#which as it turns out is EXACTLY how i want my enemies to lovers plots by the way. there is literally no way to beat this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

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#which as it turns out is EXACTLY how i want my enemies to lovers plots by the way. there is literally no way to beat this

celestie0 · 5 days

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gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch2. you may now kiss the bride!!

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, n have been taking care of your sick mom ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, mild love triangle(s), gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity; btw gojo in this fic is in his early 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 2/x (probably 10)

ᰔ words. 16.8k (i be yappin)

a/n. AHHH thanks very much for 2k followers!! yippeee :”) i had a lot of fun writing this chapter of ihm i feel like there’s a lot of silly but a lot of angsty too and i got to set up a lot of secondary plot lines in this chapter which was fun. i really hope you enjoy!! see ya at the bottom!!

nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 (pending)

“Can you chop down that stupid avocado tree of yours already? It keeps dropping its devilish spawn all over my herb garden.”

“Wow. Good afternoon to you too.”

Gojo scratches the back of his head from where he’s opened the front door of his house, standing in his pajamas and you briefly glance down at his bunny slippers before looking back up at him with a ridiculing face before pushing past him into his house.

Gojo’s house is almost the exact mirror of yours, as are most houses in the neighborhood, but it’s been a while since you’ve been inside of it and so you take an indulgent look. A cozy family room to the side, which you see he’s decorated with a coffee table and a loveseat, and the staircase is visible from the entrance. A modest dining table sits where the carpet turns into wood, and you’ve noticed he’s made the effort to place real hardwood on his floors contrary to the laminate in yours. Ok, show off. Your eyes take in the paintings on the wall, and you remember how his house almost looks fake, like in the way he sets up props in open houses he’s showing for clients, as if someone lives here and yet somehow there’s no real living proof of it.

And because it’s pretty much the exact same layout as your house, you know exactly where the pantry room is, and you grab a bunch of Doritos and Pocky from his secret snack drawer.

“Oh yes, go right ahead. Please,” he says sarcastically as he leans against a support pillar near the dining room and watches you stuff your face with his snacks.

“So,” you say, muffled, “did you grab the paperwork?”

“No, I didn’t.” He glances at his watch. “My friend’s a family law lawyer, and he’s gonna be here soon to help us out with the prenup.”

You roll your eyes. “Oh my god, you’re being serious about the prenup? You really think I’m trying to gold dig at the cobwebs of your bank account? How little self respect do you think I have?”

“...do you really want me to answer that questi–”

The doorbell ringing startles you, and you quickly wipe at your face to clear any crumbs before setting the wrappers in your hands onto a bookshelf as you watch Gojo head to the door and open it.

You hear another distinct masculine voice ring in the air as Gojo exchanges pleasantries with him in the form of a handshake and a familiar hug with a few pats on the back, and then the angle Gojo twists his body reveals the man standing outside the door. He’s a bit shorter than Gojo with a lean build, clad in a fiercely formal black suit and tie with polished shoes. His hair is well-kept, short and raven black, and his eyes are sunken with what you can only imagine is fatigue. And it’s kinda hot to you, unfortunately, after years of working the night shift, you’re starting to find dark circles under people’s eyes to be extremely attractive.

“Uh, y/n, this is my friend, Higurama. Hiromi Higurama,” Gojo says, gesturing between the two of you, “and Hiromi, this is y/n. My obnoxious neighbor. Careful though, if you get too close she’ll bite off your fingers.”

“I’ll bite off a different appendage of yours if you don’t shut the fuck up,” you snarl at him, and Higurama takes a step inside the house to greet you with an outstretched hand.

“Hi, it’s lovely to meet you,” he says, and you’re a little startled by the politeness, but aptly shake his hand and nod before squawking out a likewise!!

You look past Higurama at Gojo who’s got an eyebrow raised at you, and then your eyes are on Higurama again as you watch him set his briefcase down on the dining table. “Are we ready to discuss?” he asks, brown eyes darting between the two of you. You nod and take a seat across from him, and Gojo first grabs everyone some glasses of water before he takes a seat at the head.

“So,” Higurama starts, “I take it you two are madly in love and would like to enter a marital agreement to declare your affections for one another in the court of law under just circumstances?”

You blink at him. “Y-Yes. Very just circumstances. Nothing shady going on here, we are indeed very madly in love and would like to get married.”

“Why the fuck would you say it like that?” Gojo chirps in but not before sighing.

“T-The way he asked was really nerve wracking!!” you counter. And then your eyes widen when you look at Higurama again, who has a slightly amused tug to his lips. “...oh, you already know this marriage is a fraud.”

“I was just testing you,” he casually says, “in case they mention any suspicions in court. Seems you should just let Satoru do the talking.”

You pout a little and sink further into your seat, then bring the glass of water up to your lips.

“Well, in any case,” Higurama says, and then he goes on into the details of what to expect in the courtroom. He pulls out paperwork for the marriage license application and starts to walk the two of you through the prenuptial agreement.

“It’s my understanding you’re both desiring a prenup for this marriage?” Hugurama asks, brow furrowed slightly as he rustles through the endless papers in front of him that he was drowning in.

You briefly glance at Gojo, who’s also looking through all the papers with a concentrated look on his face, his features tense and he’s slightly worrying his bottom lip through his teeth. He’s thinking way harder about this whole prenup thing than you would, and you realize he’s genuinely taking this very seriously.

“Um, yes,” you acquiesce, suddenly feeling a little guilty. And you remember who’s the one in need of the favor here. “I’m okay with the prenup.”

Higurama tells you two about the implications of the prenup, what can and cannot be included under state laws, and stresses the importance of full financial disclosure and fairness in the agreement to ensure its enforceability in the event of a divorce. Basically, don’t fucking lie about anything or else you two could sue each other to hell for it should divorce occur. You both agree, and you’re feeling sick to your stomach with anticipation.

“Alright,” Higurama interjects your thoughts, “I will begin to draft the document then. Let’s start with assets.”

Gojo drones on about his tangibles, intangibles, cash equivalents, stocks, yada yada and you open up with yours too, but you can barely hear anything you’re saying and you can hardly hear what anyone else is saying either because you’re just dreadfully awaiting for Higurama to finally bring up—

“How about debts?” he asks, mindlessly as he types away on his laptop, as if the question doesn’t make you want to throw up.

Your breathing picks up in speed, and you’re nervously fidgeting your hands over the surface of the table. You glance over at Gojo again, this time startled to find his eyes are on you too. His gaze briefly flickers to the shuffling of your fingers, then it meets yours again as he tilts his head slightly in a silent ask of you good?

“Uh–” you start, when you feel Higurama’s eyes on you too now that the silence has stretched on for too long, “I’m…well, I’m in a bit of…debt. From nursing school, a little bit from undergrad still, actually…”

“Okay,” Higurama says, “how much would you approximate? I’ll need the official loan statements soon, though.”

“Well, I’m paying off slowly…but last month I have around seventy-thousand still to pay off.”

“Alright,” Higurama accepts, “and you, Satoru? Student loans?”

“Oh, I don’t have any,” he says, “I paid them off a while ago.”

You feel like you’re being opened apart at the seams, and suddenly feel ashamed.

“Alright, what about other debts? Credit card debts? Any loans to know about?”

You figured you just needed to rip the bandaid off.

“Um,” you say, “I’m about three hundred thousand dollars in medical debt from my mother’s treatment loans.”

The room goes quiet, there’s no more rustling of papers or the mechanical jumping of keys on a keyboard, hell, even the birds outside stopped chirping to display their disbelief.

“Wha–” Gojo starts, like he can’t help it, before he catches himself out of politeness, but he’s still looking at you with concern and shock. “y/n…what happened?”

You look over at Higurama too, and he’s completely turned away from the document he was drafting on his laptop, full attention on you, and his brow is creased with the same amount of concern. And you feel like you’re in therapy. You also feel like you’re about to cry.

“Well…it’s just,” you start, throat feeling raw, “my mom couldn’t qualify for medical loans because of years of poor credit, and insufficient income, and her cancer treatments became really costly, and so–” you suck a breath in, because your voice cracks slightly at the end. You were not about to cry in front of them right now. “And so I decided to cosign on her loans so she could receive treatment, and stuff kept coming up, and I had to work reduced hours for a couple of years when she was first diagnosed, and…some payments got away from me, and so then…there was interest, and…it’s…I guess over five years, things just…accumulated.”

They both sit there in stunned silence, shifting uncomfortably in their seats, like they understand your situation is so fucked in its entirety that they can barely even bear to put themselves through the trouble of even imagining themselves in your shoes, let alone fathom that you’re living in them.

Higurama clears his throat and redirects his attention to the computer. “That’s… no problem for the prenup. Thank you for being honest.”

“Hey,” Gojo interjects, and his hand reaches out to lay over your fidgeting hands over the table. His eyes are serious. “Why didn’t you–” he starts, and his face softens slightly when you can’t help the small sheen of tears that reaches your eyes, “...why didn’t you say anything about this? I mean, anytime we’ve talked.”

It’s your turn to look at him with a tense expression, and you slowly withdraw your hands from the hold of his palm to place them in your lap under the table. “Uh, why would I share about my financial woes to my neighbor? Don’t most people just act like shit’s normal with their neighbors?”

“I guess, but I didn’t know it was that ba–”

Higurama’s phone starts to ring, and he glances at the Caller ID before sighing slightly. “Sorry, I have another client I need to see soon. We’ll have to wrap this up, but I’ll continue drafting this document. Please send me your relevant statements for any loans and–” he glances at you, “...associated debts.” He starts to gather his things at the table, then neatly tucks his papers into his briefcase before placing his laptop in there too. He reaches to shake Gojo’s hand first, then shakes yours, and holds onto your hand a second longer to gather your attention. His eyes are almost solemn.

“I truly hope your mother gets better soon,” he says to you, tone contrite.

You slowly nod and thank him, and then Gojo goes to see him out the door.

The house feels quiet when Gojo closes the front entrance, and he stays facing the door for a few seconds before slowly turning around to face you, back leaning against it as he crosses his arms in front of his chest, and just when he opens his mouth to speak, you cut him off.

“I really–” you say, “...I really don’t want to talk about it.”

His face contorts into confusion, and it looks like he’s about to protest, but you allow yourself to show the slightest amount of the hurt and the worry on your face, and he realizes that means he shouldn’t try to push it.

“Okay,” he says, and quietly.

Things are awkward in the air for a second, so you waltz over to the window and watch through it as Higurama gets into his car, some type of sleek old black Mercedes Benz but it’s polished to perfection, and you let out a content sigh.

“What?” Gojo asks you, tone a little short.

“Ohhh, nothing,” you say, bringing your hands up to cup your cheeks to feel their warmth as you take in the image of Higurama’s slender legs in his business attire, “I just…” you sigh again, “I just loooove men in suits. I wish I knew more men that wore them often.”

A beat of silence. “Um. I wear them often?”

You turn on your heel to face him. “Yeah, but you wear them in, like, a slutty way. Higurama,” you say, pointing with your thumb facing the window, “wears them in the actually respectable workplace way. Hence why it’s hotter on him.”

He scoffs. “And yet you’re always staring at my ass from afar when I’m wearing my tailored trousers.”

“I seriously wonder what it’s like to be so fucking delusional all the time,” you shake your head at him and he looks like he’s got a comeback on his tongue but you sshhhhhhhh him and walk back into the heart of the house. You look over your shoulder briefly, and see Gojo’s standing where you were standing at the window a few seconds ago, looking out onto the street, and he’s grumbling something under his breath you can’t quite hear. And then you hear the sound of Higurama’s car driving away.

You circle around the dining table, and take a seat to look through the marriage paperwork Higurama left behind for the two of you to fill out.

“Bring the paperwork over to the kitchen island,” you hear Gojo say as he makes his way to the kitchen, “I’ll fix us some coffee.”

The island has a seated side to it with bar stools that raise high and turn in fully 360 degree fashion, so you swirl around in your seat to make yourself dizzy while Gojo brews some coffee with his espresso machine.

“Mm…smells nice,” you comment, still swirling.

“Milk? Sugar?” he asks you, and you stop swirling to answer him.

It’s not the first time you’ve been to Gojo’s house. When he first moved in next door, you brought him a plate of cookies as a welcome to the neighborhood! gift and he had invited you inside and fixed you a cup of coffee then too. The house was mostly empty back then, he’s made a lot of good work in filling it with furniture in that sort of IKEA catalog fashion, and you can clown on him for it all you want, but it still looks nicer than most homes you’ve been in. Anyways, you only visited him in his house a couple times after that before you realized you hated him. Because he blasts loud music at the most random times, which you’re convinced he’s just trying to show off the sound system he probably spent an unnecessary amount of money on, not to mention an unnecessary amount of time installing. He also always forgets to mow his fucking lawn, and it drives you nuts because then the weeds spread over into your lawn, but it’s not like it matters because you hardly mow yours either, but still. And that fucking boat. That fucking boat he keeps right at the edge of your driveway that taunts you and your ability to pull into garages after every single one of your dreadful night shifts. One of these days, you might just steal it and drive it into the ocean so it drowns. Wait, boats don’t drown. That’s the point of boats. They’re buoyant. It’s okay, you’ll find another way to get rid of it. The boat, you mean.

“Here you go,” he says, sliding a cup of coffee to you across the island. You peer inside at the brown liquid, and the scent alone awakens your senses.

“So, logistics,” you say.

“Logistics,” he repeats after you as he stirs a spoon in his mug.

“We need to make this believable,” you say to him, “otherwise the marriage could be invalidated, and we could face criminal charges, and I could lose the insurance benefits for my mom, and potentially get sued by said insurance companies, and get thrown into jail for life, and—”

“And how much sleep have you lost thinking about this?” he asks you with a sigh as he brings his mug up to take a sip.

“I’m being serious, Satoru,” you say to him, “I…would just rather err on the side of caution. It’s a small town, people talk. And sometimes those people know the law.” You shudder.

“Who the fuck is out there that would be so pissed about us getting married just so you can help out your sick mom?” he asks.

Your eyes flicker downwards slightly in consideration. You can think of one person, at least. And when you look up at him, you’re surprised to see there’s a similar look on his face, as if he could think of a particular one person too. But before you can dwell more on the expression on his face, he grabs the paperwork in front of you and looks through some of it. “You should get started on your paperwork. Higurama filled most of mine out for me already, so you’re the one he’s waiting on.”

You groan and stretch your arm out across the island counter, then lay your head on your upper arm. “Sigh, why couldn’t he have done that for meee tooooo.”

“Probably because he doesn’t know you?” Gojo snorts. He’s silent for a moment as he takes another sip. You can’t see his face. “So,” he starts, “I mean. If we’re going to make this believable, which, to be honest, I don’t think a single person in this neighborhood would find us getting married believable, but still, if we were to try making it believable, wouldn’t it make sense for us to, uh, I don’t know, live together? Like what regular married couples do.”

“I am appalled you would even suggest that.”

“It’s going to look like we’re just faking it if we don’t at least cohabitate together,” he tells you.

“We can’t do that,” you sigh, “I bet you’d try to touch me inappropriately.”

“What???”

“Yeahhh, I don’t know, you just—...you just seem like a guy with very little self control.”

“...y’know what? This is over. I’m calling off this engagement,” he says, and he walks over to the dining table with his coffee cup in hand and you lift your head up off your arm in a panic.

“Wha–...no!! Wait!!” you say, grabbing all the paperwork off the island and bringing it to the dining table where he’s taken a seat. “Please marry me. I need it so bad.”

“Woah,” he says, looking up at you, and there’s a darker glint to his eyes. “You need it so bad? Can you say that again?”

You curl up the papers in your hands into a makeshift hollow pole and whack him across the head with it. “This is exactly why I think you would touch me inappropriately.”

He grumbles slightly as he nurses the spot you whacked him with two of his fingers rubbing the area, and then he fixes his hair with a comb of his hand through it. The sleeve of his shirt drops a little from the movement, and you can see the muscles of his arm flex, then your eyes are quickly darting away so he doesn’t catch the line of your gaze on him. What the fuck. That was weird. You blame ovulation.

“Alright, fine,” he says, and he grabs the papers out of your hand, “also don’t bend these. It bothers me.”

You circle back to the kitchen to grab your abandoned coffee cup, and then bring it to the dining table to sit down with him at it. He places your half of the papers in front of you. You glance down at the first few boxes to fill out, and you already feel like giving up.

You glance up at him for a distraction. “Aren’t you going to ask me how long I want you to be married to me for?” you ask him.

“Uh, how long do you want me to be married to you for?”

“Forever,” you say. To scare him.

“Yeah, right.” He waves his hand in the air dismissively.

You sulk because it didn’t scare him. “Six months.”

“More plausible.”

“Really,” you say earnestly, “six months.”

He looks up at you now, a curious expression on his face. “Why specifically six months?”

Your eyes find the color of your coffee fascinating once again. “I don’t want to put my mother in hospice for too long. I’ll miss her,” you say, “it’s just…something I’m trying out for now. And to just get a bit of a caretaking break, and also so I can pick up more shifts at the hospital to work on paying off my debt. It’s just…temporary.”

His shoulders roll back once and he sits up a little straighter, holding up one of the pieces of paper to study it better while he clicks his pen. “Alright. Whatever works for you.”

You twiddle with your hands again, blinking a little in consideration as a few moments pass by. “Uh…about living together. That’s fine. I suppose.”

His eyes widen slightly. “Really?”

“Yeah. But no touching,” you point at him with a strict finger.

He tilts his head back up to the ceiling in annoyance. There’s a roll in the muscles of his throat as his jaw goes slack. You squirm in your chair a little. Ovulation, you think.

“I’m not going to touch you, y/n,” he assures you when his chin tips back down. You just stare at him for a few seconds as he seems to be in thought about something, and then his eyes meet yours. “Whose house are we going to live in?”

“Mine,” you say, “yours looks like a shitty catalog. It’s lame.”

“True,” he says, “yours feels homey. I like that.”

You’re a little taken aback by his words, and then purse your lips together. Your sort of go-to thanks expression reserved for him. “So, are you gonna sell your house then?”

“Huh? No way,” he shakes his head, “I’ll just see if I can rent it out for now.” He shakes his head even more. “I mean, god no, I wouldn’t be caught dead selling a house. Not with these market conditions. You know how much it’s already risen in equity within just the past few months alone? In five years from now—”

While Gojo continues to drone on about the lunacy of not holding onto property in this housing market, your eyes widen slightly at his words, like your body realizes a truth to what he’s saying before your mind does.

And then that’s when it hits you.

How you can help pull yourself out of debt.

You slam your coffee mug down on the table with a little more fierceness than you probably should’ve.

“Hey,” he scolds you, “can you be careful with that?”

“We’re not going to live in my house,” you say, ignoring him, “we’re gonna live in yours.”

“Huh?” he responds, “...but I thought you said mine looks like a catalog.”

“A shitty catalog.”

“Did you need to specify?”

