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#after all these years.... ;w; it still hits the same
chibieggplant · 14 hours
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Trafalgar Law ~ Doodles ~ Part 3
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Trafalgar Law soulmate au | Imagine a magical connection between you and your soulmate, where everything you write on your arm appears on your soulmate's arm, too.
Part 3/3 | Part One | Part Two
“I…” You could only manage one word at this point; any more words were too hard to get out as you stared at the spot on his arm where the bear doodle previously was. The thought of your soulmate existing was already absurd, and you had long given up on trying to believe. However, this…this was proof. The bear doodle, exact, no room for misinterpretation. You were so shocked you could barely even speak at all as you remained still. All you could do was stare forward as your eyes moved to meet his.
Law looked at you, and as soon as he spotted your shock, he instantly understood what you were feeling. After all, his reaction was the same. Law was practically dumbfounded as the realisation hit him. Yet he also felt like the most idiotic person in the entire world. He never wrote back. Not once. Now that his soulmate was right in front of him, he felt both delighted and upset at himself as he continued to stare at you. He was feeling all kinds of emotions all at once. Joy, shock, fear, and so much more that he couldn’t even think of a name for. He felt so happy, yet so stupid; so relieved yet so scared.
Law couldn’t take his eyes off you despite part of him wanting to run away. He could see you trying to process everything as it came flooding in after years of silence. He felt terrible, awful. At this moment, he felt like an idiot for not writing back to you. His feelings were just as chaotic as yours right now. He could barely believe this was real. He had spent an entire decade telling himself he had no time for his soulmate. That he would only bring you trouble; after all that time, it felt surreal to be standing before you, knowing that fate had bound you together.
Law tried to muster up something to say, but it seemed just as challenging for him to speak as it appeared for you. Yet he needed to say something. There was this entire decade’s worth of conversation he needed to make up for. He tried to move his arms, perhaps to hug or touch you in some way, as he felt the need to show you some physical affection after so long, but it was as if they were frozen in place. The next thing he noticed was a tear started to roll down your cheek. His heart froze in his chest at the sight of the tear running down your face. This was what made him break. He could deal with you looking shocked. He could deal with you staring at him blankly. But seeing your tear just sent a spear through him. His vision was becoming blurrier as tears slowly began to fall from his eyes, too. He was a mess, and he suddenly felt so lucky to meet his soulmate finally. He realised he had wasted an entire decade’s opportunity to talk to you. To spend time with you. As this realisation set in, he wanted nothing more than for you to forgive him.
“W-why didn’t you write back?” your voice was full of emotion, and it was hard for you to manage it enough to get the words out. But it had to be said. Your tears quickly turned into a steady stream flowing down your cheeks as you began to break down in your senses. The floodgates had opened, and all the hurt you had felt, all the sadness you had felt and all the pent-up feelings had just been released. Law couldn’t hold it back anymore. He let out a muffled cry as he rushed forward and hugged you as tightly as he could. Law kept his hold tight around you as he buried his head into your shoulder. Your words hurt him. They really hurt him. He didn't want to give you some lame excuse, but the harder he tried to come up with something, the more he realised that his reason was just plain stupid.
“I’m sorry...I’m so sorry…” he said it again and again, his voice slowly becoming even more muffled as he became even more emotional. His heart raced as he remembered all of his own emotions. He was scared. He was scared that you would hate him. Scared that you would never forgive him. Scared to hear your response to his apology. He was scared of…well, a lot of things. He wanted to speak, though; he wanted to explain his stupid behaviour.
Law still couldn’t get the words out, though, as a few more tears streamed down his face. All he could do right now was cling to you as he continued to mutter his apologies. He was scared that you were going to reject him. After a decade of no response, you must despise him. His mind was in a frenzy. It was filled with an ungodly amount of fears and regrets. He hated himself. He should have written back all that time ago. He should have talked to you. He shouldn’t have made you feel so alone. For someone that everyone regarded as intelligent, he felt so stupid. Stupid for not writing back. Stupid for ignoring you. He was foolish for thinking he didn’t have time. Everything just felt so silly and pointless. He was probably the worst soulmate in the entire world. He couldn’t even imagine how much you must hate him for his actions. What a horrible person he was. This is why he never wrote back. He didn't deserve you. He didn't deserve anyone.
