

Danny looked at Jazz. Jazz looked at Jason before looking back at her brother.

“We… Okay. Okay.” She breathed in, breathed out. “We are at war. In the Infinite Realms.” She ignored Danny sitting down beside her and the fire when his armor was gone. “Danny is the King, yes, but he is not the only one who has a claim.”

“Vlad.”

Danny clicked his tongue at the name, but patted Jazz’s shoulder and now her armor disappeared in green flames. “He has been after power ever since he came back to life from his accident.”

“We’ve been fighting Vlad and his supporters, as well as trying to fix the mess left behind by the previous King, ever since Danny took the throne.”

“And this was…?”

The siblings shared a look before Danny answered Bruce: “A week after I graduated.”

He was just a kid.

That being said, Robins started fighting crime way younger than eighteen, Bruce considered. Not the same as becoming the ruler of a whole dimension, though.

“Something you guys need to understand about the previous king, Pariah Dark, is that he was such a tyrant he had to be put into the sarcophagus of Eternal Sleep. Everything has been a mess for millenia.”

Bruce pondered Danny’s words. An interdimensional tyrant they knew nothing about, a war they wouldn’t have learned about if it wasn’t for Jason’s neighbor. He got dizzy for a second.

“But that’s not all.” Bruce nodded along when the siblings did, clearly relieved he was catching on. “The GIW.”

“We have been trying our best. Those documents you found with our parents’ signature,” Danny’s head snapped towards Jazz so fast they confirmed he was not human, or he would have had some real damage, “they were the things we couldn’t stop in time. The research we couldn’t erase in time.” She continued, ignoring Danny’s wild eyes.

Bruce swallowed, trying to get rid of the knot in his throat.

“I have nothing to do with these!”

“Darling, listen to me. Jason, this is not true.”

“This is taken out of context.”

Her voice trembled as she tried to defend herself. How could she even sway him? He now understood there was so much at stake than mad scientists on the rise, but she couldn’t say the whole truth, and by principle he considered a half truth as a lie. Nothing she could have said could have convinced him she wasn’t a criminal he needed to stop.

He was ashamed now. How in his mind it made sense. How he was blinded by Jason’s hypothetical gratitude once he presented the report of Jasmine’s arrest. Maybe he could show him he still cared for him, that he still wished him the best even if it wasn’t with him.

It felt so stupid now. Meaningless. He glanced at his son, relaxed, one of his hands subtly on Jazz’s and tracing circles with his thumb without thinking. Jason, who never seeked physical contact, who didn’t like to be hugged even as a kid.

He would never have that, it would never be that easy for both of them to be comfortable together. He made sure of that.

“I— I understand.” He managed to say. He ignored Duke and Cass’ looks at his choked voice.

“That’s when The Plan comes in.” Danny leaned in. “We need help. With Vlad and the war and how much time it consumes running the show, we decided he had to suck it up and call the Justice League.”

Duke nodded. “Jazz mentioned that Amity Park folks don’t like the League?”

“Oh we hate them. With passion.” He leaned back with a grin stretching from ear to ear, apparently enjoying when Bruce tensed. “They abandoned us when we most needed it. They left a dead teenager in charge of protecting the city.” The grin grew bigger with each accusation. Jazz slapped him on the leg. “But we decided it was worth a shot to confront them and demand that help we were owed.”

Jazz sighed. “What Danny meant to say is, after I was done with my internship at Arkham the next steps were confronting the Justice League and negotiating help with taking down the Guys in White.”

“The Plan.”

She nodded at Duke. “We didn’t know what we would encounter but the situation keeps escalating and our parents… Maddie and Jack have to be stopped.”

Danny looked away, suddenly uncomfortable at the mention of his parents. Were they this bad? How much did Barbara’s research cover? How much were they missing?

“We thought— If it’s okay with you, Bruce — that those negotiations—”

“Of course.” He interrupted her. He straightened his back. “Of course we’ll help. I’m… I’m sorry we weren’t there before.”

Jazz nodded, satisfied. Bruce took it as he said the right thing and he was one step closer to properly apologizing.

“Just like that?” Danny didn’t seem that convinced.

“Yes. I’ll need to write a report and bring it up in an emergency meeting that can be as soon as…” he tried to remember everyone’s schedules, “next Tuesday? Could be earlier but I think the Lanterns were away on some Lantern business and this sounds like something they need to know. And they should be back on Tuesday morning.”

The siblings looked at each other and had another silent conversation with just face gestures and rapid fire microexpressions. After a moment Danny sighed and relaxed, letting his body flop back to the backrest of the couch.

“We’d be very grateful, Bruce. Thank you.” Her smile was genuine.

Bruce glanced at Jason, who was looking at Jazz. As if he knew he was being watched, he turned to look at him. He also was smiling a small smirk as he subtly nodded in approval.

“What a shame,” Danny’s tone was playful, “we had planned for the possibility of fighting the League.”

“Danny.” His sister slapped his shoulder.

“Who would have fought B?”

“Dickward.” Jason gave his brother a warning look.

Both ignored the warning and smiled at each other. “Valerie.” He seemed amused that the other bit the bait and asked. “She’s the best at adapting mid combat, has a hoverboard and a bunch of gadgets that neither of you can ever hack or disable.”

“Why?”

“Is ghost technology. Nothing in it, either the material or the code, is even close to anything you have encountered before. Batman thrives when having enough time to prepare, but believe me we wouldn’t give him enough time to figure out how anything works.”

“We have had access to alien tech before.” Bruce was curious now.

Danny was shaking his head. “Our weapons and technology may look like yours but in essence it isn’t. Since we are friends now I wouldn’t mind lending a few things to study. You know, as a token of my faith.”

Bruce glanced at Jazz. She nodded in confirmation. “Would be honored to.” He finally said.

Did he have to offer pleasantries? Danny was the ruler of a dimension, nonchalant about that fact as he was. Bruce chose not to since they weren’t in their armors anymore.

“And Jazz?” Jason asked Danny.

