#TOO controlled and too still and too quiet

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

#demon slayer #sanemi shinazugawa #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #kny x reader #kny fanfic #kny sanemi #sanemi x reader #kny fic #demon slayer fanfic #demon slayer smut #kny smut #shinazugawa sanemi #sanemi x you #sanemi smut #demon slayer sanemi #kimetsu no yaiba sanemi #sanemi x y/n

[phyrestartr]

Divine Favour | Sukuna x Kitsune!Reader (Pt.1)

W/C: 3.5k #full is NSFW, mild yuuji/reader, yuuji and gang are v early 20s, heian sukuna, male reader, typical kitsune shapeshifting, mentions of abuse, canon typical violence, morally grey reader, sukuna has FEELINGS but is BAD AT FEELINGS, unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, dubcon elements, soz if anything is clunky asdkjf; i can only reread the same fic so many times for editing sadge

A/N: Decided to separate this into parts since I'm dying to post some of it lol I've held it in a chokehold in the shadows of my WIPs for too long, some of it has to come out before I explode o(--( there is more to come!

tag: @nyanwko @kamote-kuneho @better-imagination-9

The scripture was incomplete, worn away by age.

…herein lays the God...imprisoned...by...Disgraced One…

Yet the society felt this, the coffin uncovered decades ago, could be an invaluable asset. The vessel was decrepit and ancient, yet still stood strong against the test of time and the wear of nature. Seal papers, no doubt left by a monk of sorts, covered the entirety of its surface, hiding away rotting wood and rusted bands of metal from modern sorcerer's curious eyes.

Few knew why the higher ups kept the vessel under lock and key. Fewer knew why they kept it at all; however, those few understood the importance of such a relic. They'd been the ones to seek it out, to steal it away before malicious forces took it for themselves, warping the supposed deity inside for their own, malevolent purpose, whatever that may be.

And with Ryoumen Sukuna's fingers being found one by one, they could not allow anyone to possess humanity's failsafe: you. A great being imprisoned by the devil.

“Anything?” Gojo trilled, patting Yuuji’s shoulders frantically as he stood behind him and beheld the wooden tub covered in sigils. 

“Uh…” Yuuji tried to focus on Sukuna’s presence inside of him. He didn’t seem intrigued or frightened, nor did he seem too bothered with the idea of them trying to smite him down with a sealed god–he was, however, annoyed that Yuuji continued to poke and prod at him. 

Piss off, runt. 

“Yep. Nope. Sukuna doesn't care,” Yuuji sighed. “He's getting all pissy now that I'm bothering him, though.” 

Gojo laughed and patted Yuuji's shoulders a few more times before all but twirling towards the bound box. “Well, that's a pretty good sign that he's not the one that did this, then! In that case,” he started, walking up to the seal papers keeping everything locked down, “let's pop ‘er open.” 

Before Yuuji could even wonder if that was a good idea, the white-haired witch used an overzealous amount of cursed energy and disintegrated every scrap of seal paper. 

Yuuji braced for impact. Surely something terrible like a bankai or a spirit bomb would send them flying once the coffin came undone. Surely they'd pay for this, for unleashing whatever godly spirit laid locked up for far too long, only to release it back into the modern age and–

“Huh. Weird.”

Yuuji cracked open an eye and saw the dull shine of tattered onyx fur, and his control slipped with a blitz of vertigo. 

Markings flared across his skin as he stormed toward the coffin, heart howling with thoughts and memories crashing through a shared mind; a face he didn't know but knew so well bloomed at the forefront of it all, eyes framed in pointed scarlet, skin bathed in ancient, dappled sunlight.

They reached the edge of the coffin and gripped the edges, splintering the wood as they took in the sight; crimson and curse decay pooled around a figure, curled up and half-submerged. Several black, tattered tails spilled free from the tub, no longer crushed from the force of the lid sealing them inside, but they were bent awkwardly and matted with whatever tincture lay at the bottom.

Then there was the so-called god in the middle of it all–you. Still. Quiet. Curled up in a haori far too big for you. Eyes closed. Almost peaceful.

Confusion tore at Sukuna while nausea ripped through Yuuji; he couldn't bear to look at such a morose scene.

So, Sukuna pushed him aside.

[Heian Era]

You were never supposed to be anything more than a trinket. 

You were a gift from some family trying to show off for Sukuna, so much so that they offered him a delicacy, something he surely didn't have yet–a yokai. A kitsune, to be more exact. One with peculiar black tails. 

Sukuna found it interesting, and similarly desperate, to be brought such a creature as tribute. Certainly, it was meant to be seen as a high honour, yet somehow it felt…off. Why would humans give up something so powerful? 

Unexpectedly, it'd be you who told him. 

They submit me for the sake of convenience and mockery, your withering voice whispered where no one else could hear. You sounded weak. Tired. Maybe afraid, yet brave enough to reach towards the king and unveil the intentions of the men who brought you before him. 

Sukuna's eyes flicked to you, his feigned interest in what the sorcerers said falling straight into dismissal. You were much more intriguing. 

“Oh?” Sukuna asked, a smile creeping onto his face. The speakers ceased their jabbering and stared at your back with fierce intensity. Sukuna grinned wider. Oh, how he loved the way fear twisted mortal faces. 

You didn't shift or crumple into yourself under the eyes of so many, however. You pushed on with what little energy and life you had, so intent on dragging that clan through the mud. 

What I say is true, you assured simply. I expect to die today–

“Speak so everyone hears you, fox,” Sukuna commanded.

“--so I–I–” you coughed and cleared your throat, trying to rid your voice of the scratchy, weakness it struggled through. “I wish to not die with regrets.

"They have rendered me ill and unable to produce children, they see the black of my tails and regard me as an ill omen; yet they bring me to you, daring to spin sweet tales about the value of such an offering. But they lie,” You hissed. Your eyes glinted with molten malice, and Sukuna fell captivated.

“They throw me to you as they would diseased meat to dogs.” 

The courtyard fell silent, and Sukuna basked in it. You really were such a little troublemaker. A quietly chaotic force of nature. 

The king stood, rolling his shoulders as he did, and his pride flared as you dropped to your knees before him in respect. He walked to you and patted your head as one might a child's before appraising the sorcerers stood before him. 

“What a disappointment,” Sukuna sighed, raising another hand. The couple took up position, pooling their cursed energy in hopes of fending off the monster standing before them. The effort was quite cute. “Here I thought your clan might actually earn my mercy.” His hand dropped as the two lunged. Then, the two clansmen fell, too, both in neat, vertical halves. Quite overkill, yes, but he had a point to make. 

Where he expected a reaction from you, he got nothing. Only panting and poorly-stifled coughs came from you, racking through the entirety of your skin and bones frame. Sukuna could see it up close now, the way your body trembled from fatigue, the sickly greying of your skin, the scent of disease clinging to you. 

That wouldn't do. Sukuna liked his things to be in good shape. 

“Uraume,” Sukuna droned as he stared down at you, “fix this.”

It took some time, but you managed to recover. It was an unnerving experience, with the way Uraume tended to you with sincerity. Perhaps it was genuinity born from their devotion to Ryoumen Sukuna, but you greedily soaked it in, filling your stomach with the care they offered you. 

Sukuna didn't bother much with you, not that you really minded; you were much more content to be fed and forgotten than hunted down by the creature that supposedly took ownership of you without enforcing it. If he didn't cause harm or good, if he simply existed somewhere else and forgot you breathed the same air as him, you'd still be at peace. 

But he was more intrigued than you gave him credit for. 

“Ho? So this is where you scamper off to,” Sukuna hummed, leaning over you as you dozed in the nice little spot you'd made for yourself in the garden, right under the crimson cover of a maple tree. You jumped the slightest bit, your daydreams and sunbathing interrupted by the brute’s silhouette eclipsing the sun, but you settled again quickly. The beast of a man wasn't a cause for panic in your little world, after all. 

“Does it displease you?” You inquired, fixing your hair and straightening out your robes. 

Sukuna held onto an overhead branch of the tree as he looked down at you. “Pets are supposed to play in the yard, aren't they?” He smirked as you pursed your lips and flicked your tail before calming it with hasty pets. “What, you don't like being my pet?” 

“I would not refer to myself as a pet,” you countered as the man sat down with you and leaned against the tree. The king's presence calmed you. With him, you knew you were invincible. 

“Pft. Then pray tell what your damn role is around here.” One set of arms folded behind his head while the other set crossed over his chest. “Pets are freeloaders. Pretty sure that's exactly what you are.”

You huffed. “Freeloader. Tch. How rude.” 

“Lookit that. You're copping an attitude now that you're fat and fed. Used to be so much more polite.” 

“Fat and–I am not fat.” You headbutted his side lightly, something that would make more sense had you been in your fox form. You grinding your forehead against him suggested this was more of a human move, however. “I am perfectly normal now. I was brittle and nonexistent prior to now. This is a grand improvement.”

Sukuna scoffed a laugh and looked down at your head pressed up against his side. “Thanks to me,” he boasted. 

“Yes,” you agreed. You held onto his haori and looked up at him, placid and intense. “It is thanks to you. I would not be here if not for your mercy and intervention.” 

Sukuna raised a brow as he regarded you. “Hm. And what will you do to repay me?” 

“My very presence grants you luck, good fortune and fertility.” You tilted your head. “I already repay you by being here.”

Tch. But the gardens and surrounding lands did look more lush and lively since your arrival, he couldn't deny that fact. But he was a king; he could always ask for more and expect to get it. 

“What more?” He prodded.

Your tail flicked as you thought. “What would you ask of me?” 

“Something you haven't given another,” Sukuna replied. Ugh, your flowery, poetry-y, bullshit speak was rubbing off on him. 

You stared at him, gemstone eyes glinting with earthen hues and shards of gold in the yawning afternoon sun. The leaves bristled just perfectly, letting in dapples of citrus sunlight as if trying to make this moment something special, as if to burn your ethereal presence into history for all eternity. All this, just while you thought of what to give him. Perhaps a riddle is what you wanted. Perhaps purple prose suited your fancy. Perhaps it was something else. 

You sat up, carefully raising yourself onto your knees before leaning up towards the hulking king. He turned his face to you in interest, feeling a sort of natural energy begin to pool around the both of you, reaching from the far depths of the earth and the wide stretch of the sky to converge on your existence as you framed his face with gentle hands, and placed a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth. 

It lasted only a second. But a second was long enough to catch the scent of petrichor and petals on your skin, to indulge in the heat of wildfires raging in your soul, to feel the blasphemy of you against him; then, you parted. 

“For now,” you murmured, and Sukuna swore he saw your single tail fan out into nine, “I give you my divine favor, Ryoumen Sukuna.”

You wondered if your favor was enough. He'd been gone some time, off to accept a duel from the snotty shitheads Sukuna had received you from. Apparently, having two of the eldest boys murdered rubbed them the wrong way. Sukuna was glad for it, you knew–the man lived and breathed for a fight. 

Of course, you stayed put. Uraume assured you'd be fine on your own, and Sukuna reminded his staff they'd all be eaten alive by the king himself if anything uncouth were to take place in his absence. It was more so that Sukuna didn't like the idea of idiots touching his stuff than it was the notion you were important to him, from your understanding. 

Regardless, the time alone left you restless. That king made you invincible. Without him, you were nothing more than the scared kit locked away in darkness, never to emerge lest your stubbornness trick them. But things were different here. Everyday was filled with unknowns and uncertainties when the two you'd forged fragile bonds with fell absent. 

So, you thought of how to repay Sukuna. Your divine favor would only do so much, after all–you didn't think a man like that really needed the extra luck, but he seemed more than intrigued by the manner of delivering the blessing; you remembered how he looked at you, eyes half-lidded, shielding you from the inferno burning out of control. He grumbled something low in his chest, just loud enough that you heard: 

You better be here when I get back.

“Ah–” The thrill those catastrophic words gave you nearly led to stabbing yourself with the needle. You tutted and regained focus, continuing to carefully embroider the sleeves of one of Sukuna's many plain black haori.

You learned how to sew and embroider from watching an elder from that clan work her magic on old, tattered clothes. She never spoke to you nor regarded you, but she never turned you away the rare times you watched her fix garments; you thought it was beautiful–the art of turning something mundane into something meaningful.

Though you wondered if Ryoumen Sukuna, the most powerful sorcerer, the most feared man alive, had a desire for anything useless and meaningful. 

The answer came quickly. You'd found yourself void of confidence when the monarch returned to his palace after (obviously) winning whatever duel he'd agreed to; you weren't sure if you were to congratulate him, celebrate him or something more. On top of that, he'd eventually find that haori you'd slaved over for days, and you weren't sure you could take the heartbreak of dismissal. 

However, those fears were quashed when, from a new little secret garden hovel, you spied the man donning the very haori you slaved over; it wasn't a flashy piece, you didn't want to subtract from the marvel that was the king of curses, so you opted for using black, shimmery thread to weave intricate twisting trees and blackened blooms along the sleeve. Only if the design caught the light would one be able to notice it. 

But that was enough for you. Knowing he accepted such a meaningless gift was reassuring of your place in his world. 

So, you finally let Uraume convince you to stay in the room they'd prepared for you. 

“No need to be nervous,” you hummed, that undying urge inside you to take care of something helping you soothe the young woman's nerves. You fixed her hair, your deft fingers carefully slipping strands into place before sliding a decorative pin in to hold it all together. You took a step back to appraise her, Sukuna's latest concubine. 

“I–thank you.” Sachiko blushed fiercely and bowed the slightest bit, not risking a deep bow for the fear of her hair falling loose. “I can see why all the girls love you.” 

You laughed, low and warm. “Well, it's hard not to love someone who takes care of you, no?” Gently, you tilted her chin up and leaned in, carefully examining the red lacquer staining her lips. The colour matched her kimono and the gems in that exquisite hairpin keeping dark locks at bay. “But I'm glad. I know it's difficult to find respite in these times.” 

Sachiko held her breath as she looked over the natural paint of crimson adorning your eyes. “I-I, um–yes, I do agree.” 

You hummed and carefully fixed the smallest smudge on the corner of her mouth. “Mh. So I hope you do your best to please him.” 

“I will!” Sachiko promised. “But–I wish to–may I give you something?” 

“Of course.” 

She gathered her kimono up in her hands and leaned up toward you. You leaned down, expecting a secret or hushed words, but perfect red lips pressed against your skin instead. And you were dumbfounded; you'd never been kissed before. You'd never had a lady show that interest in you. 

Sachiko got down from her tiptoes and hid her mouth with her sleeve. “Just for good luck!” She squeaked before bowing and hastily running through the doors where Sukuna would no doubt be waiting for his woman for the evening’s events. 

You looked at the doors sliding closed and caught a glimpse of Sukuna stood before the young woman, his frame swallowing hers as you looked on. And you caught a glimpse of his eyes, his stare of shock and utter vexation–clearly, he'd seen the short woman give you a kiss for good luck. 

You turned away, choosing to abandon the girl to her demise as your fingers ghosted against your lips in wonder. 

He showed up in your chambers later that night. You were still awake, quietly embroidering another haori; this time, it was for Uraume. They insisted they didn't want to burden you, but they crumbled under your more insistent insistence, and accepted the offer on the condition it looked subtle and muted. 

Sukuna padded toward you, hardly bothering to announce himself or ask to join you (ugh, how annoying) before plopping himself onto the futon beside you, sighing as he laid down. 

“I see you finished early,” you commented, jumping the littlest bit when large hands caught your flickering tails. He didn't hurt you, no; he was simply an overgrown toddler with a penchant for examining whatever wiggled before him. 

“That woman kissed you,” Sukuna answered, unhelpful. “Ruined it.” 

“Ah. Well. I didn't expect it either.” You cleared your throat, feeling an unexpected bubble of embarrassment rise in your chest. “I have…I've never been given a kiss before. Not from what I can recall, at the very least.” 

“The hell are you talking about?” Sukuna grouched. “You planted one on me in the gardens.” 

“Giving is not receiving,” you corrected, flicking your tail so as to hit his face. “I've never given a kiss on another's lips, regardless. Though I find myself wondering why I–” 

You yowled when he yanked your tail like he meant to rip the thing off, and you whirled on him, eyes drawn into slits and chunky fangs bared as you dug your nails into his wrist in an effort to make him let go.

Yet the king looked unfazed. He sat up and  tugged you closer by your tail, yank after yank, ripping an impressive collection of vexed noises from you until his broad hand caught you by the throat. You clawed at his wrist and forearm, scrambling to find purchase, idly wondering if he'd finally had enough of you and sought to put you down after dirtying one of his concubines–

But he kissed you instead. His lips were warm and dry, not quite soft yet not unwelcoming. Sukuna knew what he was doing, too; his tongue licked at your bottom lip before pushing inside to finally taste you and taint you from within just a little bit. 

Your grip on him laxed the slightest bit, and you even eased into his hold as he, too, refused to harm you further. If you weren't aware of his malevolent spirit, you might've thought him gentle in that long, simple moment–a special brand of “gentle” that was wholly Sukuna's. Kind, but jagged around the edges. 

He started pulling back, though, and you followed after his touch like a bewitched maiden chasing after the lips of a lover. You nipped at the air like that'd do something for you, but soon settled on leaning into the hand holding you still, even if your throat scratched and ached because of it. 

You found Sukuna's calm stare watching you when you opened your eyes a crack. For once, you thought he looked content; the cruel, mocking lines of his face had smoothed and relaxed, and that annoying, cocky smirk he'd been born sporting had been replaced with a placid, normal lilt. Even the inferno blazing in crimson depths eased into pools of yawning embers–warm and spirited, yet contained. 

The sight relaxed you despite the confusion it brought to your rationale. 

“That,” Sukuna said, so odd and quiet, but powerful and judicial. “Is your first.” His thumb stroked against the side of your neck, pausing to feel the pitter patter of your heart thrumming under his mercy. “It'd serve you to remember that.” 

You nodded shallowly. “Of course.” 

Pleased, he let go of your quite breakable neck and moved like he was about to get up. You grabbed at his hand and pressed his palm to the side of your face like he was cupping your cheek. Your insistence on touching gave the beast pause, but he settled again, content to let you keep him hostage for as long as you wanted.

And you indulged in the simple favour. You nuzzled into his palm with a very fox-like chitter as a bassy, quiet trill of a purr lazily rolled through your chest, eventually reaching Sukuna himself. It somehow had him feeling content. Relaxed. Like he was basking in the warmth of the sun. 

“I request another,” you chirped, and Sukuna quirked a brow. 

“Another?” 

“Kiss.” 

Sukuna twitched a smirk. “It'll cost ya.” 

“Oh?” 

“Give me another blessing.”

And you agreed.

#sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna x male reader #sukuna x m!reader #sukuna x you #jjk x you #male reader insert #male reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen reader insert #jujutsu kaisen x male reader #jujutsu kaisen x you

[rainylana]

“Don’t cry.”