Your words sounded broken through muffled sobs as you clung to him and buried your head in his shoulder. “I-i thought you didn’t exist, I-i thought I didn't have anyone…”
Law froze at your words as they hit him like another spear to the heart. The years of silence, the years of false hope. All that wasted time. He was fully aware that he had been thoughtless by disregarding your emotions. But hearing you say it just broke his heart even more. He squeezed you tightly as he tried to suppress his pain. “I’m so sorry…I-”
He was an idiot. He shouldn’t have let this go on so long. He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He should have just listened to his heart and written back. He didn’t want to admit it, but he loved your silly doodles. But he was afraid. He was scared of rejection and convinced that no one could love him. “Please forgive me…I…I…” Law could barely finish. He prayed to every possible god that you could forgive him for his stupidity. He continued to sob into your shoulder, squeezing you as tightly as he could as he repeated his apology. He hoped to god that there was still a chance at forgiveness. He prayed that you could forgive him. Because right now, he could barely stand for how much of an idiot he had been. All this time, he had thought you would be better off without him, so he never wrote back, but all he had done was sabotage himself. He had deprived himself of years' worth of conversations. Years worth of love.
“…I was so afraid you’d hate me, t-that I was…” Law choked out as the last words left his mouth. All the guilt all of the regret came crashing down over him. He felt weak. He felt so damn…stupid. This whole time, he had convinced himself that he was okay with being apart from you. That all of this didn’t matter to him. But at this moment, his whole world came crashing down. You were real. You were his soulmate. And he had made a fool out of himself by avoiding you all these years. He felt sick. He had lost an entire decade of potential happiness all because he was an idiotic, scared little brat. But now, you were real. You were real and in his arms.
“I thought…that I was too broken. I thought that there was no way that you could ever love someone like me. And I was so…” Law broke down again, finally saying the words he had been dying to say all this time. Words he had been denying for a very long time. “I just thought you would deserve someone so much…better…I’d bring you trouble” Law’s grip loosened up slightly, but his arms still wrapped tightly around you as he continued to bury his face into your shoulder. “I…I thought that I didn’t deserve you. I…I‘m not a good person. So, I thought I was doing both of us a favour by not…not writing back. I was going to protect you from myself” He could barely manage to get the words out as fresh tears streamed down his face. It might have seemed like a weak excuse, but it was the truth.
“I-I know I've been the world's biggest idiot, but…the longer I avoided it, the harder it was to write anything. I didn’t even know how I could face you after…after all of this time. I was scared of what you’d say. I thought you’d probably hate-“ His breath hitched. He hated that he had been so afraid. He regretted that he had not given you a chance. He was now aware that as a consequence of this, he might end up losing something he never got the opportunity even to experience.
“It’s okay…” you suddenly said as you held back any more tears, interrupting the torrent of words about to erupt from Law’s mouth. You paused momentarily and leaned back to meet his gaze as you spoke. “It’s okay…you’re here now.”
Law froze as you interrupted him, and those two simple words hit him like a brick to the head. He had been so scared and so worried but...it was okay? You didn’t hate him-no you forgave him. You had found it in you to forgive him even though he had kept away from you for years. Even though he was the one who refused to write you even a single word, you had forgiven him? It was unbelievable. You were still standing there, holding onto him as tightly as he was holding onto you. Law didn't understand. He held onto you with the same intensity, trying to take in the weight of your forgiveness. He was utterly flabbergasted, he shouldn’t have been this surprised. You were just that type of person, you just forgave, and you just accepted. You were a genuine, good person to the very core. It was too much for Law though. He was used to harsh words, not forgiveness. He was used to being hated by most people and not being accepted. He found it difficult to cope with the situation.
