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roanniom · 2 years

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The Shift

Steve Harrington x Reader

Word Count: 6.6k

Read Part 2 Here

Summary: On a sweltering shift at family video, Steve Harrington gets on your nerves.

Warnings: NSFW, 18+ ONLY, Smut, fingering, dirty talk, grinding, PIV sex, semi-public sex, light degradation, enemies to lovers, slight period-correct sexism and homophobia from a customer

It’s positively sweltering inside Family Video today. The box fan on the front counter does absolutely nothing to cool you down, especially as the tension within you runs hotter than the outside sun itself.

You shouldn’t be here. Today was your day off and you’d had plans with your friends for a pool day to beat the heat, knowing that today was forecasted to be the hottest of the year so far. Instead, you’ve been roped in to cover for Robin. And as much as you love her, part of you kinda secretly hopes she chokes on the milkshake she’s probably enjoying on her date right about now.

You don’t really want her to choke of course. You’ve been hyping her up for her eventual first date with Vicki for a long time now. It warms your cold, dead, perennially single heart to see your friend getting something she’s really wanted. Something she never thought would happen for her, especially not in Hawkins, Indiana.

But Hawkins, Indiana is exactly where you wish you weren’t right now. You’d rather be somewhere cool. Somewhere with ice and a breeze and fresh air.

Somewhere without Steve Harrington.

“You’ve been hogging the fan all day, trainee. Come on, give another sweaty bastard a turn.”

Speak of the devil.

You turn and glare directly into the face of your nemesis. Okay, nemesis is a little bit of an exaggeration. You aren’t mortal enemies, perhaps, but you would love to smack his smug face. Just once.

“For the last time. Stop calling me that. I have been working here almost as long as you,” you huff, not bothering to move an inch out of the radius of the fan.

“That doesn’t change the fact that I am the one who trained you. Making you - eternally - my trainee,” Steve responds, elbowing his way around you and into the line of semi-cool air.

“I was literally hired a month after you.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I showed you the ropes.”

“Only because the manager spent the night passed out in the ditch behind the liquor store.” You finish reboxing your last rewound tape, clicking it closed with a definitive snap.

“Hey. Jessie’s doing really well in rehab these days. Give him a break.” Steve pulls the stocking cart up and around to the counter and reaches for the tapes you’d just stacked. You yank them away from his grasp and haul them over to the cart yourself.

“And by ‘showed you the ropes’ are you referring to the fact that you broke the label maker in front of me and taught me how to get free snacks out of the break room vending machine?” You start pushing the cart towards the comedy section, not bothering to wait for Steve’s response.

“Hey! You should be thanking me for every bag of Reese’s Pieces I see you scarfing each day.” Steve comes up jogging behind you, grabbing the copy of Weird Science out of your hand before you can shelve it.

“Shut up, Harrington. As if you aren’t slamming M&M’s by the bushel.” You try to reach for the tape but he holds it up out of your reach. Damn his stupid height.

“Don’t you dare act like M&M’s aren’t the superior candy.”

“They melt in your hand - ,”

“So do Reese’s Pieces!” Steve cries out, interrupting you.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Steve. I forgot that a handful of goopy M&M’s are what helped E.T. assimilate to this planet,” you say, rolling your eyes and abandoning Weird Science to his grasp. Let him shelve the damn thing. You move on to the next aisle.

Steve, of course, follows behind.

“You and that stupid little alien.” Which of course makes you round on him, to which he throws Weird Science up in front of himself as a shield.

“E.T. is a seminal piece of filmmaking and Spielberg’s best work to date, so don’t you get started again -,”

“Oh bullshit. His best work?” Steve’s brow is furrowed darkly as if you’ve committed some irredeemable act instead of simply disagreeing with his film opinions.

“Um, excuse me? A little help here?” The voice of Ms. Jenkins, elderly and snippy, issues from the front counter where she stands with a handful of tapes. You give Steve a mean look and bound over to your solitary customer.

“Yes of course, let me ring you up, ma’am,” you say sweetly, making quick work of checking to make sure the tapes are rewound before scanning and reading off the total to her. You always have to double check that tapes are rewound because you sure as hell can’t be certain that Steve has done his job when that particular chore is on his list of responsibilities.

By the time Ms. Jenkins is out the door with her rentals, Steve’s pushed the cart to the shelves closest to the counter, lazily fingering the spines of the horror tapes in a bored pursuit of a particular alphabetic location.

“Jaws.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said Jaws.”

“What about Jaws?” you ask with a sigh, leaning your hip against the counter and crossing your arms.

“Spielberg’s best movie.”

“Grow up, Harrington.”

“Excuse me?!” Steve drops the tape he’s holding and rushes over to you with fists raised. “Are you suggesting there’s something childish about enjoying Jaws?”

“Maybe,” you shrug, noncommittal. You don’t actually believe that, you just have found yourself in this rhetorical hole with Steve before and you don’t really want to get into an actual discussion. That and you love riling him up. It’s easier than committing to a movie to pop into the vcr above the counter and just as entertaining.

“You…I just…ughh.” Steve seems at a loss for words as he grapples with your vague criticism as if it isn’t the thousandth time you’ve had this argument. “That movie is a mature, grown up cinematic masterpiece and I can prove it. Number one,” he holds up one finger. “It is gory as hell. There’s a fuck ton of blood.”

“Violence is your evidence of maturity, Harrington?”

Steve scoffs at you and lifts up a second finger.

“Number two, the score is iconic.” He hunches a little and starts stalking towards you slowly, predatorily. “Duuun uh, duuun uh, dun uh dun uh dun uh - ,”

“I know the score, Steve!” you speak over his crescendoing vocalization.

“Come on! That’s iconic!” You roll your eyes but nod.

“I mean yeah. You got me there.”

“Ahah!” Steve punches the air as if he’s one some massive victory rather than simply receiving your noncommittal agreement on one part of a larger argument. He holds up a third finger. “And to round us out with number three - tits.”

Exactly as he says ‘tits’ - proudly and loudly, you notice - an elderly gentleman walks into the store. He freezes in the doorway looking at the two of you, clearly affronted.

“Good afternoon, sir! Let us know if you need any help!” you hastily speak up, distancing yourself from Steve and plastering on a huge smile. The man harumphs and walks into the store, grumbling something about ‘kids these days.’ You turn and shoot daggers at a sheepish looking Steve.

“Tits? Really?” Your whisper comes out poisonous.

“What’s more mature than tits?” he asks, equally hushed.

“Obviously not you, moron.” You start making your way back to the cart but stop in your tracks, thinking. Instead, you turn back and whisper to him. “Wait…when are there tits in Jaws?”

~*~

Ten minutes later, after the disapproving customer had checked out, copy of Cocoon in hand (a little on the nose, something you tried not to laugh about as you rang him up), you and Steve both stand huddled near the tv hooked up to the VCR.

You’re watching the opening sequence, where two teens are giving each other eyes across the way at a bonfire party. It’s charged. It’s flirtatious. The girl gets up and heads towards the beach, the guy following in hot, drunken pursuit.

It’s a cute moment. A calm before the storm, you think, because of course you know better. You know what’s going to happen in just a few moments. But suspended in time, this couple’s cat and mouse game is sexy. It’s playful.

It’s not the point of the scene, but you feel yourself getting riled up. Not exactly turned on but…what’s the word? Yearning? Pathetic. It’s been a little too long since you’ve gotten any and the heat is getting you your head, you reason with yourself internally.

As the girl gets closer to the water she begins discarding her clothes in preparation for what everyone knows will be her final skinny dip. As she does so, Steve hurtles forward and hits the pause button, freezing her perfectly in time as her shirt comes over her head revealing the silhouette of heavy breasts, mid swing.

“Tits!” Steve cries out, pointing directly at the revealed breasts on screen. “I fucking told you.”

“What do you want, Steve? A cookie?” You make sure your face stays neutral. You don’t want to give away the fact that the sexual implications of the scene have you all hot and bothered. Harrington doesn’t deserve that information.

“You said there weren’t any tits in Jaws.”

“I asked when were there tits in Jaws. I apologize that a pair of movie breasts didn’t imprint chemically in my brain the way they did for you.”

“I’m sorry. When did the prude switch shifts with the trainee? I didn’t get the memo.” Steve says haughtily, ejecting the tape from the VCR and putting it back in its case. Your jaw drops at his words but he pays you no mind, walking back to reshelf the movie. You run after him.

“I’m not a fucking prude, Harrington.”

“Oh I know you’re not. That’s what I’m getting at.” Steve slots Jaws back in its place and heads back towards the break room.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” you demand, hot on his trail.

“I’m at the same parties you go to, trainee. I’m not blind. You like to have a good time.” He shrugs, walking up to the beaten old vending machine. It’s much hotter here in the back room than it was out on the main floor, probably due to the lack of windows and fans. Steve kicks the corner of the vending machine and raps his knuckles against the side panel before reaching to type the code for the M&M’s. You lunge forward and beat him to it, slamming your finger down on a different button. “Fuck! Seriously?!”

“You’re really going to slut shame me? Here at work?” You ask, snatching the packet of Reese’s Pieces as it falls into the dispenser tray.

“The pot is very much calling the kettle black here, don’t you think?” Steve kicks the corner of the machine and taps the side again, but instead of beeping in recognition, the machine stays dormant. You pop a candy in your mouth smugly as Steve grunts in frustration.

“I’m not the whore of Hawkins, Harrington. But that might be a title with which you can identify.”

“Nice alliteration, brainiac.” Steve kicks the machine harder this time. Clearly with more malicious intent towards the hulking appliance rather than with the strategy of overriding the payment mechanism.

“You know about alliteration? You didn’t skip that lesson in English class to fondle a bimbo under the bleachers?” You pop another candy in your mouth and fan yourself. The heat is starting to get to you. It is suffocating in this room. Your collar is stuck to your neck and you grab at the front of your shirt, billowing it out to try and stimulate an internal breeze. You look up and find Steve staring at the place where your hand pulls at your clothes, but he’s quick to look away, shoving a hand through his messy hair.

“Oh yeah? I’m not the one pushing my tits together whenever a slightly attractive guy comes in. I swear I saw you almost put your hand down the pants of that ex-football loser who came in here looking for fucking Flash Gordon for the tenth time.”

You gasp at his audacity. Because how dare he say that to you but also because it is objectively untrue. You had lightly flirted with the man, sure. You were bored and he had broad shoulders. Sue you. But Steve has no right to any sort of commentary.

“I’m sorry Mr. This-way-to-the-romance-section-and-while-we’re-at-it-why-don’t-you-come-watch-it-at-my-place Harrington. A blonde with big boobs so much as thinks about walking in here and your eyes are popping out of your head and your tongue is trailing on the floor.”

“You’re using the description of a horny cartoon character to describe me? Nice. Real nice.” Steve bangs on the side of the machine with his fist one more time and you let out a groan.

“Stop beating up the vending machine, for fuck’s sake. Here!” You reach into your pocket and grab a dollar, thrusting it into his face. Steve swats your hand away.

“I have money, trainee.” He reaches into his own pocket and fishes out a dollar which he proceeds to jam unceremoniously into the slot.

You drop yourself into one of the seats at the lunch table and grab for a magazine to fan yourself with.

“Well if you’re so loaded, why are you always stealing snacks?”

Steve ignores you, punching in the correct code this time. When another packet of Reese’s Pieces drops instead of the M&Ms he’d asked for, he lets out massive cry of frustration.

“What the fuck?”

“Well that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all day,” you say, crossing your arms in your seat and biting your lip to keep from smiling widely.

“What the FUCK!”

“Maybe it’s karma, for being such an asshole to me,” you shrug. Steve whips around, shooting you daggers.

“I’ve had it about up to here with you today, trainee.” He stalks over to the water cooler and rips out a little cone paper cup, accidentally pulling out three too many in the process. You continue fanning yourself with the magazine languidly.

“Oh wow, I’m so sorry dad.”

Steve actually barks a laugh at that and looks at you over his shoulder, filling the paper cup with room temp water.

“You’re not the first to make that association.”

“Oh gross, Harrington. I didn’t ask for insight into your sex life,” you pretend to gag.

Steve knocks back the water and crushes the paper cone in his fist, tossing it over his shoulder as he goes to join you at the table. You are positively irked to notice that he makes it perfectly into the trash without even looking.

“That’s not what I meant but I’m not opposed to being called daddy, fyi,” he says, winking at you.

“I’m sure you’re not. Seems right up your alley.” Your words are derisive but you can’t help the breathless quality they take on. It must be a side effect of this fucking heat. You’re not taking in air properly.

“Yeah? Well I’ll bet you’re really mean between the sheets.”

“Oh you’ll bet that?” you ask with a snort, trying to ignore the paradoxical shiver that runs through your body at the implication.

“Yeah. You seem to derive a sick pleasure from giving me a hard time. Wouldn’t be shocked if insults turn you on.”

“Not a super fan of being degraded, Steve. Sorry to burst your bubble,” you reply lightly. Like his suggestion didn’t just add a palpitation to your heart beat. Steve bites his lip contemplatively.

“Well I really meant that I think you like being the one to dish out the insults,” he clarifies. But then he’s leaning closer to you across the table, a smirk spreading across his face as he takes in the way your posture is scrunching defensively. “But actually now that I think of it…I feel like you probably would like being degraded.”

“Excuse me?” you exhale sharply, realizing you’d been holding your breath as his proximity increased.

“You’re a perfectionist. A good girl, or you are most of the time, as we’ve established.” Steve’s finger slides across the table towards you and your gaze locks on its approaching motion. “I could see you looking for an excuse to let go of all that pressure. To be bad.”

You’ve stopped breathing again, mesmerized by his slow words and the trajectory of his sliding finger. Then suddenly he’s reaching out and snatching the half empty bag of Reese’s Pieces from your grasp, upending it in the air above his face and crunching down on the remaining candy.

“Hey!” you cry out, lunging for him only to be stopped by his defensive hand outstretching and catching you, holding you an arm length away. Steve makes a face.

“It’s a crime that this is peanut butter instead of chocolate.”

You grab him by the front of the shirt and get very close to him, glaring up into his stupid, pretty face.

“You’ll pay for that, Steve Harrington.”

“Yeah? How?” he asks. His eyes are looking down into yours, the remnants of his smirk slowly fading from his face. The heat is sweltering. Hotter than it’s been during your entire shift and you really should run out the front door for some air before you pass out but…you’re rooted to the spot.

You inhale in order to respond - not even sure of what you’ll say once the words start flowing - but you’re immediately interrupted by the ding of the bell on the front door.

“Hello? Anybody here?”

The customer’s voice cuts through the tension between you and you let go of Steve’s shirt like it’s on fire.

“Just a minute!” you call out in your sing-song-y customer service voice. You hear Steve groan behind you but you don’t give him a second thought as you dash out onto the floor of the store.

The same grumpy man from earlier stands at the counter, grumpier than ever and brandishing his tape towards you.

“I got all the way home just to realize that the wrong tape is in this blasted box.” He wrenches open the case for Cocoon to reveal a copy of Tootsie. You try not to laugh at his absurdly wounded expression and grab the tape from him.

“I am so sorry, sir, we’ll get this sorted for you,” you assure, turning around to let out a silent chuckle. You shuffle through the bare tapes on the counter and find the correct one, silently cursing Steve for his disorganization.

“This is unacceptable, young lady,” the old man grumbles as you put the Cocoon tape in its box.

“Everyone makes mistakes, unfortunately.”

“I expect a higher quality of service. I fought on D Day, you know.”

“We did not know that, thank you for your service,” Steve mumbles sarcastically coming up beside you behind the counter. The man doesn’t catch his facetiousness and wags a fervent finger.

“That’s right. I should be treated with some respect.”

“Without a doubt,” Steve replies. You silently snap the tape box closed and hand it over, trying not to look annoyed.But the man doesn’t take it from you. Instead he points over at the stack of tapes where you had placed the copy of Tootsie.

“She tried to give me a movie with a man in a dress,” he accuses and you scoff. Steve glances over, clocking which movie it is and no doubt realizing that the mistake was his own.

“Well, I’ll be honest with you, she was doing you a favor, because Dustin Hoffman is just a delight - ,”

“As her manager, I think you should fire her,” the man interrupts Steve.

“Excuse me?” you ask, shocked at his audacity. Steve holds his hands up in a time out symbol.

“First of all, I’m not her manager, and second of all. She’s done nothing wrong.”

“She gave me a fruity movie!” the man cries out.

“Ok then,” you push away from the counter and head towards the back room, completely done with this interaction.

“Sir, fruit is delicious,” Steve argues, distracted as he watches you stalk off to the back, anxious to follow. The old man wags his finger even more violently.

“I’ll be telling the owner, just you wait. Do you take me for a fruit, young man?” he raises his voice.

“Yeah a raisin, sir. Please get out of my store.” Steve’s voice lowers in tone, but the authority in it increases tenfold. “Now.”

~*~

Steve finds you pacing around the break room, a paper water cone crushed in your hand. He approaches to comfort you, but the second he enters, you round on him.

“How could you do that to me?”

“Do what? Defend you?” Steve’s bewildered by your reaction, hands up in the air in front of himself defensively.

“I wouldn’t need defending if you weren’t such a fuck up at your job, Steve.” You flail a hand in the direction of the front counter.

“You said it yourself that everyone makes mistakes.”

“I was lying, Harrington. I don’t make mistakes. You make enough for the both of us.” You go to turn away from him but he grabs your elbow.

“Oh what, and you’re Ms. Fucking Perfect? Huh?” You wrench your elbow out his grasp.

“In comparison to you? Hell yeah.”

“That’s rich,” Steve barks out a laugh, running a hand through the hair at the back of his head. His stance squares off with you and he too points out toward the front counter. “How many times have I had to save you from customers who are asking for films you’ve never fucking heard about?”

“Shut up, Steve,” you roll your eyes and Steve gets more emphatic.

“How many times have I had to come stop some creep who’s being weird to you?”

“Oh fuck you. My hero. My white knight, scaring away the big bad men,” you say in a mocking tone. You cross your arms over your chest and for the first time since walking into the back room Steve notices that you have unbuttoned a large portion of the top buttons on your shirt, probably due to the heat. With your arms folded over your chest, he can see your cleavage and he swallows. You notice and drop your arms with a scoff. “You fucking pervert. You’re no better than the rest of them!”

“What? What?!” Steve blusters, trying to play off the fact that you caught him staring.

“You’re a fucking horn dog, that’s what.”

“Oh please.” He turns around with a dismissive laugh and you step forward to follow him, staying in his space.

“You know what I think? I think the reason you give me a hard time is because I never gave you the time of day,” you declare, putting your hands on your hips. The heat is rising within you now. The air is stifling and electric around you as Steve takes an angry step closer to you and you feel crackling as if you’re in the middle of a heat lightning storm.

“Well you’re way off base with that theory, trainee,” Steve bites out. He’s smirking at you. Goddamn smirking at you as if he’s got the upperhand in spite of what you’ve just accused him of.

“And what makes you say that?”

“Because I know you asked Robin if I was single when you first started working here,” he says smugly. He folds his arms across his own chest now and you curse your fucking eyes because they widen while taking in the way his biceps now look. Large and defined as his sleeves shift up.

“So? That doesn’t prove anything. Maybe I just wanted to know if you were cheating on a girlfriend with all the flirting you insist on doing,” you manage to reply coolly. But Steve’s shaking his head before you even finish your statement.

“I believe your words were - and I quote - ‘Is Steve single? Because he’s hot as fuck. I’d let that boy bend me over the break room table’.” His voice takes on a high pitched mocking quality as he approximates your tone.

Your eyes blow wide and your jaw drops to the floor.

“Robin, that bitch.”

“Don’t blame Robin for your horny fantasies, trainee.” He’s got a smile on his face that you just want to slap off. Your fingers flex at your sides but you hold yourself back, taking a deep breath.

“Then you don’t blame her for the fact that she told me you get a semi every time I wear these jeans?”

Steve’s eyes practically bug out of his head and dart down to look at the jeans in question. You quirk an eye up, your turn to smile.

“I - what? No!”

“So she lied? This doesn’t do it for you?” you ask, turning slightly and leaning on the back of a chair so that your ass stuck out a little, accentuating your curves. Steve’s gaze drops to your ass before pinballing all the way around the room, desperately looking at anything and everything other than you.

“That’s not…you’re full of…”

“No, you’re full of it, Harrington. Admit it,” you say, straightening up and pointing at him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve says, standing a little straighter and looking at you now that you’re no longer presenting your ass to him.

“You find me irresistable,” you accuse. Steve laughs loudly and without humor.

“And yet here I am. Perfectly capable of resisting,” he says, standing his ground. “Meanwhile you’re practically throwing yourself at me.”

“You fucking wish!”

“In your dreams.”

“In my nightmares.”

The next few seconds seem to play out, paradoxically, both sped up and in slow motion. The heat fills the space around you, almost thick enough to cushion the air. And then Steve’s body is hurtling towards yours. Or yours towards his - you can’t be sure. All you are aware of is movement and then contact. The woosh of air and then the solidness of impact.

Steve’s hands are on your waist, pulling your body against his as his lips crash against yours. Your hands are in his hair before you can even think about it, your movements automatic and entirely involuntary as far as you’re concerned. Fingers fisting in his locks you kick yourself internally because they feel exactly like you thought they would. Fucking pretty haired pretty boy.

His tongue is at the seam of your lips, forcing your mouth open ruthlessly and you comply, allowing him to sweep inside. Steve turns his head to the side, deepening the kiss and pushing down into you until you feel yourself being folded back, his hand sliding to your tailbone to support you through the dip.

When he pulls away, both of you gasping for air, he doesn’t move far, instead dipping to suck biting kisses against your throat.

“You gonna tell me to stop?”

His words don’t make any sense as they enter your hazy brain. One of your hands drops to his shoulder, grasping. Clinging really as he delivers a particularly rough suck to the place beneath your ear.

“W-what?”

“If you hate me so much this must be torture for you,” he breathes into your skin. The smugness has returned to his voice, muted though it is against your throat.

“I fucking hate you, Harrington,” you seethe. He’s laughing now against your throat.

“I know, that’s what I just said - ,”

You cut him off by roughly grabbing him by the hair and bringing him back to your lips. The moan he looses into your mouth has you humming with a satisfaction that seeps deep down into your core. He’s not getting the upper hand so easily. Not if you have anything to say about it.

Now on a single-minded mission to ruin him, you reach down and splay your hand out against his lower back, rolling your hips forward in tandem with the motion in order to grind your pelvis against his. He lets out a groan that you feel in your extremities, so you repeat the move.

Suddenly the hands that are on your waist drop to your hips and wrench you around so your back is to him. The twirl disorients you and you gasp, blinking at the back of the break room and panting as Steve’s hands pull you back - ass against his pelvis.

He slaps a hand on the back of your thigh - making you whine - and slides up your curve to grip a handful of your ass.

“I’ll be the bigger person,” he says with a heavy chuckle into your ear. “I can admit these jeans do it for me.”

A laugh rocks through your body in spite of yourself.

“Oh yeah? They giving you a semi?” you ask jokingly. Steve pulls you back against him, hips bracketing your ass, and you feel him pressing into you. Hard. Nothing semi about it.

“What do you think?” His voice is gruff now, his lower half grinding slowly, deliberately into yours.

“I think you’re hard,” you say on an exhale. His laugh is full throated and his grip on your hips tighten.

“Very observant, trainee. A+ work.” His face buries itself into the crook between your neck and shoulder, lips toying with the skin there.

“Don’t call me trainee.” Your voice is breathless but for once there is no menace in it when you say the sentence you’ve yelled at him a million times.

“No? What should I call you then?” His lips are at your ear. His fingertips dig into your hips and push you back into him. Making you feel him. “Baby? Darling?”

You let out a gasping laugh when he bucks into you from behind, knocking you off balance a bit so you have to lean forward and grasp the edge of the table. He follows you down, chest still against your back.

“...slut?”