Eddie Munson x female reader

summary: a spa session with your new boyfriend turns out to be both of your breaking points.

requested by anonymous! i hope you like it and that I did it justice! i kind of took it and ran. i made it much more deep than i initially planned, so i hope you like it!

warnings: talk of sexual abuse and rape, with both eddie and reader, angst and tears, language, mentions of drug dealing and absent parents. reader is struggling to connect with eddie and he doesn’t know why, kinda leaves in a cliffhanger??

Sometimes Eddie wondered if you liked him, because half the time it didn’t seem like you did. You’d become stand-offish, quiet, shrink in on yourself. His “Are you okay?” was always met with an “I’m fine.” and nothing more. It always seemed like you were protecting yourself. Not just from him, but from everyone. You loved his friends, but sometimes they scared you. You never knew who to trust. Would one of them hurt you, given the chance?

One thing was for sure though, you loved Wayne. He was like the father you never had growing up. From the way he talked, looked, his personality, it reminded you of a father. Eddie was extremely lucky to grow up with him while he did.

Eddie wasn’t stupid, however, he knew some of your behavior had to do with your upbringing. You’d shared some of it with him before, time and time again, here and there. You’d grown up pretty similarly to him. Dead beat parents that abused you, surrounded by their friends who eyed you like a piece of meat for them to chew on. When you grow up like that, you’re bound to be a little messed up. Eddie understood that. He was the same way.

But with you, it was different. He didn’t want you to feel that way around him. The relationship hadn’t been going on for that long and was still fairly fresh, but he wanted you to trust him. And even dating might have been a stretch, you were just very good friends who weren’t very good friends with anyone else.

You liked Eddie, maybe even loved him, but there was no lying when it came to the fact you were struggling to connect with him. Could you really trust him? Was he just like the men from your childhood? Would he fuck you and ultimately leave once he got his full satisfaction? You’d cried yourself to sleep many of times during the night at the thought.

Sometimes you didn’t feel safe. Not with him, not with his friends. You only ever felt truly safe with Wayne. You didn’t know why. You hated the way you felt. Eddie was a good man. He was good to you. He had yet to do anything that proved otherwise. But the dark corners of your mind lingered closer and closer to the edge, reminding you of what once was your reality on the daily. You hoped this time it was different.

“I like this color on you.” Eddie’s tongue was stuck out in concentration, one hand holding your foot, the other holding the brush of the pink nail polish bottle. “It’s cute.”

“Pink?” You smirked. “You like pink?”

“On you.” His lashes fluttered up to you briefly.

The gesture was cute, but anytime he did something sweet like this you couldn’t help but think if he was luring you into a trap. Your stomach was littered with jitters and nerves. Day by day your anxiety was staring to become more out of control. You thought about ending things with him. It wasn’t fair to him to not give the relationship your all, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You’d miss him dearly.

“Well, thanks.” You smiled softly. “I don’t like painting them by myself. The angle is too hard.”

He muttered a Mhm with his tongue out, blowing on your little toe so the pain would dry. “I used to paint my nails black when I was a teenager.” He said.

“Really?” You said amusedly. “Why’d you stop?”

“Got out of the habit, I guess.” He dipped the brush back in the bottle. “Plus, not that I cared, but kids at school were givin’ me shit about it.”

You knew Eddie had the same childhood you did, in some sense anyways. Eddie wouldn’t talk about it much, especially never about his mother. But his dad was something you knew struck a nerve. You should share your traumas together, that’s what you always told yourself. You knew you both could relate to one another, but the relationship was still too fresh. Maybe neither was ready for that.

“Want me to do your fingers?” Eddie asked, blowing on your last toe as he finished up his fine work. “I gotta say, babe, I did pretty good.”

You flexed your freshly painted toes and grinned at his work. “You did! Thank you.”

He put the bottle on the table and plopped down beside you on the couch, wrapping an arm around your shoulder. “So what now? What’s next on the spa list?” He smirked and you did the same, laughing breathily.

“I won’t make you succumb to all my girly stuff.” You laughed. “Anything I can do for you? Your hair looks like it needs brushed a little.”

“What?” He gave you an incredulous look. “I keep my hair very much maintained, thank you.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t, Eddie.” You rolled your eyes. “All I said was it needed brushed a little.”

You hopped up and got your plastic hairbrush from the bathroom, pointing at him with it when you returned. “Your turn to be pampered. Sit on the floor.”

He shook his head amusedly and sat down where you had, your legs falling at the sides of his shoulders as you gently began combing out his curls. He didn’t mean to, but he sighed in content.

“Feel good?” You gave a shit eating grin.

“You’re a-lot gentler than Wayne used to be.” He relaxed under your touch. “He always pulled at my hair and got it more ratted up than it already was. This feels good.”

You smiled at the mention of Wayne. “Well, I’ve got a woman’s touch, honey.”

“Yes, you do.”

It was quiet and peaceful for a while as you brushed his hair, the both of you content in the silence. When he touched your ankle, caressing it, your heart began to pound. You hadn’t had sex with him yet. You were too scared to. You knew it was time, it had been almost two months and you knew Eddie had long since been ready to sleep with you.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to. You did. You fantasized about him just as much as he did you, but you were terrified of him leaving once you finally crossed that line. Out of instinct, you brought your legs up to you, sitting criss-cross like he was.

You heard him sigh and your stomach ached with guilt. You should give him what he wants.

“I’m sorry.” You say guiltily.

“You never let me touch you.” Eddie said flatly, staring at the ground as you continued to brush his hair. “And you won’t tell me why.”

Your eyes teared up and you stopped brushing, bringing it down to your lap. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all you say.” He shook his head. “You don’t need to be sorry. You just need to tell me why I scare you so bad.”

“You don’t.” You denied, trying your hardest to convince him. When he said things like this, you felt foolish for thinking the way that you did. “It’s just- it’s- it’s just me.”

Eddie turned around, looking up at you to find you with tears in your face. “If it wasn’t true you wouldn’t be crying. Don’t I deserve the truth, Y/n? Have I don’t anything at all to make you scared of me?”

“No.” You sniffled, getting off the couch to go into the kitchen of his trailer. “You haven’t.”

Eddie watched you, becoming more and more anxious by the second. He sat there, waiting for his answer, anything but no. “Do you want to break up?”

“No!” You cried, shaking your head wildly. “No, that’s not what I want.”

“You don’t even like me, Y/n.” He scoffed to himself, closing in, becoming cold and shutting down. Something he hadn’t done in a long time. “You won’t open up to me. I can barely touch you. You look like you’re disgusted to be around me.”

“That’s not true!” You snapped, taking a step toward him. “Stop saying shit like that!”

“Then you say something for a change!” He argued back, not moving from his spot on the floor.

“But it’s so stupid!” You shook your head. “It’s ridiculous!”

He gave you a look. He was waiting and he wouldn’t back out this time. Either that, or he was going to break up with you. The thought made you want to vomit. Maybe you did care more deeply for him than you were letting on.

“We don’t talk about what happened when we were kids,” You sighed through tears, voice breaking. “We’re..both the same, but we don’t talk about it.”

Eddie’s eyes narrowed as you began, wondering after all, if he wanted to hear where you were going with this.

“Mom wasn’t around, so that left dad and his friends.” You stared at him, being as open and honest as you could now. There was no beating around the bush with this. “I…Jesus,” You shook your head, running a hand through your hair. “I didn’t know that it wasn’t normal at the time, but they’d…they’d use me.” You took a deep breath after the last word. No stopping now.

“They would play poker, touch me, rape me.” You weren’t crying anymore, talking mostly to yourself now at this point. “And I know you would never do that to me, Eddie, but sometimes I’m so afraid of it happening again and I just shut down.” You closed your eyes. “You touch me and I’m so afraid you’ll abandon me once we sleep together. That’s all anyone has ever done in my life.”

“Fuck me, then leave.” You sniffled. “That’s all they ever do.”

Eddie’s eyes were drooping, slightly narrowed and brows furrowed. He shook his head softly, you almost missed it, and you knew you’d made him at a loss for words.

He looked up to you briefly, licking his lips before he spoke. “There was this one guy my dad would deal for,” He began. “He was a big dude, almost seven foot. I was only thirteen. But dad would bring him into the house and he…would look at me. Just watch me wherever I went.” He stared at his hands, not daring to look at you.

“I think he payed dad.” His voice broke, but he refused to let any tears fall. “Because I screamed and screamed and he wouldn’t come.”

You let out an audibly gasp and covered your mask, your heart falling to the floor with a splat.

“Oh, god, Eddie,” You crawled to the floor and knelt beside him.

“It’s okay.” He stopped your apologies. “I didn’t tell you for you to be sorry for me. I told you because you need to know you’re not alone, and not everyone is out to get you. You’re safe with me. I want you to believe that.”

You let out a wet sob, tears rolling down your red face. “How do I stop being scared? I want to be with you.”

He smiled softly, a finger swiping at a tear. “We have all the time in the world for that, angel.”

You grabbed his arm and laid your head against his shoulder, sobbing like a broken child.

“Oh, baby,” He kissed your forehead. “Don’t cry.”

It would be a long road to recovery, but you could both do it together. Slowly, every day you would both open up to each other about what you went through, and day by day, it would get easier.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson angst #requests #stranger things #stranger things season four #joseph quinn #eddie munson imagines #eddie munson headcanons #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson blurb

[ashipiko]

DANCE WITH ME YOU LI-IA-IAR ♡

OVERBLOT ASHI??? ANYBODY??? the ANGST that this baby can store!!! SHEESH!!!!!!! <3 I only have one post dedicated to her and liar dance lyric analysis (the post is kinda outdated in gen) BUT…… I also have an overblot monologue as a treat 🫶 I wanted to better explain her angst and so!!! BABAM!!! enjoy

ASHI’S MONOLOGUE:

Sometimes I wonder why I ended up here.

A place named “Twisted Wonderland”, and at a school named “Night Raven College”.

At first, I figured that I was the odd one out— Y’know, the Ramshackle prefect and everything. The magicless girl at the magical all boys school? Nuts, ain’t it?

I’m known for a lot of things. Things that are different from the others. The fact that I stand out is part of the Ashi charm, something I’m known for.

But… Over time I found myself sorta feeling in place here.

Because as much as I try to believe it, I can’t safely say that I’m better than anyone else here.

I’m a fake. I make conversation and lots of friends, but for what? A backup in case something goes wrong? A sense of protection for my reputation? In what case are any of those friendships something I truly want? In what case are any of these strings more than just a tool instead of a thread made of my real feelings?

Behind this, I’m no different from any other student here. Even through my individuality, my cheerfulness, my endearing oddness… I’m still a horrible person. Using people to get what I want, toying with people and their feelings in order to gain power and gain a spot the top. All to become untouchable. It’s screwed. It’s not right.

My insides are ugly. The truth of me is something I want to keep tucked away deeply, because I don’t want people to see this part of me. A brash, annoying, selfish version of me, everything people hate to see. I don’t want this side of me to be seen because people will run away— people I don’t care much about, sures, but people I love, too. I don’t want to drive them away. So I keep quiet and give them a shallow show.

I give them a source of entertainment that’s controlled by the real me, every calculated movement translating into a marionette-like response. The only show I allow you to see is one that’s so carefully crafted by the chaotic clown backstage. The one that is shunned away from the light, the strings being the only hint of the puppet’s phony existence to the foolish audience.

But suddenly, I feel as if being here has started to let this side of me come crawling back into the spotlight.

It scares me.

It scares me to be vulnerable, let all of my faults lay out on the table like playing cards. To take the risk without the protection, to gamble everything I’ve built up away just like that. But you…

You.

You make me feel safe. You make me feel as if I don’t need to hide anything. I can give you the key to my heart and you would have no malicious intent. You wouldn’t cut out the parts people don’t like. You would enjoy the performance in full, every bit of it.

You make me believe that I’m nothing special, and yet something so valuable at the same time.

It’s silly. You’re silly. And yet that’s something that’s helped me.

It’s helped me realize that that truly is just how people are.

We aren’t villains. We aren’t antagonists. We aren’t monsters.

We are nothing but people, with faults and feelings that should be valued.

I am more than just a jester, a sake of entertainment.

I’m a person who is entirely worthy of love. All of me.

It reminds me that I must’ve came here for a reason.

Because this is where I belong.

#they drive me nuts. tbh #PLEASE LISTEN TO LIAR DANCE ITS SOOOOOOOOOO #!!! envy baby is also a big Ashi OB song #it’s so fun. she’s so fun #if you can’t tell her overblot works in like….. she IS the blot monster. or the (real) Ashi AKA the jester is #if she represents the true Ashi then the marionette Ashi represents what she pretends to be/puts out into the world #so even if you’re attacking the jestershi and the more antagonistic seeming of the two…… all you’re doing is feeding into the blot itself #as you’re doing what ashi’s afraid of— berating the real her #the solution is to kill the marionette!!! btw!!!!! and that’s what ace does #DW THEY ARE SO FINE AND OK. NO ISSUES HERE #ashace my beloved #ace trappola #ace trappola x oc #twst ace #twst yume #twst #twisted wonderland #twst oc #twst wonderland #disney twst #twst yuu #twst oc x canon #ashipiko draws ♪ #twstshi #I DONT THINK I REALLY POST ABOUT ASHACE LORE A LOT #APRY FROM LIKE? THE FIC ITS IUST SILLIES #so I hope you guys enjoy!!!!!!

[psuedosugu]

suguru still remembers your first day at jujutsu high.

notes: this is entirely self indulgent of my fantasies and also kind of bad so bear w me chat also i might make a part 2?????????? i dunno

you were quiet, awfully quiet. you kept your introduction to a mere few words, clearly nervous. you picked your seat to the side away from the 3 other students in your class, despite there being many more to choose from.

truth was, you didn’t truly want to come to jujutsu high. you missed your old school and friends, and you felt out of place in this new environment. between, though, your parents who weren’t exactly pleased with you being a sorcerer, sending you to therapist after therapist, then eventually priest after priest when you started seeing these…things, these creatures lurking in the shadows, eventually giving up on any chance of having a normal child, and the chance of you accidentally harming people with your technique not knowing how to control it, this felt like it would be the best option.

suguru stared at you with interest from his side of the classroom. he had heard that you were extremely strong, especially for someone who had come from a non-sorcerer family. news of new potential students got around fast in the small school, after all. to be honest, he had been expecting someone else, someone more….assertive, he guessed. he gets it though. he wasn’t exactly the most talkative when he first arrived, either.

eventually, you looked over and noticed his staring. you froze for a second. did he need something from you? was he silently judging you? although it should’ve been the least of your worries, the thought made you feel sick to the stomach. his gaze held no malice, however, holding something else. he smiled at you, you softly smiled back, diverting your eyes towards your desk right after. shoko and satoru, having noticed his staring too, eyed each other knowingly.

after class ended, you started to pack up your belongings. “guyssssss….” satoru whined to his two friends, “we should stop at that new boba shop down the street.” “of course you want to go over there. does your sweet tooth ever take a break?” shoko paused, “we should invite the new girl to come with us.” suguru nodded and walked over to you. “hey,” he started, “me, satoru, and shoko are planning on getting some boba, wanna come?” you thought it over for a second. i mean, you barely knew these people, but maybe this was your chance to get to know them better, so you said yes and thats how you find yourself in a boba shop with the 3 of them, giggling at something he said, partially because it was funny, partially because something just felt light and floaty inside of you around him. maybe your new school wouldn’t be that bad.

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #geto suguru #geto suguru x reader #suguru geto #x reader

[golden1u5t]

switching up positions | a.h x fem!reader

ꨄ requested: anonymous

ꨄ genre: smut

ꨄ summary: aaron introduces a new position to try and change things up in the bedroom, you're skeptical at first but quickly learn to love it.

"this is good, right?" aaron grunted from behind you, his fingers dug into the skin on your hips as he snapped his hips into you roughly. you could only let out a weak moan in response. it had taken a lot of convincing to get you to try this position because you were so used to always either riding him or doing missionary, but you could definitely say that you were enjoying this a lot more than you thought you would.

aaron was most definitely enjoying this position, he was loving the view he was getting. the view he got when you rode him or when you were doing missionary was great too, of course he liked getting to see your face, but in this way he got the perfect view of your ass and the way it moved every time his hips crashed into you.

a wanton cry left your lips as you reached back to grab any part of him you could. aaron took notice of your searching hand and intertwined your fingers, he leaned over your body and pinned your hands down above your head. the way he leaned over your body caused his cock to shift and your hips to jut up in response.

"m'not gonna- aaron!" you screeched when his teeth sunk into your shoulder, it didn't hurt, just caught you off guard. you turned your head the best you could to look at him, though you were only able to get a glimpse of his hair.

"sorry, pretty." he mumbled and placed a gentle kiss on the place he had bitten. you could feel how his chest rumbled from the abrupt laugh that came from him, you assumed the cause of his outburst was the way you grumbled in response to his halfhearted apology.

aaron sat up and wrapped his arm around you, pulling you up onto your knees so that your back was against his chest. his hand trailed over your chest and down between your thighs. he pressed his fingers against the place where his cock slipped in and out of you, a mixture of your arousal coating his fingers, before sliding them up to press against your clit.

you leaned your head back onto his shoulder as your lips parted, your moans traveling directly into his ear and making him let out a few of his own. aaron snapped his hips harder into you as he felt your walls start to close in on his cock. it only took a few more thrust to have your eyes rolling back and your thighs trembling, your orgasm running its course through your body. you reached down and wrapped your hand around his wrist, not yet pushing his hand away but still holding it for when you couldn't take anymore.

aaron turned his head to capture your lips in a searing kiss, he pushed his tongue into your mouth as soon as your lips parted to let him in. he was good at keeping control, that is, until your walls started to flutter around him as he mindlessly pushed you straight into another orgasm. he tried to kept up the same pace as before but, inevitably, it started to falter. a strangled groan escaped him as his cock twitched, he pulled away from your mouth and pushed you back down onto the mattress.

"fuck-" he gasped, his head had tipping back and his eyes screwing shut, before he could catch a proper breath he was filling your cunt with his cum.

aaron gave a few more shallow thrust as his high came to an end. as much as he didn't want to, he eventually pulled out and laid beside you. usually you hated laying directly on him after having sex, the sweat coating your body wasn't exactly a feeling you liked, but you needed to be close to him so you pushed those feelings aside and draped your body over his.

the quietness after is what always lulled you to sleep after being cleaned up but now add the beat of his heart and you were out before cleaning up was even an option.

#aaron hotchner x fem!reader smut #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotch smut #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner smut #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #criminal minds fandom #criminal minds fanfiction #dom aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x female reader

[diazsdimples]

Buddie "wish I could carry you in my pocket"

"Wish I could carry you around in my pocket," Buck sighs as he gazes lovingly at Eddie sitting on the kitchen table. He's just a little too short for his legs to touch the ground, so he's got his ankles hooked together as he swings his legs back and forth. That, plus the oversized hoodie he's wearing have the effect of making him look like an overgrown toddler and Buck thinks he is simply adorable.