Law’s grip loosened slightly, and he began to sob harder. He felt weak, and this was the most weak he had felt in a long time. He was supposed to be strong, but now he was breaking down. He was supposed to be able to take on all of this stress, but he couldn’t. He had no control, and he despised it. “H-how can you?…”Law’s lips were trembling as he tried to get a proper grasp on himself. He couldn’t believe you had forgiven him. Law was supposed to be some irredeemable, evil bastard, yet here he was, having the kindest, most gentle person he had ever known forgive him. He felt his entire body go limp. Tears were pouring down his face at the sudden onslaught of forgiveness. It just all became too much for him. He had been expecting to be hated, hated for the past decade of silence. But it was forgiveness instead. He felt his heart beat rapidly in his chest as he suddenly tightened his grip on you as hard as he could. “W-why are you being so nice to me? I mean, I don't even deserve your kindness…”
“Shhh…” you whispered as your arms wrapped around him as tight as they could. You weren’t going to let him self-deprecate. He’d spent the last decade hating himself and living in regret. You were going to fix that right here, right now. You were going to make sure that he knew what he deserved. And you were going to start by not letting him say any more bad things about himself.
“H-how can you forgive me…after everything? It’s not fair to you…” Law struggled to hold back his emotions as he attempted to protest.
“Because I have spent years believing that I didn't have a soulmate, and now, you're finally here, and it all feels worth it” You gave him a gentle smile as you pulled away slightly and wiped away the last of your tears. You felt like this moment was surreal, and the thought of rejecting him had never even crossed your mind. He was your soulmate, after all.
Law pulled back slightly too, his gaze fixed on you. And when he saw your smile, he felt warmth wash over him. His heartbeat slowed, and he finally felt he could breathe properly again. So this was it. He had finally found what he had been missing all this time - a person whom he could honestly care for and who reciprocated that same level of care. It was more than just a soulmate; it was a connection that had been absent from his life until now. He never even imagined this feeling. It was truly something else. And yet…he spent a decade afraid of this. He spent over a decade avoiding this feeling. He spent so much time, a decade's worth of time, just avoiding something that he always wanted despite telling himself the very concept was absurd. It was unbelievable, and it was downright moronic. But now here he was, with his soulmate. He was so happy, but at the same time, just so full of regret. But he didn’t want to focus on the past anymore. He spent enough time being alone. All that mattered was now.
Law slowly loosened up as his grip on you also loosened. He let out a deep, long sigh. he felt tired, but in the best way possible. It had been so long since he had felt this calm, this…serenity. His heart rate was finally stabilising, and though his breathing was still heavy, he was finally recovering. He took a gentle hold of your hand. He looked into your eyes and smiled. Law was finally done with it; he was finally done with letting the past rule him. He was finally done with letting his insecurities control him, and he was finally done letting the fear of others influence his every action. With this realisation came an entirely genuine smile. He had never really given much thought to his expression, but now it was the most genuine smile he had ever worn. It wasn't fake or forced. It was his natural smile, and he was finally free to let that be. The wave of relief and catharsis he had felt washed over him. It was the best feeling in the entire world...
Law continued to stare into your eyes as he lightly squeezed her hand. He felt at peace. At peace with himself, and at peace with life. Life didn't seem so cruel anymore, and neither did he. He was ready for anything life threw at him now. He just needed to know that you would stick around with him through all of it. Law gently squeezed your hand one more time before he spoke. He was never usually the talkative or the emotional type, but this whole interaction had brought those qualities straight to the surface. Now, he didn't mind talking just a bit more. He wanted to. “y/n…I…I have to ask…”
You smiled and nodded your head reassuringly. There was nothing he could say that would be off-limits. Law could ask you anything he wanted to ask. You had to know his heart before you went any further, right?
He looked you in the eyes as he took a deep breath before continuing. “y/n, could…could you really learn to love me despite all of this? Despite all of the stupid, idiotic actions I've made?” Law was almost afraid of the answer you might give. Would you still care about him if you knew even half the horrible things he had done? And what about everything else about him? What about his past? His personality? His actions? Everything about him was a mess. But…you were his soulmate, weren't you? So, if anyone had the potential to love him for who he was, it would be you.