You’d love it if your response was to laugh in his face. To pry his hands off of you, straighten up your clothes, and walk out the door. But that’s not what happens.

You moan.

He says the word and you moan.

It’s dark and filthy and you feel hot shame the minute it issues from your mouth, but the way his fingers tense immediately has got heat pooling directly between your thighs.

“Holy shit.”

“I…that doesn’t…”

“Holy shit!” His words are laughing and victorious and he’s nuzzling his face over your shoulder even as you try to crouch away. “I fucking called it.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” you argue, even as your back arches slightly and find yourself rocking back into him. His hand slides over the slope of your hip to the front of your jeans.

“You moaned, trainee. I called you a slut and you moaned.” Steve’s hand cups your mound then, middle finger pressing up into the center seam of your jeans.

“F-fuck…” You swivel your hips to grind down into his hand, suddenly getting a taste of the friction you’d begun to crave.

Steve uses his hand between your legs to ground you against him, giving him leverage with which to rub his hard-on directly into your ass.

“You can lie all you want. Calling you a slut is making you writhe for me…like a cute little slut.”

You huff out an exhale and look over your shoulder at him.

“Is it the word or the fact that you’re practically fingering me through my jeans and humping me? Which is it, Steve?”

His cocky smile only widens and he shoots forward to steal a kiss over your shoulder since you’re looking at him.

“Both?”

“Oh christ, Harrington…” you trail off as his hand slides up and starts opening your jeans.

“You do have a point though…” he says, biting his lip in concentration. He yanks your jeans down over your ass, leaving them bunched around your knees. His hand cups you through your underwear before yanking them to the side, fingers sweeping directly over your wet slit as you shiver. “Through the jeans wasn’t that efficient.”

“Pretty boy worries about efficiency?” you ask derisively. His finger has found your clit with no problem and your knees are feeling weaker by the second, but you definitely aren’t going to go easy on him.

“Being pretty isn’t the only thing I’m good at, you know,” he says with humor. You find the wherewithal to reach back and peel his other hand off your hip, bringing it to close around your breast. Steve intakes breath sharply.

“Same,” you reply with a smirk. He gropes you experimentally through your shirt before rooting underneath the hem to find your bra-clad breast.

“So you think you’re pretty?” he taunts.

“You do.”

“I think you’re pretty or I think I’m pretty?” Steve asks, pulling your breast out of the cup and pinching your nipple just as he sinks a finger into your pussy.

“Fuck…the first one…both…just shut up,” you grit out and arch your back.

“I knew you’d been mean to me,” Steve quips before sinking his teeth lightly into your shoulder.

“Steve, do you want to fuck me?” you ask, voice tinged with annoyance. His head shoots over your shoulder to try and get a look at your face.

“I can fuck you?” He sounds like an enthusiastic puppy dog and your heart lurches in spite of itself.

“Not if you keep making fun of me, you can’t,” you say, though there’s humor in the words.

“Ahh, you can dish it but you can’t take it. I get it. That’s cool.” Steve’s tone is casual. The exact opposite of his actions as he slowly adds another finger into your dripping channel. You keen forward, both from the force of the pleasure and from the way your reaction makes him grind his dick even harder against your ass.

“Um…Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“So…are you going to fuck me?”

Your question makes him laugh and has his hips stuttering against you.

“Eager to make the fantasy of me bending you over this table a reality?”

“No. Eager to fast forward to the part where you wake up having creamed your pj’s thinking of me,” you retort, this time with a massive smile on your face as you recall the story you’d been told about Steve’s wet dreams. Steve groans.

“Fucking Robin,” he says, letting go of your breast to reach down and open his own pants.

“She’s the worst,” you agree. The anticipation is mounting and sweat drips off your brow. You’d down on your elbows now, bent over the table, and you can’t see Steve behind you, but you can hear the rustle of clothing. He yanks your jeans and underwear down to your ankles suddenly and you yelp and he nudges your thighs open so your legs are spread hip-width apart.

You wait a few breathless heart beats until the sound of skin on skin - which does not include your own - has you looking over your shoulder.

Steve is standing behind you, his own pants pooled at his feet, with his cock in his hand. He’s gripping it, giving it long, slow strokes as his eyes hungrily consume your half-bare body.

“I…think you might kill me,” he says seriously, dragging his eyes up from your pussy to your face. You gesture down to the cock he is fisting, eyeing the size.

“Back at you.”

He laughs at your response and heat rushes through you at how beautiful he looks with the smile cracking his face wide. You want him. Now.

So you turn back around and bend yourself over the table again, shifting side to side to sway your ass at him enticingly.

Steve’s on you not even a second later. His hands smooth over your hips and waist and his cock slides between your legs, between your folds.

“Holy shit. Holy shit.” He’s repeating the phrase over and over under his breath and you’d laugh but you’re feeling similarly speechless. Impatient now, you reach back and take his cock in your hand, making him hiss. You arch and lean forward, guiding his tip into you until his hands grip your hips and he steps forward, slipping in inch by inch.

“Oh fuck,” you both swear, practically in unison. Steve remains still for a second to let you adjust, and also to ground himself as he takes in all of what is happening in this moment.

You find yourself nearly shaking from the feel of him inside you. He feels so good and it’s been a long, empty summer so far. Of course you’re horny, you reason with yourself in your head as you shift forward, trying to entice him to move, which he does. He’s hot and you’re horny and and it feels good. It feeels good.

“Yeah? Feels good?”

Shit. You’ve been speaking your thoughts out loud. You go to contradict him - to take it back - but then he’s kissing your neck and you can’t help but hum.

“Yeah. It’s good.”

He finds a steady pace before the his words return again, this time more hoarse than before.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he groans out, thrusting into you particularly hard. Feeling sweat slick your skin you laugh.

“It’s because there’s no fan in here.”

“Oh, she’s shy about compliments suddenly,” Steve intuits and you roll your eyes, though he can’t see it. “She knows she’s hot but doesn’t want me to point it out?”

“Steve…” you warn, but there’s little else you can do as he reaches a hand down to the apex of your thighs and starts fingering your clit. You grip numbly at the table.

“Yeah, baby? You want me to stop talking about your incredible body?” he teases, his other hand coming down flat over your back to push you further down into the table before reclaiming your hip. “How good it feels to be inside you?”

“You’re a cocky bastard,” you say, but it comes out in a whine. You’re record-breakingly close to cumming and your brain and body seem disconnected. Unsure of what to do about the short circuiting feeling of shame and pleasure and annoyance and fondness, all of which are completely Steve’s fault.

“You’ve got that right, sweetheart,” he responds, inhaling sharply when you clench around him in response. “What’s that? So you like being called sweetheart?”

“Mmmm,” is all you manage to moan out, though he takes it correctly as an affirmation. He has both hands gripping your waist now, allowing nothing to distract him from pounding into you, chasing his own release now while also rocketing you towards your own.

“So you do like a little sweetness after all.” It’s teasing but you’re too fucked out to care at this point. So close. So close. Steve’s kissing the spot under your ear as he slows down to fuck you harder. Deeper. “Good thing I like it sweet. That’s how I’ve always wanted to be with you, sweetheart.”

Is it cheesy? Yes. Is it something that usually would have you slapping him and walking away? Yes.

But now you’re cumming. Crying out his name as his cock slides into you, your walls bearing down and spasming around him.

You don’t even know where your orgasm ends and his begins, you’re so blinded by pleasure. But he’s shaking around you and his hips are stuttering and then his weight is pressing you into the table as he pants.

There’s a split second where your shared breathe is all you can sense. His skin on yours has you buzzing and your muscles are jelly. You don’t even have a moment to think about repercussions or right or wrong. There’s just…Steve.

And then the bell rings in the distance indicating someone has entered the front door.

“Hellooo!” Comes Robin’s sing song voice. “Do my sad single friends want to hear how my date went?”

~*~

Read Part 2 Here

Steve / Stranger Things tag list (some of these are assumptions based on your interactions with my posts about my steve fic, so sorry if you didn’t want to be tagged!): @boomhauer @asbisexualasitgets @bluetreecloud20 @flightless-b1rds let-my-ship-sail @fandomsimper @livlovelaughh @maggiemaes-stuff @adultnitemares @wonderfulw0rldx @bellaiscool @halolani supe-r-nova r4nd0mf4nd0mz25 spookyreidd cmlover101 coolestgirlhere jadenswifey22 ashleighjadecharlton everybodywantstobetouched uhcastiels monsterhighprincess99 misaamaneswifey steveharringtonsdaddy getoutandtouchtherain alexxavicry craze4bau sabrinablack194 iseultult devonisntreal navybluebitch macey730 izbot6 sweetkyotto @millenialcatlady creme-delacreme s-trawberryv-eins amatchinwater vamdevil xoxchanxl mrssharrington edwardmunsn moonyscardigans wayward-rose

#steve Harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve harrington x you #Steve Harrington fanfic #stranger things smut #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington #steve harrington/reader #steve harrington/you #steve harrington x fem!reader #fem!reader

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moonstruckme · 8 months

Note

hellooooooo, could you please make (when you have the time) something where James Potter has a girlfriend that its sooo touch starved but also has a hard time being touched/hugged (for some reason kissing doesn't bother her but she gets really shy with that) an she is unable to receive compliments, she tries to express her love in other ways tho

i'm that type of person so i would love to see something like that:(

Ugh same baby! Thanks for requesting :)

James Potter x fem!reader ♡ 1.2k words

You and James are on opposite sides of the couch, and you feel like you’re going to combust.

The issue is his foot. You’re covered by a blanket, but James’ foot is brushing your calf through the fabric, moving back and forth so slowly you wonder if he even realizes he’s doing it. And it’s not not nice, but even that tiny bit of contact (again, through a blanket) is almost too much for you. Every nerve in your body is at attention—you don’t think James could breathe in your direction without you noticing it—and you want him to cover your entire body with his even if it’ll probably kill you.

“You doing alright over there, lovely?” James asks, eyes still on the TV. He must be paying more attention than you realize.

And one of the difficult parts of your relationship with James is that there are some parts of you he simply cannot understand, but that won’t stop him from trying. Like, James is a naturally tactile person. He wants to hug and kiss and love on you all day long, as he made abundantly clear from your very first date. But you’re not. You want to be, you want to let him give you all the affection he has to offer and return it with twice the zeal, but no one touched you like this before him. Your family weren’t the physically affectionate type, and your friends didn’t bother with it around you, so James’ particular brand of overly touchy loving was…new. You crave it and yet when he gives it to you it feels foreign and borderline uncomfortable. You’d done your best to explain it to him, and James had taken it all in stride, though you could tell there was some mixture of pity and bafflement at your odd love/hate relationship with physical closeness. Now, he does his best to give you that particular form of affection in small doses. He checks with you before putting his hands on you, hugs you just until your blush gives you away, and restricts his casual contact with you to chaste areas. Like his foot and your calf.

“Mhm,” you reply, unsure how to explain the effect he’s having on you and unwilling to say anything that’ll make him stop.

Narrowed brown eyes move from the TV screen to your face. “Promise?”

“I’m okay.”

“Something’s bothering you, though.”

You hesitate. You don’t want to lie to him, it’s just that it’s more complicated than that. “Not really.”

“And you’re not really avoiding the question, right?” James grins at you, though it’s tinged with worry. “C’mon, angel, be straight with me. Something’s on your mind, yeah?”

You’re silent, but an involuntary glance downwards gives you away. James’ foot is drawn back towards him in an instant. “Ah, that was too much, huh? My bad.”

“No, James, I—” you sigh heavily. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, lovely girl,” he says it easily, but not without gravity. “I’m the one who didn’t check if it was okay.”

“But you shouldn’t have to check.” You’re shaking your head, drawing your legs into your chest, shrinking from him even in your frustration that you shrink from him. “I don’t want you to feel bad about touching me, James. It’s not like it scares me or anything, I don’t know why I’m so weird about it.”

“Hey.” His voice is lightly chiding, remonstrance gentled. He’s not touching you, but he’s doing his next best thing, turning his body to face you so you’ll know you have his full attention. “I know, you’ve told me how you feel about it. I don’t take it personally, sweetheart, I just want you to be comfortable. You don’t have to be scared to not be having a good time.”

You let the quiet noise of the TV fill the silence for a moment, looking at him. He’s smiling just a tiny bit, even now. He told you once that he can’t help being some degree of happy when he’s with you, no matter what’s happening around him. His eyes are big and brown and open behind his glasses, eyes that haven’t learned to dull themselves for the sake of self-preservation, but there’s a slight pinch around the corners. He’s evaluating you, trying to figure out where your mind is going and how to meet it there.

“I think my problem,” you say, trying the weight of each word before voicing it, “is that I want you to be able to show…affection, whatever way is natural to you.” A crease appears on James’ forehead and you can see the rebuttal forming on his tongue, but he lets you say your piece. “And it makes me feel bad that I’m stopping you from doing that, and that I can’t show it back to you either.”

The crease deepens. James has an easier time choosing his words than you did. “I don’t mind not being able to touch you. I mean, would I have my hands all over you day and night if you wanted it?” He flashes a flirty smile. “Obviously. But I care about you, not that, and you aren’t as used to that stuff. The idea of touching you is as unappealing to me as I imagine it is to you, because you’d be uncomfortable the whole time. What kind of boyfriend would I be then, huh?” He sticks out a foot to nudge your knee gently. “Anyway, I don’t need you to be all over me to know you care. You think I thought the muffins I ate this morning made themselves?” He raises his eyebrows at you, nodding for you to answer.

Your face warms. “No.”

James nods encouragingly. “As I suspected. And that was some of the best love I’ve ever tasted! Plus, those little notes you write when you’re going to be home late or you know I have a busy day? Angel,” he says, voice dropping into soft earnestness, “those make my entire week.”

You bite your lip, but you’re powerless to stop the spread of your smile. “I’m glad you like them,” you reply bashfully.

“Like them?” James throws up his arms, indignant. “Sweetheart, I can feel the love coming off those things like you’ve drowned them in amortentia. Don’t get me wrong, I love hugging you, but that?” He shakes his head. “There’s nothing better.”

You imagine your complexion is approaching fire-hydrant red about now, but you’re so happy to hardly care. “Thanks, Jamie.”

“Thank you, angel,” he says, and you can tell he’s smothering his grin intentionally to make you take him seriously. “I mean it, I wouldn’t want you any other way. You’re my best girl, understand?”

You can’t look at him for embarrassment, but you nod. After a moment, James’ silence draws your eyes back to him, to find him grinning. The sight is familiar, as is the warm, fuzzy sensation that spreads through your insides. His eyes narrow slightly, assessing you.

“Do you feel like a hug, lovely girl?”

You nod again as you go to him, abandoning your blanket. James’ arms open, his legs parting automatically to slot you between them. One hand finds your mid-back while the other cradles the nape of your neck, and you press both of yours to his shoulder blades, drawing him downwards and into you. He makes the most of it, fingers curling in the fabric of your shirt. You can feel his heartbeat a few inches to the right of yours.

A tiny shiver of pleasure goes through you, and you tighten your grip on him so he won’t let go, but James understands, and pulls you closer.

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supernovafics · 11 months

Text

𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐒𝐓

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 6.3k words

summary: in which the summer of ‘84 was both the best and worst time of your life

warnings: explicit language, underaged drinking, angst, fluff, implied smut, cheating

author’s note: second part to cardigan (but could be read out of order). i fully did not expect this to end up this long but hope y’all enjoy<33 (full “folklore” album series masterlist here!)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“but i can see us lost in the memory. august slipped away into a moment in time.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

July 19, 1984

Ten.

That was how many days in a row you and Steve had seen each other.

From the first time you two talked to one another outside of Ralph’s Sandwich Shop, his first ever words to you being, “Potato chips on a sandwich? That’s kinda weird,” and the conversation that proceeded from that somehow led you to watching a movie in the theater room at his house that same night. To now this— him spending the majority of his afternoon with you at the library, where you had been working for the past year and a half.

You wondered how long the two of you would keep the streak alive.

If it was anyone else you probably would have gotten sick of seeing them that many days in a row, but with Steve you weren’t. In fact, you looked forward to whenever you got to see him again. And maybe that feeling, the anticipation toward seeing this guy who you probably shouldn’t even be seeing this often anyway, should’ve worried you.

Whenever you thought about how easily the two of you were able to go from absolutely nothing to this— an unlikely friendship that somehow felt like you’d known each other so much longer than barely two weeks— it startled you.

Before, you had simply known of him; of course, you had, he was practically royalty at your high school. “King Steve,” a charmer, a perpetual flirter, somehow dating straight-A student Nancy Wheeler. It was the combination of those things that told you during that first conversation you had with him that you should stay away from him, but for some reason, you still said yes.

Maybe it was because the home theater he had been bragging about sounded way too tempting not to take up the offer. Or maybe it was because you liked being an idiot sometimes.

If it was the latter that was true then you still were an idiot because there you were ten days later still hanging out with him and not regretting it one bit.

“I need to bring you better games here,” Steve said. He was standing across from you on the other side of the counter.

“What’s wrong with Uno? Is it because you keep losing?” You jokingly asked, a small smile on your face as you started shuffling the deck. “Also, I’m technically working right now, so I shouldn’t even be playing any games with you.”

“There’s no one here except you and me,” He said and then gestured to the quietness that surrounded you both. “Actually, I think the only other person that’s been in here all day was that old lady who just wanted directions to the park.”

You loved your job at the library and you really didn’t mind how it was rarely busy, especially during the summer, because it meant that you could spend most of your shifts reading instead of helping someone find what they needed or reshelving books. Now the majority of your non-busy moments during your shift were spent with Steve.

“What are you doing tonight?” He asked as you began dealing the cards, because what else was there to do but play another round of Uno?

“My guess is hanging out with you,” You answered. “What’s happening?”

“Party,” He stated simply, and you realized that probably should’ve been your first guess. “Need us to be beer pong partners again.”

It had been last week, two days after you and Steve unspokenly decided that hanging out with one another would become a common occurrence, when he dragged you to a party; some too big thing at Matthew Lancaster’s lake house.

A beer pong table was set up, which was not all surprising for a high school party, and you suggested that you and Steve play and be on a team with one another. You were insanely good, practically making every shot, and Steve wasn’t too bad at playing either, which made your team pretty unstoppable. It was a random hidden talent of yours that you would only show off every once in a blue moon because you deliberately didn’t frequent parties.

“I’ve retired for the time being,” You told him. “I can’t show off my beer pong skills too often or it won’t be a cool talent anymore.”

He laughed a bit at that but still nodded. “Okay, what do you wanna do tonight instead?”

“Don’t let me stop you from going to the party.”

Steve shrugged and shook his head. “Probably wouldn’t be fun without you, anyway.”

His words confused you as much as they made you feel so happy. And you quickly pushed that “happy” feeling away because you knew just how fast it could lead to feeling other things; things that would make you look like the worst person in the world.

Once again, you wondered why you were doing this. Why were you allowing yourself to get close to him when you’d probably just look like an idiot in the end? And why had he wanted to talk to you in the first place? Those fleeting questions would hit you a lot over the past few days, but you’d quickly push them away because you didn’t want to think too hard about everything. However, this time you couldn’t force them away.

“Why?” You asked, breaking eye contact with him for the first time probably that entire afternoon. “Why… are we friends right now?”

If he was surprised or confused by the randomness of your question, he didn’t show it.

“I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you that day, so I did it,” He made the answer sound so simple. “I didn’t really expect it to turn into this friendship, but it’s nice finally having something that actually feels so easy.”

What about you and Nancy wasn’t easy?

You wanted to ask that but refrained from doing so. He probably didn’t mean her when he said that. You knew that the only reason why he was with you instead of her, and had been for the past ten days, was because she was out of town for the summer. That thought hurt a bit, knowing that you were essentially some sort of “consolation prize,” but it kept you from looking too much into things. You took everything Steve said that could be read as flirtatious with a grain of salt and forced yourself to see it as solely platonic.

And you’d rather it all be completely platonic anyway because you really liked the friendship you’d developed with him.

“You’re right. This does feel easy,” You ultimately responded, smiling at him because now that the unspoken lines were finally verbally drawn— the two of you were friends; nothing more, nothing less— you felt the tiniest bit better about it all. “But, I’m glad it does. I’m happy we’re friends.”

Steve smiled back at you. “Me too.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“you back beneath the sun. wishin’ i could write my name on it.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

July 28, 1984

The only reason why you allowed Steve to bring you to this party was because you were a sucker for a bonfire.

And the only reason why you were currently drunk off your ass was because you couldn’t say no to a game of hide and seek, especially a drinking version of the childish game, which Steve had suggested and you quickly agreed to.

There was something about this game that made you realize that maybe your entire friendship was a game; a game of who would break first. But, that was something to think about at a different time. Or actually not at all, because thinking further about that would probably only complicate things.

It was easy to pretend that there was nothing more to you and him when you both were sober. It was also so much easier to lie to yourself that you didn’t feel anything romantic toward him and that you didn’t see that maybe he actually felt the same way too.

There was a constant back and forth happening in your mind, with you continuously telling yourself that being friends with Steve wasn’t a bad idea, even though maybe it was because it was slowly making you want something more. Sometimes it felt as if it made sense to like him; it felt obvious. The way you could talk to each other about anything and everything mixed with how constantly you two wanted to spend time together made you fall in so deep so fast.

But, you couldn’t accept or think about any of that, and the reasons why were painfully obvious.

However, with the alcohol currently clouding your brain, that felt like a slightly different story.

“Sitting behind a tree? Not your best hiding spot.”

Hearing Steve’s voice right then should’ve made you feel at least the tiniest bit upset because it meant that you lost that round of hide and seek, but you drunkenly smiled up at him.

“I wanted to be original and we’ve been playing for so long I feel like we’ve done everything else at this point. But, that was at least two minutes, though, right?”

“It was actually barely thirty seconds.”

“Oh, wow,” You said with a laugh as you extended a hand up toward him so that he could help you up. You wobbled a bit before getting your balance and then you grabbed the red solo cup in Steve’s free hand to drink the rest of what was left in it as your punishment for losing; the exact contents of the drink were unknown, but it tasted fruity.

When you were done, you handed the cup back to him and then leaned back against the tree because it somehow felt nice and you weren’t bothered by the roughness of it touching the parts of your skin that the tank top you were wearing didn’t cover.

There were a ton of people at the infamous “Lover’s Lake” because of the party, but nobody had been paying attention to you and Steve running around like five-year-olds playing hide and seek and getting severely drunk in the process.

The lopsided grin taking over Steve’s features let you know that he was just as inebriated as you were, maybe even more so because he’d been drinking a bit before you two started the game.

“Maybe we should be done with hide and seek now.”

You gave him a nod. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Things became quiet for a few moments with the two of you solely staring at each other in the darkness and ignoring the loud rowdiness of everyone else who was only a few feet away. Steve closed a bit of the distance between you both and leaned in close to you; his gaze flickered down to your lips for a hint of a second before going right back to your eyes.

If this was any other moment, your mind would be running a million miles a minute, screaming at you to not allow the inevitable to happen. But, somehow, you were actually calm.

“We can’t do that, friend,” You told him, making your voice sound as serious as possible, but you couldn’t help but smile a bit.

“I know,” He responded but still shut the final space of distance between you both, bypassing your lips and kissing your cheek instead. “That’s okay, though, right?”

The reasonable side of you was obviously telling you to say “no,” but it was hard to make yourself care enough to listen to it. “I’ll allow it.”

The three words came out so quietly, but Steve heard you. He kissed your other cheek and then your forehead and then your nose before pulling away and smiling at you.

Before he could say anything, you did the same to him; kissing both of his cheeks, his forehead, and his nose, and then pulling back to lean against the tree again. That time it was your eyes that glanced down at his lips before going back to his eyes.

You were so close to doing it, and he almost begged you to, but then you were pushing off of the tree and asking him to turn around.

“Piggyback ride to the car, please?”