The minute the words leave his lips, Buck has an idea. A year or so ago, Buck had been messing around with one of Maddie's old spellbooks when he'd come across a Shrinking Spell. Thinking it would be useful if he ever needed to pull someone out of a mound of rubble or remove a crush, Buck had learned the spell, accidentally shrinking Maddie's laptop before figured out the reversing spell and had put it to right.

"Hmm?" Eddie says, lifting his eyes ever so slightly from the cookbook he's studying. "What was that, baby?"

Buck rolls up his sleeves and flexes his fingers a little. "Oh nothing, don't mind me." He clicks his fingers and looks pleased as a small shower of blue sparks rain onto the hardwood floors. There's a very faint smell of sea salt, but hopefully not enough for Eddie to notice. "Hold still."

"Wha-?"

Eddie barely has a moment to register Buck's words before Buck does a series of complicated wiggles with his fingers, mutters "Parvus" under his breath, and Eddie is suddenly shrouded in a cloud of royal blue energy. The room is suddenly filled with the scent of the ocean, as if Buck has suddenly stepped out onto Santa Monica beach.

When the cloud clears Eddie is nowhere to be seen, and Buck's heart is instantly in his throat.

"Eddie?" he calls out, walking towards the table where his boyfriend had been perched moments earlier. "Eddie are you still here?"

I've fucking disappeared my boyfriend, Buck thinks in a moment's panic. He hadn't read anything in the fine print about performing the spell on performing it on human subjects, and he's also not sure how to control the size of the thing he's transforming. There is a very real possibility that he's shrunk Eddie to the size of a dust mite and will never be able to resize him again.

Why the fuck can't he use his brain before acting??

Just before Buck plummets into a proper panic attack, there's a small movement on the table, just behind the cookbook resting on the edge.

"Buck, what the fuck have you done to me?"

The voice is high pitched and quiet but unmistakably Eddie's, and it takes Buck a second to locate it. But there, dusting himself off and looking decidedly unimpressed, is the smallest Eddie Buck has ever seen in his life. He's about the size of Buck's forefinger and leans against the pages of the cookbook as he glares up at his boyfriend.

"Oh my god, you are so tiny!" Buck grins as he takes in Eddie in all his miniscule glory. "I can't believe that worked!"

Buck reaches out and picks Eddie up, his fingers pinching at the back of Eddie's hoodie, and he drops his boyfriend into the palm of his hand. Eddie wobbles unsteadily before gingerly lowering himself down so he's sitting on the edge of Buck's palm with his legs dangling over the edge, no dissimilar to how he was on the table. He crosses his arms across his chest and glares up at Buck. If he wasn't all of 3 inches tall, it would almost be intimidating

"Put me back," he demands, the authoritativeness of his tone lost entirely by the fact that he sounds like he's swallowed a tank of helium. "Put me back or so help me God-"

"Or what?" Buck giggles, "You'll crawl up my nose?"

"I'll squeeze inside your dickhole and cause permanent damage with my teeth and fists," Eddie counters with a huff.

"Don't threaten me with a good time, babe."

"Buck please, we've got a shift in 3 hours. Make me big again," Eddie pleads, and Buck's completely incapable of defying his boyfriend at the best of times, especially when he's perched perfectly in the palm of Buck's hands, looking so tiny and adorable and pleading silently with his big brown eyes.

Buck sighs and holds his palm adjacent to the table so Eddie can walk across it and take up position next to the cookbook.

"Can I at least try fitting you in my pocket?" he asks, giving Eddie his puppy eyes, but it seems Shrunk Eddie is immune to Buck's charms. He shakes his head vehemently, snapping his fingers so a ball of deep green energy appears in the palm of his hands. The mellow, woodsy scent of pine trees cuts through the saltiness of Buck's magic as Eddie juggles the energy ball between his hands.

"Try it, I dare you."

Knowing when he's beaten, Buck relents with a sigh. Buck may be the one that practices magic the most but Eddie comes from a long line of powerful sorcerers, and Buck has no trouble admitting that Eddie is the more skilled magician of the two of them. If Eddie wanted to, he could turn Buck into a cockroach in a matter of seconds.

"Magnus" he mutters, channelling a fraction of his energy towards Eddie, and there's another cloud of rich blue energy and Eddie reappears.

He shakes out his arms and hops off the table. "You have no idea how weird that was," he grimaces. "You looked like a giant!"

"Don't I always?" Buck teases, referencing his slight height advantage against Eddie which was a slight sore point in their relationship.

Eddie takes two steps forward so they're nose to nose, and is about to open his mouth to scold Buck before a look of surprise passes over his face.

"Huh!" he says, stepping back so he's able to look at Buck properly. A grin begins to spread over his face as he looks Buck up and down. "I think that spell made me taller!"

Buck balks. "Absolutely not, that's not possible," he says, shaking his head. "I'm the tall one!"

Eddie steps back into Buck's space and yep, he's definitely grown an inch or two. They're almost completely at eye level, with Eddie a fraction taller, if anything. Buck gulps. Maybe he shouldn't have played around with magic.

"No, baby, you're definitely shorter than me no," he grins, and he tilts Buck's chin up (up!!!) to kiss him. It's soft and sweet, their lips moving in tandem. Eddie's smiling into the kiss and Buck can feel the smugness radiating off him.

"I'll just have to shrink you again," he points out as they break apart, but Eddie merely grins and kisses Buck on the forehead.

"I'd like to see you try."

Send me a ship and a sentence and I'll finish it!!

#james answers things #james writes #buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #911 abc #911 buddie #911 fanfic #911 #eddie x buck #911 ficlet #magic!buck #magic!eddie #shrunk!eddie

[daisykihannie]

What could go wrong? Chapter 2 (H.JS)

pairing: Incubus!Jisung x gn arab!reader + bff!Felix

warnings: smut, NSFW, exhibitionism, voyerism, oral, monster fucking, no protection, power exchange, angst (if you squint), fluff (if you squint), phone sex (kinda), orgasm control, orgasm denial, edging, teasing, dacryphilia, praise, degradation, etc.

chapter 1 | chapter 3

a/n: i have written and re-written chapter two so many times and i hate all of them. This is the best one out of all my attempts so, this one will be chapter 2. I wanted to touch more on the whole Jisung Catching feelings part but maybe i’ll do a chapter three later in for that. I’m sorry if this isn’t as good as chapter one. i kinda psyched myself out when writing this bc i’m scared to disappoint you guys after you all loved chapter one so much.

When you woke up again you could feel a weight resting across your hip and a firm pressure applied to your back. Opening your eyes, you were greeted with the bright rays of morning sun dancing across your face, causing you to squint your eyes as they attempted to adjust. As you moved to grab your phone from your bedside table, the grip around your waist tightened and a growl greeted your ears. Luckily you weren’t as startled as the first time you awoke to the demon's presence against you, this time a small smile pulled at your lips instead and you rolled over swiftly to be facing him, the tips of your noses grazing each other in the process.

Your movements caused the demon to screw his eyes shut and his eyebrows to furrow in annoyance, displaying that he clearly had no intentions of getting up yet. When your body stilled and settled into a comfortable position again, his face relaxed back into a peaceful pout and you felt your heart begin to beat harshly against your rib cage. How could a demon, whose entire purpose was seduction and sex, look so damn innocent and cute? It was really starting to give you whiplash and a slight headache as you desperately tried to wrap your head around it.

You figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a moment to admire the larger man in your bed. You lie there with only millimeters between your faces and he truly is a masterpiece, you can feel yourself getting lost in the gentleness of his softer features as your eyes travel everywhere they could reach with the lack of space between yourselves, determined to have his form engraved into your brain. His hand kept its firm grip on your hip bone, almost like he was worried you’d slip away and disappear if his grip loosened even slightly.

“Enjoying the view?” his deep, growling, morning voice made you jump in surprise and it successfully snapped you out of your trance. The bass of his tone shook you to your core, heat beginning to pool in your underwear as your body began to react to him before your brain had a chance to. Right as you were ready to reply with a snarky remark like you normally would to his cockiness, your phone began to ring.

Letting out a quiet groan, you reluctantly flipped your body back over, away from his comforting body heat and grabbed the device. You could feel the demon's eyes traveling along the back of your neck as you read the caller ID. Seeing “Lixie Baby” lighting up the screen you felt yourself getting giddy, having missed your best friend more than you’d realized. Accepting the call and holding the phone up to your ear you cooed “My baby! I missed you so much~” your words earned a deep chuckle from the other side, causing a warm smile to settle against your lips.

“I missed you too Angel, did you do the ritual? Have you been getting your guts rearranged too well to respond to your soulmate?” he teased, trying his best to sound offended at his implications and you let out your own chuckle in response. You heard a slight growl escape the demon behind you and his grip on your hip tightened before he pulled you back towards him. You were pressed flush against his bare chest, his exposed cock pressing into the back of your thigh with how tightly he held your body against his own.

Jisung felt a weird feeling bubbling in his chest when he heard how you spoke lovingly to the other person on the call. It wasn’t anger or anything like that, It was a new feeling. It was something that he’d never felt before and if he was being completely honest, he didn’t like it. It made his stomach twist in tight and uncomfortable knots and the fact that he had started feeling new, weird feelings since meeting you made him frustrated. The only way he knew how to cure frustrations was sex, as a sex demon, it made sense. A bubbling desire to get rid of these disgusting feelings and replace them with much better feelings was what influenced his actions at this moment.

Ignoring the way he held you possessively as you continued your conversation but you decided not to pull away from his toned body, allowing him to manhandle you in whatever way he desired. “God Lixie, why are you so concerned about me getting laid? Do you need that book back so you can get your dick wet and hop off mine?” you teased and you could just hear Felix pouting on the other side as a soft giggle left your lips. Your conversation continued like this, teasing each other in a flirty manner like you two normally did, as you felt Jisung nosing against the crook of your neck where it connected to your shoulder. The flesh under his nose and lips was still painted in red and purple marks, memorializing the night you had just shared with the demon mere hours ago.

A shiver traveled down your spine when his tongue slipped out from between his lips and began tracing the marks on your skin in soft kitten licks and you swatted at Jisung’s hip in an attempt to get him to stop. He was having none of that and you could feel him smirk against your skin at your poor attempt. He began trailing his hand that was resting on your hip down between the plush of your thighs and using his nails to dig into the supple flesh, pulling your legs apart and using his elbow to keep you from letting your legs shut again. He kept your knee bent and your foot firmly planted against the mattress behind your other knee that was still resting comfortably on its side on the bed, the space between your legs forming a triangle shape.

While Felix went on a bit of a tangent and you listened intently, you took his yapping as a chance to pull your phone away from your ear and mute your mic so you could speak to Jisung without Felix’s knowledge. “Jisung. Stop it now. Can’t you see I'm on the phone?!” you scolded him in a whisper and you felt his cock twitch against the meat of your ass in response before he spoke.

“Trust me, I can see that very clearly and since you don’t want to get off the phone when I ask nicely, you get to stay on the phone and be good for me instead.” he growled out against the shell of your ear that was newly exposed from removing the phone from it. “What the fuck are you talking about sung?” you asked slightly annoyed and very confused about what he meant. Sensing your confusion he continued, “You’re going to continue your conversation while I use your pretty body however I want as a punishment for not listening. You don’t want little Lixie to find out about the demon in your bed right? So you better be really good at hiding how good I'm making you feel.” with his words, he unmuted your phone right as you heard Felix calling out to you for a response, sensing you’d been quiet a little too long.

“Sorry Lix, I had to feed Soonie. I’m listening, don't worry.” you didn’t have a chance to argue as you fell back into listening and paying attention to the rest of Felix’s story but you did your best to hide your arousal at Jisungs words and luckily Felix didn’t catch it but you were almost positive a certain demon had when you heard another growl ripping from his throat. Jisung wasted no time once he heard Felix continue to ramble, his fingers slipping into the waistband of your sleep shorts and your into underwear.

He used his fingertips to swipe through your folds, collecting your slick arousal on his fingers as lube before begging to rub slow, teasing circles against your sensitive bundle of nerves. Your breath caught in your throat and you had to bite down on your lower lip to keep a moan from escaping. Jisungs tongue went back to traveling across your neck and shoulder, sucking and nipping at the unmarked skin and causing more reds and purples to erupt just under the surface of your skin.

“Angel? Are you okay? I heard you gasp, what happened?” concern and worry laced your best friend's voice and you had to use all of your power to focus on him and will your voice to remain steady as you spoke. “Y-yeah…” hearing your own stutter, you cleared your throat before continuing. “All is good Sunshine, just um… get scratched by Soonie… seems like she wants to p-play a bit too rough for how early it is… but I’m okay. Carry on with your story. How did Hyune respond to that?” you silently begged him not to push further and you looked at Jisung over your shoulder with a warning to stop, but he was having too much fun watching you struggle to contain your sounds.

At that exact moment the demon decided to push just the tips of his index and middle finger inside of your entrance, using a scissoring motion to tease you open for him. You had to screw your eyes shut as your body shivered and your jaw went slack with a silent moan. “That’s my baby~ you’re doing so good for me.” Jisung whispered against your neck quiet enough to not be picked up by the mic on your phone but loud enough for you to hear. He swiftly rolled you onto your back and your eyes met his in a heated, lust filled stare off as you watched him move down the expanse of your body before he stopped with his face only incessantly from your core. Your eyes were practically begging him to let you get off the phone before progressing further and he shook his head with a tsk.

Your eyes stayed on his as he began pressing open mouthed kisses to the wet spot forming on the thin fabric of your shorts just above your sensitive bud. Your jaw went slack in a silent moan at the sensation and your eyes rolled back into your head momentarily, your reaction only urging him to continue with his languid teasing. He began to make out with your clothed clit and your arm started to drop causing your phone to leave your ear for a moment and he used his sharp canines to nip slightly at the bundle of nerves. Your eyes shot back open and went wide as you stared down at him with a look to ask “what the fuck?”

He didn’t stop his tongue and lips from their languid dance along the slick soaked fabric, eyes still locked on yours as he spoke. “I said to stay on the phone. Keep the phone to your ear, now.” a whimper slipped from your lips in response to his raspy voice, attaching the phone back to its place against your ear and you heard a nervous chuckle leave Felix.

“H-hey um… if you’re busy w-we can always call later…” he sounded a bit out of breath when he spoke, almost like he was panting and before you could respond with a yes, jisung nipped at your clit again causing your body to jolt in response. “N-no Lixie… I- I’m good to k-keep talking. What were y-you saying again?” you hadn’t been able to pay attention to anything the other male was saying but he continued nevertheless. Jisung seemed pleased with this so he finally removed your drenched shorts and panties, wasting no time before attaching his mouth to your bare heat.

He let out a low growl that caused vibrations to shoot through you as soon as he could taste you. He was acting feral at your taste, lapping at your juices and sucking on your clit with slurping sounds like a man starved. It quickly became impossible to keep quiet with the way Jisung skillfully worked his tongue against you and inside your tight hole. Wanton moans began to rip out of your chest and your phone fell onto the bed as both your hands slipped into Jisung’s midnight blue locks, tugging his face against your core, grinding on his nose and tongue.

A growl erupted from the demon between your legs when he noticed that you had discarded the phone and he pulled away, earning a high pitched whine from you. You looked at him with confusion, the room growing quiet and you could hear distant grunts and huffs filling the air. That’s when it hit you, you were still on the phone with Felix and you’d gotten so lost in Jisung’s mouth that you hadn’t tried to contain the sounds of your pleasure. You face grew red as you scrambled to pick up the phone, Felix's moans filling your ear and causing your core to gush at the sounds. Jisung let out a chuckle at your reaction and watched your throbbing bundle of nerves and your hole clenching around nothing at your ruined orgasm.

“L-lixie?” you asked softly and cautiously. You were beyond embarrassed and didn't know how to approach the topic of what was happening. “Fuck angel… you sound so good i just- i can’t help myself.” his voice was more whiny than you’d ever heard before. “M-maybe we should just c-call later?” you asked him in a shaky voice, slight wince on your face in fear.

Before Felix even had a chance to respond, Jisung was grabbing your phone. “Felix was it?” he purred into the phone, Felix's moans quietly continuing on the other side before stopping abruptly when he heard the much deeper voice, earning a devilish smirk from the demon still planted between your thighs. You couldn’t hear if Felix was responding or not as you watched Jisung begin nipping at the sensitive skin on the inside of your thighs, your body jolting at the sharp sting that followed each one.

“hmmmm why don’t you come join us? I'm sure my doll will be more than happy to have both of us at once.” and Jisung hung up before anything further could be said. Your eyes went wide as the cocky smirk remained on his face.

“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT JI!? HE'S MY BEST FRIEND!” You tried to sit up and pull your heat away from him but he was quicker in digging his nails into your hip bones slightly to hold you in place, his face so close that every word he spoke caused hot air to stick to the slick that covered your core.

“No need to pretend that you don’t want each other. Remember, it’s my job to serve you sexually so I know what you truly desire since sealing our contract. The contract allows me to hear every single want and need that your body holds.” he finished what he was saying and placed a light kiss to your still throbbing bud, eliciting a whimper from you. “I-it’s not like he’ll actually sh-show” you mumbled out between the kitten licks Jisung delivered between your folds, barely allowing the tip of his tongue to graze your most sensitive spots and teasing you further. Your body was heating up again as you grew more desperate to be touched properly.

“Trust me doll, he will show.” he purred and returned back to eating you out. He wasn’t nearly as ravenous as before, teasing you with soft licks, light suckles, and barely placing his index finger against your entrance and tugging slightly at the ring but never fully slipping his digits inside. He kept up his teasing and edging to the point of tears slipping from your eyes, begging him to do more but never earning such a reward.

This torture went on for about 10 minutes and you were beyond the point of soft tears, you were practically wailing for him to give you more as your doorbell rang. Your eyes shot open wide, meeting with the demon's slanted eyes and he pulled away from you just enough to speak but letting his words fall against your core. “Come in!” he called out through the apartment.

“What the fuck!? we don’t know who-“ you were cut off by a panting felix in your bedroom doorway. He looked like he’d ran all the way there, cock still tenting his sweats as he took in the sight before him. “L-lix…” you spoke through your tears, jisung taking a moment to suck harshly at your swollen bud and causing you to let out another moan and a cry.

Unfortunately you didn’t get any relief as Jisung climbed off the bed and sat in the desk chair in your room. His eyes were locked on the blonde male as your soaked core was on display, Felix's eyes never leaving you and your body began to heat up in embarrassment. You went to close your thighs and cover yourself up but Jisung let out a low guttural growl, causing you to let your knees fall back to the bed and opening your core up yet again.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Get to work, make my baby feel good~” Jisung purred out, unknowingly adding extra weight to the “my'' and shifted his hips forward in his seat, his monstrous cock on full display. Luckily Felix didn’t seem fazed at all by a literal demon sitting in your room so he made quick work to stalk over to your bed and slotting himself between your open thighs.