The mentioned hid her face behind her hands. Danny leaned in to look at Jason from Jazz’s other side. “Green Arrow. And of course, Wonder Woman.”

“I noticed the Amazonian armor.”

“I’m right here.” Jazz growled.

“She’s been trained by Pandora, back at the Greek side of the Realms. All the dead Amazons are over there and some were thrilled to participate in her training; so you could say she’s the closest of us all to her battle style. Also Jazz is the expert for close quarters combat and a wide variety of weapons.” Danny was obviously proud of his sister. And maybe loved embarrassing her too much. “Except guns.”

Dick’s eyebrows went to his hairline. Bruce hid his shock as best as he could, and tried hard not to look at Jason.

“Danny.” Jazz said through gritted teeth. “Stop.”

“What? It's the truth! You are the only one of us that doesn’t fight with ectoguns, but you make up for it really well.” He slapped her back so hard a bone should have cracked.

Jason cleared his throat. “No guns? For any particular reason?”

Duke choked. Would Jazz find Jason’s weapon of choice repulsive? It couldn’t be — she knew about Red Hood, she knew what he had done, how he had done it.

Danny’s smile was as bright as the Sun. “Because she sucks! I’ve never seen such a bad aim.”

“I’ve been getting better!” She groaned, her face crimson red. “I’ve practiced!”

“Oh yeah? I still have scars from the last time you ‘practiced’!” He lifted his shirt, showing his lower back and a very clear healed burn scar in there. “You definitely have dad’s aim!”

“Yeah? And you suck at sword fighting!” Danny flinched. “Do you think I don’t know how many training sessions you’ve missed?”

“Is not that bad…”

“Yes it is, Danny,” she crossed her arms, “since you rely so badly on your powers. What happens if you cannot use them?”

“That will never happen.” He crossed his arms too. “Most powerful being of the Realms here.” Danny shrugged, showing off his perfect rows of pointy white teeth, even in human form.

Jazz snorted and moved as fast as lightning, one hand going for her brother’s stomach to punch him square in the gut. She didn’t hit flesh, because at the last minute Danny’s chest went intangible and her whole arm went through like he was air.

“Ha!” He looked back up to laugh at her — finding her other hand waiting for him.

Jazz flicked his forehead so hard the others flinched at the noise it made, and Danny was sent back to the armrest of the sofa.

“Hey!” He rubbed his forehead. “That wasn’t fair!”

“This is what happens when you don’t pay attention, Danny!” She hissed, gesturing with her hands. “And when you rely way too much on your powers!”

“But—”

“But nothing! I bet since I’ve been gone you’ve skipped every damn sword fighting class. Ancients, I bet I could beat your ass even as rusty as I am now!”

Danny opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. He knew she was right.

The others watched amused as the young man rubbed his forehead again and glared at his sister.

“Not my fault you are a freak.”

“What did you just say?” Jazz tensed, her body ready to pounce.

Bruce cleared his throat, and like magic, the siblings jumped away from each other and sat straighter. Jazz nervously chuckled and fixed her hair again. Bruce smiled. King, princess and all, they were still around his childrens’ age.

Said children giggled, amused by the familiarity of their chaotic dynamic.

“So,” Dick redirected the conversation, “what’s next?”

Jazz tilted her head, thinking. “With my identity revealed, we need to renegotiate with Lady Gotham.”

Danny clicked his tongue. “She’s not going to like it.”

“Well, she will have to if she wants her people protected.”

“Jazz talked about this Spirit,” Bruce nodded. “So there was an agreement?”

“Yeah,” she answered, “as I said, we were not supposed to get closer to Batman or any of the vigilantes, and she wouldn’t be opposed to the Princess stomping on her haunt.” Her cheeks tinted a slight pink as she glanced at Jason. “Obviously that’s void now, and if I’m going to protect this city I need to be able to use my abilities, so we have to chat with her before strategizing.”

“When do you think you are talking to her?”

“Why? Wanna come?”

Bruce’s silence told her that yes, he very much wanted to. She made a weird face, between amused and concerned. “Is it not allowed?” He asked.

Jazz glanced at Danny, who shrugged and was very unhelpful. “I mean… It’s her beloved Knight. Maybe she won’t try to obliterate us on sight if we use him as a human shield.”

“Hey!”

“Actually, it’s not a bad idea.” Bruce conceded. Apologizing for what he had done could also mean mediating when they talked with the sentient city.

He was also curious.

Hm.

“Okay then we could do it sometime tomorrow? Before I have to go back to the Realms.” Danny stretched his back and yawned.

“Are you leaving so soon?”

Danny stopped mid yawn at his sister’s tone of voice. “Why? Did you miss me?”

She didn’t answer, but Jason’s amused nod where she couldn’t see it made Danny chuckle. Jazz would talk your ear out about reaching out and being in touch with your emotional needs; but she also had a hard time admitting that sometimes she also needed her little brother as well.

“You could stay the week? I have work, but apart from that…”

“And we also have to prepare the report with Batman.” He answered, nodding.

“Bruce is fine.”

Jazz nodded at the older man and smiled back at her brother. “What do you think?”

He made a show like he was pondering staying or not, humming and crossing arms, and making a big sigh like a heavy weight was on his chest.

“I guess I can make the time in my busy kingly schedule.” Danny’s smile showed his true age — not a front, not trying to appear mischievous, not wanting to be strong for appearance’s sake.

Just a little brother and his older sister.

---

First chapter || << Previous chapter || Next chapter >>

Back to Main Archive

Back to Danny Phantom Archive

Just a normal link to support me (if you want)

#dpxdc #hardcover ship #jazz x jason #jazz/jason #dp x dc #dc x dp #batpham #friendly neighborhood vigilante #neighbors au

168 notes · View notes

c-rowlesdraws · 3 months

Text

browsing twitter for longer than a few minutes gives me radiation poisoning these days, and it’s worse in the evening, in the hours when the dark feelings creep in anyway. So even though I’m really apprehensive to talk politics on my art blog (I mean, if the backlash to a hyperbolic post I made about a famous youtuber is this bad, posting about politics would turn my activity page into a window to hell), I have to vent some of my feelings or that radiation damage will just keep getting quietly worse. And a fair number of people read this blog, and seem to like things that I create and say, so for what it’s worth, I want to say some things I hope people will think about.