“We can’t drive right now,” He said as he leaned down a bit so you could hop onto his back.

You nodded even though he couldn’t see you. “I know, but I will die if I don’t sit down.”

The walk to your car should’ve taken less than a minute, but instead, it nearly took five because, of course, the two of you got a little lost and it took way too long to realize that the first car you had walked past was yours.

“God, we’re acting like such idiots right now,” You said, laughing as Steve let you down so you could get into the car.

He laughed too as he got in on the passenger side. “Yeah, definitely not our finest moment.”

You sighed in contentment when you leaned back against the seat, immediately finding comfort in it, which definitely said a lot about how drunk and exhausted you were because you never usually found your car as super comfortable.

You turned on your side to face Steve, and as if feeling your gaze on him, he turned to look at you as well. You silently admired each other. Sometimes it felt as if a thousand things were being said in the silences you two shared with one another, things that would probably always be left unsaid.

“I really like you,” He whispered suddenly and you realized that maybe not everything silently said would be left unspoken.

You let out a small breath before closing your eyes because it felt too hard to look at him right then. “I really like you too.”

“Please let me kiss you.”

It was difficult to describe exactly what his words managed to do to you, and you tried your hardest to disregard those feelings.

“We can’t.” You shook your head, eyes still shut. “It’ll ruin everything.”

“What if that’s okay?” He said, voice still quiet.

It could’ve been easy.

To finally do what you both had desperately wanted to do for weeks at this point, but had refused to admit. And doing it at this moment instead of any other time because, with the drunken states you both were in, none of this would be remembered. Which would also mean that it didn’t really happen, right?

Your eyes finally opened and you looked at him. “Neither of us is gonna remember this conversation in the morning.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And if you did, you’d regret saying any of this,” You said, and your words were met with silence from him. You couldn’t tell if that meant that they were the truth, or instead, quite far from it.

Even in your inebriated state, you were too scared to push him further and get an answer because you were unsure which response would be worse; “Yes, I’d regret it,” or “No, I wouldn’t regret it at all.”

Before he could potentially say a version of either of those responses, you began speaking again. “I’m really tired.”

You then pulled your eyes away from him and looked straight ahead at the people that were still partying around the fire. A part of you wanted to join them, but the other part of you just wanted to fall asleep.

“Me too,” Steve said and with how long he had been quiet, you were actually surprised to hear his voice right then.

Both of you fell asleep just like that for the time being, putting an end to a conversation that would not be talked about in the morning because just as you’d both assumed, it seemed as if it had been long forgotten.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“salt air, and the rust on your door. i never needed anything more. whispers of ‘are you sure?’ ‘never have i ever before.’”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

July 31, 1984

The sun had long ago set behind the trees, but you and Steve still had no plans to leave his pool anytime soon.

You swam close to him, your hands finding his shoulders and then pushing down to dunk him under the water. A laugh fell from your lips as you immediately started swimming away, but Steve’s hand quickly found your waist and pulled you back toward him.

“What was that for?” He asked, one arm still wrapped around you, causing your back to be firmly pressed against his chest, while his other hand pushed back his wet hair.

“For pushing me in the pool earlier,” You answered, only trying for a moment to wriggle out of his grasp but failing miserably so you stopped.

“That was hours ago.”

“Revenge is best when you don’t see it coming,” You said, smiling widely.

He laughed against your ear. “You’re evil.”

You attempted to pull away again but he was still holding on to you, so instead you maneuvered so you were simply facing him instead.

You were smiling up at him, and you assumed he’d match it with a smile of his own, but he didn’t. Instead, there was a certain look on his face that you couldn’t necessarily decipher. You almost asked him what was wrong, but he started speaking before you got the chance to.

“I remember the conversation we had in your car at the bonfire.”

You could feel your heart start to race a bit, not expecting things to take that turn. “Oh… You do?”

He nodded his head. “Do you?”

“I remember the whole thing,” You told him, and that was entirely true. You’d spent the past few days constantly thinking about that moment and running through every single thing that was said. You had also tried your hardest to push the memory away because it seemed as if Steve didn’t remember it.

“I don’t regret anything I said,” He told you and then a hand came up to cup your cheek. “I still really wanna kiss you.”

You were quiet for a moment, letting Steve’s words settle over you, before responding to him in a small voice. “Are you sure?”

Instead of verbally responding, he gave you the smallest of nods and closed the tiny bit of space between you both, dipping his head down and slotting his lips against yours.

All you could think at that moment was finally.

Finally, you were this close to one another.

Finally, you were kissing.

Finally, you were doing what you had wanted to do for so long.

The thing that both of you told each other and even convinced yourselves wasn’t going to happen, finally happened. And in a way, it sucked because neither of you felt bad about it, at least not bad enough to stop.

Your legs wrapped around his waist beneath the water and your arms came up to wrap around his neck, one hand finding its way into the hair at the nape of his neck.

You weren’t in the deepest part of the pool anymore so Steve was able to stand, but both of you were still almost completely submerged in the water. He walked you both over to one of the sides of the pool, pressing you back against it and deepening the kiss.

Nothing was said, and nothing needed to be said. In fact, you thought that if either of you said something, it would ruin the perfection that was that moment and harshly shove you both back to reality. A reality that told you that this was the farthest thing that should have been happening.

For the time being, with Steve against you and his lips finding that particularly sensitive part of your neck, you were happy living in this fantasy world. It was a dream that you didn’t want to wake up from, and you convinced yourself that it wouldn’t hurt too bad when you did finally have to wake up from it.

“We should…” You took a breath, biting back the moan that threatened to spill from your lips as Steve continued the assault on your neck. Your next word should’ve been “stop,” but stopping this was the absolute last thing you wanted to do. “We should go to your room.”

He finally, and sadly, pulled away from your neck and pressed a quick kiss against your lips. “That sounds like a great idea.”

You detached yourselves from one another just enough to step out of the pool and into his house, wet bodies leaving drops of water across the floor that weren’t the slightest bit cared about.

You couldn’t keep your hands off of each other.

After getting as close as you just had been, it was hard to go back to how it used to be; the friendliness and innocence that had surrounded the brief touches you two would usually share. Instead, your hand was intertwined with his as he led you up the stairs, and then his arms circled around you when you entered his room, cocooning you in the towel he’d grabbed from behind his door.

It was you that kissed him that second time.

You reached up to push his wet hair back and then leaned in, inwardly sighing in contentment. Both of his hands found your waist, causing the towel to fall and it was immediately long forgotten.

When you pulled away you took the smallest step back and simply looked at him, his pretty face and soft brown eyes that were full of nothing but adoration for you. You tried your hardest to find something within you that resembled regret or made you want to stop this, but you couldn’t. And you knew exactly what that said about you, but it was also difficult to force yourself to care about that either.

Steve eagerly brought you close to him again, which made you smile into the kiss he pulled you into. He slowly started leading you back toward his bed.

“Wait,” You said, detaching your lips from his and softly pushing him back a bit. “It would be really rude of me to lay on your bed with my bathing suit on.”

He slowly nodded and swallowed harshly as you removed your top first, letting that fall to the floor, and then going to your bottoms. “That’s very considerate of you.”

You only smiled at him and his sudden nervousness, which managed to wash away any and all of your own shyness at that moment.

His eyes met yours. “You’re so fucking pretty.”

“You’re not too bad yourself,” You whispered, reaching out to grab his hands and pull him close to you again. You were about to kiss him again, but it was then that you noticed the time on the clock that was hanging on the wall behind him. “Shit, shit.”

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and a look of concern crossed his face. “What’s wrong?”

“The time,” You answered and then sighed as you started grabbing your bathing suit. “It’s 12:40, and if I’m not home by one, my mom will kill me and then you.”

“Your mom loves me too much to kill me,” Steve responded, grabbing a t-shirt for you to slip on too.

“Yeah, kinda weird how after only one meeting where you two barely even talked, she somehow likes you more than me now,” You said as you put on his shirt which kind of swallowed you whole but you loved it and already knew that you would never be giving it back to him.

You looked up at him and your next words came out quietly. “I’m sorry I have to ruin this right now.”

Steve shook his head at you. “It’s okay. Don’t be sorry.” Both of his hands found your hips again, squeezing softly. “We’ll pick up where we left off next time.”

You couldn’t help but smile at that. “Next time?”

“Mhm, next time,” He said, smiling back at you and nodding. “If you want there to be one?”

“I’d like that,” You responded and pressed a quick kiss against his lips.

Even as you headed back downstairs and Steve walked you to your car, kissing you for a few more minutes before you reluctantly drove away, your stomach had yet to fill with even a hint of regret or guilt.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“wanting was enough. for me, it was enough. to live for the hope of it all.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

August 12, 1984

The constant sound of something softly pinging against your window pulled your attention away from the book you were reading in your bed.

There was only one person that could've been throwing something at your window, but still, you were the tiniest bit surprised when you opened your curtains and saw Steve standing on your front lawn.

Even though seeing him was such a natural thing at this point, it made sense that you were at least a little surprised because no part of you felt secure with this “thing” you had going on with him, which was more than just a friendship but so much less than any type of actual relationship. You lived in the perpetual state that it would all abruptly end. And maybe that thought process came from you knowing that eventually, this would all have to come to an end; there weren’t that many days of summer left.

But then there was that tiny slither of hope that maybe it all wouldn’t have to end. You kept that thought buried deep down inside of you, though.

You lifted your window. “Throwing rocks at my window? That’s very rom-com of you.”

“Sometimes I like to be cheesy,” Steve said, smiling at you.

It was a sweet, adoring smile that you shouldn’t have been on the receiving end of; it was a smile that didn’t belong to you. It was so easy to see that, but it was nearly impossible to actually do something about it and let him go.

“Can I come up?” He asked. “I promise I’ll be quiet and your mom won’t hear me.”

“She’s gone for the weekend, actually,” You told him, smiling a bit. “I’ll be down in a second.”

When you opened the front door, he was quick to greet you with a kiss before pulling you in for a hug.

After that first kiss in his pool, there was an almost immediate shift that happened. An easy shift where you’d gone from constantly telling yourselves that everything was solely platonic to finally allowing yourselves to do every little thing that deep down you both had always wanted to do. With him now always greeting you with soft kisses, and you secretly spending so many nights in his bed because his parents were never home and most of the time it was easy to make up some sort of excuse to your mom.

Something else shifted too, though. It was a shift that neither of you spoke about because you never really wanted to acknowledge what exactly your friendship had transformed into and what it really meant. Not talking about any of it was a decision that you were unsure if it was completely yours or his because it was all so unspoken.

When you thought about it hard enough though, you could see that the decision was mutual, because on both sides it was easier to pretend that none of the outside things existed. In that fairytale, he didn’t have a girlfriend, he didn’t belong to anyone else. You were his and he was solely yours.

“Tell me about this thing that your parents forced you to go to tonight,” You said as Steve kicked off his shoes by the front door and the two of you started heading up the stairs. One of his hands was intertwined with yours and there was barely an inch of space between you both. It had become really hard not to be close to one another.

“It was this big event for my dad’s job, and they always drag me to stuff like that as a way to prove to his coworkers that they’re ‘good parents.’ It was very boring,” Steve responded with a small sigh and then gave your hand a light squeeze. “It would’ve been much less painful if you came.”

He sat down on the foot of your bed when the two of you walked into your room, and the oversized t-shirt you had on as your pajamas rode up a lot as you settled yourself in his lap, knees on either side of his thighs and hands resting on his shoulders. It was an un-innocent position that, for the time being, felt quite the opposite.

“Going to something like that is something a girlfriend would do, not…” That was the first time you’d even minorly referred to Nancy, and it felt both weird and wrong. It woke you up for a second and made you falter a bit in your next words, breaking Steve’s gaze. “Not a… friend.”

One of his hands found the side of your thigh, rubbing the skin softly and trying to pull you back into this moment with him. You could feel him reading you so easily and knowing where your mind was going, and he didn’t want you to go there, and neither did you.

You didn’t want this– you and him, him and you– to break just yet.

“Um, anyway, you didn’t tell me that it would be so formal,” You said, gesturing with your head to the suit he was wearing.

Your eyes met his again and you could see the relief wash over his face because you didn’t bring up the unspoken topic. Things shifted right back to normal. Well, the normal that you two created for yourselves.

“I feel kinda ridiculous, and I hate this bow tie,” He responded, hand continuing to rub your thigh. “I should’ve probably changed before I came here but I just really wanted to see you.”

You let his words further push away any thoughts of Nancy that lingered in your mind, thoughts that finally told you that what you were doing with him was wrong.

“Stop. You look good,” You told him, your fingers playing with the bow tie for a brief moment. “Like, really good.”

“Okay, now I’m really glad that I didn’t change, then.” He smiled before leaning in to kiss you.

You only deepened the kiss in response and focused on nothing but the feeling of his mouth on yours and his hands beginning to snake underneath your shirt.

He pulled back, maneuvering things so you were sitting at the foot of the bed and he was standing. The black suit jacket he had on was the first thing to fall on the floor. You slipped your t-shirt over your head and tossed it to the side before helping him unbutton the long sleeve white shirt he had on.

His hands found your bare waist and squeezed softly. “I’m so fucking happy I’m here right now.”

“Me too,” You responded and then sighed in contentment, eyes slipping shut for a brief moment, when you felt his thumb graze over your already hard nipple.

Sometimes, usually in moments like these, it felt as if it was your sole purpose to be with him; canceling your plans just in case he’d call or show up, and meeting solely at his place, or yours, or the library.

How deeply intertwined you felt with him let you know exactly how much it would hurt when this all came to its eventual end. But then you were hit with the thought that maybe you would deserve it because you put yourself in this situation.

Steve’s hand came up to gently stroke your cheek and pull you out of your thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”

Your gaze met his as you shook your head. “Nothing important.”

But, maybe it was the most important thing.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“i remember thinkin' i had you.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

August 23, 1984

You expected to see him that night.

So maybe him unexpectedly showing up to the library– which was now busy with a bunch of kids scrambling to do their summer reading assignments– was what should have told you that everything was about to go to shit.

“Hey,” You said to him and placed the book in your hand in its rightful place on the shelf and then did the same thing with the other one you were holding. “I didn’t think I’d see you until tonight.”

Steve was quiet for a few moments too long, which made you look at him, and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion when you saw the look on his face. It was hard to exactly decipher his expression because it looked as if he was experiencing a thousand different emotions at once.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, voice quiet.

“I got a call from Nancy,” He told you, and you nearly flinched at hearing him saying her name to you for the first time ever. “She said she’s coming back tonight.”

“Oh…” Was the first thing that fell from your lips. It was the word that perfectly encompassed your initial shock at that moment. “That’s, um– That’s really, uh…” You almost said “great,” because if the circumstances were different and if things were actually normal between you two, it probably would’ve been great that his girlfriend was coming back after being gone for almost two months. But, things were far from normal and the circumstances weren’t different at all, so you were at a loss for words.

Finally, after what felt like hours of silence, but what was really probably only seconds, you said something. “I really don’t know what to say to that, honestly.”

“I’m sorry,” He said softly and pulled his eyes away from you. He looked down and ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I guess we, uh, both know what that means.”

“Say it, Steve.” You muttered. You had to hear him say the words in order for it all to be real for you. You couldn’t take all of the unspoken, reading-between-the-lines bullshit.

He was quiet for an unbearable amount of time before he finally spoke. “We can’t see each other anymore.”

From the second he kissed you in his pool nearly a month ago, you knew that those words would ultimately come. Each happy day that passed with you tangled up in his bedsheets or cuddled up on his couch laughing about nothing was leading to this moment.

It had all been so inevitable, but it still hurt harder than you had expected it to. You quickly decided to pretend as if it didn’t, though.

You nodded at him. “Okay. Got it.”

“I’m sorry. This shouldn’t– I didn’t–”

“Don’t,” You quickly shook your head, not at all wanting to hear whatever pitying thing he would say to you at that moment. “Please don’t.”

You were suddenly glad that you were at work right then because you could distract yourself from thoughts of him and everything that had just ended with the current busyness of the library. You looked away from Steve and noticed a little girl struggling to grab a book that was high on a shelf.

“It’s really chaotic here right now, and I have to actually do work for the first time probably all summer, so yeah…” You forced a small smile and then walked away from him, ignoring the words he said to you that you barely heard and couldn’t make out.

Over the next two final hours of your shift, you’d silently accepted that that brief conversation would be the last time you talked to Steve Harrington. Although there were a thousand more things that probably could’ve been said, it was okay. That ending was okay. Or at least in the long run, it would be.

So it slightly startled you when you saw him in the parking lot, leaning against the side of his car. When he noticed you, he waved.

“Have you been here this whole time?” You asked, walking toward him, but leaving a wide space of distance between you two.

“Maybe, yeah.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know…”

For the first time probably ever, he confused you.

“I just— I wish things could be different,” He ultimately said, and hearing those words simultaneously made you feel happy while also making you feel so fucking upset.

“Things can be different,” You told him as you stepped toward him, the tiniest glimmer of hope inadvertently beginning to swirl in your stomach. “We could be together.”

Your hands found his, slowly intertwining them. His gaze met yours and you let the silent conversation play out. Your eyes pleading with him to not let go of what you two had, and him looking at you so softly while also battling whatever else was going on in his mind. After a few moments, he gave your hands a quick squeeze before he let go of them.

“I love Nancy.”

Not you. Those were the words he didn’t say, but you could read between those lines a little too easily.

“I love you” was the one thing you hadn’t said to one another, but you thought that you could feel how much he loved you through each soft touch, every longing look, every plea for you to stay in his bed for just a minute longer; one minute that always turned into at least five.

Apparently, you were wrong, though.

And now you knew for certain that you were wrong about every single thing that happened that summer.

Because you knew that you felt that way toward him. You loved him.

But he didn’t love you. He didn’t want to be with you.

He loved her.

His girlfriend— the only girl he was supposed to love.

You let the feeling of regret and guilt toward everything that happened this summer crash over you like a tsunami.

“I should’ve never done this,” You said, whispering that more to yourself, than to him.

“What?” He asked, unsure of what you’d just said.

“You love her.” You said as you moved away from him. “Go be with her.”

“I’m really sorry,” You heard him say as you walked toward your car.

You didn’t say anything in response to that. Mainly because there was nothing to say, but also because you refused to talk to him any longer. And quite frankly, you never wanted to talk to him again.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“so much for summer love and saying ‘us.’ ‘cause you weren't mine to lose.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

let me know ur thoughts<333

(read “betty” here!)

#steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington series #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington fic #steve harrington smut #stranger things fluff #stranger things smut #stranger things series #stranger things imagine #stranger things fic

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dashielldeveron · 1 year

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soulmate trope | aizawa, part one.

Aizawa's route of soulmate trope.

Part one bc tumblr formatting weird. Part two here.

Warnings: BTS mention. Reader is explicitly a kissless virgin to make Aizawa feel Worse. Part one: reader gets a mild hand injury. Threat of dub-con. Claustrophobia. Sexual content, with virgin-y themes. Part two: alcohol consumption (not by reader). Sexual content, with virgin-y themes. Fem reader.

Remember that U.A., for the purposes of this fic, is a university. Lore dropped carries over to previous and subsequent chapters.

~38k overall. ~20k for part one.

You didn’t have a soulmate, and that was just how you liked it.

Because instead of being hooked to one of your weird-ass classmates, you were free to continue to harbour your crush for your weird-ass homeroom teacher, and you nurtured your crush like a stray kitten brought out of the rain. A creature comfort, really, this affection for Aizawa Shouta—a creature no one knew you kept hidden in the back laundry room and sneaked scraps.

You’re not stupid. The man has to stay your homeroom teacher for the rest of the year, until graduation. Besides, you did have a sneaky little goal with your crush, though it will probably never come to fruition. It’s not an immediate plan in which you corner him after class to beg for sexual extra credit, no, but it’s a long, onerous, masochistic plot of delayed gratification: sometime down the road after graduation, you’ll casually run into him on a patrol, casually suggest you two share a drink to catch up, and then casually I-miss-you-terribly-sensei-you-deserve-to-sleep-more-oh-wow-your-hands-are-really-big-what-if-I-place-them-right-between-my-legs your way into his heart.

For now, the most you can do is be the best student you can. Yes, Yaoyorozu is most likely always going to beat you in chemistry and some maths, since her quirk relies on her knowledge of those subjects, but you’re positively gruntled and satisfied with your place at the top for humanities, along with trading top spots in other subjects with the same three or four people.

But mostly, you tried to be 1) resourceful and 2) not annoying, because Aizawa dealt with a lot of teacher bullshit, probably.

So, while you knew about stories in which students would seduce their teachers by favours (sexual or not), lingering innuendo, or flashing lacy underwear from their seats, you weren’t going to do that shit. 1) How dumb, 2) how embarrassing, and 3) you didn’t want your (hopefully future!) relationship founded on cliches for student/teacher relationships. How a relationship starts shouldn’t have to be a secret, either, or be something to be ashamed of.

(Because you could just picture your family’s faces at Christmas if you said something like, “Hey, this is my boyfriend, Aizawa; he used to be my teacher, and we started dating after I sucked him off under his desk while he was giving a lesson.”

Although, admittedly, there’s probably no good way to introduce a former teacher as your boyfriend.)

You figured, for now, it was enough to stand out in a quiet way, never outright begging for his attention, yet somehow landing in situations in which you got it. You liked to think that Aizawa appreciated that you read when you finished your classwork early instead of talking to your friends (guiltily activating your cringey not-like-other-girls complex that you tried to suppress), along with being attentive in class in general, and you landed an unexpected advantage in Midnight.

Since your first year’s sports festival, you’ve been her sidekick. Well, first you were her intern, and then you signed on the next school year. It was mostly academic work instead of hero work at this point in her career, but you found you liked it and her. You tagged along to record events and complete evals and rubrics, and running her errands allowed you into the staff room, where Aizawa was often curled up in his office chair or on the couch. And hopefully, Aizawa heard good things about you from Midnight.

Midnight’s current project when not teaching or on active missions was rehabbing female villains. She was easy to trust. They tended to let down their guards around her, eventually, and it fascinated you the way the system treated male and female villains differently—

“Hey,” whispered Mina, hunching forward in her desk to tap you on the shoulder, “You got back from Sakura Grove Rehab with Midnight really late last night. Did something happen with Tainted Love?”

You shot a look towards the front of the classroom, where Aizawa was gripping the podium intensely in an effort to stay standing, and once you garnered he wasn’t paying attention to you (big sigh), you turned slightly in your seat to whisper back. “False alarm,” you said, shaking your head, “She used her emergency buzzer because she heard that BTS released a music video, and she wanted to see it.”

Grinning, Mina nodded. “Normal BTS fan stuff. Is a member her soulmate, or something?”

“Don’t you think she’d be dead by now if she were? Ito said—sorry, Tainted Love said that they’re all simply very easy on the eyes and that she’s a connoisseur of human beauty. But her ass is in trouble right now, because the staff’s pissed they had to break out the emergency procedures for that.”

“I don’t know,” said Mina, fiddling with her earring, “I think that’s completely fair. It’s, uh—girlboss, gaslight, get-to-see-BTS.”

You snorted, covering your nose with the back of your hand. “That’s the wrong order, and you know it—”

“Since you have the energy to talk during a lesson—” Aizawa called towards you, his voice sharp, and your head snapped towards the front of the classroom. “—then I expect you’ll be capable of a higher calibre of effort and example for the class in your stealth presentation today.”

“Absolutely,” you said, recovering and folding your hands on your desk, “I’m ready when everyone else is.”

Aizawa gave a dismissive wave and allowed the class to leave the four minutes early to change and head towards ground beta. You’d already triple-checked that all of your support gear was ready, because it was your day in the rotation to serve as a combat example to the rest of your peers. Your focus for the past month had been on stealth, so you were presenting on your findings—presenting through whatever challenge was posed to you at the hands of one of the faculty.

Giddy, you headed towards ground beta much more quickly than your friends, who were still getting dressed. Since you’d be presenting on stealth, you had a good idea of which teacher you’d be facing.