“God, you’re so fucking pretty like this~ tears and all.” Felix praised as he caged your body to the bed, pressing his clothed cock against your fully soaked and exposed core. He kissed the tears off your cheeks before catching your jutted out lower lip between his teeth. He pulled at your swollen and pouty lower lip slightly, earning a whimper from you as your hands shot into his long blonde hair and pulled his face closer. Your lips danced together in a fierce battle of dominance, your need overpowering your embarrassment in the situation as you were finally being touched properly.

Felix began rocking his hips against you, deep groans slipping into your open mouth, silvia dripping down both of your chins and down your chest. You desperately needed more after the extensive teasing from Jisung, your hands moving to Felix’s hips and pulling him painfully closer, the barrier of his clothing becoming too much as the grinding continued. The grinding and kissing just wasn’t enough and it was slightly embarrassing to know that you were acting like you were in heat with your frantic movements. You needed to feel full, needed to cum, needed Felix to fuck you open on his cock.

“L-lixie please… need you now… inside please…” you begged against his lips like you were going to go insane if he didn’t hurry up and honestly, you were convinced you might. “You… fuck- you have to let go of me first so I can take off my pants angel-“ his words hit your lips since you’d refused to let him separate from you at all and you reluctantly let go of your vice grip on him with a desperate whine when you felt his body heat leave you.

Jisung remained seated as he watched you cling desperately to the smaller blonde male. At first it was funny watching your desperation as the other fumbled through his movements, clearly he wouldn’t be able to appease you like he did but then he watched as Felix removed his clothes to reveal a toned build and a decent sized cock, causing Jisung to gulp.

When Jisung first saw the man entering your room in a fluffy sweater and gray sweats, he looked far too soft and sweet to be a satisfying partner for how wild you were. He didn’t expect him to have much experience or to be as hung as he was. He was nowhere near as big as Jisung but he definitely had a solid hand of cards to play with. Jisung looked at you and the way you drooled over just the sight of Felix’s cock made his chest tighten uncomfortably.

He remained in his spot as he watched Felix settle back between your legs after stripping and you began rolling your hips along his cock the same way you’d done with Jisung that first time. He hadn’t realized how tight his grip had gotten on the armrests of your desk chair until he felt them snap under his grip, breaking off from the rest of the chair. His focus fell to the crumbling price of black plastic that now rested in his palm and with his focus off of you and Felix, he was able to realize just how tight his chest had grown.

It felt harder to breathe and his stomach was tangled in knots so tight he was sure they’d push any food up and out of his throat. A growl rumbled through his chest, that feeling of almost anger was back again and bubbling painfully against his rib cage, yet he still couldn’t place what exactly it was. He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard you screaming out a name that wasn’t his.

“Fuck! Felix- oh my god! you feel so fucking good-" Your screams earned low grunts from your best friend as his hips continued to snap into you harshly, the sound of skin slapping mixed with your wanton moans and his deep groans began filling the room. The smell of sex flooded Jisung’s nose as he struggled to contain himself with the sounds being made and watching you fall apart on Felix’s cock.

Hearing how good another man, a mere human, was making you feel made his blood boil. He hated every second of this, something that was supposed to just be fun was painful to him now. He’s had plenty of threesomes before so this wasn’t anything new but the way he was seeing red as he watched Felix bring you to the brink of your orgasm? That was definitely new. How long has this been going on? Why did he do this? He was ready to tear Felix’s head from his body, he needed to stop this-

“FUCK! Yes lix~ j-just like that! I-I’m gonna- ngghh” you clenched around Felix's cock as your body was sent over the edge, muscles on fire as you came all over his cock. The clenching of your walls as you worked through your high brought Felix to his own orgasm and he pulled out, painting your chest and stomach with his long white ropes. Your body trembled as Felix pulled out with a slight wince and let his body collapse next to you, both of your chests heaving while trying to catch your breath.

“God- I can't believe we never did that.” you mumbled still trying to catch your breath, a soft chuckle following. “We definitely need to do this again Angel~” he hummed with a flirting tint to his voice. He rolled over to look at you, eyes landing on the demon in the process, fear plaguing his body at what he saw.

Jisung’s eyes were a glowing neon pink, fangs visible as he bit down on his lip, blood pouring down his chin and forming a puddle in the ridges of his abs. He saw that the chair was now missing arm rests and bits of black plastic were crumbled on the floor beside the chair.

The sight made Felix tense up and freeze, cold sweats prickling from his pores. You noticed the rigidity of Felix’s body when he froze next to you, opening your eyes again and you met those of the demon on the other side of the room. It was odd how you didn’t feel scared, the same eyes that’d haunted you in the beginning now making you coo internally. Why did he look like a kicked puppy to you?

“Sungie~” you called out softly and held out your hand for him. The lack of terror you exhibited made Felix not only petrified but beyond confused as well. Jisung looked at you, his expression softening for only a moment. It was so quick that you’d miss it if you blinked, but you’d caught it. He really was just a big puppy under that scary dog exterior.

“Come here please? I need my sungie~'' Your voice still showed how tired you were but remained soft and sweet, your focus was entirely on Jisung now and you’d almost forgotten Felix was still laying in your bed. “I-i’m gonna go before he kills me…” Felix’s voice came out shaky but his fear kept him frozen to his place. “No, Lix you stay right there.” you spoke softly, eyes trained on Jisung who still had yet to move.

“Jisung.” your voice was stern and Jisung couldn’t help but react to the dominance in your voice. Slowly rising from his seat and stalking over to you, same terrifying energy radiating off of him, expression remaining harsh to felix but you could see deeper. He wasn’t angry, he was hurt and all you wanted to do was hold him and cover his face in kisses, comfort him and make him feel better.

Jisung made it over to the bed before stopping at the side, body still rigid and powerful in his stance and his eyes flicked over to Felix, causing him to jump back a bit in fear. He couldn’t understand what the fuck was happening and he just really wanted to leave alive but you’d told him to stay and surely you’d never let him die… right?

Once Jisung was in front of you, you looked up at him through half closed lids, still feeling tiredness weighing your body down. You wrapped your extended hand around his wrist and yanked him towards you. His body fell foreword and he had to put his free hand next to your head on the pillows to keep himself from falling on you completely. Your lips collided in a searing kiss, teeth audibly classing together as your tongue slipped between the seam of his lips.

The intensity of your lips on his had him almost melting as an animalistic growl was ripped from his throat and swallowed by your open mouth. His tongue began to push against yours in a heated battle of control, your tongues caught in the small space between your lips as the rolled against one another. A moan left you through the exchange of saliva as your tongues remained on full display for the blonde who was hypnotized by the erotic exchange and Jisung began to climb on top of your still spent body.

Felix could feel his cock coming back to life as he watched the both of you battling for dominance. He couldn’t help himself as his hand made its way down his body and began to lightly tug at his over sensitive member, completely hypnotized by the two of you. Jisung easily found his place between your legs, the puddle of your orgasm under his knees and the release that painted your skin becoming sticky as it dried between your bodies.

Jisung continued to hold himself up with his hands planted on either side of your head as the kiss continued to get even sloppier and more intense as it went on, more groans and growls leaving the demon as he was trying desperately to regain control of the situation. You could feel that he wasn’t going to give up so easy, an idea popping into your head causing you to smirk against his lips.

One of your hands left where they’d rested on his tiny waist, making its way up to his throat and wrapping around the soft flesh and squeezing tightly. A whimper left the demon and you could feel his body shudder against yours and almost melt into you. You took the chance to take over completely, your tongue sliding into his mouth and licking every surface it could reach.

You began to roll your hips against him as he continued to slip into a more submissive headspace. He continued to let out whimpers and whines as he let you do whatever you wanted to him, becoming putty in your hands. The sounds he let out were a harsh contrast to th noises you’d gotten used to hearing. His growls and groans were definitely capable of making you weak in the knees but hearing him sounding so needy and desperate ignited a new kind of fire in you.

Finally separating your lips with Jisung chasing after your touch again, cock still leaking againt you heat and turning more of your body as messy as your kiss had gotten. You were looking up at the demon, body covered in Felix’s cum, a mix of both yours and Jisung’s saliva, and the essence of your arousal mixed with the copious amounts of pre-cum that’d began pouring out of Jisung’s pretty pink cock.

“Why don’t you be a good boy and show Lixie here how good you fuck me hmmmm?” you purred out, his jealousy still radiating off of him. You wanted to reassure him that you are genuinely more than satisfied by just him and the best way to do that for a sex demon was to let them show off and feel the truth in your words than to just hear them.

This got Jisung to perk up, the hurt puppy look leaving him as he glanced over to see Felix stroking his cock at the show that you two had just put on. He couldn’t help but take a moment to admire the blonde, sitting obediently and watching, being a good boy for you just because you’d told him to stay. The power you held over your bestfriend in just a few words had Jisung enamored and a fluttery and warm feeling began to erupt in his chest. He felt a sense of pride mixed with the weird and warm feelings as he looked back to you, the dominance in your gaze piercing through him and making him feel a bit exposed.

Feeling exposed wasn’t something Jisung was used to despite the fact that he'd always been striding around completely naked but this was a different kind of exposure. It felt like you'd tore his still beating heart from his chest and held it so delicately in your palms despite the fact that you could so easily in that moment treat the organ with no care and even squeeze it a bit harder in your clutches and end him, ruin him, break him and his soul with such an easy movement but you actively choose not to. You choose to be gentle, treat it with care, treat it with love, treat him with such care and love…

Love… Is that the feeling he feels? Does he love you?

He held onto that idea as he felt you wrap those pretty, delicate, fingers around the base of his cock and guiding his tip to your entrance. Again, your touch was gentle and kind, your eyes were soft and alluring without any harshness to them. You looked at him and watched him in a way he’d never experienced before. There was something in your gaze that was reaching out to him and he wanted so desperately to figure out how to take a hold of that and never let it go.

Jisung pushed into you slowly all the way to the hilt, pushing his hips flush against your ass as he bottomed out, a small hiss slipping from between your teeth from the pain of his size and the overstimulation. Jisung stilled for a moment and watched as you adjusted to him yet again, once you nodded he slowly began to pull out until just his tip remained inside of you. You took a moment to reach out and grab Felix’s free hand that wasn’t wrapped around his cock and guided his small hand to your lower stomach, pressing his palm against your skin. Felix looked at you confused as you held his hand in place with gently pressure and looked to Jisung again.

“Let him feel just how well you fill me up Sung~ Let him feel just how well that demon cock rearranges my guts.” your voice still purred in a sultry tone but it became a bit more airy as your arousal began to course through your veins again. Jisung didn’t need to be told twice before bottoming out again and angling his hips upward to rub against the sweet spot inside of you, causing that familiar bulge in your abdomen to push against Felix’s hand and wanton moans to begin to fall from yout lips as he set a slow but hard rhythm to his thrusts.

To say Felix was shocked was an understatement, even as your hands gripped the blankets underneath you, his hand remained and his cock continued to leak in his fist. He could feel Jisung’s cock carving out your insides and your body heating up as you got closer to your orgasm. Jisung felt you teetering on the edge too as he picked up his speed, doing exactly the right things to have your orgasm crashing into you full force before you’d expected it.

“Yes! Fuck sung! Just like that thats my good boy! I-Im gonna-” you were cut off as the force of your orgasm kncked the wind out of you and your jaw opening into a silent scream as you came all over the demon’s cock and covered his abs in your squirt. “God fuck doll- your milking my cock so good. I’m gonna fuck you full of my cum just like you beg for, like my good fucking slut!” Jisung’s voice was strained as he worked you through your high, the grip on his cock almost painful as a few more sharp thrusts were delivered straight to your thuroughly abused sweet spot and he was toppling over the edge himself.

He came inside of you hard and Felix let out a gasp as he could feel the force of Jisung’s cum from where his hand remained pressed against your abdomen and that feeling had him rfeaching his second orgasm of the night. He painted his own abdomen in hot white ropes and a deep groan ripping through him as his thighs began twitching at the intensity of it. He lazily tugged at his cock through the after shocks before collapsing backwards on the bed and Jisung pulled out of you with a whine from his own overstimulation.

Out of the three of you, Jisung recovered the quickest. He only had to take a few moments of panting to catch his breath and relaxing back against the end of the bed frame as he watched you and Felix trying to recover. You were trembling and panting heavily, eyes shut in exhaustion and felix was pretty much in the exact same boat, both of you were covered in sweat and various bodily fluids but Jisung couldn’t help but smile softly and that warm fluttery feeling returned.

“I love you” he spoke without realizing and your head snapped up off the pillows, eyes wide and meeting his own set of wide eyes. As you tried to figure out if you'd heard him right, he was launching himself off the bed and running out of the door. He slammed the door behind him as he fled, the force behind it causing the wood of the door frame it crack and splint as your body jolted at the volume of it all. “Did- did he just…” you began, still blinking away the shock.

You could hear a burst of wind in your living room, clattering of objects hitting the walls and the scraping of your furniture moving against your wooden floors. Jisung had went back to the underworld. He’d just vanished without another word. The realization settling into your gut painfully as felix jumped at the loud sounds and your bedroom door flying back open thanks to the broken doorframe unable to hold it closed. After the sounds stopped and your apartment fell eerily quiet again, felix spoke.

“He just told you he loved you… you- Y/Nnie you tamed an incubus…” felix spoke in his own form of shock, hes studied demons and other mythological creatures for years and its insanely rare for any demon to be tamed by a mortal but somehow, you, his best friend had done it. Felix met your teary, wide eyes and pulled you into a hug. Even after everything that just happened, Felix was still your bestfriend and platonic soulmate and he was still by your side as you began to cry, tears and snot surely covering the bare skin of his chest as you were overwhelmed with so many emotions you couldn't explain.

“I- I love him too lix… how- how do i show him? How do i get him to come back? I- I can’t lose him lix…” your body trembled as you sobbed harder against Felix’s body and he rubbed soothing circles into the skin of your back until you calmed down. “Why don’t you go take a shower and get all my cum off of you, then ill take one and get all… my cum off me too and then we can figure this out. You're sticky and gross.” his nose scrunched up at the sight of his mostly dry cum on your skin and his own skin covered in his half dry cum as well. You let out a laugh and wiped all the snot and tears from your face before nodding and leaving the room to take your shower.

Tag list: @clemissleepy @dontaskmemybias @venandi-143 @allysluvsworld @h0n3yj4y @skzstay-lix @linocvp1d @palindrome969 @blankdyean @stayp1ece143 @channieandhisgoonsquad @seeeeking-skz @anjian03 @hanjis-blog @loeyscock @hanjisunglover @enjaken @httpdwaekki @sunnyhonie @somehowalivelmao @cookiesnmilfx @whosanaanyway

#daisyhannie #skz smut #skz #stray kids #skz imagines #skz x reader #straykids smut #stray kids fanfic #skz han #han jisung x reader #han x reader #han smut #skz jisung #han jisung #han jisung smut #jisung x reader #skz fanfic #stray kids smut

[moonbaby26]

Title: Two Conditions

(Chapter 8 of Doflamingo’s Marine Series)

*Crossposted to AO3 Here*

Chapter Pairings: Doflamingo x Reader, Aokiji/Kuzan x Reader (referenced), Smoker x Reader (referenced)

Chapter Warnings: language, controlling/possessive relationship, unprotected vaginal sex, oral sex referenced (female receiving), Doffy considering baby trapping reader, Doffy referencing attraction to reader even when she was still a teen (nothing happened)

Chapter Synopsis: It’s now day two of your three day agreement to stay with Doflamingo. You’re still surviving, even enjoying it at times. But whether that is for better or worse remains to be seen as he’s keen on coercing your full commitment to him as soon as possible.

Chapters: 1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8

——————————

—————————— 

It was clear that you were far more familiar with sharing a bed than Doflamingo was for as deeply as you now slept. Either this or you were just that exhausted from enduring him so many more times throughout the night.

Even his cock was finally feeling a bit sore from so much grinding, lube or not. But he never would have told you that, just watching you sleeping against him still in what was probably now two or three in the morning.

He’d only allowed you out of the bed long enough earlier to eat dinner with him as well as to use the attached master bath to clean up, and occasionally relieve your bladder from the beer you’d had in town and all the wine which came alone with him after.  

Dinner had been a quick one out on the balcony, you and he both indulging in a mushroom risotto with scallops. More of that traditional Scyllian fare prepared from the kitchen and personal chefs below. Though those servants would have long gone home by now.

Even as expensive as this place had been to purchase, it was still far smaller than what he was used to. Which also meant that it stayed less crowded inside. Really, not much more than the two of you left except for some useless guards perhaps still patrolling this late at night.

But you had seemed to approve when first seeing the villa. Because of course, what difference did you know? The majority of your quiet hours were likely only had laying in a marine bunk not much bigger than a coffin, having to hear all your other crew moving and breathing around you in the ships you traveled on. 

Like an ant in the dirt with all the others.

But he couldn’t stop watching you all the same, so vulnerable beside him. This fascination with you in particular only seeming to worsen exponentially each time that he had you alone.

And he already had thrown down the gauntlet with Tsuru, announcing his intentions to keep pursuing you despite her strong misgivings. So he’d have to be prepared for those consequences soon.

Tsuru had promised to air everything she knew about him in an attempt to drive you off. All in the name of protecting you of course. And goddamn that woman did know almost all of it. And even what she had no proof for, she likely still heavily suspected.

But him racing against that clock to capture you fully before she could sabotage him only made things that much more interesting really.

It was obvious that you and Tsuru had yet to connect again since she’d first found out. But the moment she was back on the scene, it’d be a full out battle of wills for your fate he was sure.

And this was the primary reason everything had to be rushed along.

Though, courting you at this speed did agree with his natural impatience too of course. He’d waited long enough to have these chances with you after all.

Whether you accepted it yet or not, he had wanted this from very first sight. And he absolutely would have fucked you senseless in the North Blue too if things had worked out better then. Teenage body or not for you at that time in your life. 

Sometimes he still suspected that you and Tsuru had even added a few years onto your official marine record to make you legal for recruitment back then. Tsuru had said you’d been sixteen by the first time you were allowed to fight in the field. But she’d kept you hidden aboard her ship as a chore girl even before that he was sure.

Because Tsuru had learned the hard way not to leave the wrong child behind again hadn’t she? 

Doflamingo smirked to himself at those old thoughts, just burying that scarred left side of his face back against you now.

He was going to have to tell you that part of his story eventually. Because Tsuru would if he didn’t. The one about the rage filled little boy whose eye and life your insufferable race had tried to steal as they rose up against him. 

The bottomless violence of humankind only contrasted in the one older woman he’d met soon after that offered him a brief respite which nearly made him change it all. 

He had begged Tsuru not to leave him there. That boy had cried out for a mother’s warmth one last time and been so fatefully denied.

Too young to recruit then she’d said, and with biological family still alive that she wouldn’t remove him from.