Someone I really admire tweeted recently about how hopeless they feel. They said that after many years of fighting for social change, they had no fight left. They said they were too exhausted to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. And I tried to understand where they were coming from, because this is someone I look up to. But I can’t. I understand feeling burnt out. I feel nauseous and heartbroken and scared, thinking about the situation in Palestine and the situation in my country. I understand that it seems like there is no good leader to rally behind.

But I can’t tap out. I can’t give in to hopelessness and say, “I can’t choose. I’m tired and I’m done”. When a choice is between maintenance of an imperfect society with incremental steps towards better things, and cranking human misery and suffering enthusiastically up to 11, I’m going with the former. We are all tired every day. But voting is not physically difficult. Even if you are tired, you can do it. There is a day where you go to a building, and you fill in a bubble next to a name, and you go home. They even give you a sticker. I said voting isn’t hard, but actually, it’s very important to say that for a lot of people in the US, voting is hard to access, and for some groups, impossible. It is made difficult on purpose, by people—Republicans, it’s fucking always them, I don’t know why I’m using vague language—who want to disenfranchise as many people as they can. If voting was really a useless gesture, if it really meant nothing— they wouldn’t be working so damn hard to stop poor people and immigrants and prisoners and folks in general from being able to do it.

If you hate Biden, god, fine, whatever. But he is going to be the nominee of the political party made up of judges and politicians that, for the most part, believe that climate change is real and ought to be mitigated, that the US should not be turned into an evangelical christian theocracy, that firearms should be regulated, that businesses should be regulated, that healthcare should be more affordable and accessible, that people should be able to get safe abortions, that trans and all lgbt people deserve to live their lives, and that asylum-seekers shouldn’t be shredded by concertina wire trying to cross the border. The wheel of social change is huge and fucking heavy and sometimes it looks like it isn’t moving at all. But we can feel it move if we all push together.

I caught a Trump ad on the radio the other day and it was some of the scariest shit. “Trump will bring order to chaos,” it said. “He will ban travel from terrorist countries, and end the disastrous open-border policies allowing illegal migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our country.” The fucking anti-muslim travel ban. It’s back, baby. That was the exact phrasing: terrorist countries. If Biden’s foreign policy with regards to the Middle East is frustrating and despair-inducing already, Trump’s would be a catastrophe. The Republicans think Democrats are soft on terrorism. As much as anyone with a conscience is horrified by the US’s continued passivity with regards to Palestine, this motherfucker getting back in office would bring greater horror. I’m really sure about it. I don’t know what that part of the world will look like next fall, but I’m confident that if this dumb bloodthirsty motherfucker regains office, there would be absolutely no hope of public pressure swaying US foreign policy towards “less murder”. Protesting against war and genocide or for any progressive or civil rights cause would become even more dangerous. I still think about the woman who was run over by a car at the protest in 2017

…I’m rambling. I can’t help it. But I don’t want to just ramble unproductively. I should end this with something I hope makes sense to people snd can’t be easily dismissed, even if you already disagree with something I’ve said. I want to say how I genuinely feel.

I believe that imperfect activism is valuable, because it is better to show up and stand in solidarity with other people fighting for a more just world than to not show up at all. I believe all activism is in some way imperfect, because activists are people, and people are imperfect. That is to say, one middle-aged woman who showed up to a DC protest wearing a hand-crocheted pink pussy hat, who maybe hadn’t been to many (or any) protests before but who felt fired up about this one, was worth ten of the smug “real leftists” sneering about her on twitter. Maybe more than ten. Your own activism will be imperfect. But keep an open mind— to your own learning and to others’. Doing “the bare minimum” (and, ugh, what a discouraging phrase) is still doing. We have to encourage everyone who feels drawn to fighting for social good. We have to link arms with one another and be strong. Even if you think the person next to you is a lame-o liberal, if they believe that (for example) trans people deserve access to gender-affirming care and should not be smashed flat into fruit-by-the-foot and sent straight to hell, they are your comrade.

Be wary of people who self-identify as Cassandras and unheeded prophets, especially if their messages consistently emphasize how everything is garbage and the world can’t be saved. If someone is telling you that only they understand how uniquely horrible things are, that no progressive or leftist political philosophy is viable except for the specific one they adhere to, that no news or media sources are worthwhile or even trustworthy except for the small handful of ones they endorse… I won’t say to stop listening to them or following them, but I’d recommend listening to other people, too.

Do your own reading about issues that are important to you. Read many people’s words, watch videos, think about what you believe, and how those beliefs have changed over time, and stay open to being further changed. We are all constantly learning and shaping ourselves, and teaching, and being shaped by others. All of us are tired. But we can hold each other up.

I don’t have a rousing call to action. Just the same things many people are already saying that I’ve felt encouraged by, in a grim sort of way: protest and donate when and where you can, support political candidates on the local and national stage who do support policies you agree with, who could do real good. It feels very hard right now to be hopeful. But we all have to live in whatever future comes eventually— so I think we have to still participate, and that means things like voting. We are all tired. But we have to keep going. There is, ultimately, no sitting out. People who opt out of voting still must live under the social climate and policies imposed by the person who gets elected, and who they endorse and empower and appoint, and who those people empower and appoint, and so on.

This post doesn’t have a good conclusion. I didn’t write it thinking about what would make for a satisfying structure in general. But if you read it, then thank you for reading.

#us politics #catie talks

199 notes · View notes

desceros · 3 months

Text

me: [looks at calendar, gets a wicked idea, looks into the camera] happy springtime, turtle fam! who's ready to celebrate the season?

...mating season, that is. hehe. [dodges the tomatoes]

so! i had the idea that it would be super fun to have a community-wide event where we all have a prompt and then everyone fills it in their own way.