“We’re not going to live in my house,” you tell him, with resolve, “because I’m gonna sell my house.”

He sits up a little straighter at your words. “Like, the house next door?”

“Mhm,” you nod.

He sighs. “Were you even listening to me? It’s so much more worth it to–”

“I don’t care,” you cut him off, “I need the money now. Not five years from now.” Your eyes glance down at your hands, and your tone becomes quiet. “I…I don’t even know if my mom has five years left to live.”

A silence settles in the room, and you see in your periphery that Gojo’s stiff and still, like he’s barely allowing himself to breathe as if you’d find it abrasive, and when you look over at him, his expression is soft.

“I know,” he says. “It sounds like a plan.”

“Will you help me sell it?” you ask him. “I’d…need a realtor.”

“Sure,” he easily agrees.

“Okay…” you say, and take a sip of lukewarm coffee, as if you haven’t just decided on an extremely major life decision. “Um. I’ll go get the paperwork then. From my house.”

“Oh. Right now?” he asks you, and he leans forward in his seat a little to get a closer look at your face. “I mean, don’t you want some time to think about it before putting it on the market? We can wait for a little bit.”

“No. That’s okay,” you say, standing up from your chair, “I’ll…go get the paperwork.”

He nods at you slowly, but his eyes are observant, and you ignore it to keep up the momentum of this decision that was definitely the right decision by all means and one that you should not be hesitating on at all as it is such an epiphany that can help clear your debilitating financial burdens.

“Drive safe,” he says to you when you grab your purse off the coffee table in the family room.

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

The outside air is breezy, it’s a nice day with the sun shining down and sparkling off of sprinkler dew drops on overgrown grass, and you hop across with a pep in your step as you make it to your house next door. You’re always quiet when opening the door, because you never know when your mom is sleeping or not, and since her bedroom is downstairs, she’s privy to noises. Once you’re inside, you check to make sure she’s sleeping with a small creak open of her door, only to find that she’s sitting on her rocking chair and looking through a box of paintings.

Your heart twists at the sight, and you gently knock the door with your knuckles.

She glances up at you, and you can always tell from just the look in her eyes if she recognizes you or not. Because they’re warm and gentle when she does, but they see right past you to the wall when she doesn’t.

“Hello,” she says, “can I help you?”

You come up to her and kneel down beside her, placing a hand up on the rocking chair arm rest while she looks down at you.

“Hi, mom. It’s me. Your daughter,” you gentle reintroduce yourself. It’s what her neurologist suggested you do anytime she can’t remember you, but it rips away a piece of your soul each time.

Her eyes still see past you, abstract, empty with no feeling as she wraps her head around your words. “I am no one’s mother,” she tells you, tone sounding sharp and like she’s a moment away from terror.

“That’s okay,” you quickly remediate, feeling hollow inside from her words but you always had to be the sane one, so you direct her attention to the box in her lap. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh, I just found these paintings!” she exclaims. “I thought they were wonderful. Do you know who drew them?”

You smile up at her. “You did.”

“Me?” she blinks at you. The wrinkles in her forehead crumple with surprise, “oh, no, dear, I could not paint such things with detail. Look at me!” She holds her hand up. “My hand is trembling!”

She’s getting weaker. You make a mental note to bring it up to her doctor.

“You used to hold a paint brush like it was just an extension of your hand,” you tell her, picking up one of the paintings out of the box, “you were an art teacher, mom.”

“Don’t call me mom,” she says to you, that sharp tone from earlier cutting through to your soul. “I am no one’s mother.” Her eyes shimmer with a light sheen of tears.

You stare at her, brow pinching together with hurt, but you bite back the part of you that wants to beg her to remember you, to take one close look at you, and see you with warmth and not emptiness. But she sees past you all the same.

“Can you do something for me?” you whisper to her.

“Yes?” she asks.

“Could you please lay down? You need some rest.”

“Are you my nurse?” she asks.

You breathe in deep. “Yes.”

“Am I…” she glances briefly at her reflection in the vanity mirror, her eyes flitting up to the head scarf on her head that covers the absence of hair, “am I sick?”

You exhale. “Yes. You need rest.”

“Oh…” she acknowledges, “why, yes. I do feel…a little frail.”

“I know,” you comment, and you put the box down on the floor then help her up onto her feet slowly by holding onto her arm, and you guide her to sit on the bed and take her medications. She then lays down, and you nod at her reassuringly before you head out the door and close it behind you.

Your lip trembles with the threat of a sob as you stare straight forward at the wall in the dimness of the hallway. But a harsh bite to the plush of it ceases the quiver.

You make your way up the stairs to go grab that binder you had with the mortgage and house information, plus some of your recent utility bills. Except the binder is hard to locate, and you’re rummaging through the cabinets in your closet, the drawer of your nightstand, you’re even looking underneath the bed. But when you lift your head up from under it, still kneeling on the carpet, and glance at the wall, you notice something.

48’’ eight yrs. what a big girl!

46’’ seven yrs. big jump

41’’ six yrs.

37’’ five yrs. my little princess

…

–all written in graphite pencil, scribbled up the wall where you would stand tall against as a kid, your mom marking your height at every birthday. And your eyes start to well with tears.

This was your childhood home. With magical corners tucked away where you used to play hide and seek with your dad, with your old bedroom you used to play in with dolls and have tea parties with all your stuffed animals. There’s still a stain of fruit juice on the carpet underneath the rug that you never told your mom about because you knew she would be mad at you and would scrub it out, but it was in the shape of a heart and when you were a kid, you thought that meant you would find your prince charming some day. This house holds so many memories, like birthday parties and Christmas Eve and the sunflower patch in the backyard where you laid Sniffles to rest.

And it holds the familiarity of you that seems to be slipping through your mother’s fingers with each passing day, all those memories you created with her now solely yours to keep and no longer to share. But you realize at this moment that you’re not alone. This house still holds those memories with you.

Your eyes flicker to the graphite pencil marks on the wall again, and the tears flow freely.

In the moments where she cannot remember that you are her baby, this house remembers for her.

Your sleeve wipes at the dampness on your cheeks.

But it’s never enough, is it? And it’s never that easy, either. Life was never that easy, and you don’t always have the choices you might think you do.

You find the binder, and grab all the utility bills too, and head downstairs. You pass by your mother’s room with softness and sleuth, and guilt in your heart when you realize what you’ve chosen to do. There’s no pep to your step when you make it back to Gojo’s.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“Sooo,” Gojo says, after about twenty minutes of looking through all the house paperwork in the binder at the dining table, “your mom transferred ownership of the house to you as a gift deed when she was diagnosed?”

“Mhm,” you say.

“She paid off quite a bit of it,” he comments as he looks through banking statements, “but still not enough to pay off your medical debt, unfortunately.”

You sigh. “I know. It was never really a house she could afford anyways. She just received it from the divorce, and I remember we were supposed to downsize, but…she didn’t want to.”

“I see,” Gojo comments, “well, it’s alright, it would still help you a lot for sure. How many years are left for your solar panel lease?” He has a pen in hand and a custom realtor notepad in front of him with his messy handwriting all over it.

“It’s new,” you say, “still got thirty years left.”

“Jeez, okay. How much per month?”

You scavenge through the bills on your table. “Ummm um um ummm…….”

“You should really…get more organized.”

“You should really mind your fucking business.” You find the bill. “$285 per month.”

“Okay,” he scribbles it down, “does it offset your electricity bill?”

Your shoulders sulk. “A little bit.”

“Yeah, it might scare some buyers away.”

You sigh. “Oh and then the HOA too.”

“HOA?” he looks up at you with a puzzled expression on his face. “We don’t have an HOA in this neighborhood.”

“We don’t?” you blink at him. “Then who have I been sending $195 dollars to every month?”

“…….....you’ve seriously gotta be some special kind of stupid.”

After panicking for five minutes while checking your credit cards for fraudulent activity, Gojo gets done cutting up an apple for you.

“Here,” he says, sliding the plate to you, “since you look like you’re about to faint. Knowing you, it’s probably just low blood sugar.”

You dramatically sigh and sink in your chair. “I can’t believe I spent the last three years paying an HOA that doesn’t even exist…”

“Hey, on the bright side, there’s some dude out there on an exotic vacation that’s very thrilled by your idiocracy right now.”

You shoot him a look. And then you hang your head low to drink your extremely cold coffee that you were still nursing, before downing it all in one go. Your eyes catch the marriage paperwork that Gojo was reviewing earlier, and you see Higurama’s pre-filled in information that he typed onto the papers before printing them for him.

“Hm,” you hum, “it says here that you’ve been married before. You might want to get that fixed before we submit these.”

He stands up from the table, two of his fingers hooking onto the handle of his coffee cup, and he glances into yours to make sure it’s empty, briefly flicking his eyes to you and you shake your head for no, no more coffee, thanks before he wraps his other two fingers around the handle of your mug as well. The clink of the two porcelain mugs in his hand startles you a little as he walks past you to the kitchen sink. “There’s nothing to fix about that,” he says, his tone level and easy, “it’s true. I’ve been married before.”

Your eyes widen at his confession, and you quickly twist your torso in your chair to stare at him. Or at least, the back of him as he turns the faucet on and begins to rinse out coffee mugs.

Married? Before? There are so many questions swimming through your head right now, ones that you desperately want answers to, biggest of all perhaps being now who the fuck would actually want to marry him??? for real??? you’re telling me this self obsessed dork proposed to a real life woman with a pulse and she actually said ‘yes’ to him??? who was this woman, and which psych ward did he find her from???

But he’s so quiet from where he stands, broad shoulders less pushed back like they usually are, and something tells you he wouldn’t entertain any of those questions from you right now. A glance at the paperwork, though, tells you the divorce was recent. Less than a year ago. Around the time he moved in next door.

He still has his back facing you, and you try to sneakily catch a glimpse at more info under the Wife section on the prior marriages form. You can see the paper says maiden name: Inoue and you’re just about to sneak a peak at the first name when—

“You want to stay for dinner?” he asks when he turns around, leaning back against the sink counter. “I’m ordering pizza tonight.”

You’re surprised by the sudden invitation, and shuffle the papers over one another again. “Oh–that’s…that’s okay.” You glance at the clock he has hanging on the wall. “I’ve got work in a couple of hours, so…I should really get going. Have a few errands to run before then.”

“Okay, so, we’ll…talk later?”

“Yeah, later,” you stand up from your chair, and for some reason, the air feels a little heavier to you now. “Uh…” you start, awkwardly scoffing a little, “wow. Bachelor life again, then, huh? Probably just–...probably just beer and pizza every night?”

He purses his lips together, humoring you with a small laugh that comes out as a scoff through his nostrils. “No. Not really. I only order pizza when I close a sale on a house. My way of celebrating.”

“Oh,” you respond, “I see.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he says.

“I live next door,” you remind him.

His eyes widen slightly. “Oh. Right.”

“H-Hope the traffic’s not too bad!” you joke.

His laugh comes more genuine now. “You’re stupid.”

You head towards the door, and when he opens it for you, there’s a chill of air outside and it’s darker now, hues of dark gray, purple and a slight orange still present on the horizon paint the sky and you step outside then turn on your heel to face him.

“Um. Congrats, by the way. On the sale,” you tell him, “enjoy your night. And I’ll see you this weekend?”

“Huh?” He raises an eyebrow. “What’s happening this weekend?”

“We–” you scoff, “we’re getting married this weekend?”

“Oh!” he exclaims, tense, “right, yes, see you this weekend. For marriage. Of us.”

You roll your eyes and make your way down the concrete pavement that leads its way to his house, and leads its way away from it too. And when you walk back to your house, it’s not with a sulk, but it’s not with a pep in your step either. You just feel…neutral.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“So, tell me about this fake husband of yours,” Hana says, leaning against your work-on-wheels as you attempt to catch up on charting notes with 4 hours and 15 minutes and 53 seconds left on your shift (it’s not like you were counting though).

“Yeah, in a sec,” you mumble as you punch in keys.

6/2/2024 0344: patient placed on 5150 hold on 5/31 at 1745, continually monitored by ED tech. all objects have been removed from pt’s room to prevent any danger to self or others. however patient accessed hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall at roughly 0320 and ingested all the hand sanitizer. notified MD of toxic ingestion, follow up plan is to coordinate care with poison control. no further orders at this time

“Okay, what were you saying?” you look up at Hana again and rub the tired out of your eye with a balled up hand, along with all the mascara.

“Your fake husband!! Tell me about him!!” she chirps, shaking your work-on-wheels in excitement and the blur of your computer screen makes you feel dizzy.

“Shhhhh,” you hiss at her, “keep your voice down when we discuss illegal activities.”

She rolls her eyes. “Why are you always so paranoid? I’m already sick and tired of you charting incessantly every five seconds to save yourself from medical lawsuits that you haven’t even been accused of.”

“In a medical lawsuit, the chart is the law, Hana,” you say eerily with a shiver, and her words remind you to continue your detailed charting. “Never forget that.”

She sighs. Her gaze travels across to the other end of the emergency department, and you assume she’s staring at the asses of the EMT boys again, so you glance over your shoulder too.

Except instead, you see the worst person on the planet.

Well, second worst as of right now.

The worst person title was reserved for someone else.

Approaching from down the hall is Yuna, your ex-best friend, a bounce in her step as she walks with a sort of allure as her hips rock side to side, her mile-high ponytail swaying in beat with the rhythm as well, and the ashy blond highlights in her hair hypnotize anyone she waltzes by.

She was the kind of nurse that all the other nurses are jealous of. Always has cute little accessories and stickers on their badge, is wearing the fancy FIGS scrub sets that hug her sporty curves in all the right places, paired with those little shoes with the ankle socks, and she most definitely gets her water goal in for the day because she’s always sucking on the straw of her periwinkle Stanley cup around the ED all night just like she sucked the cum out of your boyfriend of seven years just twenty-four hours after the two of you had broken up–

“y/n,” she casually calls your name, leaning her elbow up on the cubicle divider of the nursing station. “It’s time for you to take your break. I’ll watch your patients.”

“I’m not taking my break,” you say, trying to relax the grit to your teeth which makes your eye twitch out of frustration instead. “Now get the fuck away from me before I call a Code Black.”

She sighs, rolling her eyes and smacking loudly on her gum. “Yaga said you have to take your thirty tonight. Something about how you haven’t clocked out for a break in more than two months and the hospital could get sued for that.”

“The hospital has way bigger cases they should be biting their nails about getting sued over,” Hana snorts just to butt in on conversation.

“C’mon,” Yuna says, her fingers reaching out to touch the handle of your work-on-wheels, purposefully stretched so that you can eye the perfect sparkly manicure to her nails. You curl your fingers into the skin of your palms to hide your gel polish that’s long started to scrape off. “Go clock out.”

“I’d rather die than listen to a single fucking thing you tell me to do,” you tell her, plain and simple.

“y/n!” a loud masculine voice calls from the other end of the Emergency Department, and all three of you visibly shrink a little in your stances out of fear. Head nurse Yaga. “Take your break, or I’ll be damned to let you set another foot in this hospital!!” he’s yelling at you all the way from the entrance to the CT scanner.

“But–”

“Now!!!!!”

Your eyes flicker to Yuna, who has an amused look on her face and a tilt to her head, and then you’re grumbling before logging out of your computer then stepping away from it. “Draw a CBC & chem on Beds 24 and 28 at 4 AM sharp,” you grumble to her, and she just gives you one of those tight-skinned smiles.

The break room is empty, with shades of beige on the walls and even more depressing shades of gray on the lockers. There are all sorts of things pasted on the walls, like photos from staff Halloween and Christmas parties, drawings that pediatric patients have made in appreciation of their nurses, and employee information that Yaga’s constantly shoving in everyone’s faces.

Okay, the backstory with Yuna. Pretty simple. You two had been best friends since high school, like inseparable best friends. Y’know, sneaking out late at night to use fake IDs at the bar, cover for the other when you’re busy losing your virginity to your high school boyfriend in the most dishonorable way possible, rooming together in college, sobbing and crying through all of nursing school together, ride or die type of friendship that you think you’d only find once in a lifetime. Except turns out your best friend, who you’d considered a sister, had eyes for your boyfriend since you started dating him in college, and the second that dickwad dumped you, you catch her sucking him off in the back of his Toyota Camry when you go to pick your stuff up from his place. Yeah, ouch. You lost the two closest people in your life, all in the matter of twenty-four hours, so pardon yourself for being a bit bitter about it.

But being bitter is the coping mechanism. The real way you feel comes in the form of tears prickling in your eyes and the pain in your throat as you try to swallow away the knot that’s suffocating you from the inside out. A type of loneliness that leaves you stranded even in a room full of people. But at the very least, this room is empty, so no one has to see the crack in your resolve.

There’s no time on a thirty-minute lunch break to have a full mental breakdown, so you sparsely wipe at your tears and head back to your shift.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

If you want to know who actually holds the worst person on the planet title right now, well, you run into him on a Tuesday afternoon while on a grocery run after you just woke up from barely sufficient post night shift sleep. Bitter and drugged by Melatonin was not a state of being you needed to be in right now, but you’re out of orange juice and you’re having Vitamin C withdrawals which warrants a trip to the store. Unfortunately, the town only has one grocery store, which means you were bound to run into pestering ex-boyfriends at least once every full moon.

“Get the fuck out of my way, Choso,” you snarl at the man who’s walking backwards ahead of your grocery cart, trying to stop you in your tracks so you’d just chill out and listen to him for a second.

“Can you just chill out and listen to me for a second?” he asks you, irritation evident in his voice like you’re being the difficult one here.

“I already told you that I quite literally never want to see your stupid ugly face ever again for as long as I live,” you say, and you ram your grocery cart forward with so much force the metal hits his knees and he doubles over the basket indignantly with a groan.

He seems like he’s had enough of you evading him, so he jams his foot under the wheel to keep you from moving forward, and you’re scowling at him and struggling against his foot-stop but to no avail.

You briefly consider abandoning your cart all together and just bee-lining for the exit, but he’s a cop, so he’d easily be able to tackle you to the ground if you tried.

“What do you want?” you snarl, impatiently tapping your foot with every miserable passing second spent in his presence.

“I just–” He sighs, “I just want to talk. And to know how you’re doing. You won’t pick up any of my calls.”

“Huh?” You blink at him. “I’ve had you blocked for the past two weeks. You shouldn’t even be able to call me.”

His eyebrows raise. “Really?...who have I been dialing then?”

“Fuck if I know,” you shrug, and you use his moment of confusion to swerve your cart off to the side and make your way down the refrigerator aisle. Ohhh, dulce de leche gelato sounds nice, and it’s on sale. You grab a jar.

Choso’s trailing behind you as you eye price tags and sale signs in the open chill of the yogurt section. “Babe–”

“Don’t–” you immediately cut him off, spinning fast on your heel and he stops himself just in time from crashing right into you. You hold your index finger up in the air between the two of you with a clench to your jaw so tight it feels sore, and through gritted teeth you say, “don’t call me babe.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry. It’s habit.”