You already knew the answer to his question, but you took a moment to consider the most effective way to express it. Eventually, you just decided to answer with complete honesty. “…I’ve been waiting years to speak to you. Years to find out who you are…wondering what you look like, what kind of person you are, what your favourite foods are, if you prefer morning or night…” you softly chuckled. “And I would love nothing more than to get to know every little thing about you….” Gently, you whispered your final words, and a faint rosy hue appeared on your cheeks “to fall in love with you…”
Your answer made him smile, and his grip on your hand tightened just the slightest bit. Your words were reassuring, but at the same time, he expected nothing else coming from you. It was a comforting feeling, knowing that someone accepted him. Someone who would even go as far as spending time with him to get to know him. To even consider the possibility of loving him. His cheeks blushed as he felt the warmth wash over his face after hearing your words. “…I-I like onigiri…and I’m more of a night owl than a morning person.” Law softly chuckled; he felt silly, and his cheeks were now a light shade of red. This was all so foreign to him, this light...affection...he could almost get used to it. Law's lips slowly began to form a warm smile. He clasped your hand and softly ran his thumb over your skin. He wasn't sure if you could tell, but this was the happiest he had felt in years.
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faerygrant · 2 days
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Heya i didn't know how to make a request but would you maybe consider doing a carmy x reader situ where donna meets their baby/toddler Valentina for the first time after not knowing about the pregnancy etc super angsty but with fluff/comforting smut at the end w/carmy
sunday
summary: Sunday lunch with Carmy and Valentina goes south when a certain Berzatto makes an unwanted appearance. [reader meeting Donna for the first time: here]
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Apprehension did not even come close to describing the feeling Carmen Berzatto felt when he’d found out he’d be a father in 9 months. 9 short months. He’d be responsible for a tiny human being, who he feared in some way he’d let down. He was fucked, from his childhood all the way into adulthood, he was fucked. Thanks to his mother and his father and in some way thanks to his brother.
He didn’t want to scare you, so he tried to play it cool when you’d first broke the news to him. But that afternoon when he’d kissed you goodbye and got to work, Carmen headed straight for the stockroom where he locked himself inside and cried. He didn’t care about you seeing him vulnerable, if anything you were the only person he was okay being vulnerable around, it was just that he didn’t want you to feel like you’d done anything wrong, that you’d inconvenienced him, because you hadn’t. He wanted this, in some way. I mean he’d been the one to constantly tell you he wanted you to have his babies, the one who pumped you full almost every other night, the one to whisper pleads asking you to be the mother of his children and his wish had finally come true.
So Carmen wiped his tears dry and decided he wasn’t going to repeat the same cycle that his parents had. He had you and you were going to be a great mother and that’s how he knew there was no way your kid would ever be fucked up like him. He had Pete as an example, hell even Richie and he was going to take a page out of their book to try and be the best dad to this kid.
-
If Carmen thought those nine months had flewn by, he wasn’t ready for the first year of Valentina’s life. She’s grown so fast that at times he almost couldn’t believe it. Hit so many milestones he wasn’t even aware babies could. Her first little smile that she gave the two of you after her bath time, the first time she picked up her head all on her own, the first time she said dada, which had literally left him a crying mess. Some nights were sleepless, some miserable but everyday that he got to hold his baby in his arms and see that gummy smile of hers, he knew it was worth it. Carmen couldn’t thank you enough for making him a dad and everyday that he couldn’t put another one in you drive him nuts, but he understood that you were still adjusting to motherhood. You’d been such a trooper and Carmen never failed to tell you how proud he was of you, and he meant it.
Today was a Sunday, meaning the restaurant was closed and Carmen had insisted to take the two of you out for a little lunch in the neighbourhood, a treat for you since you’d been cooped up at the house with Valentina all week. Valentina was sat in a little high chair, face round, her chubby cheeks covered in strawberry as her tiny fingers played with the fruit on her plate. Carmen watched in awe of his little girl before he’d turned his head to take a peek at you inside the restaurant. You’d gone to grab napkins for your messy toddler and Carmen couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest man ever. You were smiling at the female attendant as you stood there in your little sundress, hair tied in your usual mom ponytail with your signature pink ribbon. Just as he watched you make your way back outside he watched as a random woman had approached you.
The woman had held onto your hand but you were quick to pull your hand back and quickly shuffled out of the restaurant. Carmen was confused to say the least, as he couldn’t make out of who it was from behind. Just as you made your way to the table, Carmen could tell by your face that something was bothering you.
“Who was that?” He asked, watching as you took your seat and started to wipe the fruit residue from your daughter’s face.