...i then decided all the prompts i came up with were too good not to use, but also none of them were Good Enough to use exclusively, so i changed my mind and the prompt is now just MATING SEASON. with a few suggestions at the bottom of this post if you're looking for some.

since spring is coming upon us, i hereby invite everyone to join in the vernal festivities... which in turtle parlance, of course, means only one thing: write, draw, whatever your version of "mating season", then join me on march 1 to post it with the tag #TMNTSpringShellebration. we then shall browse the fine selection of our mutual artistic efforts, and basically just have a good time as a community.

here are the prompts i came up with as starters-slash-things-to-include if you're looking for a place to get started. feel free to use these at will, or use them to come up with something of your own:

“Please don’t make me explain this. It’s humiliating as is.”

Oops, Looks Like Mating Season Came A Week Early This Year

“…In all of my mating seasons, this has never happened before.”

“I told you not to come by! It’s mating season!”

Probably should have expected it to be different now that he’s not going through it alone.

Because of Shenanigans, you have to wait. Wait… Wait… ok now.

They’re not the right person for mating season… but they’re the one who’s here, so…

“Show me where it hurts."

so yeah! see you all on march 1 for the, uh, spring shellebration. party popper emoji

questions i imagine will be popping up and i hope will clear up here before my askbox swells beyond capacity under the cut to keep this post from being Way Too Long. also it's really not that serious it's just an excuse to write slash draw for everyone Please Don't Take This Thing Too Seriously It's Not That Serious:

"can i participate?" yes! it's literally just an invitation to do something. nothing fancier than that. no need to be following me or in my friend group or whatever.

"can i write (insert fic idea here)?" yep! so long as it's related to the idea of mating seasons, it flies. reader insert? hell yea. oc? hell yeah. solo turtle and his favorite pillow? go for it.

"can i draw (insert art idea here)?" yep! uh. i know tumblr has the cops watching for sin bin material, but you art people know how to deal with that. and if you don't, uh, ask the other art people. im just a feral cat in a trench coat

"how do i participate?" write/draw/collect songs for/whatever. then, on march 1, post it and tag it #TMNTSpringShellebration. also, for funsies, keep it hush hush what you're working on so we can all be super shocked when the day comes! except, y'know, that you're planning on joining in. totally do that.

"when do i post it?" march 1. whenever on that day. waves hands around in a vague gesture at time zones not mattering. seriously don't take this so seriously it's just me wanting to create cool shit with my friends with a little more structure to it

"does it have to be horny?" i mean. it's an event about mating season. so by definition it's going to be at least a little horny. but however you interpret it is cool. even if it's just. idk. leo sitting sweatily in a chair looking longingly at a glass of water bc he's thirstier than usual. be smart about things, people. i'm not your dad.

"which tmnt verse is this for?" whichever one you want it to be for!! rise! bayverse! 2007! your fan iteration! your friend's fan iteration! your mortal enemy's fan iteration! yes!

"will you be reblogging everything?" absolutely not, but this isn't an event About Me. i am incidental to the thing. it's about Us. coming together as a community. for horny turtles. puts my hands on your shoulders. do it for you. for your friends. for the community.

#text tag #feel free to reblog this around. it started out as a thing for turtle fam but we all agreed that it would be fun for The Community #anyway yeehaw let's spend all of february thinking about what to do and then the night of feb 29 doing it RAH #tmntspringshellebration

163 notes · View notes

infamous-if · 1 year

Note

would u be willing to post seven's internal monologue?? pretty please just for us??? 😳

So sorry I don't mean to write all my characters with such sad internal monologues that's just what I tend to gravitate to 😢 hope it's not a problem

I shouldn’t be here.

That thought follows them outside the car. It follows them down the street. To the Heavenly Isle lot. To the entrance. To the dancing crowd.

Their logic is practically yelling at them to turn around by the time they’re becoming one with the audience, shouldering dancing bodies as they maneuver through the human current, keeping one eye on the stage. The singer of the band on stage belts out lyrics to their song, baring their soul as they relay a love letter to an unrequited love, Annabelle. The subject of the track.

Seven clears their throat, oddly uncomfortable, before finding a relatively empty spot in the crowd.

Seven’s bandmates join them a moment later, crowding around the circular standing table by the edge of the crowd. Seven senses a few eyes on them. They brace themself for someone to ask for an autograph, even a picture, but loosen up when no one does. Good. Let them be a ghost. Let their image disappear. Let them cease to exist. Just for this one night.

They just need this one night.

“Why are we here?” Pope whines, going as far as stomping his feet. “We ditched a rager to watch BOTB auditions? We already won.”

Seven stares ahead, expression unchanging as the singer dives into a bridge full of confession and regret. It was just last week they were up on that very stage, auditioning for the chance of a lifetime, singing lyrics just as raw. Just as vulnerable.

Oddly enough, Seven wasn’t even half as nervous then as they are tonight.

“It’s good to get to know our competition,” Seven replies, surprising themself with how casual they sound. It’s funny, really. There’s nothing casual about their appearance tonight.

They feel eyes on them and they meet Avina’s gaze, who shoots a pointed look at the table. Seven looks down, finding that their hand is tapping relentlessly against it. They turn it into a fist, shoving it in the pocket of their plaid shirt, hating how observant their friend is.

“Our competition?” Keiran asks, doing a perusal himself. “When did you become so”—they make a vague gesture with their hands—“involved?”

Seven clenches their jaw. “Is it a crime to want to win? If you want to slack off this competition, be my guest, but you’re not doing it in this fucking band.”

Kieran’s brows lift.

Seven shuts their eyes. “Sorry, that—“ They huff. “I didn’t mean that.”

Pope shoots Seven an odd look. “Why are you—“ Even beneath the dimly lit mezzanine that shakes with the weight of the dancers, Seven can see the dawn of their realization clearly. “Oh. Oh. I get it now.”

“Get what?” Kieran prompts, whipping his head back and forth in search of an answer. “Get what? What?”

“Seven didn’t come here to scope out the competition.” A teasing smile grows on his face. “Well, they did. One competitor in particular.”