Oh how Doflamingo had wondered how many nights Tsuru had lain awake ruing that mistake ever since. Especially when her peer Sengoku had found an even younger Rosinante soon after and done for that traitor what she wouldn’t for him. Of course Doflamingo had never learned about Sengoku’s direct involvement until long after his brother’s death.

But now, so much like his bird namesake which sometimes hid their head beneath their wings as they slept, Doflamingo had long since made a habit of burying that blind side of his face and those mistakes of the past within the nearest comfort whenever available.

And tonight, instead of just another cold empty bed and overstuffed pillows alone, that actually meant the safety of the nape of your neck as he breathed in your scent and warmth.

Everything he did still had its own purpose though. Even as entirely uncomfortable as it’d been to let you see him laid bare this soon, he knew he was correct to have made this choice.

Because it was already so obvious in the way you’d touched his face and spoken to him so sincerely after…you were already forgetting how easily that switch within him could still flip.

If he used tenderness as a tool to get his way, it didn’t erase anything else that he was still so capable of. This beast would still bite you, even as an injured one now experiencing your rare kindness.

Especially an an injured one actually when faced with your weakness of affection. 

Because no amount of kisses, soft touches, or pretty words could make his pain any less real. Or dampen his inner fear of ever experiencing that level of helplessness again that he once had been dealt from your kind. 

If you did sleep beside him enough nights to find out, you’d discover him sweating and thrashing in his sleep eventually. Reliving the ropes cutting into his wrists, the fire at his feet and the smoke in his lungs as he’d screamed at those vermin. Screamed and threatened to destroy everything and everyone even as their arrows finally hit their mark.

He’d made good on some of those promises too in recent years. But it would never be enough. That rage could never be fully quenched, his suffering from it never lessened. 

That pain only paused perhaps, or briefly redirected. In the instances where he was receiving something that he also wanted so thoroughly.

He wanted to hold you. He wanted to fuck you. He wanted to fight you. And he wanted to keep you.

His mind had run endless with plans and strategies to do this very thing for so long now. But he absolutely had to seal the deal soon to make this permanent. 

Because the only thing he was certain of when it came to these conflicting emotions was that no one else could be allowed to truly claim you again.

As his long body shifted once more, nestling even further against you at every meeting point that he could, his hand still tightened slightly on your lower abdomen.

That was one option he was still considering.

He hadn’t forgotten the crazy things you’d made him say in Sabaody. He’d been so angry with you that day. Likening you to nothing better than livestock for him to shame, abuse, and even impregnate however he’d see fit. 

It was still very much a cheat too if he chose to use that. Because as highly as he regarded his own twisted, mother and son like relationship with Tsuru, it made him not see a chain in this world stronger than that between mothers and their spawn.

No matter what you said or eventually promised him now, he knew you may still try to fly away from him one day. But if there was a child…then no matter where or how far you may wish to run, you would always return right back to any nest he’d made for you. You would do so without hesitation if your chick was the one within his grasp instead. If it was crying out in fear for your protection.

And morality of such ideas was not even a concept worth considering. Because of course he could do whatever he wished with his own future blood, or with you, his own desired mate.

It was just the logistics of achieving such a thing. 

When his servants had searched your bag earlier, he could have had them throw out those stupid birth control pills of yours then and there.

But you’d just get more as soon as you were back on any marine ship. He knew that. So the fight that would have been with you hadn’t been worth the annoyance to him right now.

Not for such a low chance of making a difference in just three days time anyway. 

But he was definitely keeping an eye on that potential. If it really came down to it, he knew other chemicals existed. Things that nullified those pills which could easily be slipped into drinks for instance. 

Caesar alone had a treasure trove of old Germa 66 data that’d been stolen. Forced fertility was hardly a complicated affair in all the greater horrors Vinsmoke Judge had committed to his own bloodline.

The reminder to Doflamingo that he had no blood family, outside of the more distant ones that he’d gladly kill if they ever set foot beyond their gilded gates in Mariejois, was a bittersweet one though.

If you really could give him that family back one day, he would absolutely use both you and that child to help with the void those last executions had still left him with. It would be something to finally have the Heart seat filled again too of course. Doflamingo had lost his heart in more ways than one back then. 

———————————

“Doffy.” You said quietly, just this surreal scene something your mind was still trying to accept as you felt his breath warm and soft against your neck in the new light of day.

Well, the dim light of day. The curtains were not pulled shut. But the sky was overcast, gloomy almost.

The perfect morning to never move at all really.

With a sleeping monster coiled all around you, like you were some shiny pebble he’d never let go of again.

But this pebble needed to pee.

Quite badly, with a smaller bladder than him, and all that wine still filtering into it. Something expensive and vintage you couldn’t even properly pronounce, but it’d been that or nothing as thirsty as you’d been last night. As sweaty as you’d been as you’d climbed that pirate as if you’d never see a man again.

Over and over, but somehow you’d still survived him.

If there had been blood again, it’d only been specks. Mostly under his fingernails or yours. And he’d liked it every time. Every claw mark, every bruise and bite. He’d wanted to give as much as receive.

But he was about to receive something worse if he didn’t release you soon.

“I need to pee.” You said a little more insistently. Trying to slide out from between his arms, and those even longer legs wrapped so tightly around you.

But you felt his face press into you even harder. Even that short blond hair now messy, mussed against your skin.

His calves slid against you, warm and tight as a new sound finally greeted your ear.

“….and if I say no?”

His voice was dark, but so thick with sleep still. There was a large hand running down your side again.

“Then I piss on your skinny bird legs.” You threatened.

He made an indistinguishable sound at that, but you felt his lips upturn against your spine.

“Filthy animal.” And now that same hand had moved to enclose on your wrist.

He’d been like this some last night too anytime you’d needed to leave the bed. But he’d been much easier to fight when worn down from all the fucking.

This was now a Doflamingo with a few hours of sleep back in him.

But you still didn’t have the time, deciding to take that challenge. Pulling up your legs so quickly that he couldn’t catch them with his own.

You put the soles of your feet against that hard abdomen of his next as you pushed for all you were worth. Only the strength of one of his hands now pitted against the force of both of your legs. 

He cursed at the pain that made for him, and when he twisted his body, your foot nearly slipped down between his legs. Not intentionally on your part, but you and he both realized how close you’d come to annihilating him right in the balls this early in the morning.

He released you immediately too then. And you hadn’t been ready for that, crashing right off the bed with most of the blankets as you’d still been trying to pull away from him. 

Yet you jumped right back up, though with the bedsheet cascading off of your hip as you thought he might be coming after you to continue the struggle.

But he was only staring at you. Still laying there on the bed where your fall had fully uncovered him. Like some kind of nude adonis in annoyed repose. 

You straightened up at the sight, nude as well and trying not to feel that flush of heat within you all over again.

And he said nothing, but you felt his gaze on you all the way until you’d made it into the bathroom and closed the door for privacy.

But then that was actually worse. Again, just like the night before, not being able to see him meant he could be moving anywhere, doing anything. The same way that snakes and spiders didn’t bother you as long as you could see them. But it was an entirely different matter once they disappeared.

You were trying to listen for any footfalls even as you flushed the toilet and briefly washed your hands over the sink.

But there was nothing and you had opened the door again soon enough.

You saw he had indeed moved, but only to pull the blanket back off of the floor and onto his body. Only his shoulders and head were exposed now. He had the left side of his face buried against the mattress as well in the absence of you. His right eye still watching you, but through a half lidded gaze.

Still that tired then? Poor thing, you thought sardonically.

Yet this was also your chance to get something else done as you tried not to make a big show of grabbing one of the now empty wine glasses off of the dresser. The drinking had started on the balcony with dinner last night, and then moved back inside as he’d herded you into the bed and beneath him once more all those hours ago.

You were absolutely still sore too as you kneeled down by your duffel bag. You unzipped it quietly, just enough to slide your hand in and pop one of your birth control pills out of the foil packet buried within your clothes.

In one smooth movement, you’d slipped the pill into your mouth and stood again. Just walking back to the bathroom to fill the wine glass with enough water from the sink to wash the pill down as you’d swallowed.

“You really are a fucking animal.” His voice cut through rather loudly right as you’d tilted your head back.

You about spit the water out at the sudden gruff voice, glaring back at him through the open bathroom door for startling you.

But the pill did make it down your throat as you’d walked back out.

“What’s your problem? Go back to sleep, pirate!” You fussed, heart rate up now as that’d been so unexpected in the otherwise silence of the dimly lit room.

You left the wine glass back on the dresser as you approached the bed again however.

And that crimson red iris of his right eye was locked in on you, even as he opened the blanket and quickly pulled you back against him once you were close enough.

His grip was stronger than minutes before, painful this time as you felt his cock, already half hard again against your back.

But he didn’t use it right now, just growling a little in your ear. “The problem is that we don’t drink from bathroom sinks, you little savage. If you want water, you ring the help to bring you some. Ice water filtered into a pitcher, not bathroom water from the same room that we shit in…got it?”

And then he was forcing you to turn around again, to face him in the bed before he tightened the blanket back around you both.

Your eyebrows were lowered, knowing he was actually serious but not at all understanding why this was suddenly such a trigger. Why was he so goddamned weird? He’d literally licked his own cum off of your face last night. But drinking from the sink was taboo?

“Yes, Doffy.” You muttered anyway. Intuitive enough to realize that that was also what he wanted to hear.

But he huffed a little regardless. His eye still on yours as he answered. “Watch the bratty tone. I’ll housebreak you yet, little cur.”

And even with the dark clouds outside, enough sunlight was filtering in to start to lose your focus by watching his face again.

He really did have expressive eyes when they weren’t hidden. 

So even as much of an asshole as he was already being to you just minutes after waking, you did find yourself touching his face again soon enough.

And him allowing it as well despite that previous condescending talk while he turned his head so that both his eyes could be seen now. His cheek was against your hand as he still watched you.

“What now, love?” He asked abruptly then. 

Just like that his tone was different again with your touch. But it felt intentional too. You weren’t as naive as he may think.

Like it was still all a game somehow. From cold to warm, then sweet back to sour again, dangling the lure in front of you, then pulling it away again to try and make you drop your guard.

But he was willing to keep it going even if you weren’t falling for this constant switching back and forth fully yet. 

“No, I can’t see out of my left eye if that’s what you’re pondering.” He actually offered without being asked though while you’d watched each other. “Nothing there but shadow and flares of light that bring on the worst migraines anyway. But that left eye was always sensitive to light. Even from birth.”

Well, then he was suited to being some kind of venomous creature living under a rock after all wasn’t he? But he was clearly trying for your sympathy again too.

And he did scowl a little then, that cloudy eye narrowing in tandem with the other. You still weren’t taking the bait to empathize with him as easily as last night he likely realized. Your hormones and desire for him more under control now….mostly.

“But this is obviously a secret you’re now obligated to keep as well, love.” He warned instead. “Being a half blind warlord doesn’t pack quite as much of a threat now does it?”

“I’d bet it just makes you that much meaner actually.” You quipped in return.

His scowl upturned a bit there, a smirk beginning as he didn’t entirely disagree. “Sometimes.”

And really, you would have been fine to leave each other alone from there. An armistice to just lay in Doflamingo’s arms as a lazy morning like you hadn’t had from anyone in much too long. 

With Kuzan the last time…and you supposed it really had to be the last time now, he’d been too drunk. Rolling away from you even hours before it was already time to be back up and in uniform.

And with Smoker, even before the breakup he’d been away from you for months. Your last physical time together, actually having been only a quickie in the bathroom of a damned bar. Just a port town both your ships had been in at the same time. 

Hardly romantic as you’d been bitching at him not to get ashes in your hair as he’d hiked up your skirt from behind and still not put out those fucking cigars regardless. Thrusting into you just long enough for him to cum, and then he’d been done.

No talk of missing you. No lingering kiss or hold at all. Just a man who’d been alone on a boat for too long and needed something to put it in.

You really should have realized his waning interest in you sooner. You and Smoker hadn’t been much more than friends with benefits by the end, had you? And apparently even that had been too much for him to maintain.

It still pissed you off really. How quickly Smoker had just turned and cut you out when you’d thought it had been more than just sex.

“The fuck are you thinking about now?” Doflamingo interrupted as your eyes flitted back to him in surprise.

Had you been showing that past regret on your face? Hell.

And the pirate was indeed watching you with full judgement.

“It’s just been a while since I’ve gotten to stay with anyone. I don’t know.” You certainly tried to stay non specific there. You couldn’t think of any quicker way to violence than to confess to Donquixote Doflamingo of thinking of another man while in his bed beside him.

But thankfully, he didn’t press this time. Seemingly a bit more interested in the handful of your ass that he was then cupping.

“Well you didn’t slit my throat in my sleep. So I suppose I’ll let you stay again tonight…” He taunted a little, but still sounding somewhat lazy as you remained in his grip.

“Because I’m a sailor, not an assassin.” You replied though, a bit offended at that insinuation before you could even help it.

And he did grin again then. “Oh, I’m well aware. Tsuru’s little protege. You two and your pitiful ethics. But…that predictable nature of yours makes this rare privilege possible for you. You think I’d let a fellow pirate curl up to me like this?” 

And there was a look in his eye then that absolutely said he was referring to someone specifically as his words kept on. “My peers may know how to fuck well enough, but we’d kill each other sooner than touch again after the copulating was done. Too much ego between us to make it even one night without murderous intent rearing up.”

“Hate fucking you mean?” You asked, and you didn’t know why you were encouraging him. He’d talk about these crazy things and you’d just start to answer sometimes. 

“Exactly! All lust, no trust.” And he did seem amused, both at your response and his own little rhyme there. 

“But tell me, marine.” And now those wandering fingers were roaming your inner thighs as his eye looked more curious. “What would you really call this instead? You and I?”

And your nervousness was back. His focus so fully on you then. 

“I don’t know.” You said honestly.

“Let’s think about that then.” He said, and you were seeing more of his teeth. That smile that never resembled anything close to friendly.

“Did you like it when I walked you around in public yesterday?” He asked next. “…when I called you my woman in front of those scurrying mice at the store?”

And his voice was dropping too. His fingers gripping you harder in tandem.

“It made you wet didn’t it?” He breathed through that cruel smile. “Because you want so badly to belong to someone.”

Which, that tone only made you think that he must finally be awake enough to start feeling amorous all over again. But those devilish eyes were still thinking, considering deeper things once more.

“I liked the way it felt too.” He said abruptly. “I’ve been thinking of what it’d be like to have you to come back to each night…”

Your lips couldn’t help but part a little again at that when his thumb ran across them. Yet he kept talking, kept suggesting.

“You’re already a captain after all. I’ve no doubt that the rank of commodore will soon follow. And you’ll have your own ship and crew by then, won’t you darling?”

His face had moved in closer to you again then, lips ghosting along your jawline. Hungry little bites made along it, urging you to tilt your head back as he finished his thought. “You do realize that that ship will have to have Dressrosa as its home port, don’t you? I don’t think I’ll be able to accept anything less now…” 

Of course you made a sound somewhere between disbelief and disagreement at those new words, But he didn’t care. His tongue was running wet across your pulse point before he bit down abruptly.

And the palm of your hand was against his cheek just as fast to push him off.

You felt his resulting laugh more than you heard it before he did pull back. Yet only enough for him to outright lick your still open palm.

Which earned another look of equal surprise and bewilderment from you as you tried to wipe that spit back away immediately onto the bedding. 

“And how the hell would that work?” You did ask irritably though, still clearly flustered by his new ideas. “There’s no marine base in Dressrosa. A home port is where the crew members’ families live. Where we stay between assignments and resupply, and-”

“Yes, it’d be the perfect country for raising a family, wouldn’t it?” His voice was so smooth again at that, unnerving almost as it caught you a little further off guard.

He was stroking you idly again too, down your side and over your hip. “Your subordinates would be kissing your feet to get to live in the comparative paradise of Dressrosan casitas instead of those utilitarian marine barracks they’d find everywhere else.” 

“It takes a lot of crew to fully man one of our ships.” You didn’t know why your body was trying to tense again at this subject. Or why you were trying to fight illogical emotions with logical words at all. “That’s not an amount of housing that can just pop up overnight.”

“I’m their fucking king…we’ll designate whatever space I say to. And it’d all be free obviously. Your miserly accountants at HQ could never say no to that.”

“Nothing is free.” You quickly replied. 

And Doflamingo did smile again there. Like a magician conceding that his current audience was more cynical than most. You were still seeing some truth even behind the attractive show.

“Well…you’d be the real payment of course.” He murmured, beginning to look a bit more hungry again.

“Funny.” You tried to deflect. 

“I’m serious.” He contended. And you could feel his hips shift, a rather hard something now poking against your stomach once more.

“You actually want me to live in Dressrosa?” It felt like a last ditch effort to try snd show him how insane those words really could sound when strung together. 

“Oh no, love. That alone wouldn’t be enough.” And he’d moved again so that long cock of his was now sliding back and forth against your abdomen.

And you looked at him in some confusion. All the while seeing that lust begin to bud all over again in his handsome face.

“Your crew would live in Dressrosa. But you would live in my palace. In my bed. Just like this.”

And he flung the blankets back with those words, before he’d rolled the two of you so that you were fully beneath him once more.

You could see how flushed with blood that throbbing cock already was then, an enlarged vein running beneath it as he’d pulled that lube bottle back into his hand via string.

“Every morning while your ship was in port, woman. This could be us.” He promised even as he was then stroking that lube back over his shaft and the broad head of it. “You could set sail and go ruin as many other pirates as you’d wish…crush my competitors. And then come home, back to me at the end of each voyage. Back to your king.” 

You heard that resealed lube bottle clank against the nightstand as he hadn’t even had the patience to set it back down. Him just tossing it before he grabbed you behind the knees and spread your legs while lifting them up simultaneously.

Your ankles were in the air and then pressed against his chest before he shoved that wet cock back inside of you.

It was always painful. And always amazing too as you saw him smile down at your pitiful expression. Just a woman hopelessly conquered, aroused, and desperate all at once for this ruthless man.

You didn’t care about a future that had yet to be. Whatever schemes and plans he had for you…there was no point of being afraid of what wasn’t yet here.

This stretching and heat and need were what was real. Just blooming all over again and pushing everything else from your mind as you finally found the way to beg.

“Fuck me, Doffy….please.” You whined when he’d yet to begin thrusting at all after that first penetration.

He’d been too busy watching you writhe as you’d stretched for him once more.

And the growl that came from him in return to your plea was nothing short of hedonistic. “Of course. Of fucking course, love. Open up and take me…on two conditions.”

You tried to focus, but even as those damnable eyes of his bid you to heed him, his thumb was now pressing over your clit simultaneously. He rubbed it so perfectly as he tightened that metaphorical snare all at once.

Every prior word, every prior action…he’d been waiting for you to succumb like this.

“I’ll be yours, woman. I’ll even let you come and go from my country. Let you continue with that ‘ambitious justice’ that you’ve so claimed.” The sneer on his face at your particular notion of justice made clear how arbitrary and futile he found the term however.