“Carm I- it’s no one.” The hesitation in your voice was alarming him and his anxiety was already starting to creep up on him.
“What do you mean no one, tell me?” He insists.
“It was…”
“CARMY?!” Donna Berzatto’s off putting, grating voice sounds from behind you and the only thing you can see is the way your husbands face falls at the sight of his unruly mother. Her hair was shorter than normal, her usual eyeliner was smudged and he could tell by the look on her eyes that she’d been drinking.
“Ma, what the fuck are you doing here?” Carmen’s face completely drops, his face is tainted red and you can see his hands instinctively reach for your daughter’s tiny leg.
“I was just getting a drink what are you do-” Donna’s sentence isn’t complete when she notices the tiny baby sitting in the highchair. The baby that was half you and half her son. For better or for worse, her granddaughter.
“Wh- who is this Carmy?” She points towards Valentina who was now growing agitated in her chair at all the attention and commotion.
“Ma not right now okay, I’ll call you.” Carmen tries to cut off his mother, reaching for Valentina who was now crying due to the unruly stranger who had intruded on her lunch.
“Wha- is that my grand baby, you didn’t tell me you were having a baby- or had a baby?” You’re sat there in embarrassment, not wanting to even think about where this conversation was going, part of you was also annoyed that she’d ruined your lunch and startled your baby.
“And for good fuckin reason, you’ve made Val cry now, some grandmother you are.” Carmen seethes as he rocks Valentina in his arms, trying to calm her.
“No one loves me in this family, my own son hides my grand baby from me and you, you little whore, I always wished he’d married that nice girl Claire instead. You stole my son and then withhold my grand baby from me?”
“Donna, you’re making a scene right now, please stop this” you finally say but Carmen is passing Valentina to you and grabbing his mother away from the table. Onlookers from the restaurant all murmuring and whispering, the embarrassment killing you on the inside.
“This is the reason why you couldn’t know about her, you disrespect my wife everytime you’re given the chance to come around and then cause a fucking scene. You’re never going to be in my life, let alone my fucking kids life.”
“Carmy please, it’s your mother you’re talking to. I love you, it’s just her trying to turn you against me.”
“Enough already, it’s not her Ma it’s me. I don’t want you anywhere near me or my wife or my kid, because everything you touch you destroy and I won’t have you fuck up any other person that I love. What Mikey killing himself wasn’t enough? Destroying Nats self esteem not enough for you? Fucking me up for good? You wanna do it to another kid?” Donna’s eyes fall in realisation and before Carmen can get in another word she’s running from the restaurant.
-
“Vals down for the afternoon, knocked right out” You say softly, making your way to Carmen who was sat at the edge of your bed, hands in his head as his arms rested on his knees.
“S’good, think she’ll remember any of that?”
“Carm she’s only 1, she can’t even remember what she ate for lunch, no way she’ll remember that.” You rub his arm softly and he places his head into the crook of your neck, his curls tickling you.
“God, I just don’t want to fuck her up, I’d never forgive myself” he lifts his head to look you in the eye and you can’t help but pity him.
“Carmen there is no way you’d ever fuck her up, you’re such a good daddy, you’re literally Valentina’s whole world. She lights up at the sight of you, her first word was literally Dada.” He laughs at that, finally cracking a smile for you, those beautiful blue eyes gleaming.
“Thank you baby, you’re a good mommy.” He kisses your forehead, his big hands cradling your head.
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something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.