Seven shuts their eyes as Kieran lets out a child-like ‘ohhhhh.’

“Pope,” Avina sighs out, staring at Seven with a trace of worry on their face. Which makes it worse. “Stop it.”

Pope raises his hands in surrender. Kieran has enough decency to pat Seven supportively on the back.

“The pain we reap. The lives we seek. Would you bury me with the rest of your past misdeeds?”

Seven looks around, soaking in the dancing crowd. Are they listening? Truly listening? Do they resonate with the pain of the singer?

Do they care?

That’s one of Seven’s biggest problems as an artist; having to deal with the fact that sometimes a song is just a song. That for Seven, it could be their whole heart on a track. And for others it could just be another three minutes to escape.

Seven briefly wonders if they watched their performance. Would they have listened to the lyrics Seven wove in the quietest hours of the night, catered specifically for them? Would they have understood?

Seven clears their throat, shaking away the thoughts just as Donny, the host, comes up on stage. The next few minutes melt together in a blur of cheering and conversations Seven hardly hears.

Because they’re there. Right there. And Seven has lost all grip on reality. Any sense of self. For a moment, it almost feels like a dream.

If only they cared a little less.

They feel an arm on them and look up to see Avina smiling. “Howdy, partner.”

Seven faces ahead, watching as (MC) and the band takes their places on stage. Their eyes track MC’s every move, as though MC is in danger of disappearing. Isn’t that what they did the first time? “Hi,” they say finally.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Avina says. The lights dim, signaling the start of the song. “You can just leave.”

“I know,” Seven clears their throat, “but I can’t.”

Avina says nothing to that, instead choosing to face ahead. Pope and Kieran come closer, whispering to each other as the first notes of the song start.

MC’s voice is just as Seven remembered. Smooth. Hypnotizing. They hate that it still gives them chills. Hate that MC still has that kind of power over them and their body.

As the crowd becomes increasingly excited, Seven’s will to stay weakens. The lyrics are too close. Too real and watching MC up there cuts a bit too deep. Seven wants to care a little less? No—they don’t want to care at all. They wish they could wash MC off them like filth. Strip memories of their scent, forget the way they laugh, strike out every memory with a marker like some failed lyric in one of their notebooks. Just erase it all until there’s nothing left.

And it’s in that moment, while Seven is thinking up every twisted metaphor, that MC notices them.

A stifled sound they didn’t know they could make crosses their throat. MC eyes pierce through them as if Seven were made of glass. That’s surely how they feel right now—delicate and liable to break.

MC’s voice pitches upon the realization and they look around, as if to check if anyone noticed. No one does. But Seven did. Seven always does.

It’s then that Seven answers their own question. If you heard my song, would you understand? They know MC would, because this is not just music to them. Their songs used to be another language. It was the way they laughed, the way they knew what the other was thinking with one kiss. The way they touched and danced and did nothing at all under the pulsing lights of the stars on their mom’s roof.

And it’s all gone.

“This was a mistake,” Seven whispers to Kieran, hating how choked their voice sounds. Despite their earlier humor, Kieran remains grave when they nod.

Seven doesn’t have to say anything else. Their friends know instantly. Just like what Seven had with MC, they have their own language. This is how it is—you move on by finding something else. By burying the past with the Seven they killed the night they decided to leave.

Seven gives themself ten seconds. Ten seconds to allow themselves to feel. Then, once the ten seconds are up, they imagine themself scribbling this moment out like a song in a journal, doing so dark enough that even the most painful moments can’t been seen under the messy wall of black.

They turn around and walk through the crowd. They don’t look back.

#Just like Rowan's this is quite long #once again pls excuse typos or any awkward sentences #i only do one draft of drabbles #seven lawless #drabble #POV drabble #seven's pov #i should be correcting errors #haha

657 notes · View notes

imaginationofacrazyfangirl · 2 years

Text

Show Me How

Summary: You swiped right on a nerd, instead you got a Greek God. Or tired of your virginity, you decide to throw caution to the wind and find a hook up on tinder.

— PAIRING: Namjoon x f!reader

— GENRE: smut. 18+ minors dni.

— WARNINGS: fingering, thigh riding, possible hair kink (? like Joon loves touching the reader’s hair), biting, dry humping, dirty talk (?), Namjoon is such a simp, the reader is naive.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Namjoon looked nothing like the picture you swiped right on one drunken night. The original Kim Namjoon who you found on Tinder was a nerdy looking guy wearing glasses so big Harry Potter would be jealous; this man in front of you wasn’t anything less than a god. Those round disk glasses were gone allowing you to see his pretty brown eyes. The tamed golden-brown hair in the photos also vanished in favor of the tousled mop on his head, but perhaps most alarming was his tall athletic form. Call it headshots, bad angles, or lighting, but whoever took your hookup’s photo should never touch a camera again.

“You must be (Y/N). You look nothing like your pictures.” Namjoon smiled. He moved away from the door, gesturing you to come in.

Vaguely you wondered if he was disappointed. The pictures you posted on tinder were a good year old, however you rarely took pictures of yourself-especially not ones dressed up. “I can say the same. You are much more handsome than your pictures make you to be.” You complimented.

Internally you cringe at your words. Talking to guys was definitely not your forte. In fact, anything dealing with romance, boys or sex was not your thing according to Bazaar Publishers. Your gut twisted at the reminder of the rejection letter sitting in your purse. Eight months ago, you sent in a copy of your novel’s manuscript to the publishing company only to receive a letter stating that while the editors loved the concept, setting, plot and everything else; the romance and sexuality in it sucked thus they were rejecting it. They also stated that if/when you fixed these problems, they would happily reconsider your novel.

Which was how you ended up here in a potential serial killer’s apartment looking for a quick lay. “Thanks. Most people say the opposite.” Namjoon chuckled.

Heat rose to your cheeks at the dimpled smile he gave. Nervous, you looked away, looking at his living room. For a bachelor, his place appeared very clean, something you wouldn’t have guessed given the stereotype of bachelor pads. You expected strewn laundry and dirty dishes not alphabetically ordered bookshelves, decorative pillows, and Febreze. “You have a nice place…”

“Thanks, I try to keep it clean especially if a pretty girl visits.”