He did begin to slowly thrust his cock in and out of you too then, dragging it almost to extend each and every tease to all those heated nerve endings inside. “But no one else may have your body this way…not without my full consent. No one.”

His finger was still massaging your clit incessantly with each new word, but not letting your own hips buck up into him as they so badly wanted to. He only pinned you even harder into the mattress, almost impatient for you to comply as he gave the final rule. 

“And you will always return home to me.” There was no smile then. This was absolutely all or none. “Your only true home will be wherever I am.” 

And for the very first time, you may have preferred the red glasses to have been back on his face to cover him. Because that look in his eyes was abruptly unforgiving. But…especially in the wounded left eye actually.

He’d said that eye had been abnormal, sensitive to light even from birth. 

But only in the daylight, and only with it focused on you that dangerously could you now see the double iris that you’d mistaken as just a normal one appearing falsely enlarged by injury. It was actually a circle within a circle, its previous deep red hazed over to almost a pink beneath the white scar tissue.

And something in that double iris was fully primal. You couldn’t look at it long without feeling those beginnings of fear.

“Doffy…” You tried to call him back to you. As if the look in that left eye alone was what was really controlling his sudden demands.

“Swear to me.” He hissed just as quickly though. That pressure from his hand on your clit becoming painful.

He was absolutely hurting you now. Your body caught under his weight as well as he stayed buried as deeply inside of you as he could go. The head of him was pressed against your cervix yet again.

You were cornered and you knew it. And even as frightening as that could suddenly be, it didn’t kill your desire for him. 

He was absolutely a monster. 

But he was still the only thing you kept thinking about. The only one you kept needing. You’d keep coming back to him anyway, as stupid as you were, wouldn’t you? Because everyone else kept throwing you away when you’d tried to do better. 

You’d tried to fall in love with marines, and felt like a ship smashed against the rocks both times. Wouldn’t it be insane of you to just keep chasing that same honorable kind of man like Kuzan or Smoker, only to find that you weren’t an honorable enough woman for either of them to keep?

“Then what would I be to you?” You pleaded within the pain. Your clit stinging, your cervix aching. “Just your mistress? Your concubine?” Your eyes were starting to sting too. Were you no better than your own brothel working mother in the end? The most you’d ever have in lieu of actual love was just the sexual fixations of a dangerous man?

Yet he spoke these new words into existence and everything else went silent. 

“You would be my wife.”

You weren’t breathing, the bed wasn’t creaking. Every muscle on you both was frozen. Just his unnatural eyes staring into yours.

“You can’t mean that.” Your brain felt utterly useless now. Any words just reflex, completely helpless and defeated really.

“Waiting any longer is only for the indecisive. Once I know what I want…why would I leave it for anyone else to take?” And the tone had changed yet again. His thumb was now moving only in gentle circles on your clit once more.

You spread your legs a little more in reflex. Your goddamned body so confused.

“Say yes.” He insisted still though, even as he started to pump his hips again. 

All the pain in you was being covered up again by the pleasure he now allowed.

You had no choice. You knew you’d be absolutely mauled if you denied him now. Even with every haki trick you had, you may not even make it out alive from this room, as passionate as he clearly was on having your submission.

So you nodded, feeling like you’d just ceded a piece of your own soul to the being above you. “I accept.”

“No. Swear to me instead.” Those same words came again in immediate reply. But this time was different. There was that very faintest hint of anxiety in the Heavenly Demon’s voice. Like a fisherman seeing the catch of his life teetering on that edge of either fully entering or escaping the net.

“I swear, Doflamingo. I’ll have no one else, and I’ll return to you after every voyage. I’ll even be your wife if I can still remain a marine.”

And were you crazy for still trying to add your own stipulation at the end there?

Yes, of course you were. But you’d seen the way he was hanging on your every word then. Your heart had still had that touch of bravery left to rise at the final moment.

And it worked. You saw his smile instantly reform. But it seemed involuntary, disbelieving almost, and entirely nervous on his face. “You can still be both. I have pull higher than even Sengoku…they can’t terminate you. Can’t demote you. You can be the first royal of modern times still in active service…”

And he was starting to laugh too. He didn’t know what to do with himself as it really began to sink in.

“My queen…” he purred, his hips picking up the pace as the bed started creaking once more. “A warrior queen of the sea at that…fuck, it’s going to be so goddamned fun.”

And he was grinding your g-spot for all he was worth soon enough. Having you moaning for him as he reveled in this sudden and wholly unexpected victory.

You couldn’t think about it much more though. Not as your toes curled and your back arched beneath the now gleeful devil. 

It was utterly insane. Him, you, all of it. There was just nothing else that could be done in this moment to save either of you.

———————————

The rest of the daylight hours had been a haze of more fucking, more alcohol, more just being together frankly. Lazing around that beautiful villa together with no one to disturb you. You’d never seen Doflamingo in such a good mood.

At some point you finally had gotten into the shower together though. Which had resulted in more games in the hot steam. You’d gotten pinned against that lovely tile mosaic in the bathroom as he’d actually gotten on his knees to eat you out. Like a starving man who’d never have or want anything else.

It was a hell of a day.

But by the time the sun had set again, you felt like he was missing the attention of everyone else too. He wanted to show you off and parade the both of you to the envy of the other elites.

He wanted to go to the carnival ball.

And what were you supposed to do but entertain him? He had been almost kind to you ever since your agreement this morning. You knew it couldn’t last. Something was bound to set him off again.

But until then, you could do your best to enjoy this rather affectionate warlord that he was currently being.

So you went with him. In the dress he chose for you, in the shoes he chose for you. Your arm around his as you’d gone back out onto the gaslit streets together.

The carnival masks were back on as well. His red one, and your black one. He was in a different suit tonight though. A red one with a black under vest and shirt.

It reminded you even more of the one he’d used to favor in the North Blue. But it was a bit more modern cut, a slightly different shade. 

And still you caught yourself staring at him at times. The way he carried himself, the way he smirked at you as he always had to stay in some form of physical contact with you.

He was right in the way you loved the attention. But was he right to say that you did wish to belong to someone? 

It looked like you were going to find out. Unless he got tired of you before he went through with this whole Dressrosa as your home port plan.

Gods, you still had no idea what to really think, or how any of it could even work. So you kept trying to live in the moment at least as you’d ended up in the biggest ballroom you’d ever seen.

Royalty and nobility were all around as musicians in tuxedos played more songs Doflamingo knew and you did not.

“Who taught you how to dance anyway?” You had finally asked him as he lead you in another slow spin. Him somehow keeping time to the music even better than all the other couples you were trying to imitate around you.

You weren’t as clumsy as you’d been in the street the day before at least. But it was still far from intuitive to you, though you were trying.

“My mother taught me.” He answered, no real hesitation either that time.

But the way his mouth was downturned slightly, you were quite certain that woman was also no longer alive. Though you supposed rarely would anyone with a loving family feel a need to set out on a life of crime anyway. 

You certainly hadn’t had a real maternal figure until you’d met Tsuru. Your own mother had been far too young, and just trying to survive herself. There’d been no room for you really.

“She sounds interesting. Swan owner, dancer…” You dared to continue that topic though. Hoping maybe his good mood was still enough to allow you to pry into him a little more.

After all you’d promised him this morning, that seemed more than fair to know a bit more about the man you’d just tied yourself to.

But then again, this particular man was hardly known for his fairness.

Yet with your hand tightly in his as the violins continued, he did reply. With more than expected actually. “No. She wasn’t interesting at all really. Quiet. Submissive. Wholly fragile and quickly gone…” But the somber tone in his voice still belied more regret than just those plain words. “Like taking a rose from a greenhouse and expecting it to survive in the mud outside with the weeds. Of course she couldn’t do it. She passed away when I was eight.”

Saying sorry would be too pointless. You hated useless platitudes like that. So you wouldn’t do it yourself.

“Was that still in the North Blue then? Is that your home sea?” You asked carefully instead. It should have been a harmless, neutral question really.

But you saw Doflamingo’s chest move as he took in a larger breath.

“I know I need to tell you eventually…and yet, we’re having a nice night aren’t we? It’s been an excellent day actually. Is this really what you want to know right now, love?”

And of course you couldn’t understand the change from such a simple question as the red lenses in that carnival mask were then looking down from above you.

When the current song ended, he’d led you back away from the dance floor as well.

There were small circular tables all over with flowing table cloths. Wait staff moved effortlessly between them, taking food and drink orders from whoever may wave them down.

“Let’s get something to eat and perhaps we can talk a bit more.” He said as his hand moved against the small of your back, guiding you to a table of his choice.

He still wasn’t angry, just guarded.

But you’d already seen his real face now. And you knew what kind of cutthroat pirate he’d been and still was. What else of his past could be that important to him?

And you did let him do the ordering as soon as a waiter had indeed rushed up. Doflamingo was always going to take charge regardless you were finding. Picking your clothes, picking your food too…

You didn’t care right now, though you should have. It was just more control of course. Even as much as you’d already given him of yourself today.

But food was food in this moment. You’d barely eaten today with all the other in bed activities. So you just idly surveyed the room while the waiter explained the current entrees and the chef’s recommended wine pairings to your warlord date. 

It was an old habit of yours maybe. Situational awareness and an idea of who was where, where the exits were, plus the general mood and threat level at any given time when working with a crowd.

Yet here was just a lot of fluff and self serving people putting on displays for one another really. You’d even clocked the father and sons you’d first escorted to this island. They hadn’t recognized you of course. How could they have when they’d never even looked you in the face when on Momonga’s ship? You hadn’t been worth it to them.

The youngest son had spilled wine on his date somehow. She was having a fit, and the father was stepping in with heaps of apologies. She must have been even richer than them then. The fact that there were hierarchies within hierarchies for these people just made it seem all the dumber. 

Such a waste of energy. And you were about to give up watching any of them, bored in their manufactured drama and flamboyance before something else caught your attention.

A group of men and women were moving against the general grain of everyone else. Stiff and organized, something you recognized immediately as tactical. Two in front, two in back, and one on each side.

You stretched to see better, past the socialites and their petty conversations. 

That group was moving someone in the center of their formation. A young girl actually, certainly no more than ten or so. Her blue ponytail was swishing side to side, even with her body so tense. Her shoulders were hunched defensively as she was being pushed forward with one of the men’s hands clamped down onto her shoulder from behind.

You could see the silent tears in wet streaks down that girl’s face. That terror in her eyes that you’d seen so many times before. You knew exactly what was happening, even if no one else did as you immediately stood.

——————————

Doflamingo had just been committing to the    fiorentina steak dish and a polenta entree as well for the two of you to sample together when he’d seen you stand.

Belatedly noticed really because you’d been on his left. But that spoke of his already increasing trust in you really, letting you guard his blind side even subconsciously. How he’d often keep his officers to his left whenever seated.

Yet that didn’t mean he expected you to actually do anything from that position. He tried to grab your wrist as you’d moved forward. Seeing that tenseness in your body immediately and not understanding it a bit before you’d dodged his touch easily.

The waiter was just as confused and in the way really as Doflamingo stood fully as well. He moved his fingers, ready to stop you if he had to.

“Where the hell are you-“ He started to demand you to explain.

“No time. Stay. I’ll be back.” You said so quickly though. So different and commanding. Before one slightly softer note of, “I promise. I’ll be back.”

And you didn’t even look at him before you’d disappeared, almost in a run then into the crowd. Him left standing at the table, inexplicably hesitating.

You’d told him to do something and he’d actually listened.

He was as dumbfounded as the waiter who now excused themselves just to say they were going to put his order in.

But they didn’t get far.

No one did before the first gunshots rang out.

———————————

    T⨂  BE 

CONTINUED

———————————

Thanks for reading!

#doflamingo x reader #doflamingo x y/n #doflamingo x you #doffy x reader #doffy x you #doffy x y/n #one piece smut #one piece reader insert #one piece x reader #one piece x y/n #one piece x you #one piece fanfiction #one piece doflamingo #op doflamingo #doflamingo #donquixote doflamingo #doflamingo one piece #doffy #doffy one piece #doflamingo’s marine

[throughthetwistedmirror]

Otome Game ~ *Idia Shroud*

Summary: It was Idia's idea to game with you. But when you ask him for help with your otome game, he can't help but notice some similarities between him and your favorite character...

Pairing: Idia Shroud X Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluffy Oneshot

Word Count: 1004

Warning: Otome gaming

Masterlist

Taglist: @savanaclaw1996 @goseew

It was Idia's idea to game with you, although he only asked because you mentioned that you had a new game that you haven't gotten around to playing yet. You were sure he had ulterior motives when he asked you to hang out, but you didn't bring it up with him as you didn't want to scare him off. Instead, you simply grabbed your game and met him at his dorm.

Ortho was more than excited to see you. You always held a special affection to Idia's little brother that didn't go unnoticed by both parties. On more than one occasion when you weren't around, Ortho would beg his brother to finally ask you out. But Idia was far too terrified to approach you with a romantic relationship. So he simply settled for a friendship that he would never ever, ever, EVER take advantage of.

Idia made sure to clean his room before you arrived and you were pleasantly surprised. Whenever you crashed the Board Game Club meetings, Azul would go on and on about how filthy his room was. Still, you didn't point it out to him. You didn't want to make him feel any more self-conscious than he already was.

After exchanging some casual pleasantries, the two of you fell into your gaming. It was calm and relaxing. You found yourself enjoying your time with the dorm leader of Ignihyde more than you anticipated. He was considerate about your own gaming experience and kept his reactions to his game quiet. Every so often you would look up and watch what he was doing, asking questions when you felt it was appropriate. He answered all of your questions with ease and even reciprocated by asking questions about your game. All and all, it was the perfect afternoon with one of your favorite people.

Then you hit a rough patch in your game. Your sigh of frustration alerted Idia, who knew exactly what it meant: you needed help. Now, Idia doesn't like to boast about his exceptional skills when it comes to video games, but surely he could appear like your knight in shining armor and lend you a hand?

"What's wrong?" He softly asks, his gaze still trained on the game he was playing.

"I'm stuck. I don't know which boyfriend to choose." You mumble, flicking through the different options in your otome game.

Idia thought it was a good thing you weren't paying attention to him as his hair flickered pink for a brief moment. He fumbled with his control to pause his game before finally addressing your issue.

"What, what do you mean?"

You showed him the screen of your game console. "So my new game is an otome game. I have seven boys to choose from. I just completed the intro and now I have to pick one, but I don't know who to choose."

He frowned and looked at your options. "Why don't you just pick one that you like and then do the other routes later."

"That's the problem. You can only choose once. If I want to complete the other routes, I have to buy another game. It's a major capitalism scheme, but I thought the game looked fun." You shrug. "Any idea who I should choose?"

"Uh... why don't you tell me about them and then I'll help you decide."

You nod with a smile that makes the tips of his hair turn pink again. "Okay in order here you have: Ryushi, the strict student body president who just needs someone to soften his edges, Ietsuna, the lazy slacker who only cares about you, Amane, the bad boy who likes to tease and torment, Kobo, the golden retriever who is the fan favorite, Michinori, the cultured exchange student who is a little fruity in my opinion, Masanobu, the secret prince of the school who would do anything for you, and Ichibei, the otaku with a heart of gold."

"Wow." He's surprised with how typical the choices are like every other otome game. He would normally say pick the one you're most interested in as they're pretty average, but considering you can only make one choice, you have to be careful. "I guess I'd have to say the choice is up to you."

You give him a pout. "You're really going to make me make such a tough decision all on my own? You're so mean, Idia!"

He panics at your words, not meaning to make you upset with him. "Well I mean it's your game! You should pick the boy you feel is the most special to you! I can't really help you make that decision."

"I suppose you're right..."

"Who do you feel is special?"

You shrug and glance back at your choices. "Well, I first thought about Masanobu because who wouldn't want to be a princess? But I felt he was trying too hard in the prologue to try and gain your favor. So I went through the options again and I'm stuck on two: Amane and Ichibei."

He tried to not let you know how surprised and flustered he was. "Oh?"

You nod. "I mean, I'm so like other girls when I say I love a bad boy, but Ichibei... he seemed so sweet and shy. I couldn't help but be drawn to him. I think he might be my favorite."

Your explanation was not helping the poor boy's rapidly beating heart. Based on your little description about him, Idia couldn't help but see similarities between him and Ichibei. Was this your subtle way of saying he was your favorite too? Was it too much to hope that that was true?

"I think you should go with your favorite."

You beamed at his words and his heart skipped several beats. "I think you're absolutely correct! Thank you Idia!"

"You're welcome." He mumbled and tried to return to his game. But he was distracted. Your words and your choice hit him harder than he anticipated. Perhaps Ortho was right. He should ask you out…

#Twisted Wonderland #Twisted Wonderland Fanfiction #Twisted Wonderland Oneshot #Anime #Anime Fanfiction #Anime Oneshot #Ignihyde #Idia Shroud #Idia Shroud X Reader #Idia Shroud Fanfiction #Idia Shroud Oneshot #Idia Shroud Fluff #Idia #Idia X Reader #Idia Fanfiction #Idia Oneshot #Idia Fluff #Gamer #Gamer AU #Oneshot #Fluff

[wittlesissyb4by]

"Okay, so remember, once we have them in their diaper, it's really important that we praise them. They're going to be very averse to their new lifestyle at first, but they have to get used to it.

So we want them to associate their diaper with good things, at least in the beginning. Tell them they're a good boy, that they look super cute in their wittle diapurrs. Pinch their cheeks, boop their nose, and talk to them in your little singsong voice. Guys aren’t used to getting compliments and affection as much, so if they receive that sort of praise and physical touch while they’re in a diaper, they’ll warm up to the idea a lot faster than you think.

Now, once we’ve got them pampered and praised, I like to put a pacifier in their mouth. I find it really helps them regress a few years, makes them more docile, and it keeps them quiet other than their adorable little whimpers. It’s hard for them to do much arguing or fussing when they’re suckling a binky!

After they’ve been praised and regressed a bit, it’s time to *really* get them enjoying their diapers. That means: we’re going to make them cum.

I know, I know, this whole thing is supposed to be a ‘punishment’, but trust me, the ends will justify the means. If it makes you feel any better, the only time they will get to cum from now on will be when they’re in a diaper. That means no sex, and constant supervision to prevent masturbation. You control their orgasms, just like you control where they go potty.

So when we make them cum in their diaper, we never want to reach into the actual diaper. That kind of defeats the purpose. We want them to feel the padding, hear the crinkles, all while changing the way they traditionally garner sexual stimulation.

So what I like to do is place my palm right here on the outside of the diaper, right between their legs, and feel around for their winky. Those of you that have hubbies with little nubbies may have a harder time finding it, but honestly, even if you’re not directly on it, that’s okay. You’ll find they’ll aim their hips the right way for you.

Once you’re on it, you’re just going to do a simple kneading motion back and forth just like this. Long, slow movements at first. Don’t start too fast. You want them to really take in the feelings and sensations. You’ll even see them get a little desperate for more, and it’s up to you if you want to speed up and go a bit harder, keep that same pace, or just take your hand away and watch them wiggle and whimper.