Indeed, habit. Seven years of him calling you babe, or baby, or boobie (idk don’t ask). Your favorite though? Babydoll. He’d always call you that when he’d make sweet, sweet love to you while you were wearing his favorite flimsy little piece of lingerie–babydolls. Even now, the memories have your cheeks feeling hot. But he doesn’t get to call you babe anymore, and he doesn’t get to fuck you anymore, or talk to you anymore, or breathe in your general direction anymore, because he betrayed you. He wasted your time, and then he betrayed you.

Seven years of your sexual prime, where you could’ve been fucking hunky firefighters and bisexual Europeans, wasted on a man you weren’t even going to marry in the end anyways. Now you’re pushing thirty, and the idea of having to date again makes your skin crawl with anxiety that turns into fury because your doom is all caused by the man in front of you.

Whatever, forget about the sex and the impending loss of a woman’s novelty within society for a second. You loved him. A part of you still loves him. You wanted to marry this man. You thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with this man. Little sheriff deputy’s wife, Mrs. Kamo, the perfect number of letters to get on a bejeweled license plate. You had envisioned all the cute little quotes of adoration that would be imprinted on your wedding reception’s custom-made doily napkins with everyone that’s ever meant anything to you sitting at the table, ready to celebrate the love that you thought was real and true and brave and strong and one that would last forever.

But he abandoned you when you were at your lowest. And he fell into the arms of the one person you thought you could turn to crying when the relationship crashed and burned in the first place. And the problem with living in a small town is that everyone knows everybody’s business, so now you’re just the woman that wasted her youth on a man that played her like a broken fiddle. Utterly heartbroken, and humiliated.

So, yeah, he doesn’t get to call you babe anymore.

“Listen here, asshole,” you say, stabbing him in the chest with your finger, so he can feel even a fraction of the pain you’ve felt in the past three weeks, “I couldn't care less if you live today, or die tomorrow. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone. Or I’ll file for a restraining order.”

“Really?” he says, brows pulled tight together in disbelief, like he just can’t understand what he’s done to make you act this way, and quite frankly, that only makes it sting even worse, “after everything we’ve been through, you’re just going to throw away the past seven years?”

“What the fuck are you saying?!” you all but snap at him, and an elderly couple that’s passing by flinches a little from the noise and you wince in apology before glaring at Choso again. Your voice is hushed this time. “You’re the one that broke up with me, but I’m the one that’s throwing it all away??”

He purses his lips together, and you notice how dark the circles under his eyes are. He shuts them tightly and leans back away from you, which makes you realize how much he was leaning into your space just a second ago. “I know that we…aren’t dating anymore. But, I mean, c’mon, y/n, it’s me. Just because we’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean that I don’t still…care. I want to know how your mom’s doing, and how treatment has been for her, and–” he glances up at the ceiling briefly, as if to mislead you into thinking that the next thing he says is just as nonchalantly desired as the other things he listed, “and I want to know how you’re doing, too.”

“You don’t deserve to know how I’m doing. Continue to wallow in your pathetic self righteousness, or go run with your tail between your legs to that two-faced rat I used to call a best friend. Either way, I don’t give a damn,” you say, in a way that very much sounds like you give a damn unfortunately, and spin on your heel to continue pushing your cart down to the juice section.

“Yuna and I–” you hear him say behind you, and just the mention of her name on his tongue makes your heart ache in your chest, to the point you need to place a flat palm over it just to alleviate the pain, “I–...I broke things off with her yesterday.”

Fuck. Pretend like you’re not fazed by that info. Pretend like you’re not fazed by that info.

“Okay? Whatever,” you barely manage to say.

He’s silent for a moment behind you. The wheels of your cart squeak as they roll.

“I mean, we’re not together anymore. I’m not seeing her anymore,” he clarifies, as if he didn’t believe you heard him right the first time.

“Cool,” you comment, tone colder this time, since you had the practice round.

“You don’t–” Choso starts, a rattle of hurt and confusion in his voice, “you don’t care about that?”

“Nope.”

He reaches out to grab your wrist, and the contact burns through your skin, like something so familiar yet so foreign. You turn your head to look at him.

“I…” he starts, and you can see his chest rising and falling with more intensity. Oh god. Please. Please don’t say it. You’re not sure you can handle hearing it. “I really miss you.”

Damn it, he said it.

Your posture relaxes slightly when you take a long look at him. You finally notice his hair has gotten longer in just the three weeks you’ve been apart, layered locks curling at the end of his neck, and it’s the first time you’ve noticed such a small detail because you were so used to spending everyday with him. He spent most of the week at your house, since the two of you could never formally move in with one another after your mother was diagnosed and it was easier for him to come by to yours so you could continue to keep an eye on her. There’s no option to live on your own and start your own life when you’re taking care of someone sick. They become your priority, not yourself, but you’d still make every single sacrifice you’ve made for your mother over and over again in a heartbeat if you had to relive the past five years.

But that meant that you never had a real and true chance to live the life that you wanted with Choso. A place just for the two of you, lived in intimate solitude and not with the cries of your mother down the hall when she feels too sick to get up out of bed or when she cannot remember her own name. But you had never been this far apart from him to where you notice his hair is an inch longer than it was the last time you saw him. He was never that far away, as he is now. And you’ve just now realized it.

“I don’t,” you start, swallowing the lump in your throat and your voice quivers ever so slightly when you speak, “I don’t care that you miss me.” You take a deep breath. “I’m getting married this weekend.”

His face entirely relaxes, like a calm before the storm, before it twists with so much confusion and incredulity and shock and–was that horror on his face?

“What?” he practically spats out, “it’s only been three weeks since we broke up!”

“Uhh,” you glance up at the ceiling of the store, just in time for an employee to make an announcement on the overhead for a manager at checkout lane 2 please, and then you glance back down at him, “I was having an affair while we were dating.” An easy lie.

He scowls. “Yeah fucking right. There’s no way you’d cheat on me.”

His words burn bitter. The fact that he couldn’t even fathom you hurting him the same way he hurt you makes you clench your teeth. Because he knew you were better than he was, and that you were too good for him, and yet he still wasted your honor.

His friends, who used to be yours too, have probably fed him lies since the breakup. Like it’s okay, man. You broke up with her before you got involved with someone else. You didn’t do anything wrong.

But you say bullshit to all of that. Because after seven years of being together, you can’t just cold turkey a relationship like that to sleep with someone else, and then claim it’s not cheating. Technicalities like that were no vindication if the betrayal hurt all the same in the end. Because it still felt like you got cheated on regardless.

“Whatever. I don’t need to explain myself to you,” you tell him, “I’m getting married this weekend, so I really don’t give a damn about anything between us anymore. It’s over.”

“Who are you marrying?” he asks, suddenly breaking a sweat over the news like he’s starting to suspect you’re actually being serious.

“My neighbor.”

His face twists with disgust. “Old man Jenkins? He’s eighty-four years old.”

You roll your eyes. “Not the one on my left, you idiot. My neighbor to my right.”

The corner of his mouth tugs up in a ridiculing smirk, and the sight of it makes your skin crawl. He scoffs. “There’s no way. You hate that guy.”

“It’s true. I’m marrying him.”

“Seriously??” He guffaws at you, leaning in closer to you and you lean away until your back is resting on the handle of your shopping cart. “The obnoxious realtor I once heard you talking in your sleep about how much you want to murder him and then dump him in a lake?”

“What?! I talk in my sleep?!” you gasp.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. You have for years.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that?!”

He looks annoyed. “Because you’re such a hypochondriac. You would’ve thought you had a brain tumor or something, and I’d have to deal with the paranoia that follows suit.”

“Choso,” you say to him with a strict tone, jutting your hip out to the side in preparation to scold, “my mother has Alzheimer’s, which is genetic, and I was having an abnormal neurological symptom for years which has studies to show is an early indication of dementia and you just chose not to tell me because you didn’t want to be annoyed?!”

“See?” he gestures to you, “you’re doing it right now. How did we go from just sleep talking to ‘I might have dementia’?”

“We,” you point between you and him, “are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever getting back together. If there’s one thing you can pull through that stupid skull of yours, make it that.”

“Excuse me,” you hear a tiny voice squeak out, and you turn to your right to see a little kid trying to push past the two of you to grab a box of GoGurt in the Yogurt section. You move your cart forward by bumping it with your butt to get out of the kid’s way, and Choso circles around to the front of your cart before you start moving forward again. Like he’s literally stopping you from moving on from him.

“You’re lying about marrying this guy,” Choso says like it’s a fact. In typical cop gaslighting fashion. “You’re just saying that to make me jealous.”

You roll your eyes. “No. I’m just that hot and gorgeous that I made a man fall in love with me in three weeks.”

“He’s in love with you?” he asks.

“Duh, he wants to marry me. When you dumped me, I found comforting solace in my next-door-neighbor, and we fell into bed with one another, and now he feels the obligation to provide for me for the rest of my life. What’s so hard to believe about that? You didn’t find abrupt matrimony odd when we binged all three seasons of Bridgerton two months ago.”

“That show is set in the fuckin’ regency era,” he hisses at you, “look around. There’s plastic bags of Hot Cheetos with Red 40 in them everywhere. Does this look like the 1800s to you?”

You have to be careful with him. He’s a cop, who could arrest you for medical insurance fraud, and would also have a personal vendetta against your marriage because boo hoo he misses you. But yes, he was right, you did want to make him jealous, and you just can’t help it.

“Well, me and him have a love that no one else can understand, so suck it. I’m marrying him, and he’s super into me, and he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with me, and he desperately wants to put babies in me, and–”

“And where’s the ring he gave you, then?”

Fuck. You briefly flick your gaze down to your left hand and note the daunting absence of a shiny diamond on your ring finger. Note to self, Gojo needs to buy you a ring.

“I left it at home,” you mumble.

“Uh-huh, as all newly engaged women who have been waiting for a ring all their life would do.”

That pisses you off. Because you were waiting your whole life for him to put a ring on your finger, and he never did.

“Go fuck a fleshlight,” you snarl at him, unfortunately in earshot of the GoGurt kid and his mom shoots you a nasty look, but you’re a jaded woman after everything you’ve been through and you ram your cart into Choso so hard you swear you could’ve cracked his knee caps, and he doubles over in enough pain for you to have the time to leave him stranded there as you push your cart all the way to the end of the store.

You finally make it to the orange juice section, the one thing you needed, although your cart is filled with things you didn’t need, because that’s always how these grocery runs go. You try to take a few breaths to calm down the fast beating in your heart after that confrontation with Choso. You’re not good with confrontation, even though it might seem like you are, but you’re just putting on a face. Acting strong, when really all you want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. But there are bills to pay, and images to upkeep, and orange juice to replenish.

Your hand reaches out for the handle on the refrigerator door, but just before you curl your fingers around it, another hand beats you to it. It’s a large and masculine hand, with veins disappearing into the cuffed felted fabric of a suit jacket, and the knuckles turn a shade lighter than the olive skin around them when the fingers flex around the handle.

You glance up at the person standing next to you, who you register towers over you in height. He has long, sleek black hair that shimmers under fluorescent lighting, some of which is tied up and out of his face, while the rest cascades over his back. But there’s tendrils of hair falling over the left side of his face, barely distracting you through the intensity of purple in his eyes when he glances at you.

“Ah, apologies,” he says, and the way he speaks is so calm and gentle, different from the intimidating aura he holds himself with. He retreats his hand from the handle.

“Oh, that’s–” you find yourself stuttering, “...that’s okay.” You grab the handle and open it, the chill rush of the fridge hitting you as your eyes peruse the selection of orange juice cartons while his eyes remain on you. You awkwardly glance at him again. “Sorry, d-did you also need to get orange juice?”

He nods. “Yes, I did.”

Not a man of many words, you think to yourself. Or maybe just around people he’s just met.

Your eyes catch the familiar labeling of your go-to orange juice, the one with no pulp and has added Vitamins D and E (basically the one for children), but you realize there’s only one left. You grab it anyway and put it in your cart. When you glance up at the handsome stranger beside you, there’s a slight look of amusement on his face.

“Seems we both have the same taste in orange juice,” he comments.

“Oh no,” you say with a small laugh, “I’m sorry. It’s the last one.” Your eyes widen. “You–…you can have it, if you want–”

“Oh, no, no,” he shakes his head, long hair swaying with the motion as he holds his hands up in front of himself, “please. I will just find a nearby store.”

You tilt your head. “Oh there’s no other stores nearby…unless you get on the highway for at least twenty minutes. It’s a…small town.”

His lax expression finally cracks into one of subtle surprise. “That’s interesting.”

“Are you…new to town?” you ask.

He nods with a small smile on his face. “Indeed. Well, just visiting. I’m from New York.”

“Oh! Wow, that’s a long way from here.” You briefly register that he does look like a city man. Upscale restaurants, skyline views, premium outlets. The subtle fragrance of his cologne smells expensive too. “What are you up to while visiting?” You mentally facepalm yourself for asking personal questions, but he seems mysterious and you like peeling the layers back on people like him.

His expression drops, turning almost solemn and his eye contact that was previously very direct is suddenly averted elsewhere, “Just…visiting some old friends.” There is no elaboration.

“Ahh…I see,” you say, picking up on the hint that he has no more words to give you. “Well…I’ll be taking the orange juice…maybe try one with pulp?” you suggest a little cheekily.

His lips tug upwards in a lopsided smile, one you’d call a smirk if you weren’t so mesmerized to define it as one, “I’ll think about it.”

You hum slightly in polite acknowledgement of him, then push your cart back towards the heart of the store without a word of goodbye.

Odd stranger, who’s good at giving misleading answers. You wonder what life he’s come here to escape.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

It’s a bright, picturesque Sunday morning, with children laughing and squealing out on the streets in front of your house as they ride their scooters up hot pavement while their parents catch up on PTA drama on the lawns. You’re standing in front of your full length mirror, trying on dress #3 for your little meeting with the courthouse today. And by little meeting, you mean your wedding. You’re getting married today.

The dress you have on falls to below your knees and has buttons all the way from the hem right up to the base of your neck, where the collared neckline wraps around you like a noose. Suffocating, way too prim and proper, although it’d make your grandma very happy and adored to see you should you show up to church service in it.

Your bed is cluttered with clothes you’ve thrown across it as you try to find a good dress. Your hands move with impatience as you skim through the rack of your closet for another dress to try on, since you’re starting to push the time a little too much. You’ve only got ten minutes before you need to leave.

A dress tucked in the corner of your closet catches your eye and you pull it out. It’s a cream-colored milk maid dress with an underskirt to puff out the A-line silhouette, length down to your shins that would be oh-so-flattering with a cute pair of heels. There are small red flowers adorning the pattern, with tiny green leaf details as well. It was cute and sweet and feminine, something you haven’t worn in a long time unlike your usual monotonous hospital scrubs, stained sweatpants and adult onesies.

It was the dress your friend Sana convinced you to buy when you thought you were going to get engaged. In the first two years of your relationship with Choso, you two talked about marriage non-stop. You both had just graduated college when you first started dating, and it felt like your lives were finally starting. At the end of the second year you two had been together for, after Christmas dinner with your family, he pulled you into his arms and you squealed with glee as he spinned you around in your childhood bedroom upstairs and told you how much he wanted to marry you, and that he was going to propose in the new year.

Your mother was diagnosed with cancer in January, and he never brought up marriage ever again.

He still stayed with you for five years after that though, and swiftly dodged every single question you ever asked him about his impending proposal. For five years, you were fed every excuse in the book. And in hindsight, you feel like an idiot for staying, and for still holding out hope, when what you were really holding onto was heartbreak. The feeling of not being enough, like someone was just tolerating you, and not loving you. It was easy to ignore at times, given how occupied you were with driving your mother to chemotherapy appointments and reading up on books about which diet works best to slow down the development of Alzheimer’s because your mother started showing signs of dementia just two months after the cancer diagnosis. But in those moments of freedom, where you had a moment to breathe, all you could breathe was a suffocating smoke. Because you stopped feeling wanted or loved in between all of it.

But there was a trip he planned for the two of you to Greece. It was after your mother had first successfully gotten into remission. A gasp of fresh air amongst all the pain and suffering, and you could only assume that he wanted to celebrate by taking you on a trip. Sana was convinced he was going to propose to you on this trip, and you wondered if maybe he was just waiting until your mother felt better before he proposed so that the two of you could enjoy being newly engaged without the pressure or worry. Sana took you shopping, and you bought this dress, one that clings to your form in a way that made you feel beautiful. Made you feel wanted. Made you feel worthy of being loved. Because all other parts of yourself had been overlooked and paid no attention, but you thought a dress could save you.

He never proposed. You left Greece with an extra suitcase of souvenirs, but without a ring on your finger or even a compliment on how beautiful you should’ve looked to him standing there on that beach with this cream-colored dress on, arm wrapped around his. And it was at that point you became numb, and you existed in limbo for the remaining four years of your relationship. Until he finally did what you silently begged him to do, with every sullen look in your eyes when you glanced at him. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, what he did to you. Something you willed him into because you didn’t have the strength to leave, and so he had to.

You hold the dress up to your form in the mirror. It’d still fit you, and it’s far too pretty to have only worn once. But you’ve been numb for so long now, you don’t even remember what it’s like to feel pretty in a dress. You unbutton yourself out of dress #3 and step into failed proposal dress #4, and as you slowly zip up the back of the dress, you’re met with resistance.

Fuck.

The last thing you need right now is a weight-related meltdown.

You tug up on the zipper even more, harshly, to the point you hear a stitch rip and you gasp and try to do it slowly so as not to completely tear the dress apart. But it’s not fitting. It should fit. You just assume the zip is stuck, or it’s too rigid after years of no wear.

You’re about to do another colossal yank upwards that could potentially dislocate your shoulder when you jump at the sound of your phone chiming with a notification. And then multiple.

“What...the hell…do you want…” you sigh to nobody, swiping your hands across the pile of dress fabric on your bed to find your phone, and when you do, you quickly tap on the screen to see the messages.

|| 11:32AM neighbor (avocado tree): Hey, are we still getting married today?

First of all, wild fucking thing to nonchalantly ask.

|| 11:32AM neighbor (avocado tree): Your car’s still parked out front, so I wasn’t sure if you’ve left yet. I was just about to leave, and then the thought occurred to me that we should probably carpool?

|| 11:35AM neighbor (avocado tree): But just wanted to verify, are you sure you want to go through with this? You’re not having cold feet? Won’t be a runaway bride? I’m not gonna be left at the altar, wondering where I went wrong?

You roll your eyes, breathing heavily still from the struggle of zipping up your dress.

|| 11:36AM You: yes, we are still getting married. I just can’t zip up my dress for the life of me

It takes him a whole minute to respond.

|| 11:38AM neighbor (avocado tree): Do you need help?

You blink at your phone screen. Help? What kind of help? Helping you zip up your dress?