You rolled your eyes at the compliment. Pretty girl...you were already here. Did he really feel the need to butter you up with lies? “So…..” Namjoon drawled, rubbing his neck. “Do you want to sit down?”

You blinked. Sit down? Is this how one night stands usually went? Did people sit down, have coffee, and talk before fucking each other or what it just this guy? “No?”

“O-oh…” Namjoon stuttered. “Okay, umm….”

“Sex? I-I mean we agreed to let you’d bang my brains out, right?” You suggested, biting your lip. Just the mere idea of having sex brought butterflies to your stomach. Tonight, would be the first night you had sex ever, marking the end to your virginity and hopefully the end to your shitty sex scenes. It would be like ripping off the Band-Aid- quick, slightly painful, but for the best.

Namjoon’s face turned a light shade of pink. Suddenly he appeared more like the dorky boy from the photos than the stud who let you in. “Um...sure. No problem-I mean why waste time getting to know each other?”

“Right. No point in pretending like we are ever going to see each other after tonight.” You forced a laugh.

Namjoon laughed, “Exactly.”

The dimpled smile returned along with a lusty twinkle in his eyes. It will never cease to surprise you how quick guys can switch their moods. Then again you shouldn’t complain given the circumstances.

“Well, shall we go M’lady?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

You nodded. "Lead the way my prince. "

Namjoon laughed, taking your hand in his. The warmth of his touch sent shivers down your spine. It wasn't like you never held a guy's hand before but there was something different about the way his fingers wrapped around yours. Your heart stuttered in both fear and excitement. Silently you reminded yourself to write this feeling down in your notepad later.

"Well, here we are, my lavish bedroom." Namjoon said. His ears turned a twinge red.

You took in the bedroom noting how similar to the living room it was. Bookshelves lined the walls yet again, leaving only a small opening for a desk and dresser. His bed was a single with neatly tucked white sheets and a thick blue comforter. It was small but it looked large enough for two people.

"So…. What now? I'm new to this whole thing. " You confessed. The double meaning of your words went unsaid.

Namjoon gave a sheepish look. "I'm actually rather new at this too. Tinder-I mean not sex. "

"I would hope so." You giggled.

God you fucking hoped so. You were screwed-figuratively speaking if this guy was as green behind the ears as you.

"Well since we're both new to this, why don't we start slow." Namjoon suggested sitting on the bed. A big goofy grin spread across his face as he patted the spot next to him.

The sight shouldn't attract you. Such a goofy grin was anything but sexy, yet something jolted within, and you soon felt an unfamiliar throbbing between your legs. He looked like the sun shined on him right then. Your legs shook as you made your way over to him. Silently you tried to squash the butterflies suddenly in your stomach.

This was all research. You were doing this for your book. No reason to be nervous… you sat down hyper aware of how close you two were. "You have such beautiful hair. " Namjoon said. "Can I touch it?"

You nodded suddenly speechless. Slowly his hand reached out gently caressing your hair. A shiver ran up your spine. Hair caressing should not be this erotic. "It's so soft- like silk.” Namjoon marveled.

You laughed causing him to blush. "Sorry...I tend to talk too much. I've been told it ruins the mood. "

"No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh- it's just that it's really not. I mean my hair is many things but silky isn't one of them. " You explained.

"I disagree. It's beautiful." He said, stroking it. "Though I shouldn't be surprised given that you're a pretty girl. "

Again, your heart leaped. Pretty words shouldn’t mean so much. As a writer you utilized pretty words to craft beautiful poetry and elegant stories; you knew easily used they were. However, what you couldn't ignore was the way Namjoon stared at you through half-lidded eyes, pupils fully dilated.

"Namjoon...kiss me." You whispered.

"Was hoping you'd ask." He leaned in, fulfilling your request.

His lips were softer and plusher than you ever imagined a guy's to be. The kiss was awkward at first, starting out as a peck before evolving into an open mouth kiss. Your naivety to kissing didn't help either. You didn't know how to move or what to do with your tongue. Every movement you made seemed like a mess. Embarrassment burned through you as Namjoon pulled away. This was just an experiment, no need to feel lacking. Yet you couldn’t stop worrying. Were you that bad? Could he tell you were a virgin?

As if reading your thoughts Namjoon smiled, dimples shining brightly. "Just follow me, okay? I'll lead. "

"Okay." You nodded.

“Okay.” Namjoon thumbed your bottom lip, dorky smile still bright.

A strange comforting feeling washed over you at the sight. Suddenly it didn’t feel like two strangers rushing for a quick fuck, but two friends exploring themselves together. The emotion brought up a platitude of questions for you. However, before you could even begin to ponder them, Namjoon pressed his lips to yours. Another peck, but this kiss was more planned-more precise. He lingered for a second only to pull away. A pang of longing filled you, however it was quickly swallowed by his lips meeting yours once more. Again and again, he dipped down peppering you in small, tiny kisses.

“You’re so cute. I can’t help but kiss you like this.” He teased, placing another butterfly kiss on your mouth. “But I suppose you want more huh? Not just pecks.”

“I do.” You shamelessly admitted. “I want you to kiss me like they do in the movies. The whole opened mouth, bottom lip sucking, passionate tongue -”

Namjoon swallowed your words in a kiss. His tongue glided effortlessly across yours and you moaned into the kiss. He tasted good but not in the sweet sugary or bitter coffee way books often described. Instead, he tasted like how you pictured a hot meal after a long day: mouthwatering, delicious and leaving you wanting more.

Your hands found their way to his shoulders. The flimsy material of his shirt bunched under your fingers' grip. His hands moved to your lower back pressing you against his chest. Another thing the pictures got wrong about Kim Namjoon; he had muscles. Hidden behind those baggy shirts, and loose button ups was the body of a god. Fuck. How did you get so lucky?

“This. Can I take this off?” Namjoon asked, in between kisses.