Aizawa was waiting at the entrance, himself clad in full gear. You shot him a cheerful wave, which he lazily returned, and you retreated to one of the benches nearby and opened the book you’d brought along.

(You don’t want to aggravate him, and what’s more, if you talk to him before your challenge, you’re going to be thinking about your conversation during it. Aizawa will be more impressed with your performance if you don’t fuck it up due to daydreaming about his cock.)

Making yourself comfortable, you lay down on the bench, holding the book above you to block out the sun.

Aizawa pushed his goggles back into his hair. “You have a book,” he said (asked?) flatly as he trailed towards you.

“You have a sleeping bag,” you said, jerking your head towards the yellow bundle wadded up by the door, “We must both be relaxed about this presentation.”

Crossing his arms, Aizawa carefully leant against the door and squinted down at you. “Do you not see me as a threat?”

You tore your gaze away from your book to look up at him, tilting your head backwards to smile into his scowl. “Should I?”

Kirishima and Tokoyami burst in and broke up the conversation before it turned into something that got you off for weeks.

Once the rest of the class clambered towards ground beta, Aizawa cleared his throat and addressed the class about the challenge; he spoke with his back to you (and a couple of others), since most of the class clumped in one spot.

“Sero’s melee close-combat presentation yesterday will be a tough act to follow, but today is our first presentation on stealth. Bakugou, Aoyama—your stealth presentations won’t be following the same format, but take inspiration from it.” Aizawa stowed his hands in the deep pockets of his jumpsuit and shifted his weight forward slightly, his broad shoulders lost under his capture weapon. “Hagakure and Tokoyami, I specifically want your critique of your peer’s performance today. Be ready to give her advice. I will be the faculty member she is up against, and—” Frowning, Aizawa cut himself off, did a quick head count, and spun in your direction, his hair whipping at the movement.

Seeing you reading over on the bench (which you were still doing in what was hopefully a sexy devil-may-care, fuck-the-police way), Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose before spreading his palm over both of his eyes, heaving a sigh, and dragging his hand down his face. He then held it out in from of him and curled his fingers to beckon you closer. “C’mon; I know you said you weren’t threatened, but now you’re pushing it.”

You were sunshine; you were ease, and you were pushing it, for some reason. But you were feeling it, so you cheerfully trotted up to Aizawa, in front of whom you halted expectantly and bounced on the balls of your feet, hands holding your book behind your back as you waited for further instruction.

He cleared his throat and snapped, holding out his hand farther to confiscate your book. You shunted it towards him, and when Aizawa took it, your fingers grazed his—your pinkie and ring fingers just barely brushing against his thumb.

And.

And it’s a rickety, staticky, lightning-type thing, this wave of thunder that rushes through you, branching from where you touched him—a two-second, core-shaking rumble that only you can feel.And there’s an electric jolt.

Vibrant pink blossomed from the points of contact, staining the skin like watery ink.

Two seconds. Two seconds compressing what must be years and years of salient moments yet to come, and they—they all had him, Aizawa, in flashes of memories (?) integrating him more and more into your life. And you knew, in that shock and subsequent ooze, how it felt to be pulled into his arms and held like you’re something precious—wrapping around you while he’s half-asleep and acting on instinct, hunching and curling over your back to shield you from a backdrop of a battlefield—the feeling of you two lying together bare. You heard the crack of his voice in the morning as he nuzzled closer to you in bed, the rumbling vibration when he growled against your skin. Felt a ghost of his fingers digging into your hips as you arched beneath him (rocking, writhing), sucking a small spot on your neck, kissing down your shoulders, your back. A shiver as he trailed his hand down the inside of your thigh. A prolonged kiss to your collarbone. The passage of thunder left your body sore, like live-or-death level adrenaline had just faded. For a moment, your knees were in danger of buckling.

Aizawa must have seen—felt—the same phantom sensations, because once a noise from the class snapped him out of it, he grimaced, tucking your book and the pink-marked hand under his opposite arm.

Ducking your head to stare at your shoes, you took a step back, overheated and too aware that the class was watching.

“Recovery Girl’s office,” Aizawa said, his voice rasping, “Now.”

You bolted.

***

You slumped in the sky-blue plastic chair in the patient area of Recovery Girl’s office, unable to shake the sensation of his arms around you. You shuddered and hunkered over, a wave of misery washing over you as the last vestiges of his warmth (?) faded. Fucking figures that the only time in your life you’ve ever been in someone’s arms is in a goddamn vision and not reality.

On the other hand.

The pads of the two fingers that touched Aizawa were blemished with the same bright pink as that dust you’d inhaled the day Tainted Love’s team had invaded, and the colour wouldn’t rub off on your hero costume when you tried. An evil sort of smile spread across your face.

You jolted in your seat when the door slammed open, the knob banging into the wall, and Aizawa stormed in, shoving one of two clipboards into your lap.

“Quirk incident form,” he spat, a plastic chair scraping against the tile as he yanked it next to (but not too closely to) yours.

You slid the pen out from underneath the clip. “This says it’s a soulmate registry form.”

Aizawa glanced up at you, already a few strokes into writing his name in the first blank. “Tainted Love’s team had utilised her quirk enough before attacking U.A. that a specific form had to be made. Nevertheless,” he said, finishing the kanji for sho with so much pressure that the paper ripped slightly, “it’s a subset of the Quirk Incident Registrar.”

Huh. You supposed you should’ve known about the paperwork, since you’re working with her, but then, you’re dealing with personal rehabilitation, not the bureaucratical aftermath.

Following his lead, you quietly began to fill out your form. Basic stuff, really: name, home address, current address (dorms), quirk, soulmate’s name and quirk…

“How would you describe our inciting soulmate incident? Are you only putting first physical contact, or are you mentioning something about the, uh,” you said, leaning over to see his paper, but he flipped his clipboard up against his chest to hide it from view.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Aizawa, finally looking you in the eye. His tight grip on his pen didn’t dilute the saturation of the pink on his thumb. “And we’re not going to talk about it. You’re not going to tell anyone about this, and I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Oh, he’s repressed repressed. “Not even my mother?”

He shook his head. “Nothing important happened today, and nothing’s going to happen.”

“That’s a shame,” you said, moving onto the next section of the form, “I was already picking out China patterns.”

He flipped his clipboard out enough to continue writing. “Don’t even joke.”

“Hey, it says I need your phone number.”

“Leave that part blank. I’ll fill it out once before turning both of them in.”

That little sneak. “Wow. You really are intent on having nothing to do with me,” you said, sighing, which he echoed.

“Listen,” said Aizawa, running his hand back through his hair to sweep it out of his face, “if you genuinely require an explanation, you don’t deserve to be in school at U.A.”

You crossed your arms. “Try me, sensei.”

Aizawa winced, scrunching his eyes shut. “Don’t call me that. Listen. What I’m about to say does not apply only to me but to teachers in general. No one wants to fu—pursue a romantic relationship with a student because we are tired. Teaching is our job. No one wants to take work home when you don’t have to. You want to have a life outside teaching, and in addition to that, I have hero work.”

“There are lots of books and stuff about teacher-student relationships,” you said.

“Written by deranged maniacs who haven’t been teachers. Sometimes, it’s difficult to see your students as people, let alone the horrific romantic par—God.” Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose again, his fingers moving the press into his eyes, almost like he wanted to gouge them out. “The only reason a student may be brought up in conversation in a non-school setting would be if that student did something particularly moronic that day. At the end of the individual day, teachers are tired of their students and want to slip back into being an individual instead of an educator.”

You pursed your lips. “I have yet to hear that you personally are tired of specifically me.”

“Let me attempt another approach,” said Aizawa, hunching over to rest his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers together, “As your teacher, I would have an unfair power over you in a relationship.”

“Hell, yeah, you would,” you said, grinning.

Aizawa turned his head away, pressing his mouth into his shoulder. “I’m not going to engage with you if you keep making comments like that.”

You nodded even though he couldn’t see you, aware you were getting yourself in deeper shit the more you opened your mouth. “I wouldn’t want you to propose in Recovery Girl’s office, anyway.”

It took him a moment, while you waited by scribbling a doodle of your cat onto the bottom margin of your form, but Aizawa genuinely let out a hiss as he snapped towards you, his teeth gritted as his eyes flashed scarlet, hair flying upwards in an instant.

“You can’t make those sorts of quips around anyone else—at all. Nothing is going to—” He seemed to notice that you’d shrunken in your seat, away from him, your hands held up while you let the clipboard fall to the ground, and he released his quirk, mildly startled that he’d activated it on impulse. He settled back into his own cold, plastic chair and sank his chin into his capture weapon.

“I’m sorry,” you said, quiet and subdued, “Joking about stuff is how I handle it.”

“No,” he said evenly, stooping to pick up your clipboard and pen, “I knew that already. That’s how you show you understand the material in class discussions. I should’ve taken that into account.”

He held out the clipboard, pinching it by the edge. You won’t touch each other, this way.

You took it and clicked your pen, scanning down the document to where you left off. “There’s this checkbox I wanted to ask you about.”

“What checkbox—oh,” Aizawa said, his voice faltering.

Near the bottom. A single, small line and box, for the weight it held: do you want this form to double as your marriage registration?

You crossed your legs to prop one ankle over your knee and tilted your clipboard away from his line of vision. You checked it before he even answered.

“Yeah,” you said, proceeding to shade in the entire box, “Do you—”

His scowl cut you off. “Leave that blank, too.”

“Of course,” you said, drawing a couple of hearts around the inked-in box before moving on.

You finished filling it out before he did, and when he set his pen aside, he pushed on his knees to stand with a soft grunt, taking your clipboard underneath his without caring to glance over it.

“All right. The rest of class has been joined the training session that All Might was monitoring for Class B, and given the circumstances—” His eyes fell to your stained fingers. “—you’ll have to make up your stealth presentation at a later date with a different faculty member. I’ll have someone else grade your work from now on, so you won’t have to worry about my grading you more harshly because of this.”

Aizawa waited for you to nod, and after, he took a step towards the door. He ducked his head for a moment before turning back to you, saying your name under his breath. “I’m serious when I say that you can neither tell anyone about our soulmate bond nor do anything about it.”

Swallowing, you slowly stood up from your seat. “I don’t know how well I can do that, Aizawa-sensei, but I can promise that I’ll do my best not to trouble you. I haven’t been troubling you for the past three years, have I?”

“Not exactly.” Aizawa narrowed his eyes, his shoulders tensing enough that his mouth disappeared underneath his capture weapon. “Why do you ask?”

Okay. You can do this. You’re fine. You’re normal about it. You held up your hands, as if gesturing that he should brace himself. “Because that’s, uh, how long I’ve—” Been in love with you—no! Stop that. “—had feelings for you.”

Grimacing, Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose. He’s done that more in the past hour than you’ve seen in the past semester. “Holy shit.”

“Please don’t—please don’t feel any fucking pressure whatsoever,” you said quickly, trying to backtrack, “I’ve been dealing with this by myself for so long that I’m good at it, so please don’t, uh. I mean, I—I live in my head; I live in my books and stories, so it’s fine and good and tolerable that I’ve never been in a relationship or kissed or anything; I’m used to it, so you don’t have to worry; I’ve been handling this by—”

Aizawa exhaled very carefully, his chest heaving in a controlled way as he dug his fist into his eye, rubbing it. “Are you telling me you’re a virgin?”

“Ah, ha. Ha,” you said, scratching the back of your neck, “Sorry if that’s too much information; that wasn’t the point—”

“You’re transferring to Class B,” said Aizawa, and he spun on his heel and sped out of Recovery Girl’s office.

Huffing, you seized the clipboards and ran after him. “Wait up,” you said, shoving the door to the stairs open after he nearly closed it on your face, “I was just trying to let you know I am open to a relationship if you want it, but I’m more than fine—” Liar, spat the voice in your head as you scrambled down the staircase after him, your footsteps reverberating against the grey-cinderblocked walls. “—if you don’t want anything to happen, but if you—”

Aizawa turned sharply to glare in your direction as you caught up to him, and when you skibbled to a stop on the same stair, he said under his breath, “Quiet.” His gaze followed how your hair fluttered with each of his harsh syllables, so he took another stair down to distance you. “Anyone on the stairs could hear you,” he said, resigned.

He crossed his arms, and you slanted the clipboards away from your chest for him to take them.

“You really didn’t know I’ve liked you?” you asked as he took them, “All this time?”

“It’s never crossed my mind,” he said, and he continued down the stairs at fast pace but one you could keep up with, “Like I said, students are a different category of person once you’re a teacher.”

Biting your lip, you followed closely enough to keep your voice down. “You never knew. That’s comforting,” you said, and after a few more stairs, you grinned. “Could that count as my stealth presentation?”

***

You would think that more was supposed to happen, now that you’re soulmates. More conversation, at least. Perhaps a conversation.

Instead, a lingering, bruising feeling branded your chest, as if you’d been kicked the night before, and often a stifling, smothering pressure weighed down on your shoulders until you could be in the same room as Aizawa again. Sometimes, it felt like steel marbles were playing pinball in your chest, the aches where they hit gnawing and settling into your bones.

(Your cat, your chocolate-point baby Dango, has been upset with the hours you’ve been sleeping away the pain instead of playing with her. Luckily, Kouda has been borrowing her some afternoons. You don’t know what he does with her, but you do appreciate very much being able to tell Dango, via Kouda, that you love her very much.

Kouda also has the advantage of being subtle when you lend him your cat, because cats aren’t allowed in the dorms. You’ve been secretly caring for Dango for over a year now, so it’s as if you, Kouda, and Shinsou, who brought Dango catnip treats, were partners in crime.)

In class, Aizawa interacted with you as little as possible, usually asking Present Mic to grade your assignments in his stead. He didn’t act any different towards you from the perspective of the rest of the class, you supposed, except you made fewer jokes and he fewer retorts. Instead, you kept your head down, reading or working on your Sakura Grove data for Midnight, and you were skimming by.

But sometimes you’d be doing Midnight’s paperwork after finishing an assignment early, hunched over your desk, when your skin prickles and the emptiness in your chest wavers for a moment, and you’d look towards Aizawa—either slumping over his desk with his chin on his palm or almost concealed inside his sleeping bag behind the podium—eyes half-lidded and boring into you.

When you look away, it’s as if he’s the one kicking you in the chest.

***

The Saturday after a particularly painful school day for you (aside from your fucking up in a combat exercise, Aizawa had been going down the line of those who’d participated to give individual feedback, and he skipped over you without hesitation), you’d planned to spend all day huddled underneath layers and layers of covers and throw blankets in bed as yet another snowstorm swept across Mustafu, but you jerked awake, completely fucking frigid, before the sun had truly risen. You blindly fumbled over the edge of the bed for any or all of your six billion blankets and felt none of them, and, making a miserable whimper as you cracked open an eye, you peered over the side of the bed.

No blankets on floor.

No…no little bedside rug.

Jesus, did you somehow kick your bed away from the wall during the night? Wait, where’s all the shit you have all over your walls this isn’t your room.

Something was pressed against your back.

Your life was over. You’re totally getting expelled from U.A. for sneaking into your teacher’s room. It’s got to be his—holding your breath, you slowly peeked over your shoulder before snapping back towards the bare wall. A flash of that yellow sleeping bag, even in bed—it’s Aizawa’s room, all right, and his back was pressed against yours, with only your sleepshirt and his sleeping bag keeping your skin from touching (unless he’s wearing a shirt, which, in that case, get sluttier, Aizawa).

In the case that somehow appearing in his bed overnight made him detest you, you elected to slither out of his living space without his ever knowing. You wouldn’t have any answers for him, even if he caught you, really, at least not this early in the morning.

In the vexingly slow process of getting out of bed without waking him up, you had the time to look around, not that there was that much to see; it was all greyish and sparse and didn’t really feel like a home at all or that he spent much time here, with the most significant pieces in his bedroom being the shoddily painted radiator (in heaven, everything is fine) and a desk with both a PC and a propped-up tablet on it, with some papers spread in front of them. But the layout of his flat appeared to mirror another part of the dormitory, so you bet the door to leave his area entirely was through the next room, and you’d be home-free.

What caught your attention, though, was a well-loved cat tower, with one of the dangling mice for the cat to bat at torn off the string and resting on the middle level. Aizawa must have a cat. Funny, since that’s illegal in the dorms. As you finally slinked off the bed entirely, you resolved to locate the cat to kiss its little forehead before slipping out of his room entirely. Cat detours are allowed.

Walking out of his bedroom, you first were hit by the pungent scent of brewing coffee and then by a cold wave of defeat. Across the kitchen counter, Aizawa’s back was towards you while he fossicked through different brands of sugar packets.

You could’ve punted that empty sleeping bag out the window.

You took one step towards the exit before he spoke, his voice gravelly from sleep: “Do you want to offer me an explanation before I write you up?”

Fucking stealth heroes. “I don’t have one,” you said, shoulders falling slack while trudging into his kitchenette—with an ulterior motive of seeing more of his place before being removed permanently. “I’m—I don’t know how I got here. You didn’t—?”

“Of course not,” said Aizawa, ripping open two differently branded packets and upturning them into his coffee. He turned to face you as he took the first sip, and you wished you could say that his eyes drank you in hungrily, or whatever, but you supposed that you have to get sluttier, too: you were just as completely and unalluringly covered as he was in his Purple Revolution sweatshirt and pants. “You don’t have any ideas from working at Sakura Grove?”

“Uh, no,” you said, “I’m not encouraged to talk to I—Tainted Love. It’s more like bringing her food and filling out paperwork for her craft requests. I am very much the middleman. I can—”

“Don’t.” Aizawa held out his free hand. “I’ll ask Nemuri.”

Nemuri. You’ve known, you supposed, that he was on a given-name basis with Midnight. You resolved to get him to call you by your first name, too. And then the thought came that you might be ruining something romantic between them? Based on every interaction you’ve had with either of them, you had no indication of romance, but Aizawa had said that teachers aim to have very private lives. Yikes. You elected to slough it off for now, because introducing feeling jealous of your mentor whom you admired very much would only complicate the situation more. You could linger on jealousy once you figured out what the hell was happening.

“Right,” you said, pulling at a hangnail, “What if this happens again?”

“We’ll put a stop to it. Simple as that.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “We’ll be able to prevent this once we have more information. Until then, just handle it maturely and without fuss.”

“And here I was hoping we could cuddle,” you said, heaving a huge, fake sigh as Aizawa narrowed his eyes, and you pushed yourself up to sit on the counter, swinging your legs. “This is the part where you offer me coffee.”

“Get out of my apartment.”

“C’mon, Aizawa. Or I’ll spread that you have an illegal cat in the dorms.”

Aizawa hesitated just as he brought the lip of his mug to his mouth. “I don’t have a cat,” he said before taking another drink.

“Come off of it; I saw the cat tower.”

“I don’t have—”

You nearly jumped out of your skin when something prodded your thigh; a lanky, tuxedo-patterned cat had sneaked up to headbutt you before you could notice, and it climbed onto your lap to loaf. It’d be nice if your own cat were this friendly.

“You need to be more aware of your surroundings,” grumbled Aizawa as he poured your coffee.

You flipped over the cat’s tag, the light catching on the rose-gold heart. “You named your cat Konpeito?”

“Eri named it.” Aizawa set the mug next to you instead of giving it to you directly—stubborn bastard, not wanting to touch you again. “Don’t make a scene when you return the mug.”

“You’re kicking me out before I even start drinking?” You tentatively gripped the handle and maneuvered the cat off your lap.

“You keep asking these questions that have obvious answers.” He gave a dismissive wave. “Don’t make too much noise on the way out; Eri’s in the next dorm over, and I don’t want you to wake her.”

***

You woke up in Aizawa’s bed again less than a week later. You’d had a dream that you’d been freezing, and the reason had been, once again, you were, since apparently Aizawa depended on his sleeping bag instead of blankets. You allowed yourself a moment of savouring the sensation of his back against yours (for real, this time, since the sleeping bag was snoring) before slipping out.

The third time, you left him a note to tell him to get a damn blanket, or else you’ll bring one of your own to keep there.

You idly took notes in Present Mic’s class, words coming slowly on paper while he prattled on. How come it was always you who was showing up in his bed? How come you always went to Aizawa, and he never came to you?

Your eyes flicked up to what Present Mic was writing on the board in skewed, thin handwriting. Had Aizawa told him the specifics? Present Mic had to know something, since he was grading your work, but Mic was also Aizawa’s friend—a luxury you didn’t have in this soulmate situation. Midnight would also be a strategic person to tell, from Aizawa’s perspective, but she hadn’t given any hint she was aware.

You drew a heart in the margins, and then you gave it legs. You made it walk off the page and onto the desk, colouring it in by crosshatching. If only you could get up and leave. Class without Aizawa dragged nowadays; where did he spend his time during school on break? Probably huddled in his sleeping bag in a slant of sunlight like a damn cat, maybe out on the grounds where he couldn’t be found. Or maybe he fucked off to a gym closet where the mats were; they’d be cosier than sleeping directly on the floor. And you could cosy up next to him, pressed up against each other in that snug—

You slammed into a wall of solid muscle, papers flying and tea spilling over the tile to seep into the rug in the teachers’ lounge, and you sprawled on your knees in the midst of it in your haste to get the fuck off of Aizawa before he could say anything, hissing as you tentatively raised your hand from the wet, broken cup. Despite the slivers of pottery in your palm, you one-handedly fumbled for the papers that had been dropped—third year evals, now crimped and tinted a yellow-green.

Aizawa took the papers, tapped the bottom to align them, and gave them a firm shake to flick off excess tea, and when you started to sweep the broken cup into your hands, he stopped you.

“Go to the faculty bathroom,” he said, pointing to the connecting lavatory, “I’ll be there in a minute with a first-aid kit.”

You had a moment to yourself in the clean, warmly-lit bathroom, so you pushed yourself up on the green marble by the farthest sink and crossed your legs, ensuring your shoes didn’t dirty anything. The pain’s setting in, but you won’t cry, not in front of him, and you’re crying, but just a bit, right? Fuck.

At the sound of the door, you hastily wiped your nose with your sleeve and did your best to look stoic, like pottery in your hand happened every day. But your eyes were too watery to even see the tweezers as he dug them out of the kit.

Standing in front of the sink, Aizawa clicked the tweezers twice (carcinisation, baby!) and held out his other hand.

You looked at it. “What do you want me to do with that?”

He said your name through a sort of scoff, which would’ve been way hotter if it had been your given name and also in bed. “Just give me your hand.”

Tears ran down your face in an overflow. “You wanna touch me?” you asked, sniffing.

“Fucking hell,” Aizawa said under his breath, “At least I know you’re all right if you’re still joking.” He shifted his jaw, scanning your palm. “If you’d rather have it at an uncomfortable angle over the sink—”

“No! No, I wanna—I wanna touch you,” you said, and you lifted your shaky, injured hand for Aizawa to hold steady. The instant his fingers cradled the back of your hand, everything fell into place: touching him was like breathing in cool, crisp air on a clear night or the smoky kindling of a fire that never goes out, like feeling sunshine on bare shoulders on a spring day with freshly cut grass, like walking into your childhood home’s kitchen when someone’s baked chocolate-chip cookies, like breathing in, like breathing, and—

You lifted your hand just a hair from his hand.

You have a stopped-up nose.

You glanced at Aizawa, whose lips were parted, his chest visibly heaving underneath his baggy jumpsuit. “Did you…?”

He ran his tongue over his lower lip. “I need to get the pottery out of your hand as soon as possible.”

Bracing yourself, you rested your hand in his again, and that irresistible warmth swept over you again. He’s got to be feeling it, too, so why isn’t he reacting? You’re embarrassing yourself, so why can’t he?

“Were you trying to teleport to me earlier?” he asked (distracting you from the sensation of each shard being plucked from your skin), head bent over the sink and your hand.