You look over your shoulder to the full length mirror, eyeing your back. The dress was zipped up to just above the small of your back, with the rest of it flayed open to reveal the expanse of your skin. Setting your phone down, you roll your shoulders back once and flex your fingers to try again in securing this dress, but to no avail. You curse yourself for not having the flexibility, and to be honest, you’re not even sure if you can take the dress off anymore to get into something else with the way the zipper won’t budge neither up nor down. Well. You’re just going to have to wear this dress for the rest of your life now. A scary predicament.

You pick your phone up again.

|| 11:41AM You: yes

It only takes about two minutes for him to text you that he’s at your front door, a surprisingly considerate gesture considering your mother is sleeping downstairs so it’s good he didn’t ring the doorbell, and you tiptoe your way down and over the creaky floorboards of the stairs to the front entrance.

You slowly crack the door open only a couple inches, hiding yourself from him behind it as you peek at him. “Hi.”

“Hey,” he says, and he glances at his watch. “We’ve got to hurry.”

You nod, and take note of his appearance. He’s wearing a dark fitted navy suit over a white dress shirt, which to your surprise, doesn’t have the top two buttons sluttily undone for once. His suit pants are perfectly tailored to his ankles and you can barely see the exposed fabric of black socks before they disappear into his polished Oxfords. He looks like he’s going to a wedding. Oh wait, he is.

He raises an eyebrow at you when you refuse to reveal yourself by stepping away from behind the door. Even his hair is particularly kept and proper, swept off to the side slightly in a way that makes him look younger and you feel nervous from the intensity of those eyes, which are usually somewhat hidden by the fringe of his snowy hair, now look at you unwaveringly with no obstruction. You feel like you’re seeing him in a completely new light, and for some reason, it makes you cower behind the door even more.

“Uh, are you going to let me in?” he asks you, his foot tapping lightly on the welcome! mat.

“Yes,” you say, but you make no movement to prove your word.

“y/n,” he says, “we need to get going.”

You sigh, tapping your fingers against the stained glass window of your front door to release some nerves before hesitantly stepping to the side and pulling the door open all the way, then you’re standing in front of him in full view. You catch a glimpse of the black tie hanging from his neck that’s secured all the way up to the collar of his shirt, before you finally look at his face.

Those striking eyes of his round slowly until he’s looking at you wide-eyed, blinking in some sort of dazed surprise as his gaze eventually sweeps down your entire form to take in the sight of you standing barefoot on wooden floor in your cream-colored dress, and you swear you see the muscles in his jaw jump. His brow furrows like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“You–” he starts, that shocked blinking still taking place on his face, and you grasp the fabric of your dress in front of you from the anticipation of what he’ll say, “...you look beautiful.”

A silence settles between the two of you as he continues to roam his eyes all down you like there’s nothing that could stop him from doing it, and you feel heat in your cheeks from his compliment. It’s just a silly little cream-colored dress. One that didn’t look pretty on a beach in Greece, so why would it look beautiful on you here right now? While you’re standing at the dusty front entrance of a decades old house? He’s bullshitting you.

“You know you don’t have to compliment me, you know that, right?” you squeak out, trying to keep your tone level and easy to fight back the raw feeling in your throat, “this isn’t a first look. There are no photographers around to capture your reaction. We’re not actually getting married.”

“But–”

“Can you just help me with the dress?” you cut him off so he doesn’t say anything else that makes you feel pretty right now.

“...sure,” he agrees, and he steps inside your house. You start to walk upstairs, and he follows suit, and you suddenly feel his eyes on your back so you turn around and walk up the stairs backwards while facing him.

“I don’t understand the concept of first looks anyway,” he says out of nowhere to cut the silence, “isn’t it a bad omen to see your partner before getting married?”

“That’s such an outdated superstition,” you tell him as your feet finally press firmly flat at the top of the stairs.

One of his feet is placed next to where you’re standing up straight at the top, while the other is still on the third step down. And it’s like he’s kneeling on one knee in front of you as he looks up at you. After a moment of deep breathing on your part, you finally step away from the top of the stairs so he can finish walking up them too.

“I don’t know what happened,” you say to him as you make it to the front of your full length mirror, “I was just trying to zip it up but it got stuck. And it’s not unzipping either.”

He comes up behind you, and you can see in the mirror that he’s put a decent amount of space between the two of you from the way his arms are reached out in front of him just to access the zipper. He tugs up on it.

“Hm. It…” he struggles with it, “it seems…” he yanks again, “jammed?”

“Fudge,” you mutter under your breath (more ladylike perhaps, as opposed to fuck) and you sulk your shoulders. “But will it close at all, do you think?”

He takes a step closer to you, and his cologne has the fragrance of woody oak with undertones of citrus, like something expensive and sophisticated. His hand sweeps your hair off to the side and over your shoulder to the front so he has a better view, fingers brushing against the nape of your neck from the motion and you try to fight the shiver. A glance to the mirror, and you see his eyes are set on the exposed skin. He tugs to pull your dress together, and is able to cross the fabrics. “Yeah, it should. I think just hold your breath for a second? I’m going to try to see if zipping it down helps unjam it.”

“Okay,” you say softly, and he eyes you in the mirror at the sudden subservience.

You try to hold your breath as he tugs down on the zipper, and you hear the metallic click when he succeeds in unjamming it before he zips it down just an inch. You can feel the small of your back exposed to cool air from the motion.

He’s suddenly frozen entirely behind you, the knuckle of his index finger brushing against your skin as he continues to pinch the zipper between it and his thumb. You feel his slow exhale on the back of your neck. You’re too scared to look at his expression in the mirror.

“Sa–” you stutter through a gasp, “Satoru.”

“Sorry,” he says quietly, and then he’s shifting on his feet once before slowly attempting to zip the dress up.

He’s met with a slight resistance just underneath your shoulder blades. “Hey. Just hold your breath.”

“I’m trying to,” you tell him, almost whining, because it’s hard to stop breathing when your heart is beating fast and it needs the oxygen supply.

“Do you want to try on a different dress?” he asks you.

“No,” you immediately answer him. You’re not sure why, but the idea of wearing this dress for the rest of your life doesn’t scare you anymore. In fact, you never want to take it off.

Your hands twiddle with the flimsy string at your collarbone that you tied to connect the fabric across your chest, and then you realize. “Oh…maybe I need to–” you tug at the end of the string, “undo this? That might make it looser?” You finally glance at the mirror to seek his approval of your suggestion.

His eyes meet yours, and when he sees what you’re referring to, his eyes widen. “But that would–”

“Just don’t look,” you say simply.

You two remain looking at one another in the mirror, and you see his chest heaving slightly through the tightening of his dress shirt against the expansion of his breathing. Like you’re asking the impossible of him.

“Or I’ll kill you,” you say.

He sighs, and his eyes flit down to your zipper again. You swear you feel his hand tremble slightly. “Alright.”

You pull on the end of the string, watching him in the mirror to make sure his eyes don’t wander, and the fabric covering your breasts falls open, but you use a hand to still sparsely cover your skin with the cloth where you can. In the reflection, you see his jaw clench but his eyes remain on the zipper, and only briefly flicker to the bed once. Then he’s zipping up your dress with ease.

You quickly tie the string above your chest once more to cover yourself up, and then spin to face the mirror, petting down the fabric of your dress and throwing your hair back over your shoulder. It was a snug fit, but at least it still fit.

He’s a step behind you with his hands shoved in his suit pockets, looking at your face with a slight tilt to his head like he’s studying you in the mirror just as much as you’re studying yourself. And then he pulls his hand out of his pocket to glance at his watch again. “It’s almost noon,” he says.

“What?!” you bark at him. “We’re fucking late!!! Why didn’t you say anything?!?!”

“Huh??” he baffles. “I’ve been trying to tell you we need to rush this entire time.”

“Oh my god, oh my god,” you say, pacing your room to find your things in a scurry, picking your purse up and then grabbing your Manila folder of paperwork from your desk, and you try to walk past him to the door when you trip over the five pairs of shoes that you had been trying on earlier, almost twisting your ankle, and you gasp then grab onto his suit jacket for purchase before his arm attempts to reach out to hold you upright but to no avail since you tug on him as you fall straight backwards onto your bed and bring him down with you.

His hands sink into the soft mattress on both sides of your head, wrists tickled by your hair, as he hovers over you, and your fingers quickly curl into little balls at your chest as you shrink underneath him, looking up at his surprised expression, likely from having to suddenly brace himself from falling right on top of you.

You both look at each other, blinking as you come down from the sudden chaos, and his tie that’s hanging from his neck brushes against your knuckle and falls over your hand to graze the skin above your breasts. His eyes briefly flicker to the sight, and he catches himself only to stare at your lips instead.

Even through thick layers of fabric, you can see the thick curves of the muscles in his arms, pulled taut from how he’s holding himself up over you. And for once, you wish the buttons of his shirt were undone, so you can see what he’s hiding underneath. The hair he had swept up above his eyes now falls freely with gravity, soft tufts that dangle above you and shadow over the blue of his eyes as he looks at you with a furrowed brow that–...that makes him look handsome.

You must be ovulating.

No, wait, you finished ovulating a couple days ago.

Oh god.

Was your next door neighbor hot this entire time?

There was simply no way.

You refuse to believe it.

You’re laying still like a deer in highlights, motionless underneath him, before he curls his arm around your waist to bring you up with him as he stands up straight, and you only spend a moment pressed up against him before you get yourself out of his grasp by pushing flat palms against his chest, and then the two of you are in proper distance from one another once again.

“D-Don’t ever do something like that ever again,” you stutter, shimmying your hips slightly to pull the snug fabric down your waist from where it had risen up.

“I didn’t do anything,” he grumbles, and he runs a hand through his hair. Now it looks like it always does, no longer prim in style.

“Whatever, let’s just go.” You slip your feet into one of the pairs of heels sprawled across on the floor, and then you head straight for the door. “You drive.”

You hear him sigh behind you. “Yes ma’am.”

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

The courthouse is bustling with people when you two arrive but Gojo’s pleasantly able to pull into an open curbside parking spot right in front of the entrance. You’re surprised when he comes around to the passenger side to open the door for you, and you swat his hand away when he offers it to you too, but you probably should’ve taken it, since you almost twist your ankle for the second time today as you step out onto the curb and get used to walking in heels again like a newborn fawn.

“Should’ve taken my hand,” he says to you, smile turned upwards into a smirk as he watches you struggle while he’s a few steps ahead of you.

“Give it to me then,” you grit through your teeth as you wobble, giving up your pride to avoid adding yet another medical bill to the list of debts in your name.

“Nah,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets, “too late. Lost your chance.” You curse his entire lineage in your head.

You two make it inside the courtroom, and the first person you look for is Hana, whose head you catch at the front row much to your pleasant surprise since she is your sole witness to sign on the marriage certificate today. But in your study of the room to find her, you notice that there are a lot of other people in here as well.

“Don’t tell me…Did you invite people??” you ask Gojo, grabbing onto his sleeve to get his attention and also for balance, but he doesn’t need to know that latter part.

He glances down at you. “No? Why would I invite people to my fake wedding?”

Your eyes peruse the room once again, and you realize that most of them are just old retired people with nothing better to do on a Sunday than visit the courtroom. Some are elderly couples, eyeing you and Gojo as you two make your way down the aisle with sweetness in their eyes like awwwwwww to be a young couple in love once more <3 while they wait for the judge to call on their hundreds of unpaid parking tickets because they don’t know how to access an internet portal.

“D-Do you have the marriage license?” you squeak out to Gojo, who has now adjusted his walking speed to match yours.

“No, I left it at home,” he tells you in a flat tone. “Of course I brought the marriage license.”

“I was just checking, jeez…” you grumble.

Gojo hands the clerk the folder he was holding in his hand, and you hand in yours too.

Oh god. Your peripheral vision already recognizes him before your brain can, but you see an extremely familiar silhouette standing guard off to the side of the Judge’s bench, and your gaze immediately snaps in that direction.

Choso stands there, in his Sheriff Deputy’s uniform, his thumbs tucked into his vest as he puffs his chest out in assertion of his oh so important duty securing the courthouse on a Summer Sunday from any devastating danger, such as an elderly man not wanting to pay a parking ticket and then proceeding to charge towards the judge at 2 MPH, and you can’t help but roll your eyes from his attitude and scowl at him. Of course he pulled some strings and saw when you were getting allegedly married and decided to show up on that exact day. Whatever. You’ll pay him no mind. As long as he doesn’t speak now.

You and Gojo walk back to the lower desk in front of the Judge’s Bench.

“Ah! y/n, hello my dear, how are you?” the judge calls out to you.

“Hi Judge Jun,” you say meekly with a small wave, your voice echoing in the room, “good, and yourself?”

6/4/2024 1232: Judge Jun is a 72 y/o man with a past medical history of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, hyperglycemia, GERD, liver cirrhosis and COPD, who endorses a social history of frequent tobacco usage and occasional alcohol consumption. Patient presents to the ED with chief complaint of chest pain, onset two hours ago after he drank three bottles of beer, and—

“Much better since you took care of me last week!” he humphs, patting his stomach.

You snap out of your automatic charting that was droning on in your head on reflex from how many times Judge Jun has shown up to the ED for acute chest pain which almost always ends up just being beer-induced GERD.

“At the hospital!” you clarify, “for taking care of you at the hospital!”

The man laughs heartily from where he sits up at the raised platform bench. “Yes! And Mr. Gojo! Nice to see you as well.”

You flit your eyes to Gojo, like you know him too? He only briefly spares you a sidewards glance before looking back at Judge Jun. “Likewise, sir.”

You postulate he scammed the fuck out of the man into signing a forty-year lease on a condo in the shady part of town, and you’ll leave it at that.

“I have to say, I am a little shocked by this matrimonial partnership!” Judge Jun chimes in. “But do you both swear to enter this marriage under just circumstances? I will need verbal affirmation from you both.”

Gojo raises his hand up in the air to swear on it, and you remember that he’s possibly done this before. Y’know how people have a courtroom wedding before a real wedding, something like that. And maybe that’s why he knows to raise his hand, because you didn’t even know you were supposed to raise your hand until now.

A real wedding. Something you’ve pictured a lot in your head, and so much more different than the arrangement you find yourself in right now. And because the pain of imagining yourself tying the knot with someone is too much right now, especially when the man you thought you were going to marry stands in uniform five feet away from you and probably doesn’t even recognize the dress you’re wearing right now, you glance over to Gojo and you try to imagine what a real wedding would’ve been like for him. Since he’s done it before.

He probably had a tacky wedding, like in a barn with barrels of beer used as tables with barely flickering string lights hung across wooden planks high on a triangular ceiling. The reception and the ceremony likely happened under the same roof, because he seems like the minimalist type, more focused on the feelings behind it and all, and not the grandeur.

Or maybe he was into the grandeur. Maybe he had a wedding on a skyline penthouse in the city, wearing expensive cologne like the one he’s wearing now, and a Dior suit he got custom made because it was a once in a lifetime occasion so why not? The image becomes a little too vivid in your head now, where you can picture this woman he’s marrying too. Pretty, tall just like him, wearing a ball gown white dress. He would’ve told her she looked beautiful, too. He would’ve told her he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with her. Vows uttered shakingly into the microphone at an altar while the sun is setting far into the sky, shimmering off of high building windows until the air is golden and it reflects off of his and his soon-to-be wife’s face. And when they’ve professed their love for one another, he grabs her by the waist and dips her in a kiss, for the perfect picture against the perfect backdrop in front of all the perfect little people because there probably was a photographer at that event, wanting to capture the moment.

You snap out of the dazed moment when a loud voice calls out your name, and in a shock, you glance back up at Judge Jun who’s looking at you with slight irritation.

“Huh?” you squeak out, and then turn to look at Gojo, who’s got a look of mild concern on his face as he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Please swear that this marriage is under just circumstances,” Judge Jun states with a cadence that indicates he’s commanded this of you multiple times already.

“Oh!” you stand up straight, “I—…I’m sorry.” You hold your hand up. “Yes, I swear this marriage is under just circumstances.” Just like Higurama had you practice. He’d be proud. Phew, the hard part was over.

The rest of the ceremony goes by in a rather fast blur, and it’s a little awkward when you both have to tell Judge Jun that you don’t have any vows to exchange at the moment when he offers the time for them, but Gojo comes up with some lie about how the real vows will be at our formal ceremony, and Judge Jun seems entirely satisfied and a little too ecstatic by the answer before allowing you two and Hana to sign the marriage certificate.

“And rings?” Judge Jun asks as he peers down through his glasses to the paper he was holding at his desk. “We can now make time for the exchange of rings.”

You’re prepared for Gojo to come up with another lie about how the real rings will be at our formal ceremony, but you see him shuffling with something in his pocket in your periphery. Hm? You glance down at his hip, and you see him pull something shiny out.

He turns to face you, and he holds his hand out to you with an up-facing palm. You blink at him and then glance down at his hand. And then you look up and blink at him, and then glance down his hand. And then you look up and blink at him, and then gl—

“Give me your hand,” he says to you, a little hushed and rushed.

“Why???” you ask, baffled.

“So I can put a ring on your finger?” he says, like it’s the most casual thing. Like getting a ring slipped onto your fourth finger is the most casual Sunday for you, when it’s something you’ve dreamt of your whole entire life.

You finally take a long hard look at the ring he’s holding in his right hand. It shimmers with every glint of light in the courtroom off of every angle, no doubtedly precisely cut diamond from a jeweler who really cares about their craft, and you swear you’ve saved a similar looking ring to one of your Pinterest wedding boards before.

You hesitantly bring your hand up and hover it over his.

“Your left hand, silly,” he tells you.

“Oh, right,” you say, and hand him your left one instead.

He holds it in his hand that is much warmer than yours, and it’s so tender, the way he gently slips the ring onto your finger. It fits with ease, perfection actually, and you can’t help raising your hand up in the air, spreading your fingers weakly as you admire the stone now sitting above your knuckle. It��s pretty.

You feel Gojo’s eyes on you, as he’s halted in frame, and you glance past your hand to look at his face. You dislike him. You do. You should. He’s your annoying as fuck next-door-neighbor. So then why does your heart feel like it could burst right now?

A glimmer of silver catches your eye, and you look down at his hands as he slips a silver ring onto his left hand while facing you before he turns to face the front again, signaling the end of the ring exchange, except you didn’t get to put it on his hand. He didn’t give you the chance.

“Alright! Wonderful!” Judge Jun exclaims, whose eyesight is probably too poor to have seen that it wasn’t even a proper ring exchange. “With the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife!”

There is scattered applause across the courtroom, a few cheers as well, as you two stand in front of the court of law in holy matrimony.

Judge Jun glances at Gojo. “Well, young man, you may now kiss the bride!”

“Oh—…that—” you stutter, “that’s not necessa—”

“Okay,” Gojo says, more to affirm Judge Jun than in acknowledgement of your protest, and in a series of what feels like just one motion, he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you two him and then he—

He kisses you.