But the most important thing is that this entire stimulation process is never silent. In addition to the crinkling, you want to continue praising them. Really dial up the baybee talk here. You should be reminding them what a good little boi (or gurl!) they are. Remind them what they’re wearing. Obviously they know they are in a diaper, but you need to vocalize it.

‘Wook how cute the wittle baybee is in his diapee!’

‘Hubby wooks so adorwable in his Huggies!”

Things like that.

If they have an erection—which I’m sure they will from all the rubbing—point that out to them: ‘oh my goodness! I didn’t think these pampers could make your pee pee so pointy!’ or ‘somewon sure is getting hard in their Huggies!!’

If they have messes, praise them for that as well. Nothing like getting complimented for pissing or pooping in a pamper. Again, we’re just trying to emphasize the state at which they’re in.

Another way to do that is to have them tell you. Make them vocalize these things:

“Tell me what you’re wearing little boi!”

“Why is it so plump? Did you do something in there? Tell me what you did.”

“Is that something a big boi would do??”

Make them use their little baybee voice, make them lisp, make them make it high-pitched, and make them do all of it with that pacifier still in their mouth!

If they do it properly, reward them with rubbies, if they’re stubborn or not performing up to your standards, pull your hand away. You’ll have them babbling like a baybee in no time!

I know some Mommies that will only do the rubbies while their hubby is jiggling a rattle. If the rattling stops, so do they. Feel free to be creative, as long as they’re being patronized while they’re pampered, you’re doing the right thing!

Alright, so after a few minutes—or maybe even a few seconds—they’re going to be ready to cum. Make sure you emphasize that they have to tell you when they’re close, and they have to do it in baybee talk. I like to have them tell me they have to make a ‘goo goo’. But you can use whatever term you want.

At this point we’re gonna do what’s called a ‘ruined’ orgasm. For those that don’t know, that’s where you get them right up to the edge when they’re babbling and rattling and goo goo ga ga’ing, wait until you see them first start to spasm—then lift your hand away. If you do it right, they’ll be past the point of no return, and all their little stickies will leak out, but they’ll only have a fraction of a pleasurable orgasm.

This is important, because it puts them in this sort of limbo. Where they’re a little satisfied but also still a bit horny and desperate. Don’t be surprised if they whine and cry about it either—you know how men can be. But that’s when you tell them one of your most important lines:

‘Maybe next time!’

That will leave them literally cumming back for more. They’ll be desperate for their next diaper, their next rubbie, or the next stage of their training.

But another important step here is to make them sit in their shame. Keep them in their sticky diaper for a bit, at least an hour or two. Let them feel the warmth of their little load that they made—all while they were in a diaper. And the only way they get to make a load like that again is…in a diaper. We really want to drive this point home. They are not going to cum without the constant sound of crinkling coming with it. They don’t get the love, touch, and affection while they’re in silly boxers and big boy clothes. The only way they get pleasure is when they’re in their pampers.

Wives never believe me, but i promise you, eventually, they’ll actually beg you to put them in a diaper, just so you can make them cum again.

But what we’re not going to tell them is that we’re eventually going to wean them off. They’re not going to get to cum every time they put on a diaper. For the first dozen times or so, yes, they get an orgasm (even a full one) every single time. But then it becomes “well only if your diaper is wet”, which makes them feel good about wetting, cause then they get a rubbie reward. But then they’ll grow used to that as well, so we have to constantly find ways to push their limits.

Wait until you see their face when they push their first poop into their pamper. They’re sooo embarrassed, but they’re willing to do it, all because you said you would give them a goo goo if they make a poo poo. But of course, what you don’t tell them, is that they’re gonna have to cum while they’re still inside their messy diaper. Don’t worry girls, if you get too disgusted, just make them turn over and turn their rubbies into humpies!!

Ohh I just love helping wives turn their useless/ungrateful husbands into helpless and desperate diaper dumpers! I know some that have their husbands wearing huggies 24/7, and sometimes even in dresses too! Even the most homophobic, chauvinistic pig can be turned into a pamper packer, all it takes is a little TLC.

Men are so easy, you can literally control their whole life, as long as you control when and where their balls get emptied. Which reminds me: next week, our workshop is going to talk about a little thing called a ‘chastity device’!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you like my captions, please consider supporting me so I can keep making more. Go to allmylinks.com to follow me on other sites!

[lewmagoo]

Bob in his meandom phase, enjoying making you cry of pleasure and pain, but immediately going to kiss you every time you ask, because no matter what, it will always be what he prefers: loving you, forever. 💜

you were sobbing. great heaving sobs that rattled your entire body. you were so overcome with painful pleasure that it had begun to pour out of you in the form of tears. bob had been working you over for hours, exercising the patience of a saint as he edged you relentlessly. he wasn't loud about it. no, bob's dominance was a quiet, restrained, methodical show. he was still clothed, for heaven's sake. it showed that he was, in fact, the one in control.

he had bought a special stimulating lubricant, which he'd carefully smeared over your pussy. it wasn't so bad at first, but now your poor clit was puffy and twitching, and even the most featherlight touches were too much. he'd been edging you with his fingers, his mouth, and a clit vibrator, and it was absolute torture. your head was swimming. your ears were ringing. and he still kept going. now, each time you were brought right to the edge, you found yourself quite literally screaming.

at this moment, bobby had just pulled the vibrator away from your spasming cunt, and you wailed, pulling at the restraints that kept you fastened to the headboard. "god fucking dammit! fuck!" you swore, voice hoarse, body jolting violently. and then, his big hand was resting against your chest, over your wildly hammering heart. "deep breaths, bunny," he urged, voice gentle, as if he wasn't currently punishing you. but you were still sobbing, tears running down your face.

"ca-can i h-have a kiss?" you managed to speak in between gasps. he smiled, leaning in to capture your lips in a loving kiss. you leaned into him, relishing in the feeling. the kiss grounded you, calming you down and keeping you from spiraling in a bad way. the thing about bob was, he would never, ever deny you affection. it didn't matter what kind of scene you were partaking in. both of you were allowed to seek out a hug or a kiss or comforting touch at any time.

now was no different. as you parted, he reached up to stroke your cheek. "doing so well for me, sweetie pie." the praise made you purr, and you felt as if you might float up into the ceiling. and then he pressed the vibrator to your clit again, and you nearly did float. his gentle affection had given you exactly what you needed to endure the rest of this scene. because although he had taken on the role of mean dom, you knew he still loved you so very much, and that love would shine through even the most intense of scenes.

#bob floyd x reader #asks #bob musings

[blushydrangea]

25 with planymphia? 🥺🖤

blossoming romance writing prompts: 25. finding comfort in their scent.

Jane knew something was wrong when she closed the door behind her. Everything seemed to be in place, yes, but she trusted her gut feeling when it came to Nymphia.

It wasn’t unusual for their shared apartment to be quiet whenever her girlfriend was left alone — infrequent, but not unusual. Nymphia sometimes chose silence even with her, after a draining day of work or maybe because her thoughts were too loud and she needed to put them in order before coming back to Jane. She would still look for her then and curl on her lap like a cat, answering all conversation starters with hums then nudging Jane’s arm for her to shut up, too.

A silent apartment shouldn’t be enough to worry, yet she still took off her shoes faster than her regular pace, clicking her tongue impatiently when she missed the coat hanger by half an inch and had to pick her jacket up from the floor.

“I’m home!”

Nymphia’s reply of “Jane?” came from their bedroom, and she found herself sprinting there within seconds. There were tears hidden in Nymphia’s voice, a slight extra whine she would recognize in her sleep coming from her girl, and it made Jane nervous. Her girlfriend wasn’t not a crybaby, tears came more naturally to her than they ever could to Jane, but she usually had a good reason to cry.

She found Nymphia on the bed, 80% of her pretty face covered by the red hoodie she had on, one that belonged to Jane and was a personal favorite of hers. Further inspection also showed Nymphia had stolen the blanket Jane wrapped around herself every night, because her girlfriend kept hogging the covers. It was pressed to her chest as if it were a plushie.

Their eyes met, Nymphia’s chocolate color dimmed with flicks of red from crying, her whole face puffy. Jane wrapped her arms around her and kissed the tip of her pink nose, satisfied when it made her girlfriend's tense body relax in her embrace.

She kissed her more, of course, how could she not? A gentle kiss pressed to her forehead after pushing her yellow bangs aside, followed by a peck to her lips and two kisses to her cheeks. Jane would have kissed her for hours, it was actually her plan after coming home from work, except Nymphia’s smile was faltering and she looked ready to talk.

“Can you tell me what happened, baby?” Jane asked in the softest tone she could measure, pulling Nymphia to sit fully on her lap. She watched her girl make herself smaller inside the hoodie and hide her face on her chest, inhaling deeply.

“My mom and I got into a pretty big fight on the phone…” she started, hot tears wetting Jane's uniform shirt. She didn't care. “It was my fault, of course. I can't expect an old lady to change her ways, it's me who should be patient and–” 

“And you are,” Jane interrupted. “Your mom knows that, baby girl. She knows how much you care for her no matter the fights.”

Nymphia stayed on crying, so all Jane did was rub circles on her back and control her tongue. She found herself mere seconds away from telling her that crying over it would not fix a fight, and all she had to do was to wait it out until the next day, when she could message her mother and settle things for once.

If it were anyone else, Jane would have given that advice already, and probably would’ve felt pretty good about herself at that. Not with Nymphia, though, not the sweet, anxious soul she had. She felt things too intensely, couldn't handle not being able to instantly work through a tough situation. Jane had to be patient with her.

“I just wish I didn't lose my temper,” she whispered in a shaky voice after minutes of silence. Jane chuckled when Nymphia pulled a face, thankfully earning her another chuckle in return.

“Well, do you think you can fix it next time? Like, talk to her without losing your mind?” Jane asked in a playful tone.

A soft nod was her response. “There you go, baby. You just gotta wait for the next time you talk.”

Nymphia nodded again, and she took her hand in hers. 

“So, when are you gonna apologize for stealing my favorite hoodie and my blanket?”

The silly accusation made Nymphia laugh out loud, shrugging apologetically in spite of her smile. “M’sorry, they just… You weren’t here and they smell like you, so they make me feel a little bit better.”

If her heart skipped a beat at the adorable confession, it wasn’t anyone’s business. And if she blushed at the thought of her girlfriend needing her this badly, at least she could bury her face in Nymphia’s hair so it wasn’t visible.

“I can cover you in my scent now, if you’ll let me,” she replied quickly and wiggled her eyebrows, her second nature of keeping things unserious kicking in.

Nymphia kicked her leg as Jane’s hands flew to her waist, but when she spoke again, her voice gave away the laughter.

“Evil.”

#for the anon who requested the same prompt too! #mine #planymphia

[tropes-and-tales]

Hi! If you do headcanons, can you do a Dating Ray Merrimen headcanon?

This is suitable for work!

Expect a long, long wait before you actually start dating.  Ray has no time for dating or relationships.  He’s not on any apps, and he certainly doesn’t want to be set up.  So when you drift through his life—maybe you’re a friend of Bosco’s girl—be prepared for the slowest of slow burns. 

It takes, let’s say…a month before Ray even notices that you’re hanging around with the crew.

It takes another month before he starts to remember your name.

Another month after that before you get the patented Ray Merrimen tip of the head in greeting each time you show up.

It is the slowest of slow burns.  You keep a little tally in your phone of how many words you exchange with Ray each time you see him.

You make a game of it.  Can you get Ray to answer you in more than a monosyllable?

The first time he finally does, you can’t help but laugh, and he narrows his eyes at you, not understanding the joke.

You know it’s a long shot with Ray.  You don’t get your hopes up—you still go on dates with guys you meet on the apps.  A few even tempt you into second and third dates, but no one can quite capture your imagination the way Ray does.

Even though you don’t seem to capture Ray’s imagination at all.  All of his brain power is consumed with bank schematics, armored van schedules, and planning his next heist.

But as much as you watch Ray and study him, you don’t really know him.

Case in point:  you assume he’s never thought about you, consumed as he is with his less-than-licit career.

You assume wrong.  Ray has been studying you on the sly too, and he noticed you the very first time you turned up.  Ray notices everyone, especially new folks, so when Bosco’s girl brought you around, he watched you and took in every single thing about you.

All those months when you felt invisible to him?  He was watching you, learning who you were. 

The thing is, Ray Merrimen is perfectly fine alone.  He prides himself on his discipline and self-control, and he is not the sort of man to chase a woman.

Instead, he sits back and watches and waits.  He studies you to see if you’re the sort of woman who can handle him.

All of this happens without you realizing.  You just think you’re a pining little idiot, so you’re surprised when you drink too much at one of Levoux’s parties and need a ride home.

“Don’t do that,” Ray tells you.  He takes your phone from your hand and cancels the ride-share you are trying to order.  “They don’t vet those drivers.”

The solution?  Ray drives you home. 

He’s quiet for most of it, but you’re a chatty drunk, so you talk and he listens, and you miss the little twitch at the corner of his mouth—his version of a smile.

He parks in front of your house, and he doesn’t leave until he sees your front door safely behind you.

The next time you see him, you thank him, and he tips you that same stoic nod in reply.

But you’re clued into him a bit now.  You’re falling into the same wavelength as Ray. 

Oftentimes, when you look across the room or across Bosco’s backyard, you see Ray watching you.

And when he catches you watching him, he tips that nod, gives the same small, tight corner-of-the-mouth smile.

When Mack celebrates his birthday at a club, you’re there in a dress that’s tight in the right places and short in the right places.

It draws a lot of male attention.

And Ray may pride himself on his self-control, but the absolute second he sees some fucking asshole eyeing you up, he’s at your side and refuses to move for the rest of the night.

Going to dance with your friend?  Ray lurks in the shadows right at the edge of the dance floor.

Going to the bathroom?  Ray walks you to the hallway and waits to escort you back.

Need another round?  Ray puts his hand on your lower back and gently ushers you there and back, and he lays down a crisp $20 to pay for it.

One of those fucking assholes eyeing you up?  He doesn’t get the message.  He keeps trying to sidle up to you, chat you up…

…until Ray wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you in tight to him. 

It’s purely protective, and it raises an indistinct ache between your thighs to be held like this.  From no touch at all to this, Ray’s solid body shielding you, the clean scent of his body wash in your nose.

The night ends in another ride home from Ray. 

You’re tipsy, and this time?  He walks you to your door instead of staying in his car, but he doesn’t come in when you invite him.

“Next time,” he tells you.  “Be sure to drink lots of water.  Maybe take an ibuprofen before you go to sleep.”

He must see the blatant disappointment on your face, because he gives that small smile, then hooks a finger under your chin. 

He tilts your face up to him, and he bends his head to kiss you—the gentlest, softest brush of his lips against the corner of your mouth.

“Next time,” he repeats, and even though your head is spinning at even the tamest of kisses, it sounds like a promise.

#ray merrimen #ray merrimen x reader #ray merrimen imagine #ray merrimen x you #den of thieves #ray merrimen headcanon #tropes and tales

[tunaababee]

we will be everything we say - Chapter 4

masterlist // fic playlist // read on AO3 // overall rating: e // wc this chapter: 4.9k // updates Mondays (aest)

Feyre Archeron has been best friends with Rhysand Sterling ever since she moved onto the same street when they were kids - the two became absolutely joined at the hip, with nothing able to come between them.

As they get older, life gets more complicated and things get harder. Not everything comes as naturally as it once did. People change, things happen, friends... drift.

But after drifting apart, maybe life can push them back together again, in time.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Chapter 4: seventeen and eighteen

After Rhys had moved, Feyre had never found it easy to go to his house - sure, he was always kind enough to give her a ride and do his best to make her feel at home - but it never felt like somewhere she could relax. The lawns were too manicured, the furniture too fancy, the backyard too big and the fittings too new. This house absolutely screamed of Rhysand’s father, and no matter how at ease Rhys made her feel overall, she was never quite able to shake it even on the best of days when she visited the house.

That feeling was manifesting tenfold in her stomach right now as the party raged around her, raucous and encompassing, and that was without the idea of the next few years ahead of her plaguing her mind. If Feyre didn’t take tonight one step at a time, she felt like she could throw up.

Because tonight was Prythian High’s completely unsanctioned, borderline-official senior year graduation party.

Feyre was dressed uncomfortably - nice, but uncomfortably. Shehad donned a pair of black heels she had borrowed from Elain forever ago, some form-fitting pale blue jeans and a nice, but loose black tank top to try and pull the whole thing together. Realistically, she’d much rather be in some trackpants and an oversized shirt but she didn’t want to fuck this up for anybody, least of all herself. She would have much rather snuck through the side window or something - as clinical as the house could feel, she still knew it well - but it wasn’t an option with her boyfriend at her side as they stepped out of his car. Tamlin grabbed a cooler he had in the backseat before resuming his earlier station, hand at the small of her back as the two headed for Rhys’ front door. Tamlin reached to ring the doorbell but Feyre stopped him, one hand lightly landing on his wrist as it came up while her other fished around in her bag for the key she knew she had. Despite Rhys’ move two years ago, they’d still kept keys to each other’s house no matter what in case they needed something.

“I’ve got this babe,” she said quietly, flashing him a small smile. Feyre could swear she saw his jaw tense, his smile down at her a little forced as she turned the key in the lock. She knew he wasn’t Rhys’ biggest fan, but she trusted he could keep it under control for one night. They’d had to come together for this party in the first place, after all.

Feyre took a quiet, deep breath before pushing the door open to what could only be described as barely controlled chaos inside. Music blared all throughout the house, teenagers scattered everywhere with cups in hand and the scent of alcohol permeating the air. Normally this wouldn’t have been Feyre’s preferred way to spend a Friday night, but she knew that the night meant a lot to Rhys, their friends, and Tamlin, all of whom were off to college in the upcoming fall. Even if she wasn’t the biggest social butterfly, she’d do anything for the people she loved and cared about. So her and Tamlin trudged forward, the throngs of their drunken fellow students parting slowly as they moved into the living room. People were scattered everywhere throughout the house, playing drinking games of various complexity before spilling out in the backyard where people were swimming in the well-appointed pool. Feyre couldn’t help but think for a moment that it almost definitely was some sort of recipe for a liability issue before being pulled from her thoughts at an insistent shout across the room.

“Feyre, you came!”

She was almost bowled off of her feet with how firmly Mor leapt at her for a hug, unable to help laughing as she hugged her right back despite a slight stumble. Mor didn’t hesitate to plant a bright red kiss on her cheek with her signature smile that lit up a room.

“Of course I would, wouldn’t miss watching you guys get messy for the world.”

“Good to see you too, Tamlin. Congrats on salutatorian, by the way.” Mor simply smiled at him, Tamlin narrowing his eyes slightly as he flashed his most practised grin. Feyre lightly slapped Mor's shoulder - she knew that her friends couldn’t help but deliberately try and worm their way under Tamlin’s skin. She was very used to their ribbing, but Tamlin came from a very different family and environment. They had to give him time to adjust.