“No, I never—I don’t intend anything. But now that we’ve seen it, we at least know it’s not a gradual thing. Instantaneous and painless. Well,” you said, nodding towards your hand.

“Nor, I see, is it limited to my bed,” he said, shifting over when you uncrossed your legs, “What were you doing before the jump?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. I was in class.” You dangled your legs off the side to get closer to him (for medical purposes of course), and wow, Aizawa smelled incredible—probably; your stuffy nose wasn’t doing you any favours—what the hell kind of soap did he use?

“Were you thinking of anything in particular? The bond?”

That’s got to be pine, and there’s something earthy mixed in. You really needed to blow your nose (Can you even name earthy scents? [Dirt?] You’re not up-to-date with masculine scents; you’ll have to find his deodorant next time you wake up in his room). “I was—” You cut yourself off with a hiss as he pulled the largest shard out. “I’m fine. It’s not that bad, really. Keep going. I don’t really remember the specifics of what I was thinking about, but I—” You cut yourself off again, this time with heavy realisation. “Goddammit. I was feeling the acute loneliness hollow out my chest again, and I was wanting to—be near you. Which explains why I’ve been teleporting to you instead of you coming to me.”

“It explains nothing,” said Aizawa, and he set the tweezers next to the shards on the edge of the sink and flipped on the faucet, guiding your hand under the water and reaching for the gauze.

“Yes, it does,” you said, openly wiping your nose on the back of your sleeve, because fuck it, this man didn’t care about you, so be gross around him. “If the teleporting is triggered by intense longing to be close to the other person, then it makes total sense that I’d be the only one teleporting, since I’m the only one who has feelings.”

“It explains nothing,” he said again, drying off your hand, “It’s only a possible contributing factor to the teleportation. Maybe it has to do with location, or timing, or action. It’s highly improbable that this physical action was caused by thought alone.” Aizawa ripped off a long strip of gauze and began to wrap it around your palm. “Don’t feel like this is a weakness on your part. I’ll probably teleport to you before the month is out.”

You let your fingers relax, your pinkie falling enough to graze his own hands as he bandaged yours. The more skin-to-skin contact you had, the more serene you felt—or maybe it was the injury adrenaline wearing off. Either way, you might fall asleep on the bathroom counter. “My bed isn’t big enough for two people.”

“That’s okay,” said Aizawa, and he slowed at the final wrap-around, holding it in place until he found the metal clips in the first aid box. “I’ve gotten very used to sleeping in odd places.”

When he stepped away to pack up the kit, you fucking whimpered on impulse at the loss of physical contact, and he froze, stuck in the motion of clicking the box shut.

“Sorry,” you said, sniffing.

His jaw tensing, Aizawa shook his head. “You should go to bed early tonight. Don’t overexert yourself.”

***

Yeah, except it’s Friday, and Jirou has been arranging this girls’ night for two weeks now.

Apparently, the karaoke bar you’re going to overheats really easily, since it’s in a refurbished building that used to be something-or-other; you’re not really listening to the explanation but were more concerned with having to wear summer clothes while it’s snowing out. The past two weeks have been strategic outfit layering plans from the lot of you, most of which have devolved into being silly and impractical (ranging from “I’ll just take off my skin and hang around in my bones when we get there” to “I will walk out of this dorm in a sleeping bag over my underwear” [the latter reminding you of Aizawa, in a pleasing, warm thought that you had to keep to yourself]).

Either way. Twisting over your shoulder, you strained to tuck in your bra so that it wouldn’t show from a mostly backless spaghetti-strap that you ended up borrowing from Uraraka, and once it was kind of hidden, you stuck your tongue into your cheek. It didn’t really sit right with you to be going out in this shit in this icy weather. You’d be a lot warmer and probably a lot more content if you peeled off these Best Jeanist jean shorts (from the Moulded to Your Ass line, unofficially titled) and crawled into your pyjamas and bed.

In the corner of your eye, your bed beckoned, with all of its blankets and stuffed animals (for when you just need to hold a little guy). What if you ditched the outing and—no. Stop that. You’ll be warm soon enough.

But with an abrupt lurch towards your bed, you found yourself spluttering into the scalding spray of a showerhead, water dribbling into your mouth between gasps and sloshing down your body. Blindly, you took a step backwards out of the cascade, but a flattened palm on the bare skin of your back stopped you before you could move farther.

“Don’t.”

The water still gushed and flowed over you, eyes scrunched tight and heart pounding. The hand on your back maximised the space between the two of you, but with the pathetic size of the shower stall, his body heat still seeped into your skin, complemented by rising steam. There’s a quiet grunt when he knocked against the frosted glass door; his shoulders must be wide enough for that to happen frequently (you swallow against a dry throat, because the man could hold all of you). If he wanted to, Aizawa, the way he has you now, could press his lips to the crown of your head, keeping his mouth there as his eyes flutter shut.

Instead, Aizawa was reaching up to tilt the showerhead away, giving you a good face-full of his bicep, and your eyes followed its movement (his jumpsuit did an excellent job of concealing a fucking powerfully built form), straining as he twisted the showerhead and relaxing as it fell back into place at his side—

“Eyes up,” said Aizawa, using his first two fingers to guide your chin back to face your front, where they lingered for a moment to tap against your jaw to ensure you’d stay there.

(With the shock of getting wet and the heat of his hand flat against your back [still there, still flooding you with an intoxicating headiness], you’d been entirely too overwhelmed to even consider catching a glimpse of his dick.)

“Aizawa-sensei—”

“Cut that out,” he said, huffing, “You’re doing this on purpose.”

For once, you’re out of the loop. But since you’re in his shower, you could take a moment to locate his soap to put a name to what he smells like and perhaps get a look at his cock along the way. Only his washcloth hung over the faucet in front of you, so you moved to turn slightly as you spoke, ducking your head to scan for shampoo bottles: “Earlier today you were saying it wasn’t my—”

Hissing, Aizawa slid two fingers through one of your belt loops and yanked, jerking you backwards into his hips for an instant before establishing that space between you again—pulling you by the belt loop blocked your view of his cock, and his hand on your back kept you from touching him in any meaningful way. But he was still as close as he could be without touching you otherwise, his breath as searing as the steam as he grumbled into your ear: “Bad girl.”

The water splashing at your feet wasn’t so hot anymore.

Aizawa tugged at your belt loop again (for a moment, when a swish of cool air washed down your ass, you worried that he’d look) and kept you in front of himself as he turned sideways to face the shower door, which he (fuck!) lifted his hand from your back to prod open.

Light flushed into the stall, and he scoffed. “I knew it,” Aizawa said, bitterness creeping into his voice, and he unlooped his finger from your belt loop to tap the fabric firmly, nudging you forward.

“Knew what?” you asked, spinning on your heel the moment you were out of the shower, water flying, and Aizawa ducked behind the frosted glass with a defeated expression. “Right,” you said, grabbing the thick towel on the toilet and tossing it to him.

“Check your fingertips.”

Tearing your gaze from his frosted-glass impression of wrapping the towel around his waist, you held up your hands. “They look fine. My bandages are soaked, though, so I’ll have to redo—oh, okay, fuck. My soulmark is gone.” You’re not going to cry in front of him, and definitely not twice in one day, because that’d be—

“Sensei,” you said, choking up and curling your shaky fingers into an even shakier fist, “Sensei, my soulmark is—I don’t want my soulmark to be gone, fucking, I—” On accident, you slammed your elbow into the glass door when you were trying to—please get closer (so goddammit, if your eyes water, it’s from hitting your funny bone). “I don’t want my soulmark to disappear; I adore you and want—”

“It hasn’t disappeared,” Aizawa said softly as he stepped out of the shower, gripping his towel in addition to the firm knot, and he pointed behind you towards the mirror.

While Aizawa eased down onto the closed toilet to towel-dry his hair, you took the four, wet steps to the sink and wiped off the clouded steam. No difference in your reflection.

When you shot a baffled look towards Aizawa, he gently raised his eyebrows and his finger to twirl it once. So, you turned around to look over your shoulder at your back, where his pink handprint put all body glitter to shame in how well it reflected the overhead light and in how quickly it was spreading (ink leaking outside of the handprint in watery bursts before slowing, never detracting from the shape of his hand, though the ink seemed to rise more than fall, especially near his middle and ring fingers between your shoulder blades).

He was holding up his newly pink palm, wiggling his fingers in your direction.

You returned to him (really to stand on the bathmat, since you’re drenching his floor) and raised your hand to touch him, first glancing at him for his approval. Aizawa looked at your hand and back at you, and after he wetted his lips, he nodded and got back to towel-drying his hair.

You hesitated. Is this really so nonchalant, so trivial to him? It’s everything to you.

You dropped your hand to your side, mouth twitching. “What shampoo do you fucking use.”

“Hm?” He didn’t even look at you.

“You smell fucking good all the time. What’s. What scent is your soap,” you were saying, in the same, flat tone you’d use to argue with your landlord about finally fixing your leaky roof after two years.

Aizawa squeezed water out of the last of his hair and spoke in that infuriatingly gravelly, just-woke-up voice of his. “It’s sandalwood.”

Sandalwood. That’s earthy, you guessed. “Then where’s the pine come from?”

“That would be the aftershave,” he said, folding the hair towel in half twice and setting it aside, “You were going to touch me, but now you’re upset. Care to explain?”

You plucked at your wet shirt before crossing your arms over it. “Does this matter to you? The soulmate thing.”

“You matter to me,” he said, standing with a quiet grunt, “Let’s get you reasonably dry before going back to your dorm.”

“Oh, shut up with that teacher bullshit,” you said, following him to a cabinet, “You care about me through the lens of a student, because everyone in this fucking dorm is your—fuck, I’m. You’re insufferable.”

“I can’t lend you clothes, but I should have enough large towels to keep you warm.” Aizawa reached for the top shelf, with beach towels. “However, I recommend against going out tonight with the rest of your friends.” He handed you a new-looking, blue-pineappled towel.

You angrily wrapped it around you, pissed that you instantly felt better. “Oh, is it because you’ve gotten me wet—” Aizawa draped another towel around your shoulders, tucking it in a little to secure it. “—and going out into this fucking ass iceberg weather would get me sick—” Another towel, this one with Present Mic’s radio show logo on it. “—and then I’d have to miss one of your precious days of class—”

“Is that what you want me to say?” He arranged two more towels around you at once, tying the outermost one in a knot. “Or are you waiting to hear that I want you to hide away while you bear my mark?” He tugged your drapery down a smidge so that you could use your arms a bit—at the least, use your key to your room. “When in reality,” he said, taking a step backward and appraising his handiwork, “I want you to be comfortable and content. And I don’t think you’d be either if you went out after this, even if you got ready again.”

Goddammit.

“And you’ve had a long day with strange revelations. You have a new injury. Going to bed for the night will facilitate healing. Your body will have more time to process the day.”

Groaning, you said, “Fuck you for being right.”

“Thanks.”

Since you hadn’t touched him earlier, you took the opportunity to clonk your forehead against his chest (dense muscle was evidently comfy). The soulmark warmth blossomed throughout your body from the spot, and you took your time to appreciate it, taking a couple of unhurried breaths against his skin, dry save for some stray running droplets.

Aizawa sighed, the planes of his chest rising and falling under your close and thirsty scrutiny. “This counts, y’know. As staying up late.” If you hadn’t seen him put his hand on your arm, you wouldn’t’ve known, due to the thickness of the towels. “I told you to go to bed.”

You blearily looked up at him. “Take me there, then.”

After a moment, Aizawa said, “I have to feed my cat,” and he opened the bathroom door to escape. Before he left, he spun back around, and you would’ve sworn he was fighting a smile, if you hadn’t known how he felt about you.

“But first,” he said, “let me fix that forehead situation of yours.”

***

Picking up the folders from the office mailbox, you flipped out the flag for read/empty and trailed back to the office space that you and Midnight shared at Sakura Grove, idly waving to some co-workers as you flipped through the files. Pushing the door open with your foot, you dropped the folders onto Midnight’s desk and hurried over to lift the shaking electric kettle from the heat, since Midnight was too absorbed into her patient evaluation at which she was typing away.

You poured the boiling water the round teabag, watched it rise to the top of Midnight’s teacup, and bit back a cry—you clutched the chilled windowsill to stay standing, struck by an overwhelming dizziness that blacked out the edges of your vision and crept to darken it entirely; a bowling ball has just hit your chest and dropped to your toes, the ache reverberating through your veins as you caved and doubled over, nausea settling into your gut.

Through the dots clouding your vision, you barely make out Midnight stretching her arms over her head.

These attacks have been happening more and more. If Aizawa can have a friend in the know, so can you.

“Kayama-sensei,” you managed to croak, but she didn’t hear you.

You tried again, and she turned, her expression drooping when she saw you. “Is the tea that bad?”

Eventually, Midnight helped you into your seat across from hers with your own cup of tea, the pain draining away in the process of vague explanation.

“So, you genuinely think you’re starting to die because your soulmate won’t acknowledge you romantically. Easy solution in sight,” she said, picking her teacup up by her fingertips to breathe in the steam, “Just pick out some nice lingerie—you can use my sponsor discount for Wacoal—and arch your back when you lie in his bed for him to find. I can give you some tips on how to suck—”

“Kayama-sensei,” you said, your vision finally back to normal, “You do not understand how much I can’t do that.”

Her tongue flicked into her cup, testing the heat. “I’ll bite. Why not?”

“My soulmate is, um.” You frowned into your tea. “I’ve liked my soulmate for a long, long time. Before the soulmate stuff existed.”

Midnight ran her tongue over her lips, the corners quirking upwards. “So? All the more reason to make your feelings known and emphasised, now that you have an excuse for a legitimate relationship. Since he already knows about how you feel, you should keep trying to seduce him. All men crack eventually.”

“He won’t accept a lousy attempt at seduction, because—aside from I have no clue how to do that, I don’t—he’s, uh…” You trailed off, took a swig of tea instead of finishing, and ended up choking a bit at the heat.

“Yes? What’s the juicy detail you’re reluctant to share? Is he married? Is he a public figure? Is he too much older or younger than you?”

Narrowing your eyes, you asked, “Do you already know? Are you just making me say it?”

Tight-lipped, Midnight made a loose, dismissive gesture and moved to get back to her patient file.

“Fine. Fine! If anyone can help me with this, it’s you, because it’s—goddamn,” you said, deflating and sinking down into your seat, “It’s fucking Aizawa-sensei, okay? My soulmate is my stupid homeroom teacher.”

“Congratulations,” said Midnight, saving the document and shutting down the computer, “You have earned the right to call me by my given name for being so honest.” She spun in her chair to give you her full attention. “So. Shouta.”

“Did you know already? Were you just—”

“I had my suspicions but no concrete evidence,” she said, holding up her hand, “Just some observations from watching you for the past three years.” Tilting her head, she adjusted her glasses before lifting her cup to her mouth again. “Now, the reason why you can’t just seduce him is crystal clear now. I submit that you could start going to bed in skimpier clothes in the event you teleport to his apartment again, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Shouta’s got a steel will. He’s not going to violate that student-teacher professional relationship.”

“I know,” you said, slumping so far down in your seat that your ass was falling off of it, your chin touching your chest, “but if I’m in pain from not being with him, he probably is, too. And if he won’t acknowledge me romantically, I wanna know if there’s something I can do to alleviate the pain that we’re both feeling. He shouldn’t be distracted from his work because of it.”

“That’s exactly what I want to hear.” Midnight jabbed a finger in your direction. “Starting today, you’re promoted. You’re going to be Tainted Love’s primary monitor.”

“What?” You shot up in your seat. “But I haven’t—I haven’t even had a proper conversation with her before—”

“But she’s used to having you around,” Midnight said evenly, opening her top desk drawer, “To her, you’re in a position of authority but not a threat. You’ve seen how she likes to talk, anyway, and you’re in a perfect position to find out more schematics of how her quirk works on the individual level.” Midnight smiled and handed you Ito’s folder. “Plus, she can’t do anything more to you, right? You’ve already got a hell of a soulmate.”

“Okay,” you said, hesitantly taking her file to clutch it to your chest, “So, you just want me to talk to her? Try to solve my problems?”

“Yeah. And anything you find out about her quirk that she hasn’t shared so far—because she hasn’t exactly shared much past the first interrogation—is welcome intelligence. Record anything new. Keep Ito happy. You’ll be golden. I know you’re more than capable.”

“Funny,” you said, flipping through the file and joining Midnight as she stood, “This feels planned. Got anything else motivating you?”

“Besides a perverse desire to see my friend and my sidekick get together?” Midnight grabbed her whip from the hook on the side of her desk. “I was going to assign you this, anyway. Ito isn’t a threat anymore, and I need to focus on preparing for Serendipity’s arrival next week from St. Philomena’s. Even the airline we finally convinced to transport her has backed out, so I’m scrambling to bribe another.”

That had slipped your mind—Serendipity was being transferred to Sakura Grove for rehabilitation, mostly because no one else wanted to house the most potently dangerous female villain in the Americas. “Understandable,” you said, holding open the door for Midnight to follow closely behind, “When do I start?”

***

Fifteen minutes later, you were setting a tray with tea and powdered thumbprint-cookies in front of Ito at her desk in her room. She raised a sharp, white eyebrow at how the dishes clattered at your shaky handling, but she nodded in thanks and turned back to her book. You guessed you were lingering awkwardly by the door a bit too obviously, so she rolled her eyes and set her book upside-down on the desk.

“You’re my new handler, right?” she asked, scratching under her eye.

“That’s me,” you said, hands folded tightly in front of you, “Midnight says you cleared stage five, so you’re safe to be delegated off to me. I have your stage six schedule printed out—”

“But why are you still here? Everyone usually leaves as soon as possible.”

“I’m the only staff member immune to your quirk,” you said, sliding her schedule out of her file.

“Immune.” Ito grinned and crossed her legs. “That’s interesting. How do you know that?”

Well, Midnight said to be honest in order to get honesty from Ito. You sucked in through your teeth. “I’m only immune because you’ve already given me a soulmate. I was the, uh, student you landed on when you attacked U.A.”

Scrunching up her face, Ito scanned you from head to foot, and when she finally stopped at your chest, she nodded. “Ah. I remember you. You’ve got good tits, kiddo,” she said, reaching for her tea, “Be proud of ‘em. You allowed to tell me how it’s going?”

You glanced behind you at the door, pretending to be considering the trouble of talking to her, and when you prodded it shut with your foot, Ito’s grin stretched all the way across her face, her teeth cutting into her lower lip.

“I’ve been desperate to talk to you,” you said, dragging the extra chair closer to hers, “My soulmate is being a little bitch.”

“I like you better than Doc Kim already,” said Ito, and she took a noisy slurp of her tea. “Spill it.”

“I need your advice on what to do about the pain.”

“You found your soulmate already? Then you shouldn’t be feeling any,” she said, shrugging.

“No, I need you to tell me about what to do about the pain. I don’t know if he’s feeling it, but it’s fucking killing me, and he won’t do anything about the soulmate stuff because he doesn’t like me—”

“Back up.” Ito slammed her cup on the tray, spilling tea. “You’re not making any sense. Start over. Tell me about your soulmate.”

Groaning, you buried your face in your hands, leaning back in your chair until your back popped. “He’s my professor, and I’ve liked him for years. Since I met him, pretty much.”

“Hot. He got a sensei kink?” She shoved two thumbprint cookies in her mouth at once, and she nudged the plate in your direction.

“Eh,” you said, weighing your options, “It’s possible. But he doesn’t—”

“Nice. So, he says he’s not gonna do anything while you’re his student, which means he’s burning with shame and sexy, sexy doubts about how good of a man he is. Always sexy to bring a man to his moral and literal knees. Are you wearing fun things to class?”

“We have a uniform.”

“Shame,” she said, gulping down more tea, and then she cocked her head. “Unless.”

“No.”

“Spoilsport,” said Ito, gesturing towards the cookies again. This time you took one, pinching it absentmindedly in your lap. “I think I want to go on my daily walk around the courtyard. Is there room for that in my new schedule?”

You checked it. “I’ll make it work.”

Minutes later, you and Ito were bundled up and strolling the perimeter of Sakura Grove’s courtyard, full of other in-patients in team recreation in the middle and in private conversation on some of the benches.

“I’m still not with you,” Ito was saying as she stared up into the bare limbs of a sakura tree, “I don’t understand why you’re feeling the soulmate pain. It shouldn’t be affecting you, since you know and have met your soulmate.”

You huffed, breath visible. “Well, if you don’t know, then I’m lost. But if he’s not going to complain about the pain, then I suppose I’ll just have to deal with it. I like him too much to bitch about it to him, I guess.”

Ito shoved more of her long, white hair underneath her pom-pom hat. “Then it’s probably the same for him, with him liking you too much to bother you about it.”

“Nah.” You stepped into one of her footprints, the snow crunching under your weight. “He doesn’t like me, and I don’t think he ever will, since once a student, always a stu—”

Ito’s head snapped towards you, cheeks rosy from the cold. “What did you say?”

“My soulmate doesn’t like me, because—”

“You said that earlier, too,” said Ito, and she looked around for other monitors before jerking her head for you to follow her. She guided you in a casual-but-not trail away from any doors or eavesdroppers, and she said in a hushed voice, “You do know that my quirk doesn’t assign soulmates randomly, right?”

“What the hell? Say more right now,” you said, taking smaller steps to stay closer to her.

“Oh, well, that’s news for me. I figured they’d captured my team’s notes on my quirk by now. Okay, well, report this, or not,” said Ito, jabbing a finger towards you, “How much do you know about probability? Yeah, yeah, more math—yes, soulmates usually to inhale the same cloud of my quirk to be considered soulmates, but there are other factors, too. See, you were making sense until you said your soulmate doesn’t like you back.”

“Okay, I’m not following—hey, let’s walk more towards the centre; I think those two by the door are watching us.” You steered the two of you back onto the typical path but stayed close to speak quietly.

“In addition to breathing from the same cloud, two people have to have had a moment of genuine, mutual attraction between each other. Not, like, you pass someone hot on the street and think you’d suck the soul out of their dick before dissuading yourself from the impulse, because they’d clearly ruin your life, but a moment of true, lingering affection for someone that you don’t talk yourself out of. A moment worth thinking about later. Hey, Rika,” Ito said loudly as you passed another patient on the path, “Good to see you today. How’s your cult? You don’t know? Great! Healthy! See you later!” Ito and you sped-walked past her, and once Rika was out of earshot, Ito lowered her voice again. “You don’t have to know the person, but maybe a stranger shared a moment of kindness with you. Maybe an old friend laughed in a new way. It’s a moment where you’re attracted to something past the surface level in a person, even for a brief second. I don’t give out soulmates with absolutely no attraction, even if it may seem that way.”

You, fuming, kicked snow out of your path. “That bitch likes me!”

Ito nodded. “And not just for your tits.”

“Shit,” you said, pushing hair out of your face and pulling your scarf to be snugger, “Nothing I do is gonna—”

“I can help,” said Ito, glancing over her shoulders again for eavesdroppers.

You stopped in your tracks. “But why would you do that? I’m just some weirdo.”

“Because when I have employed the help I’m about to offer you, it has been very, very funny to me,” she said, “and I don’t get outside news except through fucking letters.”

You joined her on the path again. “How many times have you done this?”

Ito looked up as she bit the pad of her thumb, trudging through the snow. “You’ll be the twelfth time. It’s like a part two to my quirk, but I usually don’t come across victims again to offer this sort of thing—and people usually don’t need it. Step one: we’ll need an airtight container.”

***

Cut to that evening in your dorm room, with you hunched over a ziploc bag sealed to the brim with her quirk’s pink dust.

Door locked. Lights down. Cosy pyjamas. Already under the covers in bed.

An increased probability of cliches, Ito had said.

You flipped on the flashlight on your phone to shine through the dust, pink light scattering on the ceiling like a home-planetarium.