“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”
#makoto naegi#Danganronpa character analysis#Danganronpa#danganronpa thh#danganronpa future arc#I fucking love Makoto Naegi man.#I think there’s a fine line of nuance to Makoto that’s easy to miss bc he doesn’t really make it known#he’s not a pushover and he’s not overpowered. he’s a people pleaser but he will say what needs to be said#he’s an immovable object and the exact opposite of Junko but he’s also just a normal guy who’s optimistic and (un)lucky#he isn’t invincible but he has immense power to his words the same way Junko did#if anything his superpower is being kind above all else. he’s compassionate to some of the worst people in the world.#he was even conpassionatr to an extent to Junko. he didnt want her to kill herself despite everything she’s done#and he still acknowledges that for years she was a classmate and friend.#I do think the more he learned abt what she did the more he’s come to actually hate her though#post the first game he always refers to her without a suffix to her name which is one of the most subtle rude things you can do#it means you have zero respect for the person you’re referring to#and he speaks about her with some venom he doesn’t use for anyone else in the future arc#he’s not incapable of feeling negative emotions#I really liked the future arc scene bc it showed that Makoto DID experience enough despair to have overcome him if he didn’t refuse#and that it still affects him deeply. people treat him like he’s either this perfect ideal Chad or this baby chick who’s so delicate#and no one really focuses on how makoto shoulders so much and yet is still vulnerable.#honestly that guy was DUE for a mental breakdown even without the tape. it would have happened eventually#I actually wrote one based on him finally hitting a breaking point after giving so much of himself away and keeping nothing for himself#that his issues that he shoves down constantly finally can’t be held down anymore. Hajime helps him bc he knows how that feels#it was a LONG time ago that I wrote that but honestly if I can remember where i was going w it I might finish it#it was initially an rp but I could make it a fic#anyway. the point is Makoto is SO much more complex than people give him credit for#the most fundamental thing about him is that he’s normal and that’s ok! that’s what helps him rise!
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marklikely · 2 years
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and i have zero answers about this but i feel like we as a collective need to figure some stuff out bc we cannot keep having these constant threads about how all lgbt media is sanitized and boring these days in between callout posts for how every new lgbt media that isn't sanitized and boring is irredeemable problematic media you can't blog about
#i dont know what to do about this either so i am offering no suggestions#cause like idk. jsut like with the adventured zone the quest to find unproblematic diverse characters is just giving us boring .#but at the same time i get it like some things are just impossible to get past and that line is different for everyone#idk man! what do you do i dont want people who hit their limit on Problematic elements to just shut up and let others have fun or w/e#but i also think its really not getting us anywhere to be like. every new thing thats coming out has some problematic aspect dont watch it.#and this is the state we're in after years of the like 'critically consuming' discussion so clearly THATS given us zero progress too.#us deciding 'well you can like some problematic things as long as you're aware of it' has like#not improved the conversation at all its just deferred it to like 'well whats too problematic to like critically then'#and thus the cycle continues we're still having the exact same issue as before :/#avpost#if anything the critical consumption movement has made the problem worse because now#people are just being completely hypocritical and deciding what is or isnt 'too problematic to like critically' comes down to personal tast#taste*. whatever you like is ok to enjoy critically and whatever you dislike is too problematic to enjoy at all.#and the conversation just gets perfectly stuck there cause as it turns out you can like#rationalize and intellectualize just about any opinion even if you only got there using your own emotions#so its very easy to believe you're being objective about it and have solved the issue but really haven't solved anything at all#and let the record show im not immune to anything ive described here ok goodnight. this is just thinking out loud.#feel free to weigh in just please dont treat this as like some coherent mission statement or declaration.#i am litcherally typing as im thinking and not really editing. this is just an open discussion of my unfiltered thoughts lmao#but if you also have thoughts id love to hear it.
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zegrasdrysdale · 2 months
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Hi! Could you do a Luke Hughes x reader where the reader still goes to UMich while Luke is in Jersey w/ Jack and she speculates he’s cheating on her? Angst with a happy ending, preferably? Thank you!
[ 604 miles ] l. hughes
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paring : Luke Hughes x fem!reader
summary : after seeing Luke on Jack’s private story, his girlfriend begins speculating that he’s doing more than just playing hockey
warning(s) : angst ! but w a happy ending. mentions of cheating. reader still goes to Umich
author’s note : oooh this is gonna be juicy
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She trusts Luke. She swear she does, but she can’t help but feel the little pull at her heart when she watches him in the background of Jack’s private story.
A bunch of their mutual Michigan friends started to text her while she was doing homework. Even fans on social media have been posting about it and tagging her in posts.
She was confused, then she opened Snapchat to see what they were talking about.
In one video, Jack’s drunk and dancing to some song that she doesn’t know. In the background, she sees her boyfriend sitting at a booth with some blonde at his side. He isn’t touching her, but she’s sitting too close to him.
In another video, Luke’s in the background dancing with that same girl. She notices the smile on Luke’s face when he faces the camera.