“Thanks, Mor. Where’s the host? I’ve got beer and wine to unload from my car.”

She smoothly gestured over to the kitchen, where Rhys was making a cursed concoction with whatever liquor he currently had his hands on. Rhys knew he couldn’t get away with raiding his dad’s cabinet, so he and Tamlin struck a deal - in exchange for Rhys hosting, Tamlin was to provide the majority of the drink as his family owned both breweries and vineyards. Not that the promise of free alcohol stopped people from bringing their own contributions to the revelry. Feyre blew a kiss at Mor as she and Tamlin walked over together, watching Rhys with a smile on her face. Once he finished his creation, resulting in an oversized bowl full of a murky brown mixture of liquor that was bound to leave people with heads pounding in the morning, he met Feyre’s gaze. He rushed right over, not hesitating to pull her into a tight hug.

“Hello, Feyre darling!”

“Hello, Rhys my dear!” Feyre hugged back just as firmly, already feeling a little more at ease. She could feel Tamlin staring at him, glad that neither one of them had managed to say anything incendiary for the time being. Once Rhys let go of Feyre, he moved to give Tamlin a terse clap on the shoulder. The smirk Rhys flashed was one of pure confidence and nonchalance, Tamlin doing his best to mimic it. God, she hated teenage male egos.

“Glad to see you made it, Tamlin. I hope you didn’t have any trouble getting here?”

“Not at all. I have the booze I promised loaded in the back of my car, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand.” Their conversation was laced with tension that Feyre knew she wasn’t totally privy to - she knew that their parents for many years had it out for each other, but she had no clue how that would extend to the two of them by proxy. Whenever she asked either of them, they refused to elaborate. Usually she was relegated to playing peacemaker between the two, but she was glad they seemed to be willing to at least try to put it aside for one night.

“Of course, lead the way.” He gestured to the front door, beginning to trail after Tamlin, but not before giving her a soft smile. Feyre mouthed the words ‘come back soon’ at him, to which he gave a small nod before returning his attention to the task at hand. For the time being, Feyre grabbed a beer from his fridge and tried to find a less-crowded corner to occupy.

Wherever she wandered inside the house was so full of bodies that, despite the normally over-abundant space, it felt almost claustrophobic no matter where she turned. She knew that upstairs was generally off limits to partygoers - everyone knew that nobody wanted to have any reason to make Mr. Sterling pissed off - but she didn’t want to seem completely anti-social, let alone have people misconstrue anything. Feyre had already had to fend off rumours that she and Rhys were together since they were in middle school and there was no way she wanted to give anybody a reason to add fuel to that proverbial fire. Soon she found herself outside, managing to catch a glimpse of Azriel standing a small way off while Cassian was busy trying to pull off a keg stand and failing miserably. He had a rare smile on his face as they watched Amren continue to hold up Cassian despite how much beer he was losing over his face and into his hair. Feyre couldn’t help but laugh, sidling up next to Azriel comfortably amongst the crowd.

“Please tell me this is his first attempt of the night.”

Azriel snorted slightly. “More like third.”

She shook her head a little bit, tapping her beer to Azriel’s plastic cup before taking a generous swig. They stood in comfortable silence for a while, watching Cassian dismount with no small amount of spluttering and laughter on his part before someone else attempted to take up the mantle. Aside from Tamlin, Rhys and their inner circle of friends were the only people Feyre actually knew at this party. She was only a junior - if she wasn’t so close with them, there was no way she could glance at this whole event, let alone be invited. So by Azriel’s side she stuck, the two of them content to watch the people as the time ticked by until, inevitably, Tamlin found her and insisted on having her stick by his side all night. She didn’t entirely mind - it was nice to have a conversational buffer since Tamlin was very good at keeping people engaged - but it was a little isolating in its own way.

At least I don’t have to talk to drunk people I don’t even know, she thought to herself. It was a small solace.

Feyre had been dating Tamlin for the past six months or so at this point. The first time they had met was when she had accidentally run into him in the halls, unable to see past art supplies and textbooks she had bundled in her arms. It was almost like the moment was plucked out of a movie - he had apologised, helping her gather everything back up before locking his forest green eyes with hers and smiling softly. They’d exchanged names and she had indulged in quiet little daydreams periodically, waving at each other in the halls every now and again. Then all of a sudden they were seeing each other regularly - Feyre often walked dogs as a side gig to try and save more money for her college fund as well as any art supplies she may need, only to find that one of her regular dogs belonged to Tamlin Greenbriar’s family. Little Andras was always more bark than bite, but he brought the two of them closer. It wasn’t long until he had asked her out on a date, leading to something more all quite quickly. It was a bit of a whirlwind, but didn’t every girl deserve to get swept up like that at least once? He cared for her and made sweet promises and made her feel like she didn’t have to worry so much about the future. He could be a bit pushy at times, especially when it came to keeping up appearances, but relationships were all about compromise. If this was one she had to make, then so be it.

Rhys never took kindly to him, though. Her other friends were also a little terse around him, but they all did their best to respect her decision. It meant a lot to Feyre that they were willing to try - Nesta had blatantly told her that he was “white boy privilege personified” and Elain had stayed disturbingly neutral and placid about him, which was never a good sign about how she felt.

But despite it all,, she was determined to make it work - he was a nice guy and she deserved to be cared for. So she kept a smile on her face, saying her hellos and sticking by his side. Eventually, he brought them back inside, the two of them taking a few shots of somebody’s Fireball they’d managed to sneak out before making their way closer to the speakers to dance. Flashing LED lights had been set up, creating a moody atmosphere as they moved in time to the music. Her arms slid around his neck, fingers tangling with his long golden hair as his hands moved down to her waist. Their brows were almost pressed together, a smile on her face and a slightly dark look in Tamlin’s eyes.

“You look gorgeous, Feyre.” he said to her, keeping his voice as low as he could while still trying to speak over the music.

“Speak for yourself.” 

She could almost get lost in the rhythm, were it not for the fact that her feet were starting to kill her. Feyre tried to push it to the back of her mind in favour of Tamlin’s hands slowly but surely creeping their way down over her ass, but after a few songs she couldn’t ignore the sensation any longer. Feyre moved her arms away from his neck, trying to gently pry his hands away.

“Tamlin, I gotta go sit down for a minute, these heels are starting to hurt.” His grip only got tighter - he was quite a few drinks deep and was sometimes stubborn when it came to getting what he wanted in a state like this.

“C’mon Feyre, not even another song? You’re so hot when you’re all dressed up like this.” He pressed closer, his half-hard length pushed against her thigh. Her lip curled slightly - she never liked having sex with Tamlin when he was drunk, and tonight was no exception. That wasn’t even accounting for the fact that it wasn’t their house to have sex in to begin with.

She pushed his hands off more firmly, stepping out of the crowd with a pleading expression on her face. “I’m just gonna sit down for a little bit and then I’ll be back, promise.”

He grunted at her in mild annoyance, sauntering off deeper into the crowd to keep dancing. God, why had she even worn heels to a fucking house party in the first place? They made her legs and ass look nice, sure, but she wasn’t exactly out to impress anybody tonight. Except for maybe Tamlin, but at least that made sense, they were a couple. With small steps she made her way toward the stairwell that led to the second floor, sitting herself down on them with a small sigh. Almost as soon as she had sat down her heels were off, bringing a foot up onto her knee before she began to rub small circles into it with her thumbs. She felt so out of place here. The people at this party weren’t her people, and when everyone else left for college in a few months she’d be almost entirely alone.

“Hey, you okay?” Rhys’ head poked around the corner, padding his way over with nothing but concern all over his face. It was a welcome distraction from the slant of her thoughts and anxiety.

“I’m alright, just, y’know. Choices,” Feyre gestured at her discarded heels next to her. “Consequences.” A light chuckle left her as she nodded back down at her feet, Rhys giving her a small smile back as he came to sit next to her on the stairs.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but I did notice that you’d definitely made one hell of a choice with the shoes tonight, yeah. I saw you hobble your way over here from where everyone was dancing.”

“Oh god, was it that bad?” Feyre groaned a little, Rhysand nodding with a chuckle. Her head was in her hands with a whine, her palms pressed lightly against her eyes.

All of a sudden Rhys dragged her feet into his lap, replacing where her own hands had been rubbing small circles into the tender aches of the balls of her feet. Feyre looked back up at him, eyebrows raised with a small look of surprise on her face.

“A bit much, isn’t it, Rhys?”

“What? You're my best friend, you're in pain, I'm trying to help out. We can get you a pair of my slides or something after, just five minutes.” He responded, looking sheepishly at her like it wasn’t at least a little bit odd to have your best friend give you an impromptu foot massage at his massive rager. Feyre snorted slightly to herself.

“Rhysand Sterling, owning a pair of slides - never thought I’d see the day where you chose comfort over style.”

“Hey, I don’t go around croc-shaming you. Not another word.” Rhys lightly pinched the top of her foot, switching to the other foot while the two of them chuckled together as she leaned back against the wall and let him do his thing. Some people might view the two of them as codependent and a little weird, but with how much the two of them had gone through together, she wouldn’t change whatever they had for the world. She let her eyes shut for a moment, letting her mind wander in the haze of a few drinks, the music, and the relief Rhys’ ministrations were providing her. After what felt like only a mere few moments, he gave her leg a light tap, gently moving her feet off of his lap before slowly rising to his feet.

“Well, Miss Archeron, a very fashionable pair of slides awaits.” Rhys joked, gesturing up the stairs with a grin. She flashed a matching smirk, though it turned to a slight grimace as she got up on aching feet again.

“Oh no, please sir, it’s your house. How could I deny you such an opportunity to play host?”

Rhys gasped dramatically, one hand at his chest while the other went to his cheek. “My goodness, and here I thought chivalry was dead!” He hiked up his imaginary skirts as he began to head up the stairs, Feyre following after him. His raven black curls bounced as he eagerly climbed the stairs, Feyre trailing sluggishly behind in comparison, but he made sure to wait at the top of the staircase anyway with a hand extended to help her out. He was always nicer than he had any need to be to her, and it never went unappreciated by Feyre.

The music was much more muffled up on the second floor, thrumming consistently as they made their way down the hallway to Rhys’ room - it always felt much more cosy compared to the rest of his house. While it was still simple and meticulously organised, it contained signs of passion and interest and living. A cushy double bed pushed up in the corner opposite the door, a bedside table with his glasses, a well-worn candle and a lamp right next to it and a low dresser not too far from that.The wall next to the door had a low cabinet with all of his consoles and games in it, a TV perched on top and some small art pieces Feyre had done over the years framed neatly on the walls. Rhys’ room also had a window overlooking the backyard, his desk underneath it with a small bookcase slotted on one side with a wardrobe on the other. A few bean-bag chairs were in the middle of the room, a staple for whenever he and Feyre decided to beat the shit out of each other in whatever game took their fancy that week. This was the place that felt like home to her, and Feyre didn’t think twice about sitting herself down on the end of the bed while Rhys rummaged around in his wardrobe.

Feyre watched him keenly - he always presented himself as relatively at ease to the world, but it was these quiet moments away from everybody else that he actually felt at ease. She often shared the sentiment, usually preferring solitude if Rhys wasn’t around - or, these days, Tamlin either. Feyre had always had to work and push and keep on fighting uphill battle after uphill battle - providing the family with a second income when her father had gotten fired from his job and had to take up something that brought in pennies in comparison. Making sure the house stayed clean and that someone went to the grocery store that week. Keeping on top of her studies and trying to save whatever she could for college. It felt like that burden was only going to get heavier with all of her friends going off to college themselves in a mere few months - sure, she was kind of friends with Clare Beddor and Briar Bell. More like acquaintances, if anything.

But these little moments? All of it fell away.

“Hey, do you still climb up onto your roof sometimes?” The words spilled from Feyre’s mouth before she could think them over too heavily.

“Not really, especially since you know how my dad can get. Why, what are you thinking?” Rhys had moved from rummaging in the bottom of his wardrobe to under his bed, one slide already thrown haphazardly near his dresser as he searched for the other.

“I’m thinking that you should come on up!” She chirped, heels abandoned on the floor as she strode over to his desk. Feyre reached over to open the window and start climbing out, swearing she heard Rhys mumbling to himself something about her being insane, but she didn’t care - she simply turned back, flashing him a wild smile before beginning to climb through. Soon enough, she had walked precariously over the rough shingles to situate herself squarely in the middle of the roof, facing the backyard full of teenagers with her knees brought up in front of her. Feyre could hear Rhys beginning to clamber up onto the roof after her like clockwork, much more confident in his steps as he came to sit beside her. A beat of silence hung between them for a moment, enjoying watching everyone in his backyard make merry from a distance. Rhys broke the silence first.

“Thanks for giving me an excuse to stop playing host for a little while.” He bumped his shoulder lightly with hers, glancing at Feyre with a soft expression.

“Don’t worry about it. I figured if I was having a hard time down there with everybody, you’d be in the same boat. Besides, you know I like being able to spend some quality time with you. While we can, anyway.” That last sentence had come out a little more melancholy than she intended, wincing slightly at her own idiocy before looking up at the sky. It was easier than looking at Rhys right now - he already felt bad that he was going to a university that was out of town, she didn’t want to make him feel guilty for doing what was best for his future.

“You know I’m still gonna visit, right? And we still have each other’s numbers, we can still talk everyday.”

“Yeah, but you and I both know that it’s not the same. Besides, we’re both gonna be so busy busting our asses. I know this year hasn’t exactly been as breezy as you make it out to be to everybody else, and your dad expects so much of you. If I don’t double down on what I’m doing now I won’t get a scholarship, which would mean no college for me at all.”

“I could alwa-”

“Rhysand, I know what you’re about to say, and I can’t let you or your dad hand me this on a platter. If it was from you, I’d want to pay you back, and if you pestered your dad enough about it then we’d both be on the hook. I can do this. It’s just… hard.”

Feyre huffed slightly, readjusting so she was laying back on the roof to stare up at the night sky, trying to recall some of the constellations Rhys had told her about over the years. No matter how hard she tried, it didn’t take her mind off of the words on the tip of her tongue.

“I just wish I could deal with you guys leaving better. I mean, of course I want you all to succeed and do great things. I know none of you can do that if you stay in one place the whole time. But I’m barely friends with anybody else in school. I don’t even know how often I’ll get to see you, let alone anybody else, having to split my time between school and work and seeing Tamlin…”

Feyre could have sworn she saw a twinge of annoyance flicker across Rhys face as she glanced over at him, shifting onto his back as well. “Rhys, I know you’re not his biggest fan.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I just think that making you trek all the way over there to meet him every few weekends is selfish when he knows all that you’ve got going on. Like, we’re going to the same college, I know how long it takes to get there from here. And we both know he’s not going to be happy if you try to see me while you’re there. It’s not exactly fair.” His words were clipped - conversations with Rhys about Tamlin were always respectful, but loaded with tension and annoyance simmering just beneath the surface of his carefully schooled expression.

“I get that, but I’ve got a much lighter workload compared to what he’ll have and it won’t be every weekend, so you and I can figure something out. Tamlin and I are gonna make it work.”

“Just… Remember he’s gotta meet you at least halfway sometimes, alright? You give a lot of yourself to him. Make sure to keep at least a little just for you.” Rhys sighed, meeting Feyre’s gaze with a sympathetic smile and a quiet sigh. He reached out a hand between them and Feyre simply smiled back before taking it, returning her gaze to the stars above. She could feel the tears she’d been holding back about the whole situation begin to prick at the edges of her eyes, grateful that she didn’t have to worry about anybody at the party seeing her cry as they rolled down her cheeks.

“I’m just gonna miss my friends. All this change is just really scary and I don’t know how I’m gonna deal, y’know? Even if it’s not the end of the world, you’re all so important to me. Especially you.” She punctuated her words with a slight squeeze, Rhys giving one back in kind.

“Feyre, you’re probably the strongest, smartest and most brave person I’ve ever met. If anyone’s going to be able to get through this, it’s you. You could do anything if you wanted to.”

“Thanks, Rhys. I love you a lot, even if you’re a prick.” Feyre laughed, something in her heart easing and unfurling a little as she said the words. He was her best friend and he always knew exactly what she needed to hear, when she needed it. Rhys always knew when something was wrong and was as loyal as they came. Of course she loved him. So why did it feel a little bit like there was a weight in her chest as she waited for him to respond?

“Don’t let Tamlin hear you say that,” Rhys responded with his signature shit-eating grin on his face, though there was something not quite right behind his eyes. “Lest he think that I’m out to steal you away or something.”

Feyre knew not to push - Rhys would tell her what was going on when he was ready, so instead she simply smacked his shoulder, sitting back up to glance out over the backyard once more. As she looked out over the crowd, she found her attention was caught by none other than Tamlin, dazedly stumbling through people and looking around in confusion. That was her cue.

“Shit, he’s looking for me. I gotta get back down there, I should drive him home. I had a feeling I’d be designated driver tonight.”

“Well then, we shouldn’t keep him waiting.” Rhys carefully got to his feet before extending his hand down to Feyre, helping her up before they both made their way back through Rhys’ bedroom window. Once they were back in, he handed her his slides with a smile.

“Go on, you’d be better off to head down there without me. He’s already not friendly with me when he’s sober, I wouldn’t want to make him grumpy for the trip back.”

“...Thanks, Rhys. I’ll text you when I’m home, okay?”

“You better. And the others, too.”

Feyre dropped the slides to the ground, slipping into them without a second thought before giving Rhys a quick hug. Then, before her boyfriend could cause any drunken chaos, she scurried down the stairs to find him.

The drive back to Tamlin’s house was quiet with him half-conscious in the passenger seat, Feyre playing the conversation she had with Rhys in her head over and over. Even as she parked the car and guided Tamlin inside only to find her way back out again to drive her own car home, it was all that occupied her mind. Something between Feyre and Rhys was shifting, wasn’t quite solid like it once was, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Whatever it was, she kept reminding herself that it would be okay. It was Feyre and Rhys against the world, always. But things always changed over time, so maybe that was just what it was - the two of them changing as people, but still growing together?

Whatever it was, she knew it was going to be alright. It was going to be alright because it had to be.

It had to.

#feysand #rhysand x feyre archeron #fanfiction #rhysand #feyre archeron #acotar #acotar fanfiction #friends to lovers

[blizzardsuplex]

Yet each man kills the thing he loves; by each let this be heard: some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word; the coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword. - Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Adam Cole, mask on versus mask off from AEW's World's End 2023, 12/30/2023

#aew #aewedit #aew spoilers #adam cole #just wanted to highlight the stark difference in body language pre and post reveal #when he's on MJF's side he's animated as hell #all wide eyes and loud words of encouragement #but when it's time for him to deal the fatal blow? he's controlled #TOO controlled and too still and too quiet #even when he's reveling in Max's pain it's so...cold. #the real Adam Cole ladies and gents: believes himself so untouchable that at his best he might actually be