Inhaling her quirk for the second time would still affect you, but it wouldn’t assign you another soulmate. Rather, it would dramatically increase your chances for romance tropes to occur in your real life. Stuff that only happens in rom-coms and fanfic could start to happen to you and your soulmate.

(“Like sharing a bed when there’s only one of them,” Ito had said, swirling her finger through the leftover powdered sugar and licking it.

“We’ve already got that covered with the teleporting,” you’d said.

“Shifting is what I’ve been calling the teleports, babe.” Ito had smacked her lips. “And maybe you’ll wake up grinding on his hard-on, now. Do you know how big his dick is?” she’d asked, and then she’d clicked her tongue. “Never mind; I wanna know about his thighs.”

“I can—”

“Or maybe he’ll spill coffee on your shirt and have to pat you dry, accidentally making your shirt see-through and getting flustered at your tits. Or maybe he’ll have to pick you up in the rain, and oh, no, the weather’s too bad for you to go home, and you have to wear his clothes, and—”

You’d snorted at the thought of wearing one of his jumpsuits. He didn’t seem to have much else.)

Either way, you had your ziploc bag of soulmate trope dust, and you had a soulmate reluctant to acknowledge you—even though you knew now that he liked you, that bitch. You’d prepared accordingly, already in bed, since Ito had said you’d likely pass out again. It sat a bit unpleasantly in your stomach that you were going to rely on cliches to jumpstart your relationship with Aizawa, since you hadn’t wanted to do that in the first place with teacher-student relationship cliches. But you could avoid that the best you could, you supposed.

You lay down in bed, adjusting your hair on your pillow, and with the bag on your chest, you popped it like bubble wrap, the dust surging into your face in a rosy burst.

***

Popping it Tuesday night led to a cruelly dull Wednesday, since, as seniors, Wednesdays were off-days for the hero course to spend more time in the field. You weren’t needed at Sakura Grove, as you remotely typed up your reports and sent them their way, and since all your friends were with their mentors, the hours crawled. You puttered around online for a while, before cracking open a book whose plot couldn’t hold you. Since no one was around to witness, you plodded downstairs to the kitchen in your pyjamas, stole one of Aoyama’s green tea popsicles for an early start to lunch, and booted up the console Kaminari kept in the commons.

While the screen loaded, you plopped onto the couch, licking the last of the tea off the wooden stick. What does Aizawa do on Wednesdays now that his class is loose? He frequents a cat café; the punch-card was poking out of his wallet on his bedside table last time you shifted to his room. But there are the mundanities—grocery shopping, catching up on sleep, grading, caring for Eri. And hell, how you’d like to share those moments with him—perhaps scrunching his nose at a change of ingredients of his favourite chip, stroking the neck of his cat in a beam of sunlight, braiding Eri’s hair with ribbon at the start of a school day.

Fuuuuuck, when will Aizawa let you in?

The next moment, you’re suffocating. Pitch black softness, swaddling and falling around you, sweltering within seconds, sweat beading at your hairline. You took a desperate, gasping breath—relieved in the slim moment a slant of light puckered in front you, until the hand shoved onto your face, palm feeling for your mouth and shutting your jaw for you. Within the cocoon, the frame on either side of you tensed, and—the hand fumbled, once you’d quieted, in the crack of light to clumsily cup your cheek, patting it abruptly before rubbing the thumb over your cheekbone.

From that touch and the peace it swept over you, you knew where you’d shifted: kneeling right between Aizawa’s legs in his sleeping bag. But he’s sitting upright in a chair and needed to silence you, so where was he right now?

You settled, leaning against the hard muscle of his calf and into his palm, nosing at it to signal you knew it’s him.

“You have twenty-seven minutes to finish your tests,” called Aizawa, and for the first time, you picked up on pens clicking, paper shuffling, and chairs scuffing against polished tile. “Don’t ask me when they’ll be graded; Kuranosuke-sensei isn’t set to return until Saturday.”

Bless him.

But okay. You’ve got about half an hour stuck between his legs under this desk in front of what’s likely a bunch of younger business students.

Huh, if you only inched your chin forward on his chair, you’d be perfectly positioned to nuzzle against his cock, maybe suck it if you maneuvered your arms out of the sleeping bag’s constrictions. But, you supposed, it would be very mean to tease him in that way in front of students who haven’t built that respect for him, and you’d prefer your first blowjob to be where Aizawa could throw his head back, face flushed, groaning loudly with a gentle, guiding hand on the back of your head—hey, now’s not the time.

You didn’t want him to feel the shame of having an erection in front of who were essentially strangers. It’d…you don’t want to humiliate your soulmate. You love that idiot.

But Aizawa was shifting his hips, to your horror, the thick fabric of his jumpsuit brushing your face in the moment his hand retracted, and the sleeping bag was shuffled down past the top of your head, which grazed the underside of a desk drawer.

You rested your chin towards the edge of his chair—yes, mere inches between your face and his clothed cock, but your breath probably wasn’t even hitting it. From this angle, you and Aizawa could share that suspicious glare he shot you, so you backed up the half-inch for your chin to rest of the very brink of the chair—he closed his eyes, his shoulders losing their stiffness—and you leant your head against his thigh, just on the inside of his knee. He heaved a silent sigh, giving a subtle roll of his eyes, and minutely nodded—an act so slight that if you hadn’t been looking for it, you would’ve missed it.

Aizawa’s hand came to rest atop your head, scratching his fingers gently against your scalp. Part of it’s the soulmate bond; part of it’s being touch-starved, but his gentle scratch was so fucking soothing that a hazy, relaxed sleepiness came over you. Your head sagged, nose pressing towards the underside of his thigh, while your eyes crossed. Maybe it’s the magic of his sleeping bag, but you’re so drowsy that the scratch of his short nails almost drowned out clicking footsteps approach the desk.

Aizawa froze, his hand stilling in your hair.

“What are we supposed to do with our tests?” came the whisper of a business student.

Aizawa made a grunt and moved as if he were stretching and reaching for something on the desk. “Whatever you normally do. Is there not a routine?”

“The basket we turn papers in to is missing.” The shadow of the student’s feet grew closer to the desk.

“Not my problem. Just leave them on the corner of the desk—” A tinny clink echoed through the teacher desk when Aizawa tapped it—his thumb swiping over your forehead to calm you.

“Gotcha,” said the business student, and you thought you were in the clear before she asked, “What—what are you doing under…?”

“Oh?” Aizawa jolted the chair forward to hide you, but with the jolt came his clothed cock pressed against your face; even through the thick fabric you could tell it’s his shaft pressed against the length of your nose and corner of mouth and balls nestled against your chin and cheek. “I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to text under my desk, the same as all of you do when you think I can’t see.” A metallic-sounding object scraped across the desktop, followed by an impulsively-large-sounding gulp.

“Your phone’s on your desk, sir,” said the business student.

His fingers now curled into your hair in a vain attempt to pull you away from his cock, but he couldn’t, with the scant room under the desk and bulk of his sleeping bag. Trying to be polite, you opted to avert your gaze from his crotch (even though it was right there), which shuddered so hard that you saw and felt it.

“It’s a common practise for pro-heroes to have secondary phones purely for work,” said Aizawa, taking another loud swallow of his drink. “You may want to invest in one.”

“Gotcha,” said the business student again, just as another shadow joined her at the desk and whispered for her to hurry up.

When they both retreated, Aizawa stealthily scooted back to gain some space in a move that looked like he was simply leaning back in his chair to drain the tea out of his cup—and you savoured the unshielded view of the tender skin of his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed—and hey, that’s—Aizawa relaxed enough to glance down at you, elbow on the arm of the chair, holding in the air the teacup you gifted him to replace the one you broke (nowhere nearly as nice as the pottery one you smashed presumably was, but its deep crimson glaze had reminded you of his quirk-activated eyes).

You were strangely moved that he was using your gift so quickly after he received it, in public, and not where you were supposed to see it being used.

Your eyes darted between the cup and his eyes until he noticed, and he raised the teacup just a hair in a toast. Nodding with a tired smile, you wormed your arm around to unwind his hand from its grip in your hair, unintentionally still tight, and held his gaze as you kissed the pad of each finger, starting with his little finger, the pink flashing from each tip until you pressed your lips against his thumb.

Aizawa never looked away, but he narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. You wondered for a moment if he liked the thumbprint bisecting the centre of your lips, the rounded edge aligning with the dip in your cupid’s bow. But his expression betrayed nothing, and instead, he raised the teacup to his own mouth, his hand returning to your hair for the rest of the period.

After the last student had petered out of the classroom and Aizawa had given an uncharacteristic little wave as the last one close the door behind her, Aizawa held out a groan as he kicked away from the desk, his hands flying to adjust his lower jumpsuit and then raking his fingers back through his own hair.

“How are you holding up?”

You balked. “How am I?” You shoved at his knees so that you had room to stand, and you sat on the desk.

Aizawa pointedly nudged your legs together (you hadn’t even thought of it that way). “Nice pyjamas.”

“You’re lucky I don’t sleep naked,” you said, plucking at your shirt.

“Am I?”

Was that…was he flirting?

Your surprise must have shown on your face, because he continued. “You shouldn’t walk back to the dorms like that. I don’t have anything at the school besides a spare jumpsuit, but Hizashi should have his jacket draped on his chair in the faculty lounge.”

“How romantic,” you said, flicking the side of his teacup for the hell of it.

“I don’t have another class to sub until the period after this one,” he said, pocketing his phone and other personals on the desk before handing the teacup to you, “Let’s go.”

Present Mic was gloriously absent from the faculty lounge, so there was no one to stop Aizawa from laying his stuff on his desk and swiping the jacket off the back of Mic’s chair. You set the teacup on the cat coaster and had just barely turned his way before he was sweeping the open jacket around your shoulders. Aizawa lifted the leather while you slipped your arms inside, and he zipped you up, stopping the zipper just above the curve of your boobs. You looked down, and he flicked the zipper up at you with a smirk.

“Are we married yet?”

His hand dropped from your zipper. “I saw what you did with the registration form. You’re not funny.”

“I happen to be hilarious,” you said, “I assume to want to adjust the mark?”

Nodding, Aizawa waited for you to tilt your head up and to the side. “I am not marrying you. You’re my student.” He grazed the usual spot behind your ear with his ring finger.

“And someday I won’t be.” You shivered as the frisson of his touch rolled through you. “You’d rather have even more paperwork, bureaucratical hoops, and possibly a ceremony at a later, inevitable date than one simple checkmark on a sheet? Not very logical, sensei.”

He frowned. “Stop that.”

A beat. “No otherwise rebuttal?” you asked, grinning, “You agree, then, that we’re going to end up together? That we’ll be—”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Funny,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek, eyeing Snipe in the far corner of the room, “Then, hey. Compromise. What if we just hang out with no romantic or sexual connotations whatsoever? I wanna get to know you better. You’re cool.”

Aizawa crossed his arms and followed your gaze to Snipe, who was bent over in his seat, cleaning one of his guns. “Think about it. Would you trust a teacher who spends time outside of school with a student?”

“How’s the training with Shinsou going?”

“You are not funny.”

“And everybody knows you’re training Shinsou, and they’re fine with it. You could say you’re training me,” you said, stepping closer to him, looking him in the eyes despise his hunkering down into his scarf, “Please say you’re training me. I want to spend time with you. Hell, actually train me. You could make me strong enough that you don’t have to worry about me, or any bullshit. C’mon, Aizawa. Please.”

“That,” he said, “I can easily deny you. Now, get back to the dorms. I’d like to—”

“What? Why,” you said with a whine, “How can you say that so quickly? You didn’t even think about it.”

“Yeah?” Aizawa turned to his desk to boot up the computer. “It’s because you’re already strong enough to take care of yourself. I don’t have to worry about you in a fight,” he said, just barely crinkling his eyes, so you figured that he’s smiling beneath his capture weapon, “Keeping you from being a fool—now, that’s something I’ll have to watch for.”

You groaned. Loudly. And for way too long. “Whatever. May I sit on your lap while you grade?”

“No,” said Aizawa, not missing a beat, “Go back to the dorm.”

“You want me to check on Eri?”

“Sure. That’d be—really nice. Let me know—”

“Yeah?” Grinning, you bounced on the balls of your feet. “How am I supposed to do that? Sounds like I might need a certain phone number.”

Aizawa collapsed in his cracked, leather lounge chair and spun it towards his cubicle desk. “No need. If you don’t shift to me in the next half hour, I’ll assume everything’s fine.”

“Oh, come on. I feel like I deserve some sort of treat for not mentioning your half-chub while it was in my face earlier.”

Aizawa rubbed at his temple, his eyes strained. “I’m busy grading and don’t have time to talk.”

He was staring into a blank screen.

“Fine, you big baby. I’ll concede to you this time,” you said, and before you could lose your nerve, you leant over to kiss the top of his head.

You’d bolted for the door before he could even turn around.

***

It was supposed to be a routine field exercise.

The hero course had been split into teams, each under the leadership of a faculty member, for a field assessment as twenty percent of your grade for your final semester. As an extension of the personal study starting with the student presentations from earlier, you were in the group focusing on stealth headed by Aizawa, along with Bakugou, Aoyama, and Todoroki (who swopped into your group last minute, since Midnight declared that he needed to get away from her group working on public relations). Bummed that no other girls were in the group, you resolved to make it work by being better than the boys. Not to mention that the three included would, hopefully, be dense enough to miss the subtler interactions between Aizawa and you that betrayed something else going on.

The four of you were to know as little as possible about the assignment as possible before going in, so you all spent the week leading up to it making contingency plans (you’d been told not to go out otherwise that week, so Midnight had to do her own work, for once, at Sakura Grove), with maps of the city and subway splayed out on the floor in the common room, along with bowls of trail mix Bakugou had thrown together, claiming that Aoyama’s stuff was bullshit (though you had enjoyed it very much when you ate it in secret that morning). All you’d been told was that you’d be making an escort in secret, without the target even knowing you were there.

No contingency plan could account for this.

A thunderstorm popped up on the radar out of nowhere, delaying the plane’s arrival, and the airport radio signal had been scrambled, fed into a different language, and back again. If you’d been allowed more details during preparation, you’d have more of the story, but all you could piece together now was excruciatingly obvious: the airport’s east wing exploded and caved before the plane even hit it, and now you were trapped underground under wet, crumbly tonnes of rubble, confined to a pocket of space barely tall enough to stand in, with the only structure keeping half of an airport bathroom’s mirrored wall from collapsing and crushing you being the charred, lower third of a column from the airport courtyard.

“You can’t blow our way out,” you hissed at Bakugou, who was climbing his way up the column to prod at the ceiling, “The column’s load-bearing.”

“I know that,” Bakugou said, contorting his upper body and neck as he gawped with his mouth open at the debris above him, “I’m just seein’ if there’s any light from the surface comin’ through, or if there’s anywhere rainwater’s drippin’ in.”

Hunching with his upper back grazing the rubble ceiling at the tallest point in the collapsed space, Aizawa frantically fussed with his work phone (which he genuinely had, after all) and his radio, unable to get a signal. “Be careful with your movements,” he said, mind barely in the conversation, “You could make the debris slip, or it could get weighed down with rain and further collapse. At worst, you want it to settle. Aoyama, are you getting anything?”

Tapping the AI filter on his sparkle shades away, Aoyama tore his gaze away from his handheld device’s screen. “Alas,” he said with a quivering frown. His ankle was being wrapped by Todoroki, who had been careful to refill the place in the concrete where Aoyama’s foot had been with ice, keeping the space intact.

“It’s fine; you’re doing well. Keep an eye on the signal. We want to know if we get one.” Aizawa handed his phone to you, giving you a short nod and the same job. “Todoroki, keep that cavity frozen. Keep an eye out for similar spot about to collapse and do the same.”

“I’m assuming this isn’t part of the assignment, since you’re taking charge,” you said under your breath to Aizawa, your back to the others as you stooped to stand yourself, arms crossed, “What relevant information can you share about the assignment that might get us out of here? Who were we escorting? If we know who they have for allies, then we can start to understand how the signals are scrambled and how to walk out of this situation.”

Aizawa stuck his tongue in his cheek. “None of it’s relevant. Our target has been isolated for well over four years and was being processed by professionals. She wouldn’t have had any opportunity to sabotage this procedure; St. Philomena’s has kept our target from having untracked outside communication.”

An uneasy stone dropped into the pit of your stomach. “St. Philomena’s,” you said slowly, biting your lip, “That’s a women’s penitentiary.”

Aizawa opened his mouth to answer but instead inhaled a mouthful of dust as the earth shook and clattered around you. Bakugou braced the column while you and Aizawa kept the bathroom wall steady, but the mirror shattered and fell with the wall, with Todoroki grabbing you out of the way of the sink from crushing your legs, icing the concrete shards into a makeshift support for the column, enough for Bakugou to twist out from underneath it. You gasped in deep breaths of powdery concrete yet dug into wet clods of silt and grime with the heels of your boots.

The ceiling had caved in by about two feet in height, and if Aoyama hadn’t skibbled away from his spot in the corner, he’d be buried under glass and tile. You experimentally knelt and stretched towards the ceiling—good for you, for having some room to move upwards, but Aizawa could only sit, now. Every heaving breath from your friends was too close for your liking, and the stone fell from your stomach right into your gut when you noticed the steady trickle of water between the rocks and down the column, cutting a clear, ivory path through the grey dust coating it. Bakugou scooted out of the ways of its dripping, letting it instead drain in a puddle next to him.

You and Bakugou nearly jumped out of your skins at the skrrrt of Aizawa’s radio, but nothing came through except static.

“We’re okay,” said Aizawa, once Aoyama started to show signs of hyperventilation, “The static is a good sign. Even if we can’t communicate specifics, they have a location on us. They know we’re down here, and if it seems like they’re taking too long, remember that civilians are the priority. We’ll be all right.”

Claustrophobia.

Not your favourite.

But Aoyama was clearly having a worse time handling it, so it’s better to set an example for him—see how calm you are? See how much you’re not being selfish, curling into Aizawa’s arms for him to pet your hair until it’s over, keeping him all to yourself, even though it’d be really easy to pretend like it’s the size of the cavern instead of your own selfish desires that’s making you touch him. See how mature you’re being, not even touching Aizawa, even though he’s right next to you. You’re being rational about the whole thing.

Todoroki stared off, his bright eyes narrowed and brow furrowed, and he parted his lips, wetting them slightly before speaking. “You should move closer to Aoyama,” he said to Bakugou, “Someone’s hurt.”

“The hell d’you mean?” When Todoroki gestured, Bakugou followed his gaze.

The water’s white path through the dust congealed and blushed deep vermillion as it coursed down the column, falling in thick, steady plops next to Bakugou, the upsplash ticking his exposed skin with red.

“Holy shit.” Bakugou scrambled away the best he could, kicking away from the water and practically into your lap, but he shot you a sort-of apologetic look and shuffled into more of Todoroki’s personal space. “Do you think—it’s not blood,” he said, smearing it on his arm, still running a dark red even spread thinly.

Aoyama cringed. “It’s not going to—it won’t fill up the—”

“No,” Bakugou said quickly, “It’s drainin’ through the cracks. We’re fine, Aoyama.” Bakugou made a point of dragging his hard glare from Todoroki to you, as if to say that keeping Aoyama calm was essential to getting out.

You checked Aizawa’s phone again for any signal, and, sighing, you stowed it to keep from scratching the screen.

“Nothing?”

Shaking your head at Aizawa, you resisted the heavy urge to rest your forehead on his shoulder. You know what? Maybe you could. He’s right there, and if you did it in this situation, it could be read as a simply act of comfort that you could have easily shared with anyone, perhaps. The two of you could stare romantically into the dripping, red goop, talk about your lives together, about teaching your psychotic friends, about sidekicking at Sakura Grove—

“Hey, don’t touch that,” you said, jolting in your seat, to Todoroki, who stopped, wide-eyed, in his odd stretch over Bakugou’s lap before he could prod with his outstretched finger the congealed mass accumulating in the puddle, “I think I know what that is.”

Beside you, Aizawa sucked in through his teeth. “Just once, I wish your deduction skills weren’t so good.”

Without averting your gaze, you moved to elbow him in the chest, hard, but he caught your arm and held it deathly still: he only touched you by your sleeve, though, so no soulmark would bleed through. Odds were that the mark was still furtively hidden behind your ear. Frowning, you tried to wrest your arm away from him, eyes on the falling droplet heavy enough to break the surface tension of the gathered, congealed mass, making the whole thing burst upwards in a dense, ruby smoke.

“Get down, as close to the ground as you can,” you said in a rush, cut off when Aizawa shoved your head to the ground with his hand on the back of your neck, his face inches from yours and only moving closer as he made room for the others to join you, cheek smushed against a patch of intact bathroom tile.

“It’s aerosolising,” said Aizawa, eyes darting over the ceiling, where the mist was rising through cracks in the rubble, “Follow where it’s escaping; we might be able to use—”

“No, you fucker,” you hissed (Aizawa squeezed the back of your neck), “Not all of it’s going to escape. It’s going to condense into liquid again on any surface that blocks it and then drop back on us.”

“Someone tell me what the hell is going on,” spat Bakugou, voice muffled from behind you but strangely reverberating back through the curved metal of Aoyama’s armour.

“We’re only going to be safe on the ground if it doesn’t condense, which is un-fucking-likely the way the thunderstorm’s moistened and lowered atmospheric pressure,” you said, the sound of water rinsing through crannies in the rocks growing from the far side of the cavern, “Aoyama, try to breath evenly but shallowly; you don’t wanna inhale this.”

The knuckles of Bakugou’s heavy glove struck the centre of your upper back. “Dumbass. Just tell him to hyperventilate, why don’t you?”

A drop of red water fell onto Todoroki’s pale cheek, sizzling with the impact as it was absorbed into his skin, a miniature puff of smoke emitting from the spot.

After a moment of heavy silence, Aizawa shifted his jaw, his eyes dark as they focused on you. “Academic protocols are over. Time to share what you know about Serendipity’s quirk.”

You dropped your jaw, even with the grit digging into your skin and jaw. “Who’s the insane person who assigned a bunch of students to escort fucking Serendipity—”

“I am,” said Aizawa, grip on your neck tightening and eyes flaring scarlet so briefly that you would’ve missed it if you hadn’t been inches away, “Considering your high level of academic success, I thought you capable enough to complete a more difficult mission than your—”

“Someone just fuckin’ say what her quirk does!” Bakugou’s hand curled into a fist with the fabric of your hero costume taut between its fingers, his fist lay, overheated, between your shoulder blades.

You jerked your shoulder away from him, but there wasn’t any room to go, so his hand stayed on your back, putting distance between the two of you, though his knees and hips still touched the back of yours. “Okay,” you said after settling, glaring directly into Aizawa’s eyes, “Serendipity is the third most dangerous villain in the western hemisphere, evidently being transferred today to the place Midnight and I work, because fucking no one else wants to handle her. C’mon, Aizawa, is that why I wasn’t allowed at work for the past week? So I wouldn’t know? Fucking—” You tried to give a half-hearted kick to Aizawa, but his thumb curled enough around your neck to locate your pulse point, which he pressed down on in warning. “But yeah, her quirk is so volatile and dangerous because—because yes, it’s a sex pollen quirk, but it’s fast, and you can’t solve it by touching yourself, like other sex quirks we’ve seen used for villainy; you have to orgasm at someone else’s hands. And no one can figure out why your internal organs shrivel and die within four hours—”

You inhaled sharply through your teeth as two droplets sizzled into your skin in quick succession, but the squeeze on your neck told you to continue. “Or the brain damage, or—because her quirk’s been studied, but no one can tell if it requires the feed of dopamine to the body, or not getting enough oxygenated blood cells, or capillary damage, or—” Bakugou thumped your back again. “—but no one is immune to it, and it’s fucking terrifying,” you finished, scrunching your eyes shut at the sensation of more droplets searing into your skin and into those around you, each person inhaling more with each individual puff of smoke from the viscous drops.