He kisses you like it’s real, like there’s history, like it’s a pure thing meant to last and not something you quite literally put a time stamp on. The kiss muffles the small sound that comes from your throat, your hands held up in the air in some slight surrender before they slowly settle on his shoulders as he bends you backwards over his forearm to deepen the kiss and the cheers surrounding you grow with a fervor that has your cheeks burning red but for some reason you don’t want it to end—

And then he pulls away from you, eyes darting across the features of your face in close proximity as he exhales slowly, like a release, and it feels like the two of you are the only ones in this room before he glances at your lips one last time and then he releases his hold on you. You stand shocked, and briefly glance at Choso, who looks like he’s about to burst a fuse off the top of his head.

What.

What?

And just like that, you were married to your insufferable next-door neighbor.

[end of chapter 2]

a/n. thank youuu soooo so much for reading this chapter of ihm!! i’m kinda liking the writing style i’ve adopted for this series, it’s kinda lax n lenient sort of like a stream of consciousness and i hope it doesn’t come of too crass of informal lol i’m just playing around w some writing styles rn. ANYWHO i hope you enjoyed!! btw i picture choso as long-hair choso in any modern au (and not pigtails choso) so if you see me describing his hair in the way that i do, that’s why lol. love you all so much, hope to see you in the next one <3

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@whereflowerswenttodie @geniejunn @bakuhoethotski @77uchiha77 @hellowoolf

@tobaccosunbxrst @possumwho @kittygrimm88 @billiondollarworth @mmeerraa

@reinam00n @semra4 @coltsgf @strawnanamilk @ironhottubstranger

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miranyx1337 · 4 months

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Alastor x reader

FEATHER chapter III

Tags: fluff (for now ) enemies to lovers, kissing, being protective, cuddles, sleeping problems, flirting, possesive reader is an angel, fem reader

He needed a new plan, something that would change her mind about him. He had always been able to enchant women, making them fall for him completely. Maybe that's what he needed now; since the fear of Adam wasn't enough, he needed something deeper – love. It was a strange word for him, when he tried to imagine it, all that came to his mind was a deep desire and craving.

Y/N was definitely one of the things he desired most throughout his afterlife, a gateway to freedom. Escape from the curse he brought upon himself.

The memory of her momentary outburst of anger made him blush, and his hand instinctively went to the ear she had touched.

He was not angry, her touch and closeness weakened his contract, unlocking dormant potential. It made him feel like he had a radio playing in his chest.

This cute angel had to desire his presence enough to bind her soul to him for eternity.

"Vaggie, my dear, how do you feel?" a cheerful radio voice filled the room. The fallen angel quickly scanned the room, looking for his spear.

"Calm down, sweetheart. I just need some information from you," he said, sitting on the other side of the bed, twirling a cane in his hands.

"What do you need, freak? And what are you doing in my and Charlie's bedroom?" she questioned.

"As I said, it's a matter of great importance, and I need information.

Speak before I wake up enough to kick you out."

"What does Y/N like? Generally, what do angels like, what do you find appealing in others? Why did you fall in love with Charlie?"

Vaggie needed to rub her eyes and analyze what the uninvited guest had just said. Why this sudden interest in Y/N? What did he want from her? She was an angel too, there must be something only Y/N could do.

"Listen, I don't know what you're plotting with that devilish smile, but nothing will come of it. She's an ANGEL, and a higher-ranking one at that. Why would she stoop to your level?"

"Let's say that majestic little angel charmed me from the first glance. So, what made you fall in love with Charlie?"

Vaggie couldn't comprehend this sudden alastor interest in love.

"I don't know if you'd understand even if I told you."

"So let me try," his tone sharpened with growing impatience.

I fell in love with Charlie because she was full of love."

This answer didn't help him at all, it even confused him more. Someone being full of love was the complete opposite of him, and yet, many had fallen for him before.

"I told you, you won't understand. She is an angel, she loves goodness, harmony, people ready to help and love."

So, he needed to become a lovely person. Nothing he couldn't do.

She sat behind the bar, helping Husk, occasionally lifting Niffty to dust the shelves, and with one wing, she created a breeze to dry freshly painted Angel nails. She was definitely full of love. Her long white hair tangled in the midst of these various activities.

Ugh he was doing it again, observing her from the shadows when it was time to act. He teleported in front of the counter.

Hello, everyone. What's with all the commotion?"

Charlie said she had a new plan to defeat the attack, so they were preparing for her speech - Niffty explained.

Alastor knew exactly which plan they were talking about, specifically his cannibalistic plan, slowly being put into action. Maybe if he suggested to the little angel that he killed Adam deliberately for her, she would fall at his feet?

Well, she would quickly flew back to the heavens. The death of Adam was no longer an option. A sudden, indescribable fear and shiver ran through his body at the thought. What if she truly left, and he never saw her again?

"Alastor." Snapped out of this sudden panic, he looked directly into bright blue eyes.

,,Alastor, you've turned pale. Is everything okay?" Her hand on his forearm made him feel better.

"Yes, don't worry, sweetheart. It's just a momentary weakness. You, on the other hand, need a little help."

She looked at him disoriented.

Remembering his last thoughtless move, he decided it was better to ask.

,‚Can I?" - pointing to her twisted hair.

Embarrassed by this fact, she turned around, trying to locate the tangle. Indeed, she should tie them up for cleaning. Long fingers in black gloves conjured a thin, decorated comb. Alastor began to slowly and gently untangle her hair, humming an unfamiliar jazz tune under his breath.

The atmosphere became quite specific and romantic, which Angel dust quickly noticed. Quietly, he grabbed Niffty's arm and signaled Husk to go with him to the exit. Some time ago, he noticed that Alastor behaved strangely in the company of his new friend. Especialy when he returned from work and caught him holding one of her lost feathers to his lips. Of course, he pretended to be too high to notice.

Alastor and Y/N didn't even notice that they were left alone, lost in their own thoughts. Y/N couldn't remember the last time someone had combed her hair, let alone so gently. Her attention was drawn to the sudden silence when the demon finished humming behind her. She began to feel awkward, trying to find some point of contact.

"I put a gift from you in the room," - she mumbled.

Alastor looked at her as if awakened from a dream - "Oh, that's great. You like it?"

"I like your touch too; it always makes me feel calmer."

"I'm glad to hear that."

Wait, what did she say? His touch always made her feel calmer. The only time Alastor could remember touching Y/N before was in the hallway when she was furious with him. The only direct touch he remembered.

Alastor swallowed.- "What do you mean, always?"

"Oh, you know, your little games with my feather. You know when you're sleeping with it, I also feel company in my bed ?

He didn't know what to say. She could feel that, every single time he kissed, touched, or bit that little thing, she could feel it.

"Y-you knew? Why didn't you just take it back?"

"Maybe I didn't want to take it back and stop you?"

For the next hundred years, Alastor wouldn't feel as embarrassed as he did at that moment.

Y/N looked at him with those pure eyes, clearly flirting with him. Was that enough? Showing some heart and affection to make an angel fall for you?

She leaned closer to him, their breaths almost touching, and he tightly gripped the edge separating them.

What could he do? No sensible answer appeared in his mind, and he couldn't just turn away or escape. So, he did something he always saw in those cheesy romantic comedies his mother used to watch.

Not knowing exactly what he was doing, he gently and quickly kissed her. It was like the first innocent peck in kindergarten, even though it was his first.

#alastor x y/n #alastor radio demon #alastor imagine #alastor x you #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel

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rwrbficrecs · 5 months

Text

The last of our monthly recs for 2023 ❤️ Every Day’s a Holiday (When I’m Near to You) by bleedingballroomfloor (book-verse)

@dot524: I loved every bit of this road trip fic. Henry has a crush on Alex and impulsively decides to join him on a road trip to Texas, which turns out to be longer than expected. The delicious yearning, only-one-bed situations, and funny road-trip pit stops made this a great story. I didn’t want to stop reading.

@heybuddy-drabbles: this ticked all my boxes honestly. The pinning, the yearning. The friendship they build while falling in love. And then the love, wild and unstoppable and so free. It was just perfect.

I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard? by dollarstoreannabethchase (book-verse)

@dot524: A deliciously angsty Henry POV of key events in the book - lake house & storming of Kensington Palace. Broke my heart and put it back together again. The description of his depression and pain made me want to give Henry a hug.

Last Christmas by @celaestis1 (book-verse)

@suseagull04: Enemies to lovers meets Christmas feels and found family. The establishment of every relationship, both romantic and platonic, in this fic is fantastic too!

Never Did Run Smooth by @clottedcreamfudge (book-verse)

@dot524: What a delightful ride! I loved the unique reality-show setup and the roommates/best friends to lovers pining from Henry’s POV. It had a few fun plot turns that kept me guessing and many scenes that made me grin like an idiot (e.g. a cake-baking contest and partner yoga with someone else). This isn’t exactly an undiscovered gem based on the number of comments and kudos — but I hadn’t read it, so I wanted to spread the word for those new to the fandom!

No Consequences by @anchoredarchangel (book-verse)

@thesleepyskipper: In this AU where Henry is still the Prince but Alex is a civil rights lawyer who works with Pez, the author has given us an incredible meet cute!! Alex pulls an Alex and shoots his shot for a selfie that turns out pretty well for him in the end. 😏 The author’s writing of Alex here is absolutely spot on AND hilarious. I still can’t believe this is their first published fic!!!

@zwiazdziarka: this fic has everything one could ask for: it's funny, it's cute, it's awkward, it's hot and addictive. I can't stop thinking about this version of Alex and Henry and their characterisation is absolutely perfect!

Made For Love by @candyspandemonium (book-verse)

@zwiazdziarka: AU where Henry and June are ice dancing champions and Alex has a lot of feelings about some guy stealing his sister. There are just so many good things in this fic - emotions, Alex being totally unhinged and not realising what it means, Henry as perfect fantasy, dealing with media and public opinion - and all that in nice scenery of ice rinks. Can't recommend it enough!

(Secret) Santa Baby by @indomitable-love (book-verse)

@dot524: Such a sweet AU about office romance between Alex and Henry and how a Secret Santa gift & being paired together on a project leads to something more. Heartwarming and made me smile… this writer’s characterization of Alex & Henry is always spot-on for me, no matter the universe.

The Royal Magician and the Ravens of the Tower of London by @bluflamingo (book-verse)

@suseagull04: The world-building in this fic is phenomenal! It's the perfect blend of magical realms and the real world, mystery and magic AU, and I love it!

could it be mad love? by @duchessdepolignaca03 (book/movie-verse)

@zwiazdziarka: actors AU, but also Henry is Alex's biggest fan and his awkward celebrity crush adds all new flavour to their relationship once they meet. The range of emotions fit in this story is truely amazing. There's so much tension and every moment feels like the one where it all can turn into a dissaster or something absolutely wonderful.

where every wish comes true by @hypnostheory (book-verse)

@heybuddy-drabbles: Neighbors!au + fuck buddies. Alex locks himself out of his apartment in a filthy costume and his neighbor and fuck buddie Henry takes him in. It's very funny and sexy!!

#monthly faves #rwrb fic recs #firstprince #firstprince fic recs

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wobblesthecowgirl · 20 days

Text

I'm No O’Driscoll!

Chapter Three: Arthur's Doubts

Tags: Arthur Morgan x Femreader, enemies to lovers, O'Driscoll reader, game plot, Arthur doesn't have tuberculosis, eventual smut, age difference, 18+, mild gore

Word Count: 975

A/N: Sorry for a short chapter! Next chapter is going to be a long one...Lenny, Arthur, and Reader get drunk in Valantine! Comment how you want that to go! I've also changed the layout to see which is preferred.

Chapter One

Chapter Four

Arthur was starting to have doubts about letting both O’Driscoll’s join the gang. On the ride back to camp, he couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of them gunning down those there. Especially her. Where did she learn to shoot like that? She’s too quick.

Luckily, when he arrived, the place was calm and peaceful…or as peaceful as it could be. He scanned for the new members: Kieran was getting some soup from a not so happy Pearson, and then he finally saw her. It was clear the first thing she did as a free woman was have a wash and brush her hair.

Arthur couldn’t deny that she was definitely pretty, but her sour attitude, O’Driscoll past, and constant scowl made him hate her so much that he could look past how beautiful she was. However, when he watched from afar, he saw how she interacted with Mary-Beth: Her eyes were soft, her mouth curled up slightly at the corners, and she was even laughing lightly at times.

For some reason, this only annoyed him further. He strode over towards the two women who were sat on a blanket, looking up at him.

“You behavin’ yourself?” He asked, and there it was. Her famous scowl.

“You’re not going to give me a minute’s peace, are you?”

Now that he was closer, he could see had to look through her long lashes, and she had a small scar along her neck like Javier. Mary-Beth coughed.

“Is there something you need, Arthur?”

He shook his head, “Oh no, I was just making sure our new friend wasn’t giving you any trouble. God knows she gives it out a lot.” The woman shook her head to disagree, putting her book down.

“Not at all! She’s actually pleasant company.”

It was Y/n’s turn to talk, “I’m right here. Which, for your information, I’m a delight when I actually like the person. But, for a strange reason, I don’t like big dumb grunts who shoot me!”

Arthur rolled his eyes, “Give it a rest woman. You’re gonna have to get over that one day.”

The wind picked up slightly, making Y/n’s hair flow a little, and he was looking a bit too intently by accident. Mary-Beth stood up suddenly, causing the other two to turn to her. She excused herself, explaining she had chores to attend to, and scampered off. Arthur and Y/n stayed in awkward silence for a few seconds before she finally spoke up.

“Are you going to stand there or say something?”

He narrowed his eyes, staying stood because sitting next to her seemed too friendly, but the awkward pose of her sat looking up at him while he stood above her was just as bad.

“I’m just here to warn you that if you try anything- “

“Oh, give it a rest old man,” She spat as his eyes widened.

“Old man? You gotta be kidding, old man?”

Y/n laughed, tilting her head back slightly at his response. She stood up, dusting off her jeans. Despite being stood up now, she still had to look up. Tiny thing, she is. He asked, “And how old are you exactly?”

“Why? You interested?” She teased… flirted? He couldn’t tell, but he didn’t like either option.

He scowled at her, “Don’t be so cocky, girl. I’m askin’ ‘cos you’re acting like I’m as old as Hosea.”

“I’m in my early twenties, that’s all you’re getting.” She informed him, and for some reason, his stomach dropped. Arthur should’ve guessed she was young, she didn’t look older than thirty, but it still shocked him. Then she asked the same question. He chuckled lightly, looking away from her.

“I’m in my mid-thirties, old enough to be your Daddy.”

“Well, you don’t look a day over fifty.” She smiled sickly, enjoying tormenting the older man.

“Real mature of you.” He scoffed, before turning around without a goodbye. He couldn’t stand talking to her much longer; every single sentence she threw his way only jabbed him more and more, which would cause him to snap eventually. He found himself at Dutch’s tent, who was sat smoking a cigar and lost in thought. When he saw Arthur, his face lit up.

“Arthur! And to what do I owe the pleasure?” He took another puff.

“I just came to talk to you about that O’Driscoll girl.”

Dutch sat up straight, concern on his face, “Is she causing trouble?”

“Not exactly,” He rubbed the back of his neck, “It’s about her aim. When we were at Six Point, I was about to get shot, but she saved me. Put a bullet right between the man’s eyebrows. In seconds. That ain’t normal.”

The music was blaring from inside the tent like it usually did at this time, and Arthur could hear the rest of the members shouting and laughing. It almost drowned Dutch out.

“Where are you going with this, son?” The leader asked. Arthur paused, rubbing his chin.

“My point is, I don’t think she’ll cause trouble, but keep an eye on the guns around here.”

Dutch leaned back into his chair, a smug smile tugging at his lips.

“Or, we could use her to our advantage.” He was already planning something, a new chess piece for his board. Arthur rose an eyebrow and asked, “What you plannin’?”

He nodded his head, thoughts and ideas running through his head, “We are going to get Sean back, having her behind the scenes could be very helpful. Especially in a place like Blackwater.”

“Dutch…” Arthur groaned, “I can’t trust her. She may’ve saved my life, but she probably did it to save her own hide.”

“Well then, sounds like you two need to do a little bonding.” Dutch smirked, taking the final huff of his cigar, as he continued to scheme; much to Arthur’s dismay.

#arthur morgan x reader #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 arthur #rdr2 x reader #arthur morgan

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heliads · 8 months

Note

Hiya Lisa my love!! I think this may be the first request I’m sending you (omg!?) But I am so excited to do so, and of course for our best boy Jack Wilder <3

Okay this one’s a little silly but I’m thinking Jack Wilder x reader where the reader is part of the Horsemen, but Jack and her don’t exactly get along all too well (enemies/reluctant allies to lovers). I’m thinking they’re sent off together to check out and map a location for the Horsemen’s next big act (maybe a fancy gala! That’d be so fun!), but the whole time they’re just bickering and shooting jabs at each other and the other guys are on comms and are just So Tired™ of their bullshit 😭

amber i love you for this

masterlist

You don’t think you’ve ever seen the magical enigma known professionally as J. Daniel Atlas and familiarly as a pain in all of your asses as stressed as he is right before the start of a new job. The Horsemen are world renowned for their intricate performances and flawless setups, which only serves to increase the pressure on all of you to keep one-upping yourselves every time you appear in the spotlight. Danny has taken it upon himself to make sure that all of you stay perfect, and that responsibility is manifesting itself in the form of a lecture right now.

He’s standing in front of you, eyes wild with the fire of what could be creative genius or perhaps too much coffee, and rattling off a series of questions to make sure you know what you’re doing.

“Where are you going?” He asks first.

You meet his gaze steadily. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Specifically the busiest areas during the Met Gala.”

“How are you entering?” Danny queries.

“Two ways. First, as a tourist, to spot the security cameras. Then, I’ll go again at night, to lay some cameras of our own and run some more thorough investigations.”

Danny takes a step closer. His hands are steepled together, making him the perfect picture of a plotting supervillain from one of those bad action movies Merritt keeps playing. “What, specifically, are you looking for?”

You want to roll your eyes, but you learned a long time ago that showing any sort of emotion except for intensity in front of Daniel Atlas during his mad planning sessions is only asking for trouble. So, you keep your cool, or you try to, at least. “The normal stuff. Alcoves and closets where we can hide. Areas with low security presence. Entrances and exits. Janitors. Extra uniforms. That sort of thing.”

Daniel nods once, the only sign that you’re not outright bombing his little pop quiz. “And who is going with you on this reconnaissance mission?”

This time, you can’t disguise your sigh of disgust. “I’m taking a stubborn child.”

Danny gives you a cool stare. “Try again.”

You give him a look, but Daniel is prone to winning staring contests, especially when he’s in this sort of mood, so you cut your losses and give in. “Fine. I’m taking Jack.”