You blinked realizing he meant your top. His fingers traced the hem of your shirt, occasionally caressing naked skin. Your heart did a flip. It would be the first time someone ever saw you without a shirt. “Are you okay? We don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Namjoon said.

“No. I’m fine.” You insisted. “I was just trying to remember if I wore a matching set.”

You were. You fished out a simple pair of black cotton panties and bra the minute Namjoon agreed to meet. He didn’t need to know that though. “You know despite what the media portrays. Sexy underwear isn’t as big of a deal as you might think, especially not when the woman’s already beautiful like you.” Namjoon chortled.

You rolled your eyes. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

Yet again he gave you that gorgeous smile of his. “You think too highly of me. I don’t sleep around that often.”

“Maybe not, but I bet you have pretty girls when you do.”

Namjoon shook his head. “I get the feeling no matter what I say, you’re going to deny it. I’ll just have to show you how pretty you are-starting with your shirt downwards.”

You shivered. Once again you thanked your lucky stars for Namjoon. Any other tinder hook up would probably result in a quick one, two, not soft reassurance and romantic words. God, your readers would eat this up when you implemented it into your book- he kissed your neck blurring your thoughts into one low moan as he bit down on it. The mixture of pain and pleasure caused you to buck forward, pushing yourself against his knee. ‘Biting…’ you barely thought. ‘Biting is definitely getting jotted down.’

You felt Namjoon smirk into your neck, clearly pleased by your reaction. Gently he sucked on the now bruised spot, tonguing where his teeth marks were. Fingers dipped underneath your jeans teasing right above the hem of your underwear. Slowly they moved down as Namjoon nibbled farther up your neck. It was not until he licked the shell of your ear that his fingers brushed against your clit.

“Fuck!” you cried, jerking upwards. “I thought you were starting with my shirt-shit why is this so good? You’re not doing anything I don’t do.”

He laughed drawing lazy circles on your clit as his knee rocked against your core. “Sorry, I couldn't help it. I normally don’t get this good of a reaction.”

“I find that hard to believe.” You pressed yourself closer trying to mold your bodies together.

His hot breath kissed your ear as Namjoon continued his ministrations. “Fuck. Forget me, why are you so wet already? I’ve barely touched you yet you’re soaking. Do you know how hot that is?”

“Don’t know, don't care, just keep going.”

“Trust me, pretty girl. I have no intention of stopping.” he said, flipping you onto your back. “In fact, it’s the opposite, I going to fuck you until the image of you cumming is burnt into my brain.”

Another moan escaped you. Why was that so hot? Just the thought of you seared into his brain was enough to drive you wild. Would he think of you later when he masturbated? You could just see it now: his beautiful face coming undone at the thought of you. The thought caused a delicious shiver to run up your spine. God, you wanted to see him undone.

"Do it. " You gasped, feeling his fingers sink into your core. It was an odd sensation. Someone else's fingers buried in you, but not an unwelcome one. Strangely it was more filling, hitting spots you didn't know existed with each curl of his fingers. Subconsciously your own fingers made their way to his shoulders gripping them hard. Thankfully Namjoon said nothing, either not minding the bruising force or completely unaware of it. "Fuck. It feels so good."

"Yeah? Should I go faster, pretty girl? Make you feel more than good? Would you like that?" He teased, thumb gliding over your clit. You merely moaned clenching around him. Apparently, that was the right answer, because Namjoon picked up the pace. "That's it. That's the reaction I want to see. You going to cum for me, pretty girl? Can you do that for me?"

Before you could respond, his fingers touched a spot within you. A feeling unlike anything unless washed over you as you clamped down on him. Somewhere in the room, you heard yourself cry out; your voice barely recognizable to you. Then everything went blank for one blissful second. You officially had your first orgasm.

When you came to Namjoon was on top of you hungrily kissing your neck. His body grinded itself hard against yours desperate for friction. Instinctively you wrapped your legs around his waist drawing him closer. He let out a moan of approval. His face pinched in pleasure and need. "Fuck, why do you feel so good? I'm not even in you yet…" his words stuttered as you rocked back against him. "I'm going to- I need to be in you now or I won't make it-"

In a bold move you bit the tip of his earlobe. Another low groan sounded from Namjoon as his hips rocketed forward suddenly before he stilled, eliciting a low guttural groan. Your own moans escaped you at the feeling of another orgasm approaching. Was this normal? Two orgasms in such little time? Did you stumble upon some sex god on tinder?

Fuck...maybe Namjoon was too good? Your readers would have unrealistic expectations if you used him as inspiration.

“Shit. I haven't done that since I was a teen." Namjoon breathed, rolling over beside you. Even sweaty with deflated hair Namjoon still looked handsome. It kind of made you wonder why he swiped right on you. Especially when tinder undoubtedly had hotter women on it than you.

"Is that a bad thing?" You questioned, feeling a bit insecure.

Namjoon grinned like the cat who caught the canary. "Not all. Usually, I get the girl undressed though, before I cum. "

You looked down at yourself realizing that he was right. Other than the sliver of skin between your unbuckled pants and slightly raised shirt you were completely dressed. "I guess we got a little carried away huh?"

"It's your fault for making such cute faces at me. I couldn't help but want to see you cum for me. " Namjoon sighed dramatically. "Totally worth it by the way."

Heat rose to your cheeks at his words. Seriously, what was with this boy? Not only did he shower you with false compliments after the fact, but he was abnormally confident in himself. "So now what?" You asked, avoiding the strange compliment.

Namjoon hummed thoughtfully, propping himself up beside you. "Well, if you give me a moment, we can do it all over again. This time with me inside you. "

“Okay.” You said, feeling shy suddenly. Casually you looked around his room trying to ignore the beating of your heart or the increasing nervousness you felt. A more experienced/ charming woman would know how to make conversation, perhaps even flirt her way to the next round. You however barely managed to make it pass the first act.