Tongue too big for your mouth, you trailed off, eyesight blurring as you zoned out for a just a bit, but you lurched back into reality when a hot ache stung the back of your neck and swept through your body. Aizawa retracted his hand faster than a viper striking, his eyes briefly holding the same dread yours did.

Shaken, you pushed yourself up to sit, and to your horror, an enormous gush of arousal pooled between your legs—you snapped your legs shut at the sight of the wet spot on your hero costume (and worse, the dribbling into the gravel), and Aizawa saw, holding a steady, neutral expression despite your visible panic.

“Fuck, baby—”

It hadn’t come from Aizawa but Bakugou, whose hips you’d inadvertently ground against when you sat up. His large hand came to grip your waist, fingers digging in and pulling your ass back against him, and his other hand clamped over his nose and mouth as he pushed himself up. “I’ve always known you smelled good, but this is somethin’ else—”

“Absolutely not.” Aizawa yoinked you away from Bakugou and put himself between the you and the rest, cramping you into the corner with pointed rocks digging into your back, and he held up his hand, Bakugou glaring a hole into his palm, vermillion streaking down his face. “You’re drugged. She’s drugged. Even if you both say you want it, it’s not a reflection of reality.”

Bakugou clicked his tongue, but Todoroki tilted to the side to keep his tense gaze on you.

“No,” said Aizawa, using the scant room and the end of his capture weapon to snap in Todoroki’s face, “You’d be ruining the professional relationship you have. You’d be violating her. There’s no way she’d actually want you.”

Bakugou scoffed over Todoroki’s quiet how do you know that, already palming himself through his costume. “I’d rather risk it all blasting out of here than suck Icy-Hot’s dick.” His other hand crackled with the beginnings of an explosion.

“You can’t,” you said with effort, mouth and throat coated with dust as heat rose to your skin, sweat breaking out at your hairline, “If you’re not a heteromorph, Serendipity’s quirk suppresses yours. It—it overwhelms your entire system—”

“You couldn’t mention that before I got hard?” Bakugou scowled, thumb playing with his belt buckle in consideration. “I would’ve blasted us out of here earlier.”

Aizawa shook his head. “It wouldn’t’ve worked—”

Todoroki made a sort of horting noise in the back of his throat, drawing everyone’s attention, before hacking a thick glob of red mucus right onto a spot of white bathroom tile, large trails of saliva trailing from his mouth.

“Holy shit,” you said softly, your eyebrows shooting up, and Aizawa held you back before you could even move.

“Mon Dieu,” said Aoyama, and he removed his sparkle shades to see it without a red filter.

Aizawa’s radio crackled static again, but nobody moved a muscle.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” said Aizawa, his hand still up but hardly deterring an increasingly twitchy Bakugou, who kept staring at you over Aizawa’s shoulder, “Aoyama, you’re probably going to hurt yourself and others if you stay in your armour. If you think you can handle being more vulnerable, take it off. Prop it up between the three of you and us.” The radio hissed again. “We’re going to camp out here until help arrives. Waiting is the heroic path to take sometimes,” he said in Bakugou’s direction, “If you find yourself succumbing to the quirk, that’s okay. It’s not shameful. No one is immune to it. If you can work it out among yourselves, that’s fine. No one here is going to share any details you don’t want out.” But here his voice darkened, and though you couldn’t see his face, you knew Aizawa was shooting a hard, unmerciful look towards them. “But you’re not going to hurt anyone here, and you’re especially not going to take advantage of her because she’s the only woman. To get her, you’ll have to go through me, and I do not intend to be kind.”

“Fucking hell,” said Bakugou, unbuckling his belt and sliding it off.

You were feeling a similar way, but Aizawa had you so backed into the corner that there wasn’t room to take anything off. So, instead of tearing off the increasingly abrasive and scratchy fabric of your hero uniform, you hugged your knees to your chest, thighs clenching, and bit down on your arm to keep from crying out. A choked sound still escaped you as a leather strap on your upper thigh rubbed closer to a more sensitive spot.

You couldn’t even lift a hand to fan your face—but with how heavy your limbs felt, even the promise of cool air couldn’t bring you to attempt it, and instead, you tried to find relief in the cold press of busted bathroom tile at the back of your neck—and you turned your head to feel it against your cheek, too.

Your hips rocked, knocking your legs against Aizawa’s back, and when he turned over his shoulder to spare you a glance, you jolted as far back as you could away from him. Not that you could go anyway but barely half an inch backwards. “Sorry,” you said quickly, shaking your head, “Didn’t mean to. Really. I—” Your heart flipped at his concerned face (himself looking a little red), and a sharp cramp curdled into your lower stomach. “Oh, fuck,” you said, a hand shooting to your stomach and doubling over—but your forehead grazed him before you could, and you let out a quiet yelp before jerking back into place, tears welling at the pain. “Sorry about that.”

Aizawa grimaced at your weak smile and turned back towards the others. You hadn’t even heard what they’re doing, since the blood pumping in your ears apparently deafened you to anything besides your own half-smothered sobs into your arm.

They were growing louder at their frustration, but they were, for the most part, not directing any of it at you. Hey, is—? Over Aoyama’s armour-wall, it looked like Bakugou might have gotten his cock out to start stroking it; maybe you could get a better look—

“Hey,” said Aizawa, blocking your view when he turned over his shoulder, “Stop all that squirming.” Were you? You hadn’t even noticed. “Remember what I’ve taught you. I know you can do better.”

“Oh, don’t say professor-y things like that,” you said with a whine while, yes, squirming in place, “It goes straight to my cunt.”

Aizawa closed his eyes for a moment, but he soon opened them and continued, unaffected. “Focus. I’m holding you to a higher calibre than your peers, because I know you can do it. What have you been taught about remaining calm in crisis? Ground yourself.”

“But I—”

“Do it.”

You huffed and tried to settle down into your body, counted, and exhaled slowly as you shut your eyes, waiting for your other sense to sharpen. Body scan—focusing on flowing energy, starting at your head, down to your toes, and back up again. But you had trouble on the return to the top of your head, since every cell in your body screamed to zoom in on the throbbing in your lower half—hard to say what’s tremoring more: you, or the walls of the cavern.

But there’s an infinitesimal sound that drowns every other maddening, oversensitive sensation: from the back of Aizawa’s throat comes a quiet, breathy whimper.

And—

“Oh, my fucking God,” you said, noticing all of the surreptitious ways Aizawa was trying to hide how affected he was: his hand clasped in a knuckle-whitening fist covering his lap, eyes watering with frustration, jaw tensed, neck and hand veins pulsating, sweating through his undershirt, and you?

Wetting your lips, you strained forward to brush his hair aside to kiss the back of his neck, and Aizawa fucking shuddered, the thing passing through his whole body. Though it hadn’t been your intention, your legs spread as you did so, parting on either side of him, and his hair flew into your face as he took in your legs surrounding him.

“Hey, no,” he said, and he pushed back on your legs, willing you to scrunch up to hug them to your chest again.

“I’m not doing anything—”

“You fucking are,” Aizawa hissed over his shoulder, “You’re being a goddamn brat.”

That shut you up immediately. Feeling slick drip out of you, you curled in on yourself, tucking your legs up to your chest like he wanted.

“That’s what I thought.” He turned back to keep guard.

His shoulders seemed wider than before.

Maybe it’s the heady, prickling excitement swarming in your chest at the unspoken threat of a punishment turned sexual, or maybe it’s the incoming brain damage, but you rounded up every nerve not currently on fire to keep pushing your luck. “Aizawa,” you said, soft enough for only him to hear over the squelching from the far side of the cavern, “If we were alone right now, what would you do to me?”

He didn’t respond.

An easy grin stretched across your face.

“Because I know there’s got to be stuff you wanna do to me, not with me, for how I behave sometimes. But I only want your attention,” you said, feeling a bit dizzy as heat flushed all over your feverish skin, “I know you can’t give it to me, because you wanna be all noble and stuff, but—”

Another cramp had you gasping and hacking up red-tinged spit. Aizawa started to turn his head, but you told him, totally deflated, “Don’t bother. I’m sorry—” You coughed up more red mucus. “I know I’m gross; I know you can’t look at me that way; I’m sorry I’ve been—I’m sorry.”

How can he be so calm? It’s not fucking fair that he can just sit there, cross-legged and sweating, with the scent of sex permeating the smoke-hazy air, and yes, he’s hard, but that’s just the stupid fucking quirk.

You’re dripping and clenching but still so, so empty, and the tears finally overflowed as Aizawa looked over his shoulder at you again. “I’m sorry,” you said again, eyes glazing over and breathing irregularly (for all the talk about Aoyama hyperventilating, you might be the one to actually do it). “I’ll—I’ll stop bothering you; I can handle this. I’ll, uh—” You cut yourself off at another cramp, seizing up at a stray spasm, releasing your hold on your legs and yanking at the roots of your hair. “Don’t worry about me; I’ll get—get Shinsou to make me come—sorry I tried to—I’m sorry; I should’ve left you alone—”

“Stop apologising.” Aizawa twisted to brush away your tears with his thumb, the skin that vibrant pink when he pulled away. “Christ, you’re burning up.” He hand returned to your face, this time against your forehead, and he frowned—yeah, he was frowning before you were pathetically raising yourself off the ground to nuzzle into his hand, to mouth voraciously at his palm, which flushed pink with every pass of your lips, and—

“Fuck,” said Aizawa, withdrawing his hand to press the heels of his palms into his eyes. You made a questioning noise, and to answer, he let his gaze drop to where the soaked patch between your legs dribbled into the rubble. He dragged his hands down the rest of his face. “You’re drenched,” he said, rasping.

A vehement moan from the other side of the space made both of you flinch, with Aizawa making a quick check to ensure their attention wasn’t on you.

You grabbed his capture weapon, pulling him close. “Please,” you said, panting, “Please, ‘Zawa, I’m not as capable as you think I am; I’m not good; I can’t take it. Please—”

His teeth dug into his lower lip as a grumbled scoff came from the back of this throat, and he shook his head. “God, not like this. It’s not supposed to be like this.”

Another loud moan and the sounds of skin on skin from the others brought another wince from the two of you, and Aizawa squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he’d steeled himself, determined and set. “I can’t have you corrupting my protégé,” he said (it was a joke, right? Why isn’t he smiling?), “but I can’t offer you anything more.”

“Wha—?”

Aizawa was nudging your knees open, his eyebrows raised, and when he turned to face the others, he scooted backwards to sit between your spread legs, pinning you between the rock and his back, crowding you in, and oh, oh, my God, you should’ve been embarrassed at how wet the back of his jumpsuit got as he pushed himself back to sit right in front of your crotch, but the first, pulsing wave of relief as your clit rubbed against him washed everything else away.

Did this count? Did this count as coming at someone else’s hands? You found the problem less compelling the more you thrashed against him, grinding your clit against his back so hard that your vision blacked out at the edges, breathing in that terribly awful frustrating sexy combination of pine and sandalwood, desperately huffing it in in gasping breaths and curling your fingers into the back of his jumpsuit to bring him closer: you needed to kiss the back of his neck again, to see that pink mark on his skin.

But it’s as if he knew what you were going to do, because instead of letting you pull his hair aside, he reached back to grab your hand, and he (mercifully) allowed the grab to relax into a hold, letting you lace your fingers through his as he guided your arm around his waist (an evil part of you was disappointed that he didn’t place your hand over his cock, instead of resting your entwined hands on his leg [cute]).

And you were quiet: you didn’t moan, so the others wouldn’t know, unless they could somehow make out your laboured breathing behind the hand you cupped over your mouth. You’re grappling for pressure against your clit, but it’s your shiver when he stroked the back of your hand with his thumb that triggered your orgasm—pounding, rushing, and all at once, the throbbing of your clit taking you somewhere distant and piney, with you slowly coming back to reality by an abrupt pulsing, for some reason, in the roof of your mouth.

And the quirk had passed through you.

It counted.

But it kept you bound in a tired haze, sultry and lethargic and red, and lost in the lingering high of both the scarlet saliva you kept hacking up and that Aizawa let you grind against him until you came, you closed in on yourself and did your best to stay awake. Your brain tried to worry about Aizawa, but the quirk shushed you and forced you into a cloudy exhaustion.

You were out of it when Aizawa’s radio crackled to life, when the rescue unit exhumed your team, when the EMT on duty looked you over. You were still foggy when you were put in a passenger seat of a government vehicle, but the fog dissipated when Aizawa climbed in the driver’s seat and told you to call Midnight.

“I don’t know the number for Sakura Grove,” he said, turning on the windshield wipers, “and I need to warn Midnight that I’m asking her to help me with this quirk.”

Thunder rumbled through the sky and into your bones as he turned into downtown traffic, headlights blurring in the rain. Blankly, you wrestled his phone out of your pocket and began to dial her work number. “Okay, traitor.”

Aizawa’s expression darkened, his face glistening with sweat. “You know that I can’t—”

“So I can’t do the same for you?” you asked, putting his phone on speaker and letting it ring (cranking up the volume to hear it over the rain pelting the windows), “I can’t just, like, hold out my hand for you to grind against, or, God forbid, give you an actual fucking handjob—”

“Stop it,” he said, and he snatched his phone from you, switching off speaker, and you crossed your arms to fume, staring out into the miserably grey morning.

You smushed your forehead against the cool of the window, watching the raindrops chase each other down the glass, and you tried to focus on car horns blaring instead of the conversation regarding Aizawa’s sexual release that he and Midnight were currently having.

When he hung up, you sat up from your slouch against the window. “Is that all you need me for, then? You’ve got the number. You might as well drop me off at the next light.”

Aizawa swore under his breath. “Stop being such a—” He cut himself off, his leg not working the pedals bouncing profusely. “I still need you to enter Sakura Grove.”

That was true. You had three number-codes to punch in for clearance, and there was a thumbprint scan at the building in which you and Midnight worked. Still, you scoffed. “Just get Nemuri to let you in. You evidently don’t need me.”

The hand on the steering wheel tensed, veins pulsing. “First name basis?”

“Some professors like me.”

“Forget I said anything,” he grumbled, and when you turned to the window again, he mashed on the car radio, volume loud over the rain.

After a babble of a drum solo and what sounded like shouting in English, you were able to translate the song in your head by the time it hit the chorus:

“Got it bad, so bad, I’m hot for teacher.”

Aizawa stared, baffled, at the radio instead of the road as the guitar picked up, and he changed stations.

Again, in English, but with a hypnotically alt-relaxed beat: “Can’t tell my friends, ‘cause they will laugh; I love a member of the staff.”

You sneaked a glance at the driver’s seat, where Aizawa was fighting traffic, his erection, and his incredulity at what he was hearing.

“I fight my way to the front of class to get the best view of her—”

Aizawa changed stations before the singer could finish the couplet, and he sank into his seat at the safe sounds of synth and guitar, but you sat up straight, eyes wide and biting back a laugh, because you knew what the fuck was coming:

“Don’t stand—don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to me—”

Aizawa smashed the radio’s off button, seething. He ran his fingers back through his hair, and after a deep breath, he opened his mouth. “What’d you do,” he asked flatly.

“Me?” you said, pointing at yourself, doing your fucking best not to smile, “What makes you think I’ve done something?”

Aizawa was panting. Chest heaving. Sweat visibly dripping down his face. Free hand darting between a superfluous position on the wheel, resting on the car door, and bunching up his jumpsuit to hide his erection, which only drew attention to it. “You didn’t—you and Nemuri didn’t orchestrate all this, did you?” he asked, teeming with nervous energy, “It’s a little—it’s a little too perfect for you, to get to see me dishevelled and desperate, to nearly get me to cave into what you want.”

Several feelings flooded you at once: revulsion at the suggestion you made a criminal use her quirk on you, anger that he’d even consider it to be in your character when he’s known you for years (and more anger that he thought you would want to lose your virginity with three other guys in the room), a wretched, clawing desperation to prove him wrong and beg for forgiveness—and a creeping disgust and shame towards yourself, for having been so vulnerable in his presence when he didn’t want it or you.

Time to shut down. “C’mon, Aizawa. That’s not very logical in the grand scheme of things,” you said, scathingly using his favourite word, propping your chin on your fist, and leaning against the window again, “And if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t let it end with my fucking soulmate going to someone else to make him come, especially when I was similarly helpless.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you—”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” you said bitterly, “but I wouldn’t do that. To you or to me. I don’t do things that would humiliate or hurt you.” You scooted closer towards the car window, away from him and his stupid pine aftershave. “I guess I’m a brat, yeah, but I’m not mean.”

To have something to do instead of talk to him, you exhumed the car manual from the glove compartment and started to read it, and you read that dull fucking piece of crap until you were forced to punch in your clearance codes for Sakura Grove.

As soon as he was inside the main building and out of sight, you slammed the manual and the glove compartment shut, and you screamed. No one would’ve heard you over the thunderstorm, anyway. Comforting that the weather was as angry as you.

You unbuckled and cosied up in your seat, glaring at the curtain of mist blowing rain horizontal outside. Lightning illuminated a worker rushing from one building to another, and she had to double back to get her ballet flat, hopping slightly to put it back on.

You don’t have another work shift until Monday, but you kind of wanted to clock in, anyway. It’d be satisfying to bitch about the whole thing with Ito. She’d tear into Aizawa. He deserves it.

Slunking down into your seat, you were struck with new terror: what if Aizawa were right? What if you did, inadvertently, plan this out, by inhaling Ito’s quirk dust a second time? Sex pollen was…sex pollen was a trope. A pretty fucking common one.

Oh, my God.

You clamped a hand over your mouth and tried to work out the logistics. Serendipity was already scheduled to arrive in Japan regardless of you inhaling the dust again, and—fuck fuck fuck. You didn’t like this.

You swallowed thickly, turning it all over in your head, and as the variables overlapped and blurred in your mind, you started to cry.

“Goddammit,” you said aloud, sitting up and dabbing at your face with your sleeve. You’ve already cried a lot today, and it’s not even noon. You’re taking a nap when you get back to campus.

You know who else likes naps?

You fucking sobbed harder, even though you were laughing a bit, too. You decided that you were too worn out to make any sound judgments. Go to sleep once you get back, and think about it when you wake up.

You sniffed and looked towards the door to the main building. God, he’s taking a long time. You’d figure that he’d edged himself to oblivion and back during the car ride, but no—

The next instant, you tensed up, frazzled, because a half-dressed Aizawa’s straddling you, hips jerking, driving into your own and biting into his fist as he came on your shirt, cum spurting all the way up to your boobs.

The groan he released once the spill of his cum slowed to a slight dribble nearly wrecked your ears and stopped your breath. You’re hastily, desperately drinking up details, eyes flicking over them rapidly in case they’re snatched away before you could notice: the weeping, pink tip of his cock, the only part of his dick peeking out of his jumpsuit’s lower half—the trail of dark hair leading up to it from his naval, framed by an infuriating v on his lithely muscled abdomen—all of his exposed, corded muscles of his chest, tendons visibly stretching and contracting in his forearms—and when he wiped that final drop of cum off his cock, it was with the thumb stained with soulmark pink.

Of course, for how much relaxation coursed through his body, it all fled him the second he finally opened his eyes.

You expected that he’d scramble to cover himself up and off of you, but once that initial panic faded, all he was left with was resignation. He yanked up the elastic of his boxer-briefs to hide his cock, and, sighing, he said, “Please. Please don’t say anything. I can’t handle it right now.”

You nodded. His eyes travelled over your face, his expression cracking. “You’re crying,” he said, voice breaking.

“Not because of you,” you said, wiping at your tears, “It’s something I did.”

He wiped away the tear stains on your other cheek. “Let’s find something to clean you up.”

While he twisted to fossick through the console for tissues, you swiped two fingers through the stuff on your shirt. So, this was a man’s cum. Weird. Thick. (You’ve seen some before; you’re not an idiot, but this was your first time, uh, experiencing it. Honestly, it reminded you a bit of the congealed quirk stuff earlier.) You rubbed it between your fingers.

“Oh, what are you doing—no, stop that,” said Aizawa softly, swatting your hand away from your cum-stained shirt. When you eyed the bit on your fingers, Aizawa sighed again. “Don’t taste it.”

He took your hand and wiped it clean, pink ink seeping across skin with every brief touch. He gave you a tissue from the pack he found for your tears, and he used the rest to wipe off your shirt.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything else for you to wear,” he said, checking the backseat.

“It’s okay,” you said, balling up the tissues and putting them in the centre console, “We’re going straight back to campus. I’ll just shower and go to bed.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Aizawa, and he lifted himself from your lap and moved to cross to the driver’s seat.

You grabbed his arm to stop him. “You should, too. Don’t run yourself dry.”

Aizawa froze, considering, and then he nodded, slowly sinking back onto your lap.

He braced his hands on his thighs. “I’ve been cruel to you.”

Too exhausted to argue, you shrugged. “You have your reasons.”

“I shouldn’t be so cold to you, though. It’s been wearing away at my conscience,” he said, patting his pockets on his thighs and moving down to his calves. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he said, “Give me your phone. You deserve my number, at least.”

You pulled yours out and opened a new contact before handing it over. “You’re sure you’re comfortable with that?”

“Yeah,” said Aizawa, tapping the screen, “So long as it doesn’t…lead to anything out of bounds. And…maybe you can stick around for a while next time you shift in your sleep.” He shot you a smirk as he returned your phone.

The contact name simply read Shouta. No surname or honorifics. Just Shouta.

Heat rose to your face, but it was much pleasanter than when it had earlier that day.

“Are you good to drive back to campus?”

Tilting your head, you pocketed your phone again. “Yeah, I’m up for it.”

“Good,” he said, climbing off of your lap and into the backseat, “I’m going the fuck to sleep.”

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair

#bnha #aizawa shouta #aizawa x reader #aizawa/reader #aizawa imagine #aizawa fic #mha #aizawa headcanons #aizawa fanfiction #aizawa fanfic #aizawa shouta x reader #soulmates #soulmate #soulmate au #dash it all

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heivexl · 7 months

Text

ABOUT YOU ; L.HS

synopsis ; you dated your ex in middle school, breaking up because he moved different cities. its been 7 years, why were you still thinking about him? going to the beach you two use to hangout at you bumped into someone

warning ; cursing, mentions of sex ig?? lmk if anything else needs to be added!!

pairing ; non-idol!heeseung x fem!reader

a/n ; i need to stop writing exes to lovers, but this ones pretty short. I LOVE THIS SONG SM THOO

‘ It's somewhere I go when I need to remember your face. We get married in our heads, something to do while we try to recall how we met ‘

letting the moon illuminate from your skin as you walked on the beach dragging your feet into the sand. this is where you and your middle school sweetheart had always hung around fantasizing about your future, y’know like getting married, having kids despite being kids yourself, young love stuff. little did you both know what the future had in store.

“so what’d you wanna talk about?”

“y/n im leaving.”

out of habit you laugh playfully nudging him

“youre not getting me this time Hee”

“im serious y/n.”

turning to him you looked to see that in fact he was not joking.

“like forever leaving…?”

“forever leaving”

just sitting silence staring into each others eyes to see what you should say or do next you swear you could hear your heart crack.

his hand found your hand and held it intertwining his fingers in yours. “i hope you know i really do care about you. sure we’re young but you’ll always be in my heart” nodding you smile bitterly “i care about you too.” “lets just sit here and enjoy the moment.”

there you two were, two hopeless romantic middle schools drowning in their thoughts as they imagined their future together drowning too.

“heeseung?”

“hm?”

‘Wait (don't let go) and pretend (don't let go) . Hold on and hope that we'll find our way back in the end’

“promise me something”

“anything”

“dont forget me.”

he laughs making you turn over as he ruined the moment between you too

“as if i could forget about you, ill come back for you yeah? just dont leave this city, ill be back sooner or later”

“promise?”