To your side, someone starts clapping. “Perfect response!”

You and Daniel both turn in unison to see your recon partner applauding your sarcastic answer from his chair a few paces away. His feet are kicked up on the table in front of him, and although he had been aimlessly scrolling through his phone this entire time, he’s put the device down temporarily so he can remind you just how strong a bond the two of you share. Which is to say, in no uncertain terms, none at all.

Daniel glances back at you. “You’re not going to let the two of you working together be a problem, will you?”

You fold your arms across his chest, affronted. “I won’t. You might want to double-check with my so-called partner, though. Who, by the way, is free to answer any of these questions on his own. I don’t see why I’m the one who has to know everything while he gets off easy. Aren’t we sharing this responsibility? And by extension, this interrogation?”

Jack just flashes you a thousand-watt smile. “You seemed to have it covered, sweetheart. Besides, I just like hearing the sound of your lovely voice.”

You flip him off. He blows you a kiss, then does the same. Daniel looks ready to burst a blood vessel. “Focus, you two. I want no slip ups. We’re stealing the show of the Met Gala. If we make a mistake, I think Anna Wintour will personally kill us.”

“She’s going to do that anyway,” Jack muses, “We’re interrupting her little fashion show. God forbid someone focuses on us instead of all the celebrities who aren’t even dressing to theme. If I had that money, I could do way better, is all I’m saying.”

You shoot him a perplexed look. “Since when have you paid attention to the Met Gala outfits? Last time I tried talking about it, you told me that was all absurdist nonsense.”

“Maybe I was just talking about you,” Jack answers vaguely. “I’m allowed to, like, develop interests.”

You toss him a glare, then turn back to Daniel, who for some reason looks somewhat entertained. “Can we go back to the plan, please?”

Danny straightens up. “Yes, I’d like that. I’ve briefed both of you on the entrances and exits I need you to scout out–”

“Too many times,” Jack cuts in. He’s not wrong. Danny’s been over this every hour on the hour since you got the call to stage your own show at one of the most famous fashion opportunities of the year.

Daniel, however, seems to think that he hasn’t mentioned the details enough. Now Jack is on the receiving end of not just your glare but Daniel’s as well. “As I was saying,” Danny continues smoothly, “You’ll get in and get out. Try not to move too quickly, you don’t want to attract attention, but don’t linger too long, either.”

“We’ll be fine,” you assure him. “Not our first rodeo.”

Danny nods hesitantly. “I know. Just your first rodeo together in a while.”

That’s no big secret. You and Jack may both be Horsemen, but that certainly doesn’t mean you have to like each other. In fact, you couldn’t be farther from it. You’re not enemies, so to speak, an enemy is the FBI or the CIA, but referring to whatever exists between you as friendship is stretching the truth. You’re more like uncertain, unhappy allies. You’ll work together so long as you get paid and stay in the spotlight while you’re at it, but you’re not likely to grab drinks after a show together.

However, the Horsemen come first above any personal squabble. Always. That’s the one thing you and Jack can agree on. What you’re working on is bigger than the two of you, it’s bigger than all of you. To most of the world, you are magic. No rift between teammates is worth damaging that ideal.

That’s why Jack straightens up at last, and dons an expression verging on solemnity. “We’ll do our part, Danny. No need to worry.”

“There had better not be,” Daniel comments, but he backs off after that, and leaves to track down Merritt to deliver a similar speech.

Now alone, Jack’s familiar cavalier attitude comes back in a flash. “Can’t wait for our little date tomorrow, L/N,” he tells you.

You roll your eyes. “It’s going to be so much fun.”

The next morning, you and Jack wait your turn in the entrance queue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You’re both disguised with baseball caps pulled low over your heads, then paired with sunglasses, and you each have fake IDs in your pockets just in case. It’s surprisingly easy to get around undetected; although the Horsemen are famous the world over, no one expects to see them outside of one of your performances. It makes no sense to spot one of you in a coffee shop or in line ahead of you, so their minds just glance over you as if you were never there at all.

It’s certainly convenient. You could always go to an outside source for intel, but if there’s one lesson you’ve learned throughout your time, it’s to never trust anyone outside of your immediate circle. There are always people who’ll sell off your secrets, or debunkers frothing at the mouth to show how you do what you do.

No, it’s best to keep everything under wraps, even if it makes disguises necessary. There’s a brief moment of panic in which the security guard checking Jack’s bag lingers on his face a little longer than usual, but he’s waved through soon enough and then you’re able to wander further into the museum.

A voice crackles over your earpiece. “What was that about?” Danny, paranoid as always.

Jack shrugs, directing his voice towards you so no one will suspect he’s talking to anyone else. “Probably just a newbie convinced they’ll catch a would-be robber by checking my hand sanitizer close enough. They didn’t plant any bugs, we’re good. Most likely, she was just captivated by my exceedingly good looks and got distracted.”

You scoff. “Or maybe she was just fascinated by your hideousness and wanted a better look.”

Jack clutches a hand to his heart, feigning agony. “My hideousness?” Y/N, I’m hurt.”

“Good,” you smile saccharinely at him.

Daniel sighs in a gust of static over your earpiece. “Focus, you two. Please.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Jack says. “We’ll get to work.”

You and Jack slip through the exhibits, pretending to examine paintings in sculptures when, in reality, you’re looking harder at the security features in each room. The Horsemen already have a rough plan in mind for how you’re going to enter and exit, but the security presence could change which specific entrance you use.

When you loiter a little too long near one oil painting of two nobles dancing at a lavish ball, Jack doubles back to your side. “Everything alright? We haven’t been noticed yet, have we?”

You shake your head, snapping yourself back to reality. “No, we’re fine. Just looking. I love this year’s theme for the gala. If I had an actual invitation, I would have worn something like the dress in this painting. I would want to, at least. Of course, that would only happen if we weren’t breaking in, but. Yeah. That’s what I would do.”

You realize you’re rambling and try to cut yourself off, but you’ve already been going on for a while. You wait for Jack to tease you, but instead, the corner of his lips tugs up in a soft half-smile. “It would look good,” he admits, “You would. Maybe we should petition Danny to let us dress up. We could recreate the painting.”

He swoops closer, placing one hand on your waist and taking yours with the other, spinning you into a waltz just like in the painting. Jack pulls you close in an exaggerated dip just like in the painting, one that takes you a little too near the painting. One of the security guards surges across the room to tell you two to move away again. Jack lets you up, then exaggeratedly apologizing, slapping the guy on the back as a gesture of camaraderie. As the guard walks away, you can see the tracer he’s planted, one that will give you two much-needed information on the paths each guard takes on their shift.

“Nice one,” you breathe.

“Yeah,” Jack says, but he’s still looking at you, as if mentally cataloging each and every place his hands had been just moments before. “I am nice.”

You swat him on the shoulder, and he winks. Rather than give that an answer, you head to the next exhibit. The two of you tag the next few guards you come across, noting janitor’s closets and fire exits while you’re at it.

It’s easy to settle into a rhythm. You go from room to room, you snipe at each other, you get the job done. Jack passes a sculpture of a nude woman and suggests that be the costume you wear to the Gala, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively; you tell him that you’ll do it only when he’s got biceps the size of the Greek hero statue next to it.

Eventually, you only have one tag left. This one, though, will be the most difficult. The chief security guard has access to the central security station of the museum; by bugging him, you can get the passcode to the main room, which would be a significant help. The only problem is that you’ll have to get close enough to talk to the guy, and he looks far more suspicious of everyone around him than any of the other guards.

You volunteer to do it, and weave your way over to the guard in charge. It takes a heady dose of flirting, but you’re able to get the job done eventually. You do have to shell out a fake phone number, but he’ll only find out the number isn’t yours later that night. No harm, no foul.

Or, not according to you, at least. When you walk back over to Jack, though, your partner in crime has his arms folded tight across his chest, and he looks more annoyed than you’ve seen him all day. At last, something has managed to pierce his armor of sarcastic, joking indifference, but you’re not sure what.

“He seems nice,” Jack says, voice unnaturally calm, “Maybe you do want to take him out on a date after this, like you said.”

You laugh. “We both know that was an act, Wilder. No need to get jealous.”

“I’m not jealous,” he insists, “I have nothing to be jealous of.”

“Nothing?” You ask, one brow raised. “So you wouldn’t mind if I went back and gave him my real number?”

Jack slings an arm around your shoulder in a pretense of affection, but it feels more like he’s pinning you to him, making sure you can’t go back and do as threatened. “That would be ridiculous. It would ruin our whole act.”

You grin. “What act?”

“That we’re here on a date of our own, obviously,” Jack says.

“We haven’t done anything of the sort the whole time we were here,” you point out. “It makes more sense for him to think we’re just friends.”

“Then we’ll have to fix that, won’t we?” Jack suggests, and although you do notice the glint in his eyes when he says it, you’re still not expecting him to lean forward and kiss you. The kiss is– startling, yes, but not bad, not at all, and when he finally breaks away and looks triumphantly over at the guard who’d been flirting with you, you get the feeling that Jack thought so too.

“I think we should do this all the time,” Jack whispers to you. “Maybe we should ask Danny to change our assignments around.”

“Actually,” a voice crackles over your earpieces, “I’d rather neither of you ever spoke to me again. If I have to think about you two making out one more time, I’ll pour bleach directly into my brain.”

You slap a hand over your mouth to stop from laughing. “Oh, no. Daniel, how long have our comms been on?”

“The whole time,” your showman says, “I hated all of it, thank you for asking.”

Jack snorts. “And you didn’t remind us to turn off our mics?”

“Merritt wanted to see if you’d actually commit enough to do it,” Danny says, sounding supremely unhappy. “Now we’re both traumatized. Just get your asses back here and never bring this up again.”

This time, you can’t hide your laugh. “Alright, we will. Try to stay away from the bleach in the meantime.”

“I make no promises,” Danny grumbles, sending you and Jack into a wave of laughter again.

Jack reaches up to switch off his own earpiece, then does the same for you, gently brushing the side of your face with his hand while he’s at it. “Well,” he says slowly, “We might as well make the most of our time right now, hadn’t we? I’d hate for our ticket money to go to waste.”

You grin. “Quit the theatrics and kiss me.”

Jack Wilder doesn’t usually do as told. This time, though, he makes an exception.

requested by @hiya-itsamber, i hope you enjoy!

now you see me tags: @mayfieldss

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midnight-pluto · 7 months

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(Followers event) Might aswell start calling me the pjo asker, since I had my share of angst already, how about some Leo Valdez x child of Ares Reader, enemies to lovers Riordanverse and Headcannon or one shot form

Plot: Leo and reader always had a disliking towards eachother, part of it being due to their dads own dislike towards other but soon starts to like eachother s company then finally turns to lovers.

(This was rushed, sorry about that, you can ignore the plot part and get your own idea from the start)

Note: since you're starting to feel burnt out, you can honestly do this when you start feeling better.

LEO VALDEZ — headcanons

when did the enemies stop and the lovers begin?

CHAR: leo

PAIRING(S): leo valdez x child of ares!gn!reader

WARNING(S): swearing, googles translated Spanish (I chose French instead which I highly regret)

A/N: ur now dubbed pjo asker anon — dw about me i took a break yesterday 😌✨

it was easy for leo to automatically stereotype you based on just finding out what cabin you belong to alone

he hated how loud the ares cabin was — it wasn’t like the apollo cabin where Leo could listen to its soft Melodie’s while he worked, it was loud thumps and yelling disturbing his work zone

that caused him to always be snarky and passive aggressive towards the majority of your cabin, grown some guts after going on a quest and finding out he can set things of fire

you were clarisse’s second in command always ready to defend your cabins pride at a moments notice

it was always when clarisse wasn’t around when Leo decided to pick a fight with you — saying some backhanded things about ares kids

don’t get Leo wrong, he grew out of hating all ares kids phase in the first few weeks of arriving at camp

he just started to hate you

and you had already hated him

that caused a lot of tension between the two cabins as a whole and especially got in the way whenever capture the flag was involved

it was nearly a crucial unspoken rule that the ares and hephaestus cabin never be on the same team unless you wanted to lose

until someone made the mistake of doing just that

“Oh of course, you know exactly what to do! It’s not like you’re known for your brains,” Leo taunts while you were making plans and putting on gear.

“As if you could come up with anything any better!” you retort, “The only thing you’re known for is spontaneously combusting.”

“¡Cállate, pedazo de mierda!”

“What the fuck did you say to me fuckface?!”

“Nothing, just that you’re the most pleasant person to be around!”

did you learn Spanish just because you were really tired of not understanding Leo whenever he muttered and yelled in Spanish?

yes

yes you did

that wasn’t great for Leo though since he always mutters under his breath about how it’s getting tiring always having to argue with you and hating how’s he grown to get used to and admire the face that yells back at him

“Why do you even have anything against me?” you glare, walking around Bunker 9.

“¿Por qué me acostumbraste a tu cara?” Leo mutters back fiddling with some device in his hand.

“¿Cuál fue siquiera esa frase?” you remark blandly, seeing his shoulders drop in shock.

now Leo has to be extra careful about what he says when you’re around afraid that you’ll find out about the feelings he’s deemed stupid for you

however sometimes he forgets just how many people can understand you and him when these bits of banter echo across camp

so some campers have decided to take it upon themselves to translate every single thing Leo has said about you on a piece of paper and deliver it on your pillow — there were dates and everything

it seemed to be the one thing that caused you to try have a civil conversation with Leo with him actually returning your civility

“So what was this about you saying I have a pretty face?” you remark, flipping through the packet.

“That,” Leo pauses, “That was when the lighting was extremely good that day.”

“Uh-huh, yeah. Okay,” you nod along sarcastically.

the whole thing was extremely satire since both of you had too much pride to formally apologize to each other so it came in the form of not screaming across camp at each other

it was the best time your vocal cords have had in a while

not for the rest of the campers though

the yelling was practically a common occurrence and was a part of their daily schedule at this point so the silence that should’ve been comforting was now ominous

it got to the point where they all had a makeshift meeting where they had to figure out where both of you were and make sure nothing happened

until then they saw you walking out of the forest — presumably from bunker 9 — poking fun at each other and laughing good-naturedly

and so, the Aphrodite kids won the bet against the Apollo kids and gained a shit ton of drachmas

A/N: I’m sorry this was so shittily made 😭 but shameless plug once again — my 200 follower event has been extended to the end of November and will not be put to rest until I get at least 8/10 requests so feel free to request some more /nf <3

#rin’s 200 follower event [🧸]#rin’s headcanon’s 🌷#pjo asker anon #pjo x you #pjo x reader #pjo fanfic #leo valdez #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez x y/n #leo valdez x you #enemies to lovers

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littledollll · 1 year

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If you don't mind, could you please write an enemies to lovers style smut? The reader is a new English teacher coming from a rival school but Larissa wasn't the one who chose them it was the board or something so she feels powerless. This leads to her taking it out on the reader and them bickering constantly about the reader's eccentric teaching that she'll never admit she finds amusing. Which leads to hate fucking (they both want to be the one in charge which leads to a lot of forced submission from them both) but after a particular hate fuck they both realise they need the others comfort as Larissa reluctantly requests the reader to stay with her and the reader is happy she wants them to so they both look at eachother like oh shit- which leads to them going for round two trying to prove that they don't care and aren't gonna go soft on the other? But ultimately ends with them both in each others arms really soft and confessing how much the other means to them?

Quiet

Larissa Weems x Reader

A/n: i have another request so similar but the way I built the other plot I couldn’t mix it but it’s rly the same idea😭this is pure smut, the plot is in between and thrown around a little but for rivalry plot here u go “Personal”

I didn’t exactly follow the request to a T but listen my mind just kept going so here we are, still I feel like I got the main idea down so I hope that’s okay.

Warnings: kinda hate sex but they don’t hate eachother, thribbing because it’s HOT, cunnulings, fingering, edging/ orgasm denial (once), overstimulation

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Never in her life did Larissa think this is where she’d end up with the person she swore to hate. All the bickering and fighting turning into tension, turning into this.

Yet another discussion in the privacy of her office, nothing unusual. Turned into a hungry kiss and that turned into make outs, desperate touches, scrambling to get eachothers clothes off.

This became a habit. You would get into some type of trouble, or Larissa would find any excuse to have you in her office. You’d argue back and fourth until fighting turned into kissing and it ended in probably the best orgasms of both of your lives.

Some days there would be no issues, you wouldn’t argue there was no build up, you showed up and shared a look and that’s how it would start.

Regardless of how it started, it would always end the same, the both of you exhausted yet sexually satisfied and then you’d walk away with a heartache and wait for the next time.

✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Larissa sat on her knees as you laid on her bed. This was new, you had never stumbled out of the four walls of her office until today.

Parting your thighs, Larissa wasted no time before diving into you cunt.

You moaned out, hands finding purchase in her hair, completely ruining her perfect styling as you pulled her against you, desperately grinding against her skilled tongue.

“fuck, you look good like that, between my thighs like a good girl, is this what you needed? You’ve been insufferable for the past week.” Big talk when you were a stuttering and moaning mess above her. You managed to rile her up regardless.

“Quiet, before I ride that pretty face of yours to keep you quiet.” Did that sound like a fucking deal, but at the moment you needed her, so you bit back your snarky remarks.

“You look good with your mouth shut.” She teased, continuing her ministrations between your thighs, two fingers curling to meet you sweet spot and your legs quivered as you forced them open.

Hips bucking, you held her head against you, using her to get yourself off when she pulled back, making you whine. “I’ve only just started and you can barely control yourself. Were you gonna come already? Greedy girl.” Larissa mocked as she moved up your body.

“Fuck me Larissa, come on.” And god was she about to. As she situated herself between your legs, you could feel her arousal against your own, how every slight movement created delicious friction between the two of you, yet she didn’t move.

She busied herself marking your skin, across your chest, collarbones and neck. You could feel your skin aching, that delightful dull throbbing that followed after she sucked it until it bruised making you moan and buck your hips against her.

Larissa moaned into your neck, and it encouraged you to keep grinding against her, you sat up slightly against the pillows behind you making it easier for you.

It was messy, filled with desperation and lust. The constant friction of her clit against yours was driving you mad and clearly she was just as affected as her teasing remarks were reduced to pants and whimpers.

At first it was you doing all the work, but Larissa got impatient, needy. She started moving her hips against yours, wanton moans escaping her lips even as she attempted to hide against your neck.

Your hands found her hips as you helped her grind against you and you could feel the coil in your stomach tightening more and more. “Kiss me, Issa please- ‘m gonna cum please, kiss me.” And who was she deny your begging?

Sure, it was needy, but it wasn’t messy, it wasn’t heated and charged with frustration, her lips felt so soft against your own. It felt intimate, how you would part but only slightly. Interrupted by moans and the harsh grinding of your bodies but you wouldn’t break away completely because you knew you would continue.

You saw stars as you orgasmed, and Larissa followed quickly behind you. Whimpers escaping you both as neither seemed willing to stop, even as you continued towards overstimulation.