Act sexy… your mind whispered to you. Instantly your thoughts turned to flashbacks of characters from romance series. As belittling as it may seem for an English major, those dollar romance books were a guilty pleasure of yours. Especially the Jessica Monrose series which featured a sexy bounty huntress on the ride of a lifetime fighting werewolves, and demons alike. Her character never feared men or sex. She was sexy, confident, capable and- “I can suck you off if you want.” the words fell out of your mouth before you could ever ponder them.

Suck you off. Out of all the romantic enticing sexy things you could say, you chose the most literal and porno like line. You nearly facepalmed yourself. Undoubtedly your face was a disturbing shade of red right now. With no other option, you bit your lip staring patiently at Namjoon. It was too late to take it back after all, so you might as well pretend confident in this situation. Imitate Jessica Monrose, she would never back down from what she said, even if it was as stupid as your offer.

Namjoon simply kissed you. His lips moved simultaneously with yours; all previous awkwardness vanished. Looks like you learned something within this half hour here. You opened your mouth allowing him to slip his tongue in. It glided against yours. Some daring part of you closed your mouth around his tongue, gently sucking it. Surprisingly it wasn’t as disgusting as you thought it would be. Your one previous kiss in high school involved tongue and it felt you uninterested in kissing for years. This, though... was nothing like high school.

Namjoon groaned, sending a thrill down your spine. Your thighs pressed together at its sound. He had pretty groans. You wanted to hear more of them. Not just that, you wanted to see him lose control again. The idea of sucking him off appeared in your head once more, however just as your hand made its way down to his zipper, Namjoon regained control. Pushing you into the mattress his hands make busy work of your shirt. Cool air touched your naked skin. Goosebump pricked your skin but whether it was for the temperature or Namjoon’s longing stare at your clothed breast, you couldn’t say.

A moment of silence passed before he expertly unclasped your bra. It fell halfway between your shoulders and elbows, showing just the peak of your nipples. The hunger in Namjoon’s eyes grew.

Your heart beat rapidly against your chest as butterflies reappeared in your stomach. Nerves grew inside of you as worries came back alongside your longing and excitement. No one has seen your breasts before. This was the first time. What if they looked weird and you never knew it? Or perhaps they weren't the right shape or size- you knew they didn't match Cosmopolitan's interpretation of "the perfect breasts" by a long shot, but you thought they looked decent enough.

Time slowed down as he stared at them without a word. Hesitantly you moved to shrug the bra back on when Namjoon suddenly reached out tenderly cupping one of your breasts. A shiver ran down your spine at his warm touch, and the straps to slide down more. Your face bloomed a bright red Thankfully it went unnoticed by Namjoon, who seemed fully entranced by your body. Looked like you didn't need to worry about Namjoon’s opinion of your breasts. At least if his darkened eyes had anything to say.

Gaining a bit of confidence, you slipped the bra completely off. "Better?" You asked in a teasing tone.

"Much. " Namjoon replied, breathy. His hands fully palmed your breast as he engulfed you into another kiss. Long fingers teased your nipples until they perked and darkened, causing the ache between your legs to worsen. Something tells you; Namjoon's fingers won't be enough this time.

He shifted placing more weight onto your body. His hands desperatly clutch at your breasts as the neediness in his kiss increase. The kiss was now a sloppy (yet not unpleasurable) mess, sporadically switching from tongue play to kitten licks and bites on your bottom lip to Namjoon pulling away slightly only to continue his assault on your lips. "You are so beautiful, you know that? I don't think I've seen such perfect breasts.”

You give a small moan bucking your hips upwards. Seriously, what was it about Namjoon that reduced you into a needy slut. Was it simply because you were a virgin? A classmate once told you that people who lost their virginity after the age of twenty- three either turned into a slut or an old maid. At the time you laughed it off but how you felt now with Namjoon...but they weren’t so far off. If things continue how they are, you don’t know if you’ll be able to let Namjoon go that easily-

“Thoughts on me, pretty girl. Nothing else matters.” Namjoon teased. His hips pressed down on yours, stopping any movement from them. A small smirk formed on his lip as you whine in protest. Something wicked gleamed in his dark brown eyes as he drew circles into your hip with his finger. "Sorry, pretty girl but I don't make the same mistake twice. This time I'm going to make you cum on my cock."

"Hurry up then. I'm already wet, you don't need to flatter me anymore. " you pouted. You can’t help but feel annoy at how Namjoon's sudden dominance affected you so much.

Your tinder date merely smiled outlining your bottom lip with his thumb. "Now, now pretty girl, it's a man's job to let his partner know how beautiful she is. And you are especially beautiful…."

His lips hovered over yours. One inch more and they would touch yours, however he hovered denying you the pleasure of his touch. Something told you that Namjoon enjoyed teasing his partners. Otherwise, the damn bastard would be in you, rocking your world. “It’s not fair you know. Me being half-naked and you having all your clothes on.” you murmured.

“You’re right. I suppose I should take this off.” he grinned, peeling off the baggy shirt.

Your mouth watered at the sight of his athletic build. Sure, you felt the muscles on his shirt, but seeing them was another story. Namjoon reminded you of a soccer player or maybe a basketball player; lean, muscular but not too bulky. Really just the right amount of muscle, where he could easily carry you without accidentally crushing you to death. “You okay there, pretty girl?”

“Yeah...sorry, I just wasn’t expecting this.” you gesture to his body. “You are real right? Not some drunk hallucination from the shot of tequila I took earlier.”

“That’s a first.” He snorted. Humiliation washed over you. Okay, stupid question, but really this was not what you expected your first time to be like. Seeing your discomfort, Namjoon placed your hand on his chest. The warmth of his smooth skin radiated off of him. It made you giddy in an inexplicable way. Slowly he guided your hand downward sliding it across his abs, before raising it to his lips for a kiss. “Real enough for you? Or do you need more proof?”

#namjoon x y/n #namjoon smut #namjoon x reader #namjoon imagine #bts smut #bts imagine #kim namjoon #namjoon fluff #bts #Namjoon fic #Bts fic

2K notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

shyscamander

Newt Scamander

bigcutiebonnie

BBW_Bonnie

takashima-rei

The Daily Uruporn

bittenlit

cucubert

Library Renegade