“promise.”

as stupid as it sounds you kept your promise. you stayed in this small town and never left in fear that the day he that he came back you wouldve already lost. but its stupid. everyone tells you that he probably already forgot about you and has moved on but you believe other wise.

you dont know why but you did.

but tonight something in your stomach was telling you that it wasnt worth the wait anymore that a middle school boy whos probably in bed with someone else shouldn’t keep you from leaving this town that had nothing to give but memories that you were holding onto.

you bumped into someone making you stumble back a bit. a jumbles of ‘sorrys’ were said between you two. the hand reaches out to you which you accept getting up. moving your hair out of your face your eyes meet a pair that look quite alike to the boy youve been waiting for.

“y/n!”

click !

heeseung.

“you remember me?” you asked not being able to hide the fact that you were indeed shocked.

now he was looking at you equally as shocked

“do you think i’ve forgotten…”

he paused tilting his head

“about you…?”

he finished his sentence in a almost whisper tone

“no, no! im just shocked. i’m-“

you scrambled your words

“sorry.” you stop taking a deep breath

“its just been a while you know, im not sure how to react”

‘There was something 'bout you that now I can't remember’

his lips curved up as he let a low chuckle out. you stood in front of him examining his facial features, the ones that stayed and the ones that matured. he was still your heeseung just 22.

“about that…” he looks down at his feet almost ashamed “please don’t think i forgot or didnt wanna come back for you, it was quite the opposite really. i was just in a self conflict wondering if you had moved on and wanted me to leave you alone…you know? it was weird to think that you might have moved on with your life and are happy where you are right now and your middle school boyfriend just came back out of nowhere. it took a bit of courage but i remembered the promise i made you of coming back and…

and i wanted you to know i kept my word to you that i do care for you. a lot,”

‘It's the same damn thing that made my heart surrender’

damn.

hearing those words again made you grin as you proved yourself right, that he hadn’t moved it, it wasnt only you who kept that promise from 7 years ago. you could hear your heart beat through your ears normally that would be concerning but right now this was music to your ears

‘I never know what to think about’

“i…

i dont know what to think or say right now.”

he intertwined your hands the same way he did before and smiled at you

‘I think about you so don't let go’

“i will say i think about you all the time,”

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tennessoui · 27 days

Note

how are my throat fic darlings doing? are Palpatine and Yoda both experiencing sudden Very Bad Feelings? do Obi-Wan and Anakin kill Dooku together on date night?

anakin slinks back into their house at least once a month with a dead sith in his mouth like a very deadly house cat who has a very honed killing instinct.

obi-wan is disappointed with him each time. he knew he shouldn’t have carefully pushed anakin into killing Palpatine and then rewarded him through joy and also sex. now anakin thinks if he just finds the right person to kill again he will get more obi-wan flavored joy and also sex. obi-wan tries to train him into being an indoor cat for a few weeks but it’s way too exhausting. too much sex. better to just release him into the wild and deal with all the bloody footprints he tracks back….so long as he keeps it all under his radar so the Jedi don’t find them

meanwhile the Jedi absolutely know where they are. like. yeah. probably down to the exact apartment address. they’re just spending a really long time debating whether or not they should go in and check on them. all signs point to attempted murder of the Jedi who is foolish enough to knock on their door but also can they be really sure that obi-wan is there of his own free will?? but on the other hand, obi-wan did leave the order to find anakin after being expressly told not to so is it really their business?? and he’s always been weird about his master so like. signs point to him being there because there’s nowhere else in the galaxy he’d rather be. and on top of that, no matter how grudgingly, anakin sort of did save all the Jedi so like. do they let him keep operating like business as usual because of that? and he’s cleaning up all the sith in the galaxy! they can’t really understand why but…why interfere?

#asks #squick tag: a/b/o dynamics #throat fic au #obikin #it’d be interesting to see obi-wan pulled into actually taking part in a murder #I think he’s capable of it #but I think circumstances would have to be carefully planned #and stacked against him #meanwhile #of course #there’s nothing vader would carefully plan more than something that has to do with his padawan

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sentinelpri · 4 months

Text

Just A Prank

James Wilson finds himself flustered as he leans against the wall of the diagnostics conference room with two pairs of eyes piercing right through him; one dark blue and one dark brown. Chase sits on the edge of the large table while Foreman sits in House’s spinning chair. Cameron, who would usually put a stop to what is currently going on, is out sick with a stomach bug she caught from a patient, and House is… Well, House. It’s over half past noon but Wilson figures House will show up some time in the next hour

With the rare dynamic of just Chase, Foreman, and Wilson, odd things are bound to happen; such as Chase suggesting that Wilson randomly kiss House as some sort of… Prank. Were it anyone else being asked to do this, Wilson might encourage it. House isn’t used to any displays of affection these days, let alone used to being caught off guard by them, so someone walking up and kissing the guy without any warning would elicit a pretty good reaction. But Chase is insisting that he, James Wilson, be the one to do it- not Cameron or Foreman or Chase himself, because apparently, that would be wrong. No, it just has to be Wilson.

“And I have to be the one to do this because…?”

“Kissing someone without their consent isn’t something that most people take kindly to,” Foreman points out.

“And you think he would take kindly to me doing it?” Wilson asks. “Also, I have to point out that it’s really not fair or correct to lump House into the category of ‘most people’.”

“I don’t think he’d ‘take kindly’ to it, per se, but you two already treat each other like that all the time,” Chase argues with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Weird pranks, crossing boundaries, doing things to each other that would normally be friendship ending… It’d just be a normal Tuesday for the two of you.”

“That… Is still totally inappropriate. I mean, romantic fraternization with other hospital employees. It’s technically against hospital policy. Everyone might’ve encouraged the date with Cameron, but that’s a little different than me just going up to the guy and kissing him,” Wilson continues, his face burning bright red.

On a normal day, he’s not so easy to read or so easy to embarrass, but he’s never been able to help it when it comes to House. The thought of kissing the man he’s been in love with since 1999 makes his head spin. He shouldn’t even entertain the thought, but with the ‘prank’ that Chase is suggesting, he does sort of have an excuse…

“What, like he’s gonna report you to Cuddy? If you don’t wanna do it, that’s fine, but at least make your excuse a believable one,” Foreman scoffs. “You know as well as we do that the man wouldn’t report someone to her unless they stole his Vicodin. Anything else is fair game to House.”

At that, Wilson stumbles over himself and nearly hits the floor. He doesn’t know what to say. With a sharp breath, he sits in the chair across from where Chase is on the tabletop and crosses his arms over his chest.

“That may be true, but-”

“And c’mon, it’ll be priceless!” Chase laughs with a mischievous grin. Part of Wilson wants to laugh along with him. The other half of him wants to reach across the conference room table and smack Chase in the head for coming up with something so stupid (and so tempting). “Don’t you want to see his face?”

“I can’t imagine how pissed he would be, so no, not really,” Wilson crosses his arms. He can feel his own gaze darting around the room, probably to avoid making eye contact with Foreman and Chase. “Where the hell did you two even get this idea?”

Wilson nervously paces the room, running his hands through his wavy brown hair.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Foreman quickly spits out, dark brown eyes shooting to Chase, who offers a shrug in return.

“What can I say? I was thinking of more ways to screw with House and it was something that came to mind. I’d argue it’s one of my best ones yet.”

Wilson wants to do it. He’s been looking for an excuse to cross that line with House for years. He shouldn’t, because once he does it, there’s a chance he’ll never be able to go back. Better yet, there’s a chance Wilson will kiss House only for the older man not to give a shit anyways. That’s arguably the worst case scenario. Wilson knows that, if it were to happen, he wouldn’t be able to look House in the eye afterwards. Then, House would know. It would be a nightmare.

No matter how badly Wilson wants to grasp at this opportunity, he’s well aware it could backfire. He gathers what’s left of his willpower to refuse.

“No,” Wilson says, shaking his head.

He hopes that’ll be the end of it. Chase, however, remains persistent.

“Look, if Foreman and I aren’t enough to convince you, how about this? I’ll cover your clinic hours for a month.”

“I’m not House- I don’t mind working in the clinic and I’m caught up on my hours. It’s actually a nice reprieve from my day to day.”

With a sigh, Chase reaches into his wallet and pulls out two bills. He holds them out to Wilson. Foreman holds his head in his hands with an exasperated expression.

“...If covering your clinic hours isn’t enough to convince you, how about two hundred dollars?”

Wilson is an oncologist who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. His debt from medical school is already paid off and he lives a comfortable life despite the three divorces and subsequent alimony payments he’s wracked up. Yet, with Chase so determined to convince him… No one can say he jumped at the opportunity to do this. House will probably just laugh it off- find it hilarious- love that someone was playing him at his own game by pulling a prank so inappropriate and controversial. It’ll be fine, and if it does go to shit, he can just pin the blame on Chase for coming up with the idea in the first place.

So, against his better judgment, Wilson agrees.

“Fine.”

He reaches out to take the money from Chase’s hand and shoves it into the front pocket of his white coat.

“Where do you think he’s at, anyway? He’s usually late, but not this late,” Foreman stands and gestures to the clock on the wall. It’s already almost one in the afternoon.

Knowing him, he’s probably in the cafeteria. He doesn’t have any cases today, so he showed up late to avoid clinic duty and made sure to time it so he wouldn’t get here until the start of his lunch break. He’s just using it to find out where Cuddy is so he can avoid her for the rest of his shift since she can’t make him work during his scheduled break,” Wilson explains. “If I were you guys, I wouldn’t count on seeing him much today.”

“Oh, I know we don’t have any cases, I didn't want to see him for work purposes. I’ve just gotta be there for the big moment,” Chase says while excitedly gathering his things so he can stand and head towards the door. “Well? What are we standing here for? Let’s go; to the cafeteria!”

“You know if he figures out you’re behind this, he’s going to have you covering his clinic hours and shining his shoes for the next year, right?” Foreman chuckles.

“Wait,” Wilson’s eyes flicker between Foreman and Chase, who are now standing by the door and peering back as if they’re waiting for him to join them. “You- you want me to go do this right now?”

“Yeah, duh,” Chase answers. “Now let’s go!”

Chase and Foreman both leave the conference room. Wilson, too stunned to respond, takes a moment to catch up and follow them to the cafeteria. When they arrive, it’s easy to spot House. The man is six foot two and gorgeous, so Wilson manages to pick him out of the crowd in seconds.

House walks by himself in the middle of the cafeteria with a tray of food lazily held in one hand and his cane in the other. His narrow shoulders are adorned with one of the many t-shirts he’s stolen from Wilson and his favorite leather jacket. Wilson’s heart skips a beat when House smiles. The man is probably thinking about some interaction he’s had today where he’s fucked with someone- just for the fun of it. Wilson hates that he’s so in love with that antagonistic side of House, hates that he’s head over heels for House despite years of the older man meddling in his personal life, pulling shitty pranks on him, teasing him, and generally screwing with him at each and every turn.

Maybe this prank isn’t such a good idea. But, as nervous as Wilson is, even he can admit that House deserves to be the one being messed with for once.

“Oh, do you see him?” Foreman says.

“I do,” Chase pipes up and nudges Wilson’s side with his elbow. “Well, what are you waiting for? That money wasn’t for nothing- go for it!”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. You owe me twice as much if he starts beating me with his cane for pulling this crap while we’re at work,” Wilson grumbles.

He breaks away from Chase and Foreman and goes up to House, who catches his eye and offers a smile. Wilson forces himself to smile back as House meets him in the middle of the cafeteria with his tray still in hand.

“Hey, Wilson,” House greets, a twinkle in his icy blue eyes. Wilson swallows the lump in his throat and stares back at his friend, who shamelessly eyes him up and down. “What, cat got your tongue? Or did you swallow sandpaper? Seriously, the face you’re making right now makes you look like a constipated-!”

Before House can finish, Wilson goes for it. He places his hands on House’s shoulders, screws his eyes shut, and gently presses his lips into House’s. The other man’s mouth tastes like coffee and Vicodin. It’s a bitter and terrible combination, but it’s House, and Wilson realizes that this may be the only chance he gets to experience it. He commits it to memory, savors it, loves it as if it’s the man himself.

Wilson expects House to pull away. It doesn’t happen.

Fine enough- he figures it’s out of shock, and that House will pull away in a few moments. Wilson is proven wrong when he hears House’s lunch tray clatter to the floor. Surely then, House should retract to pick up the mess. Again, it doesn’t happen.

His cane falls right after the tray, and Wilson gets ready to move, but he finds himself frozen in place when House grips him by the collar and drags him in to deepen the kiss. He moves his mouth against Wilson’s, chapped lips consuming the oncologist’s softer ones.

Wilson is snapped out of it when he hears gasps and whispers in the cafeteria. He jerks back so he can look up at House. There’s no mirror around, but if there were, Wilson is sure he would see that his face has paled with horror. He can’t so much as make eye contact with House.

And for a moment, House appears smug; shit-eating grin, raised eyebrows, and that familiar darkness that takes over his gaze when he feels like he’s won something. However, that smugness is quickly washed away when House scans Wilson’s face.

“It-” Wilson stutters, unsure of how to explain what he was doing or why he was doing it. Unsure of how to react to House kissing him. Unsure of why House kissed him back at all, but especially unsure of why House kissed him back so fast. He barely manages to force out the breathless words his brain jumbles together in its panicked state. “It was just a prank. Chase, he- he thought it would be a good way to mess with you, paid me two hundred dollars. I’ll give you the money, if you want…?”

The initial disappointment that laced House’s expression just seconds before transitions into hardened anger; the kind of ice-cold rage that he so brilliantly displays whenever he feels like he’s been betrayed by someone he trusted. It makes sense. Even in his anxious state, Wilson is thinking rationally enough to know he deserves it and should’ve expected it. After all, House has never taken well to any form of embarrassment.

Without saying so much as a word, House retrieves his cane and swiftly turns to exit the cafeteria, leaving Wilson to pick up the mess of his lunch tray while everyone else stares holes into him.

The next day, Wilson is an anxious mess. He went to House’s office multiple times after lunch yesterday and couldn’t find the man. He called and sent multiple texts, and each and every one was ignored whether it was to House’s office phone, flip phone, or pager. He hasn’t been able to find House in any of the clinic rooms, in the conference room that the diagnostics team uses, or in any of the staff offices including his own, but he knows House is there as the team is apparently working on a new case. House has just done a masterful job of avoiding him specifically.

Wilson quickly comes to the conclusion that House is angry; justifiably so. On top of being kissed in a group full of their patients and colleagues, Wilson also accidentally rejected him in front of said people by jerking away from House’s kiss as if it were the plague and loudly announcing that his initiating of the kiss was just a prank. It’s a miracle the man didn’t quit on the spot and move across the country following that kind of humiliation, because Wilson knows he would have if it were him.

Wilson feels awful about it. All he wants to do is get a hold of House so they can talk in person and clear up this misunderstanding. House put himself out there by kissing Wilson back, pretty much confessed his feelings as eloquently as he could without using actual words, and Wilson went and fucked it up with his panicked response.

The brunette is sitting in his office stewing about the kiss; partially wishing he hadn’t done it in the first place, partially praying for it to happen again. He has a thousand things he should be doing instead; writing a speech for an upcoming conference, emailing patients, looking at lab results for said patients, scheduling consults. Sadly, all he can focus on is House and how badly he wants to find the diagnostician and confess his feelings before this situation can get any worse.

Poor Cameron returned to work today and is clearly uncomfortable with the tension, Chase is amused by the whole thing to an annoying degree, and Foreman is so clearly fed up with all of them. Wilson wishes things would go back to normal- or at least not be like this any longer. It’s only been one day and he’s already exhausted by it.

He has a lunch tray sitting in front of him with a bag of chips and a scrambled egg bowl that he’s hardly picked at. In front of him also sits his laptop, which is opened to show his emai inbox. Before Wilson can start sifting through said emails, the glass door to his office is slammed open so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter and break. He looks up to see House, who angrily hobbles in.

If the situation weren’t so tense, he’d find the whole thing comical; House’s evident anger, House’s childish avoidance of him, the fact that they kissed in the middle of the cafeteria.

“So, it was just a prank,” House says, his tone accusatory.

“Uh,” Wilson nods, takes a sip from his water bottle, and clears his throat. “Yeah. Why did you kiss me back?”

“Well,” House scoffs, eyes darting around the room. He stands in front of Wilson’s desk and impatiently taps his cane against the floor; something he does when he’s trying to come up with an excuse for something. As per usual when he’s been rejected or perceives a discussion as a conflict, he goes on the defensive. “Obviously, I was just playing into the bit. That’s all it was, right? A joke?”

“House, you don’t have to lie. The cat’s out of the bag for both of us now so it’s honestly kind of embarrassing for you to-”

“Now give me the chips on your tray,” House huffs and walks behind Wilson’s desk to stand right next to where he’s sitting. He snatches the chip bag off of the lunch tray in front of Wilson but remains standing so close that Wilson can smell the sandalwood laundry detergent he uses wafting off of his outfit. “I’ve got a case to work on, and this one isn’t a cancer patient, so it has nothing to do with you.”

“But I-” Wilson objects in hopes that House will listen to him enough for them to talk this through, only to quickly be interrupted.

“One more thing,” House pauses.

Wilson is optimistic that they’ll finally get to talk like he’s been wanting. Instead, House puts the chips down, grabs Wilson by the tie, and yanks him up for a kiss. Wilson barely has the time to register the taste of toothpaste and breath mints prior to House pulling away and taking the chip bag back from the desk.

“What the hell-”

“Oh, sorry about that! Try not to get your hopes up or anything,” House says in a mocking tone and feigns a pitying expression as he briskly heads towards the glass door with his cane in one hand and Wilson’s stolen chip bag in the other. “After all, it was just a prank.”

And then, House is gone.

Wilson slumps down into his office chair and lets out a long, heavy sigh. As tempting as it is, it’s best not to chase after House in the middle of the hospital- the jackass will embarrass him someway, somehow. His dark brown eyes land on his now half-empty lunch tray, and then on his open laptop.

“Fucking breath mints… He planned to catch me off guard by coming in here and pulling that, didn’t he? …God, I’ve got so much to do.”

Another day passes with no progress. Wilson was hoping the situation would smooth itself out naturally, but it seems as if House is still equally as pissed as he was the afternoon Wilson kissed him in the cafeteria, so he decides he’ll simply have to find House and sort it out himself.

Wilson knows better than to try and do this honestly. House raged and ran out on him at the hospital the other day, and then avoided him and treated him like shit yesterday. Every call and every text from Wilson has been ignored while House’s team says he’s still responding to them as usual.

So, Wilson brings a box with him to House’s apartment complex. He knocks on House’s door, sets the box down, and quickly hides a few feet away to avoid being seen through House’s peephole. The moment House opens the door to retrieve the surprise ‘package’, Wilson approaches. House quickly scoffs and tries to retreat inside to shut the door, but before he can pull it all the way closed, Wilson blocks it with his foot.

“Nice trick, Jimmy. If I weren’t filled with such unbridled rage and disdain for you right now, I might be impressed. Did you forget you have a spare key?”

“Okay, House,” Wilson starts. He doesn’t bother acknowledging House’s quip about the spare key that was, in fact, forgotten on his keychain. “You’ve been avoiding me and I think we’re just a tad overdue for a nice, long talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about? You kissed me and I kissed you back. You’re not stupid, Wilson,” House rolls his eyes. Realizing that Wilson isn’t going to give up, House swings the door open and stares down at him. Wilson shrinks into himself. While House’s face doesn’t betray his emotions, his hands certainly do. One of them is gripping the doorknob so hard that his knuckles are burning white, while the other is braced against the wall his cane is propped up on. He’s upset; angry, still. “You know how I feel now. There’s no need for an exchange of words.”

“W-Well, I-”

“I can’t even be mad at you, you know. That’s the worst part,” House rambles. Without any indication that he’s going to do so, he storms into his living room, leaving the door wide open. Wilson takes it as an invitation and slinks into the apartment where he shuts the door behind him and takes his shoes off at the entryway. House continues his rant and plops down onto his brown leather couch. “Going and kissing someone as a prank- if I would’ve been in your shoes with Chase telling me to do something like that, I would’ve done it to fuck with you without getting paid. I would’ve jumped at the idea, reveled in it, found it fucking hilarious!”

Wilson blinks, still standing awkwardly in the middle of House’s entryway.

“Then why are you so mad?”

“Because I loved it! I stood there and made out with you like a teenager in the middle of the cafeteria,” House pauses, shakes his head, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. “...And I loved it. You know I haven’t been able to solve the case we got yesterday morning because of you? Chase solved it before I did! All because I’ve been letting my brain rot by using it to replay that moment over and over again, thinking of what I could’ve done differently to save myself that kind of embarrassment. I kissed you back, only for the whole thing to be a fucked up joke. Do you know how that feels?”

“You’re saying all of this as if I didn’t also enjoy it,” Wilson spits. To his utter dismay and frustration, House’s icy blue eyes narrow in suspicion. The damn idiot doesn’t believe a word he’s saying; the kiss, the prank, it’s broken the trust that they so blindly had in each other before it happened. It’s turned their entire world upside down. “Seriously, House, you think I would’ve kissed you for enough money even if I really didn’t want to do it?”

“I don’t know what to think,” House whispers, low, almost as if he’s talking to himself. He crosses his arms over his chest and stares down at the ground. His cane is haphazardly dropped on the floor in front of his bare feet. “I never thought you’d kiss someone at your job like that, much less me, and yet…”

“I’d kiss you in front of just about anyone if you’d let me. Maybe I just like you that much,” Wilson offers. He manages to muster up a smile along with the courage to look House in the eye again. As House stops to process what he’s just said, Wilson slowly walks over and sits next to him on the couch. “And… Maybe the prank was an excuse to kiss you, just to see what it’d be like. I never imagined you’d reciprocate. I panicked and didn’t know what to do because I was caught off guard. Before I did it, I mulled it over and came to the conclusion you’d find the whole thing hilariously disgusting, assume it was just for the money, and we’d never talk about it again. I guess I only got one of those things right.”

“Your deduction skills aren’t the best. They never have been,” House snarks. The anger seems to leave his body as he deeply inhales and exhales. His arms fall into his lap, and much to Wilson’s relief, he smiles back. “At first, I hoped it was a genuine gesture. It’s out of character for you to act out something so dramatic in public, but I’ve felt this way for such a long time that I got my hopes up, so when you panicked… Well, I’m sure you get it.”

“Yeah,” Wilson nods and reaches out to hold one of House’s hands. Surprisingly, it’s the first time they’ve done this, but House intertwines their fingers as if it’s natural for them. Wilson could get used to the warmth that comes from House’s calloused thumb gently stroking the back of his hand. “I think I do, but… It was wrong of me to agree to do that in the middle of the cafeteria for my own selfish reasons. I should’ve manned up and told you how I felt on my own instead of using that stupid prank Chase came up with as an excuse to kiss you and gauge your reaction.”

“I’m not going to deny that. Still, though, are we going to sit here and pretend like I didn’t deserve it to some extent? I know I’ve run you through the wringer for a long time, Wilson,” House laughs and leans back into the couch, eyes now trained on the ceiling above them. “I’m sure the sadistic part of you that you refuse to admit is there got some sort of satisfaction out of making me miserable for a day or two.”

“Not really,” Wilson chuckles. House is staring at him now. It looks like he wants something- maybe like he wants Wilson to say something specific- but Wilson isn’t sure what it is. “I wanted to shock you, maybe, not make you scorch-the-earth pissed for two days. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“Well,” House smirks, icy blue eyes flickering to Wilson’s lips and then back up to meet the brunette’s gaze. “I do have one idea, but I’m afraid you may not be comfortable doing it without an audience; say, a cafeteria full of our patients and coworkers.”

Wilson scoffs and rolls his eyes, a fond smile taking over his face. He scoots closer to House and places his spare hand on the man’s thigh.

“Fortunately for you, I’m afraid you’re wrong- and yes, you are capable of being wrong.”

“Really? Then prove it.”

“Fine.”

With that, Wilson leans in and kisses House once again, the two men struggling not to grin against each other’s lips.

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