In a second her lips were back on yours, her tongue running over your lips begging for entrance which you gladly allowed. You could feel her everywhere, she completed overtook every part of your body and mind and you had no complaints.

Everything felt like too much, her stuttering hips against yours as she refused herself or you a break, she had you gasping, hands struggling to get her to still as she only pressed herself closer against you, she was close, you knew she was as she started getting lost in her own pleasure. “Issa-“

She shushed you through her whimpers. “Just one more- please just one more, you feel so good-please.” She nuzzled into your neck leaving even more marks, breathing getting heavier until you felt her tense up and bite your shoulder. You winced, eyes screwing shut as you both fell over the edge.

You took a second to catch your breaths, and Larissa moved from on top of you and to the bathroom on shaking legs. You guessed that was your queue to leave and you hoped to any and all gods that you’d be able to walk out fine. You didn’t notice Larissa coming back out, wash cloth in her hand.

“Stay. Lay back down.” You looked at her confused but complied. Larissa moved back to the bed, sitting between your thighs and parting them, which quickly made you snap them shut. “I’m just cleaning you up, can I do that?” You nodded.

It felt so odd, you’ve never stayed post sex, you’d get back to your room and clean up, opting to just stay in bed for the remainder of the day. She was gentle and the wash cloth was cold against your burning body. “Stay the night. If- if you want I mean, I’d like you to stay.” You could only nod. Letting out a quiet “okay, good.” Larissa put the cloth down and laid with you.

It was calm and quiet for a bit, both of you enjoying eachothers warmth and comfort, shivers running down your body every time Larissa would lay a kiss on one of your marks, she payed special attention to the bite, almost apologetically. “Are you okay? I wasn’t too rough was I?” She said voice low as if it was a secret, tracing the bite mark with a finger. It looked pretty, to her anyways.

You decided to follow that air of quietness. “I’m okay.” A pause. “Larissa- can’t keep doing this and leaving, I don’t want to go. And today- I mean today felt so different. Please tell me you feel that too.” You were terrified she’d just yell at you to get out. Yet she didn’t, she hugged you closer.

“I want you to stay, no more walking away and I don’t want this to continue being just sex, I’ve fallen for you- much more than I’d like to admit. Be with me, say you’ll be mine, darling.”

You were filled with joy. “As long as you say you’ll be mine.” She felt the same, she knew exactly what you were talking about she felt it all. And she wanted you to be hers.

“Seems like we can finally agree on something.” She quipped. And you rolled your eyes. “Seems like we can.”

#gwendoline christie #larissa weems #principal larissa weems #larissa weems x reader #larissa weems nevermore #larissa weems wednesday #larissa weems fluff #larissa weems smut #larissa x reader #larissa Wednesday #Wednesday weems #principal weems smut

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imaginesbymonika · 1 year

Text

Even if it leads nowhere?

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Plot: The hatred Y/N and Spencer feel for one another covers up something that runs even deeper. inspired by the song ‘chasing pavements’ by adele.

Warning: mentions of people not liking one another, mentions of blood and coma, mentions of prison, angst, fluff (?)

note: i just started watching criminal minds, so if i make any plot mistakes i’m sorry xoxo

No one really knew why Y/N and Spencer hated each other so much. From the way, they rolled their eyes at one another to not wanting to work on cases together. "He just aggravates me.", Y/N states and crosses her arms.

"Oh yeah?", Spencer, who sits in the chair next to her turns his upper body towards her: "Well, I don't like looking at you at all." "At all.", the y/h/ced woman repeats in a high-pitched voice, clearly mocking her co-worker. But before he could react Hotch strikes the table with his fist:" Would you two stop?! This behavior is beyond unprofessional. You understand?"

The two in front of him nod. "I highly recommend that the two of you get a grip before it affects any cases!"

They exited the office in silence. It has always been this way, just not that aggressively. "I don't get it.", Penelope speaks, without looking at JJ, who was busy locating something on a map. She just hummed in response. "Can't you guys, I don't know, profile the situation?", Penelope continued and sensed how her friend was staring at her. "We honestly have bigger problems than their constant bickering."

I've made up my mind / Don't need to think it over / If I'm wrong, I am right / Don't need to look no further /This ain't lust, I know this is love, but / If I tell the world, I'll never say enough / 'Cause it was not said to you / And that's exactly what I need to do if I end up with you.

The shots are fired simultaneously. One strikes the Unsub right in between the eyes and he drops to the ground in a beat.

Spencer swipes the sticky sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, before he runs it down his face. The last two days have been exhausting. "Everything is going to be okay.", he tells, while he quickly rushes over to help the victims out of their shackles:" Are you hurt?" The tall man examines a young woman's face, but a shiver runs down his spine when he realizes that her eyes are concentrating on something behind him.

When he turns around he sees where the second shot went. "Shit!", he exclaims and quickly makes his way towards an unconscious Y/N, whose hands are hiding the bullet wound in her lower abdomen:" Shit, shit, shit."

Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements / Even if it leads nowhere? / Or would it be a waste, even if I knew my place?/ Should I leave it there? / Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements / Even if it leads nowhere?

For the two weeks in which Y/N was in a coma, Spencer didn't leave her side. Like a dog lingering at the front door, he was sitting besides her hospital bed. Day and night. Jumping out of his seat whenever doctors came in to check up on her. Derek argued that it was survivor's guilt that kept him there, while Penelope was sure that he was in love with her.

"He has been whining about her since day one.", Derek Morgan says, while softly shaking his head in disbelief:" Remember that, baby girl?" But the blonde woman only rolls her eyes:" This is a classic example of Enemies to lovers. Don't you see it?" But he didn't. None of them did. Spencer notices out of the corner of his eye how Y/N gradually begins to move. "Oh my god.", he whispers and quickly gets up:" Doctor! We need a doctor!"

He disappeared before she fully woke up.

I build myself up and fly around in circles / Waiting as my heart drops / And my back begins to tingle / Finally, could this be it, or?

Spender denied ever being in the hospital. Whenever it was brought up he just scoffed:" I hate those places." Y/N only sighed and took another sip of her coffee:" Wouldn't have expected anything else, Reid."

Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements Even if it leads nowhere? / Or would it be a waste, even if I knew my place? / Should I leave it there? / Should I give up or should I just / keep chasing pavements / Even if it leads nowhere? Yeah

"It's your turn." Y/N who is sitting at her desk peeks up from the paperwork. When she stares at Penelope's outstretched hand she wrinkles her eyebrows:" What?"

"The letter.", her friend simply replies, as if it's the most obvious thing in the whole world. But Y/N shakes her head, while an embarrassing smile emerges on her features:" I- I don't think that he would want to read a letter from me. Maybe you should write him one." But Penelope just clears her throat, her hand hovering only a few centimeters away from Y/N's face: " I've written one last week. Come on, Y/N. I know that you've written one. I've seen the drafts in the trashcan."

For a moment the young woman simply stares at her, before a beaten sigh leaves her lips. She turns around and reaches for her bag:" It really isn't anything special, and also- I didn't know what to write about. I-." "I'm sure it's great."

Everyone understood how hard Spencer's imprisonment hit Y/N. She tried not to show it. But the dark circles underneath her eyes and the way she glanced at his now empty desk were proof enough.

"You think she's in love with him as well?", Derek questions while bringing the mug up to his mouth, he eyes his colleague through the kitchen window. "Of course.", Penelope answers, while looking down at the sealed white letter:" It's always like that."

Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements / Even if it leads nowhere? / Or would it be a waste, even if I knew my place? / Should I leave it there? / Should I give up or should I just keep on / chasing pavements? / Should I just keep on chasing pavements? / Oh-oh

Y/N who leaning against her desk runs a trembling hand through her hair. She just received the message on her phone. Spencer was out of prison. Fucking finally. And he was on his way to the BAU. "I am so excited!", Penelope softly spoke. Y/N stayed silent. Her mouth was dry while her heart was pounding presumably way too fast. The sound of the elevator door opening up snaps her out of her thoughts and when she turns around she makes eye contact with Spencer.

It feels like all air gets knocked out of her lungs. Penelope instantly rushes towards him and yanks him into a bone-crushing hug. However, Y/N continues to stare at him. Something inside of her prevents her from moving even a single muscle. She feels how hot tears arise in her eyes, while he moves closer to her.

As soon as he reaches her his hands reach for her face and he pulls her into a kiss.

"Oh my god?!", Derek exclaims and his eyes widen in astonishment. Penelope only tugs on his arm:" I knew it, I knew it!"

"I've read your letter.", Spencer whispers and licks his lips, there is a new emotion in his eyes. One he attempted to bury way too long ago. Y/N smiles, while her hands fly up to cover his. "I love you too, by the way."

#mgg #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler imagine #matthew gray gubler fluff #matthew gray gubler #spencer reid #mgg x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #spencer #reid angst #criminal minds angst #angst #Spotify

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wholoveseggs · 3 months

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Hi, I guess this is more of a general question than request, but if he falls in love with a human reader, then how would he discloses them of his truth, the existence of the supernatural world, his original vampire status and his chaotic family?

Also there is a darker and more violent side of him and his life, and the plethora of enemies Mikaelsons have, how would he help them to adjust to the other side of him and keep her safe?

Hi Anon! Sorry that I took so long to respond to this, (it got lost in my inbox).

Here are some of my opinions / headcanons on Elijah dating a human:

~I think there would be a lot of adjustment required, especially considering how many enemies the Mikaelsons have, but Elijah is very protective, and would not put someone he loves in unnecessary danger.

~Elijah would probably have to tell the reader about the supernatural world and his status as a vampire when he gets serious about them, and would have to trust that they will not go around telling everyone and making themselves targets.

~As for the violent and dark side of his life, it is hard to say. Elijah tries to live by a code and keep a clean slate, and I think the show kinda does a poor job of showing his complicated inner struggle.

~Like, in TVD one of my favorite moments is when he says ‘Mother made us vampires. She didn't make us monsters. We did that to ourselves.’ Which makes it seem like he harbors a lot of guilt over all the bad things he has done in the past, and is trying to make up for it and that's why he tries to be noble.

~But his actions are always very contradictory. He can be very cold, cruel and calculating. Like, he will help someone or save their life and then turn around and stab them in the back later, or even worse, sacrifice someone else's life in order to achieve his own goals.

~He is very ashamed of his red door and all his internal darkness, which kinda proves that he does have a moral code, but at the same time, he's not a good person. I think his ‘noble’ reputation is more of a shield than who he actually is, like how Klaus is more bark than bite.

~So my guess is that he would not want to hide those things, because he would want his lover to know the real him, but at the same time, he is terrified of being rejected because of who he is.

~So I can see him struggling, and eventually just coming out and saying it and hoping that love is strong enough to handle his truth.

~I also think Elijah is very much a supernatural creature, and would want to turn his lover into a vampire once he knew that they were truly committed, and that they wanted to spend eternity with him. I think the show does a poor job trying to show how exactly he feels about what he is. He is clearly very good at being a vampire (compared to hungry boy Stefan or volatile Damon / Klaus). He has demonstrated that he has incredible self-control, and is able to resist the bloodlust. He has centuries of experience and a very sharp mind, and is very confident and sure of himself. I think the red door plot was meant to show that he is certainly not perfect, although it turned from an interesting metaphor about how he suppresses his guilt to a literal construct in his mind that makes him forget his own actions, which is a little ridiculous and dumb.

~Anyway, I digress. The point is, he is very much a vampire and I don't think he would be satisfied with anything less than his lover joining him in eternity and becoming his partner forever.

~As for dealing with his family? Hopefully the reader has some thick skin and doesn't mind drama, because with the Mikaelsons you kinda get what you pay for. And Elijah would never abandon his family, (fuck season 5) so they would have to find a balance and make room for each other.

#elijah mikaelson #the originals #the vampire diaries #tvdu #klaus mikaelson #tvd #lissa responds

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bearhugsandshrugs · 9 months

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Hi! I'm Em, or bearhugs for short, and this is currently a BG3 blog. I love writing fics, ficlets, doodles, and I do take requests! I also occasionally write character analysis pieces.

I'm also working on a Kinktober promptmeme for BG3. Here's the announcement and FAQ!

How to request

Please use the question form to send in your requests. I'll reply to that and will let you know whether I (can) take the request or not. It'll probably be filled as a oneshot or short doodle. All requests (and my fills) will be tagged #requests on my blog. How to submit: pairing, kinks, squicks, context. The more the better. Note: I prefer F/M, F/F, or Multi pairings, just because I'm honestly not the best person to ask about M/M pairings. No experience with that and little personal interest, so there are much better writers out there for that!

Character Analysis

On Halsin's trauma – long form of my feedback to Larian On Halsin's leadership Theory on Shadow Druids On Halsin's romance On Halsin's romance, specifically in relation to the Drow scene Halsin's breakup lines

Other Stuff

Halsin smut gifs

Last but not least: Check out The Little Grove, a sweet discord that formed around Halsin enthusiasts but also features special interest channels on Zevlor, Raphael, or Abdirak. We're quite chill :)

Fics

NSFW, so under the cut:

Til Death Do Us Part (Rated Explicit, smut oneshot but potentially a series) Gortash/Tav Tav enters an arranged marriage with Gortash in exchange for him to abandon the Absolute and give her the Steel Watch against their forces. In turn she supports the sham Archduke and lends him her hero credibility afterwards. But when their first night rolls around, she suddenly finds herself biting off more than she can chew. Tags: Dubious Consent, Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex, Scratching, Public Sex, Power Play

The pleasure of doing business (Rated Explicit, smut oneshot) Gortash/Tav Gortash and Tav hate-fucking each other. That's it. That's the plot. Tags: Dubious Consent, Hate Sex, Vaginal Fingering,Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex

Keeping Score (Rated Explicit, enemies to lovers slow burn) Raphael/Tav Raphael has everything he ever wanted just ripe for the taking. Since Tav handed him the Crown of Karsus, his forces made significant progress against Zariel – and soon, all Nine Hells will be his. Until… Asmodeus, Archdevil Supreme and significantly more powerful than our favorite cambion could even comprehend, sends him back to Faerûn – as a human. Tav on the other hand isn't doing so great either. She hates her life after the events in Baldur's Gate. Most of all, she hates herself. So when Raphael comes knocking at her door, she sees a chance for hating someone new. They both hate each other almost as much as they need each other. But can there be more? Only one way to find out… Tags: to be added

Folie à Deux (Rated Explicit, pure smut, finished) Raphael/Haarlep/Tav and all variations of that trio. Tav makes a deal with Raphael: One night at his every desire, but no lasting impacts beyond first sunlight. But no matter how well you think you can prepare yourself – there's no winning a game against a devil. Tags: oral, vaginal, anal sex, dom/sub, degradation, double penetration, foot worship, rimming, orgasm denial, forced orgasm

(Re)Buffed Advances (Rated Mature, angst/fluff, finished) Halsin/Tav Halsin is the guy that watches your drink for you and then turns you down when you come onto him too drunk. Which is exactly what Tav did – she got wasted and tried to seduce the druid. Now they're navigating the aftermath. Tags: slow burn, angst, fluff, early access world state

Every Last Hour (Rated Explicit, slow burn with smut, wip) Halsin/Tav Tav just wants to survive, Halsin wants to save the world – but they say opposites attract. When their facades slowly crumble away while the two of them get to know each other through joint fights, shared laughter, and secret tears, it gets harder for them to ignore their feelings. What started out as a means to let off steam (in more than one way) takes both of them by surprise in its intensity. Can they move past their vulnerabilities and pursue something real? Or will they submit to the luring comfort of keeping an all too familiar distance? Tags: Oral and vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, rather slow burn, canon divergence as I'm rewriting Halsin's plot Note: this fic is currently on pause as I'm considering what to write next. Raphael brain rot is destroying everything else

#my writing #requests #new pinned and intro

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sparkle-d · 2 years

Text

waiting game | daniel ricciardo

pairing: daniel ricciardo x you

summary: in which you switch your phone with daniel's without knowing

tags: falling in love; chatting and messages; kind of enemies to friends to lovers

warnings: insecure reader; f!reader; dumb people

chapter: 3/?

(you: blue/ daniel: orange)

✧.* tag list: @bloodyvalentine93 @organasith @verstappens-hat @idkiwantchocolatee @landhoe @theplobnrgone @iamasimpingh0e @chiliwhore @buendiabebeta

chapter 3 - secret

You enter through your apartment‘s door and lean against it when you close it. You feel tired - more like drained - arriving home late at night. You had to use all of your social skills with these drivers that you usually aren’t close with. Max and Lando were one hundred per cent okay, but who kept messing out and annoying you was Daniel.

He noticed that you were a bit stiff around him, not really distressed about being in his presence, but he wanted to make you get used to being around him. Daniel made jokes with you, about you and your best friends, debated with you about the world's economy even though he didn’t say anything that made sense at all and you were sure he was describing the plot of Game of Thrones without noticing. He dared you to take some shots and you only did two and fooled him into thinking that you drank more than that.

Daniel was drunk and at some point you got comfortable with him. He made you laugh when he wasn’t being a pain in the ass and discussing with you about which racing movie was the best. Cars was the only option for the spot in your opinion.

“Listen up, the soundtrack is amazing, McQueen character development is amazing, his friendship with Mater is wholesome and in Cars Two there’s Lewis Hamilton, what’s better than that?”

You sound as drunk as Daniel when you start to state your points. Maybe being around him makes you as silly as him. You even stopped being so concerned about your surroundings while talking to him.

“The lack of a character based on me is what doesn’t make Cars better than Speed Racer.” Daniel answers you with a grin.

“Why would they put such an annoying character in their movie?” You smile at him sarcastically when he looks offended, feeling like you’re winning the discussion “Okay, Speed Racer is a good movie, but the cartoon is better. There’s no discussion here.”

“Exactly!” He shouts jumping from the couch “Now we are speaking the same language, cupcake.”

Without noticing, he steals another genuine smile from your face, turning it into a giggle.

Only when you left Max’s apartment, it’s when you realize how out of energy you were. Daniel got all of your attention and you didn’t notice that your phone had completely died out of battery too. You didn’t touch it during the whole night.

You groan as you head to your room, searching for your charger. You connect it to the energy and use your time to get ready to bed. It’s when you lay down that your phone lights up and comes back to life.

You watch the messages pop up on your screen and notice that your phone has been off for way too long.

buttercup said: daniel is so drunk

buttercup said: do we need to save her from him?

bubbles said: if she needs help she would’ve texted us about it

bubbles said: she’s just fine i bet

buttercup said: he’s telling her about his monaco win he loves to brag about it

bubbles said: he talks so much omg

bubbles said: we should wait until their conversation is over so we can leave

bubbles said: max is so wasted too

buttercup said: yeah

buttercup said: when she’s finished with daniel we can go

You slap your face almost too hard, because they could’ve saved you from the misery of listening to drunk Daniel, about things you didn’t care about because you were already annoyed about Daniel himself. But no, they decided to wait for you to come ask for help, as if they weren’t your best friends since forever and didn’t know when you were struggling with something.

blossom said: yes fuck face, i didn’t send you a bottle with a rescue message inside of it because my cell phone ran out of battery

blossom said: but i was asking for help with my eyes for you to save me from daniel

blossom said: i hate you two

After letting a snort out and closing your group chat with Pierre and Charles you go through your older notifications. There’s a couple of messages from your mysterious boy, and as you read the notifications, your face warms instantly. Your cheeks are red and your ears are so hot they even feel sensible to the touch.

You read again, making sure your eyes didn’t fool you.

hot stuff said: well

hot stuff said: i ahve a lingerie kink

hot stuff said: does thsi count as a screet?

Your phone is on top of your bed and you stare at it, your hands landing on your hips as you sit on the bed to take a breath. You try to think about what you would answer to hot stuff. You aren't very familiar with these kinds of things, but you probably have an idea of what a lingerie kink is, and just thinking about it makes your cheeks red again.

Hot stuff likes to see people in lingerie, right? Well, you don't understand it very much, but he probably doesn’t enjoy seeing EVERYONE in lingerie, only certain and specific people. People he has second intentions with. You can’t even think about this matter without almost bursting with only the thought of it.

You need to be very sure of yourself to agree to be only in lingeries in front of another person. It’s too vulnerable in your opinion.

You try to think about yourself showing a part of your body to someone else like that. Maybe your torso? Or your legs? Your chest? You couldn’t do it. No, no, no, no, no. Your body isn’t something you think others would like to see. Not even with beautiful lingerie on.

Would hot stuff be turned on if you showed up to him with lingerie?

No.

Jesus.

Scratch that.

You shake your head, because your mind is going in a certain direction you don't want to think off. You shouldn’t think about it because hot stuff isn’t even a close friend of yours, why would you jump into something else like this?

But… you wonder what is hot stuff’s type.

You look good in dark blue…

Before you can continue on thinking about things you shouldn’t, your phone lights up with a new message. Your heart rate increases without noticing, it could be anyone, but from where you are, you can kind of see the “hot stuff” stamped on the notification.

You watch it for a few seconds, when another notification pops up, startling you. You decide you should answer it, at least show hot stuff you're there and didn’t disappear after he said something like that.

hot stuff said: well sorry for these messages skdjfng i think this was a very intimate secret for me to share

hot stuff said: i’m really ashamed right now that i’ve come back to my normal senses. i was a bit drunk and

hot stuff said: i-

You let a soft laugh escape, you could imagine hot stuff getting nervous from telling you about his kink out of nowhere. If he’s as anxious as you, he’s totally freaking out at that moment.

ma fraise said: no worries! i found it amusing that i think i can totally imagine it being your preferences

You shake your head. Why would you imagine it being his preference? You don’t even think about these kinds of matters. You’re getting nervous too.

ma fraise said: but also it made me intrigued by it

ma fraise said: so that’s why i didn’t answer

ma fraise said: it had me thinking i guess

ma fraise said: are you still drunk?

You wait, but the answer doesn’t come very fast.

hot stuff said: what were you thinking exactly?

hot stuff said: no just took a shower and only embarrassment is left in my body

There’s two options here: you could simply end this conversation here and go to sleep, or you could answer hot stuff’s question. Even if you feel like this conversation is going in a different way than you imagined, you have nothing to lose here. It won’t hurt to chat a little with someone you enjoy the company of, after a horrible night.

ma fraise said: don’t worry we all get drunk sometimes xD

ma fraise said: well i was thinking about how different people are

ma fraise said: i tried to think about what makes that your kink, and i think i figured it out, but that’s a very strange concept for me

hot stuff said: why is it strange? i think it’s a very common kink

hot stuff said: i mean…

ma fraise said: it’s not a very common thing for me about enjoying people using lingerie

ma fraise said: actually i wouldn’t know if i enjoy or not because i never thought of it

ma fraise said: what’s the basic criteria for your kink?

hot stuff said: be someone i have an attraction for like any other kink i guess

hot stuff said: i don’t crave on seeing everyone using lingerie - don’t get me wrong

hot stuff said: binotto for example i, not in a million year, will want to see him wearing lingerie you know

hot stuff said: he’s not my type

You have a small smile on your face, because he mentioned someone he’s almost sure you know since you let out by accident that you’re a Ferrari fan. Sometimes you think that hot stuff is very caring in your friendship and you feel like you’re growing more and more into trusting and enjoying having his company with you.

Maybe switching your phone with a stranger wasn’t the worst thing after all.

hot stuff said: but you i would be interested in seeing

hot stuff said: even tho i have no idea what you look like

And you throw your phone away from you.

(prev chap // next chap)

#daniel ricciardo #f1 #daniel ricciardo fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 x you #formula 1 #daniel ricciardo x reader #daniel ricciardo x you #abi #f1 fic #awriting #weird to put blossom as blue but it’s reader’s color ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#a little shorter but i hope it’s good!

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inkedroplets · 5 months

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20 Questions More

A deeper and more detailed version of the 20 questions for AO3 fanfic writers. Thanks @eqt-95 for the tag

1) How do you keep getting ideas for your ship/fandom?

I always have too many ideas and not enough time to actually write.

2) Which authors inspire you in your fandom, and why are they so freakishly good?

There are way too many authors to list that I feel like would deserve a mention. I would love to give a huge thank you to all the gifmakers still in the fandom-sphere. I can probably thank gifsets for a lot of my ideas (even if I still haven't actually written them down).

3) Aside from the characters of your main ship, who are the characters you love to write?

Within the Supercorp-sphere, I love writing for Sam. I think because I would have loved to see her stick around longer in the show itself.

4) Are there pairings or tropes you know for sure you'd never write about? Which ones?

I don't want to say any trope is technically off the table but I don't think I'd ever write a true enemies to lovers fic. I slow burn enough as it is, if I tried to write that, I'd never finish it.

5) What is your writing process and why is it cursed?

My editing process is akin to pulling weeds. I like to reduce my word count by maybe 10% on the first edit. Add back maybe 5% more and repeat the process until I'm finally happy with it. Spoiler alert: I'm never happy

6) What is your favorite part of your writing process?

I'm much more a gardener when it comes to writing so I never know where the story will go exactly. So just writing the first draft is always the most fun for me. I sometimes think the characters will act a certain way and they kind of take a life of their own and I'm just along for the ride.

7) What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had to research for a fic?

I remember having to research art forgery for essentially a throwaway line but it really was interesting. E

8) Is there a particular writing rule you struggle with (grammar, spelling, tense, reality in general)?

None in particular, but that's not to say I don't make many many mistakes. I do tend to make tiny changes as I go which means that I've doubled up on some sentences in the past and I am always mortified when I find them after I've already posted the chapter.

9) What was your hardest scene to write so far and why?

Scenes with urgency give me trouble. You want the scene to breathe but you need to be aware that time is short so what the characters can say, what they want to say and what they actually get to say are so different. There was a scene like that in A Rich Girl With Issues that I kind of agonized over. How much should I let Kara and Lena speak to one another, what's important, what should be left unsaid?

10) Have your characters ever done something you didn’t expect, changing your plot completely?

All. The. Time. I never have a plan. I sometimes have scenes I want to write and hope the story veers in that direction so I can write it but it always turns out so different.

11) If you could converse with any of the characters, who would it be and why?

Probably Lena because she's the loml (Apologies to the actual loml)

12) What are some of the tropes or themes that you find yourself returning to in your writing?

I am addicted to pining. Not just pining, angsty pining. I love writing something that's so obvious to everyone else when the characters are so in love or so full of self-loathing that they can't let themselves even begin to imagine their feelings being returned.

13) What's your most important resource as a writer?

Reading. I read voraciously. I'm normally surrounded by books. Some that I pick up to just read anywhere. It's helped me find my voice and it's helped me grow as a writer (at least I think it has)

14) Can you share some of your strategies for editing and revising your work?

I do small edits as I go but nothing major. If a line sticks out that I really don't like then I usually tinker with it before I move on. I think that's not good advice in general but it bothers me too much to ignore. But if you do edit as you go, there's a lot less to polish in the final editing stages.

15) Which is worse: making the summary, picking the tags, or the anxiety when you post your fic?

I hate making the summary. I don't even know what the fic is about, how the hell am I supposed to tell other people?

16) How do you define success for your fanfic - hits? Kudos? Comments? Bookmarks? Or just if you like it?

I feel like my writing is very selfish in a way. They are stories that I want to read and I get enjoyment out of writing them. So every kind comment I get, there's always a sense of wonder because it's so strange that someone else is interested. I truly do cherish every comment and there are many I like to revisit when I'm not feeling so confident in my writing.

17) Do you have a playlist for your favorite character/ship?

I usually make a playlist for each multi-chapter fic. Some fic ideas get their start as a playlist. Please someone ask me about them, I have so many.

18) If fan art was going to be made from your work, which fic would you pick and which fan artist would you like to create it?

I have been very blessed that people have made fan art of my work and I'm still in awe. I could never even begin to describe how touched and honored I am that anybody did that. One of the pieces has been my computer background for ages. It's not an exaggeration that I cherish every single piece. I honestly don't think I could ever adequately describe how much it means to me.

19) How many WIPs do you currently have?

For Supercorp I have 15+ I do plan on actually posting them in the new year.

20) What's your advice to new fanfic writers?

I would say to write for yourself first and foremost. Sharing your art or your writing or even your head canons or ideas takes a lot of courage. It's scary to put something out there that means so much to you. I'd also advise not to get too hung up on hits/kudos/comments etc. I can't say don't look at them because I'd be a hypocrite but I would say to focus on the journey rather than the destination.

- - - - -

tagging (respectfully and without pressure) @fazedlight @autisticlenaluthor @rustingcat

#ask game #writing #oh this was fun

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sattlersquarry · 1 year

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libby's review of the official "stranger things" choose-your-own-adventure novel, heroes and monsters (+ a relevant fic rec)

before i get into my thoughts, here's an overview of the book:

you are a high schooler at lenora hills high school and an aspiring journalist. for spring break 1986, you're headed to hawkins, indiana for a student journalism conference hosted by hawkins high schooler fred benson. unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse and you might just have to help save the world.

onto the pros/cons! spoilers ahead!

pros:

in one of the story options, the reader actually figures out that henry creel and vecna are one and the same before nancy's vision. i like that the journalism subplot makes the reader smart and observant in that way.

it's fun seeing the reader interact with the characters. in one of the stories, robin takes them to the empty base under starcourt mall. in another, they bond with steve over the fact that they don't have flashlights at the creel house. it's a small moment but it's cute!

so far, there have been two endings that i've liked: one that follows season 4's ending exactly and one that is a happier au of the season 4 ending.

cons:

i knew that the book is targeted toward younger audiences before buying it, but i was still surprised at how the tone reads like a book for elementary-aged readers. (also there are rarely any contractions in the descriptions which is very weird to me personally.)

some of the characterization is just...bad. robin is very mean to the reader in the library scene which is just SO unlike her it's not even funny!!!

i haven't read all the endings yet, but the majority of them are bad endings. :/ i get that that's classic for a choose your own adventure, and that season 4 has a pretty sad ending anyway, but it still sucks when you make all the "right" choices and do the smart things and still fail.

it seems impossible to get a good ending if you stay in california instead of going to hawkins, but i haven't done all the endings yet so maybe there is a way...

there are also some choices that just infuriate me. e.g. in one, you can choose to snitch to jason that lucas is lying about eddie's whereabouts (which ew, why would anyone do that), and THEN LUCAS GETS BEAT UP BY THE TIGERS AND THE READER CAN'T STOP IT. it's just horrendous! i refuse to read any more of that plot, that's just terrible.

i'm going to keep reading to try and discover all the endings, but so far, it's not as fun as i thought it would be. :( i'm tired of dreading every choice, knowing that one misstep and every character i love is killed OR i'm 1. killed horribly or 2. hated by the characters because of a dumb choice.

i'm honestly tempted to rewrite this book myself, which would be a HUGE undertaking and would take a lot of planning and brainstorming to get it right, but i might just do it. i think there's a lot of potential to make a choose your own adventure that follows the plot of the show really fun, despite the dark subject matter!

also! if we're talking choose your own adventure and stranger things, and if you're looking for something less stressful and more fun, @upsidedownwithsteve has a choose your own adventure type steve x reader fic that gets updated weekly on mondays. at the end of each chapter, you vote on the choice you want to see next week and the choice with the most votes is incorporated into the story. it's an enemies-to-lovers au about arcade workers and is very good and a fun read!

okay brb, gotta keep reading this book and try not to die. again. 🫡 if i can't find any more good endings i am rewriting this and sending my draft to penguin random house, wish me luck team!

#stranger things books #strangers things choose your own adventure #st choose your own adventure #why would they ever make robin mean #like what was the reason

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cartograffiti · 6 months

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November '23 reading diary

In November I finished 9 books, mostly continuing series. I'm also at the caboose end of being very sick with the RSV, to the point that I actually couldn't comfortably read for more than a week, so this is my encouragement to get the vaccine for it if you've been considering it.

Poison or Protect is the next Gail Carriger novella I needed (I'm going in chronological order), and it was very pleasant, but not more than that. It stars Preshea Buss, who was a supporting character in a clique of mean girls in the YA Finishing School series. I can't say I was particularly compelled by her before, but she's been developed interestingly here, now a grown assassin very annoyed to be attracted to a rival spy at a house party. It should technically stand alone, but I wouldn't start here. Preshea's had a hard life, and if I hadn't read any Carriger before, this character's tendency to distrust strangers by grouping them into broad gendered stereotypes could have made me cringe away.

I thought I was pretty far into the Whyborne & Griffin series, but the massive ebook omnibus I've been repeatedly checking out informed me I was only halfway through as I got into Hoarfrost. I was desperately hoping that wintry title meant they were going to the Yukon Territory, which turned out to be exactly right. This one has a slightly slow-moving classic adventure plot of discovering a lost city, and then Hawk did a breathtaking loop-de-loop to use my genre expectations against me.

A Power Unbound was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and it delivered. That's it, that's the pitch, go start with A Marvellous Light.

For the Emelan group read I wrapped up the second quartet with Cold Fire, which had an incredible creepy A-plot and a lot of wonderful moments for Daja, but a pretty insubstantial teaching B-plot compared to the rest of the series; and Shatterglass, which has my favorite teaching plot of the quartet, and a solid but kind of impersonal crisis plot. I always think whichever of the four kids I'm reading about at the moment is my favorite, but I really do love Daja and Tris's pov voices, and descriptions of Tris's student glassblowing gave me delightful fever dreams.

The Children of Green Knowe is a very charmingly old-fashioned children's book about a boy sent to live with his great-grandmother, and becomes fascinated with the ghosts that haunt her house. I listened to the audiobook of this and enjoyed the story, which is heartwarming and only a little scary, but I was more struck by how well L.M. Boston integrates storytelling into the action.

System Collapse is the newest Murderbot book. You probably already know whether or not you're interested in this series about a security robot who has hacked itself and has to adapt to living as a free individual. I like it but don't go feral for it, but this one is my favorite so far, and made me want to reread from the beginning. (By which I mean relisten, because I enjoy the audiobooks with Kevin R. Free from WTNV so much I don't want to mix formats.)

Dressing the Part by Hal Rubenstein is the only nonfiction book for the month, a new book about how television shows have influenced off-screen style trends. I found it fascinating, with lots of photos and brief, focused entries for a wide range of shows. I'm not a big television watcher, so the amount of detail was good for me, but it might feel superficial if you're looking for something specific. Unfortunately, I found that it (at least the ebook) has major editing problems, with punctuation errors that confuse the meaning of sentences, and fact-check failures like misidentifying Rita Ora as black.

Masters in this Hall was the only KJ Charles book left on my to-read list, and since it's a Christmas novella, I went ahead and asked a library to buy it for me, and had a wonderful leisurely time reading a chapter or two a night and giggling over the lovers-to-enemies-to-"what do you mean we could have been on the same side all along" plot. Part of a series, but stands alone fine.

My brain is coming back, callooh callay, and I'm hoping I'll be able to finish Storygraph's Read the World challenge this year. I have the last two books picked out, I just need to get through them. Also the new Foz Meadows comes out this week, and I want to inject it directly into my veins.

#November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year #reading diary #bookblr

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4everhyucks · 1 year

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girl u r so valid for that bc SAME! I am a loyal taeil stan but this year markhyuck just FLEW up my bias list!!!! taeil is still my number one but omg if mark isn't stealing my heart rn 💔 he's so perfect 🥲

skhghk I'm glad you enjoyed it hehe I loved mammons chapter sm and it also made me realise I have a money kink. the same w jisungs fic, I was so self–conscious about it but at least I discovered I may be into werewolf/scenting play lolll, like...the licking??? shouldn't make me as excited as it does but oh my lord it's so hot 🥵

THE WAY I KNOW EXACTLY WHICH LIVE UR TALKING ABOUT BECAUSE OF THE HANDS LIKE ALL YOU NEEDED TO SAY WAS HANDS AND ID BE LIKE "YEAH IK WHICH ONE" fr I am so excited for that bc I am massively into threesomes lately. I am so ready for soft dom!jisung 💞🤧

also babe did u delete all ur old works bc ur masterlist is empty ☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹

and I totally get what you mean about the longer fics, I just want to keep writing more too. writing for nct is so much fun, there's no limits just like nct themselves hehe. I'm wishing you all the best with your writings and I can't wait to read them!!!! I know they'll be amazing no matter how long or short they are!!!

aah the doyoung fic, I don't want to spoil too much but it's a reunited lovers au and enemies/exes to lovers (?). the backstory is that doyoung betrayed yn and her life was ruined bc of him, but she returns five years later for her best friends wedding and well... he still loves her but she doesn't know if she should forgive and forget, or expose him and ruin his life. and did I mention the best friend is his sister?? so yeah, lots of drama!!! I really need to get to writing so I can finish it!!!!

tbh all of nct dream is stealing my heart rn.. for a minute its jaemin, then jeno, THEN JISUNG, THEN CHENLE.. YOU GET IT. also, i read a werewolf!jisung oneshot by @loudstan and it was AMAZING i just keep going back to it.. AND YOUR 00LINE FIC TOO 😭 im afraid ill never be able to get out of this nct rabbit hole. idk how you always think of these amazing plots paired w the amazing smut 🤚🏻im so bad at writing 3somes tho.. hopefully it turns out as filthy as i want it to be. and omg the doyoung fic.. I GENUINELY CANT WAIT FOR IT!! I LOVE ENEMIES TO LOVERS TROPE. take your time and i hope it turns out the way u want it to be <3 ILY

right i forgot to add the link to my old mlist

actually i was thinking ab creating a new blog and that would be for my nct content, this could be my genshin one.. cause im starting to play the game again

#jellymoonbear #loving jelly hours #inbox

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