It brings tears to her eyes as she jumps to an immediate conclusion. She’s been right every time so far.
She truly thought he was different than the other hockey players she dated. They all cheated on her too, and Luke promised her over and over again that he would never do that to her.
Well, here he is. Probably cheating on her and Jack is posting it all over his private Snap story for all their mutual friends to see. It’s embarrassing for her.
It took months for Luke to break down the wall she built around her heart. They met halfway through their freshman year at Michigan. It wasn’t until the beginning of their sophomore year that they started dating.
With her sadness turning into anger and tears rolling down her hot face, she calls Luke. It keeps ringing. And ringing. So she calls one more time.
And gets his voicemail.
“Luke Warren Hughes, you have five minutes to call me back or you’re going to end up without a girlfriend,” she says into the phone. “I mean it. And you better have a damn good reason you’re dancing with some random blonde girl on Jack’s Snapchat.” Then she hits the end button and puts the phone on her desk with the screen up.
A minute passes and her phone doesn’t ring. She doesn’t get a text.
Two minutes pass and her fingers are itching to call him again. She wants to stay true to her word because if Luke has a good explanation as to why he’s with some blonde then he’ll call her back.
Four minutes pass from the call. She drafts a text to Jack that she’s going to send in a minute if her phone doesn’t ring.
‘ tell luke i’m going to send him his things that i have in my apartment and that i want mine back. i’m done. ’
After five minutes pass, she sends the text.
It’s not the first time that this has happened, and it’s the last. Not only is she done with Luke, she’s done with any hockey boys in general. Too many times has she gotten her heart broken because the relationship had to go long distance. Too many times has she had too much trust.
Two minutes after she sents Jack the text, her phone rings. Jack is calling her.
“I really don’t feel like explaining why-”
“What do you mean you’re done?” Luke interrupts before she can finish her sentence. “What did I do?”
Her jaw drops. “You can’t be serious, Luke,” she replies. “I saw you in the background of Jack’s snaps getting too comfortable with a blonde girl. Sitting with her and a smile on your face while dancing with her? You told me you wouldn’t break my heart.”
“That’s not- baby, she’s a friend,” Luke tries to defend. “Jack’s friend if I’m being honest. He was busy hanging out with Nico and Dawson so she came to sit with me. She dragged me out onto the dance floor and told me to dance. I told her I had a girlfriend and she still dragged me to the dance floor and got close to me. I didn’t try to do anything with her because I don’t want to.”
Tears sting her eyes. “I gave you a chance to explain yourself,” she tells him. “I called you twice before I texted Jack. It took me texting Jack before you called me from his phone. You told me you’d never break my heart but you did. I don’t trust you, Luke. I’ve been told that same story over and over again.”
Luke stays silent. She has to dry her own tears that have rolled down her cheeks. She has to cover her mouth so she doesn’t let out a sob that he hears.
She’s standing her ground. She’s protecting her heart. The 604 miles between them should be enough space and make it easier to move on.
“(Y/N), I would never cheat on you,” Luke tells her. She can hear the sincerity in his voice but she still doesn’t believe him.
“Luke, I can’t right now,” she softly says. She’s pretty sure he can’t even hear her because of how loud it is in the bar or wherever they are. “I’m sorry.”
Then she hangs up. She shuts her phone off and crawls into bed, completely forgetting about her homework. All she wants to do right now is wallow.
His words are just words. She knows what she saw. Right now, nothing that Luke can say to her will change her mind about being done.
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
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✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
It’s nearly two in the afternoon when she hears a knock on her off-campus apartment door. She hasn’t gotten up out of bed in nearly forty-eight hours except to use the bathroom. Her phone hasn’t been turned on since her talk with Luke the other day.
Someone is probably coming to check on her since she has fallen off the face of the Earth for the moment. That is the only reason why she drags herself out of bed to go answer the door.
When she swings open the door, it’s the last person she expects to be on her doorstep. He actually supposed to be in California right now. They have a game to play in a few hours in Anaheim.
Luke holds a single rose out for her and a little basket full of snacks is in his other hand. “I was going to get a whole bouquet for you but I forgot to grab one at the store,” he tells her. “If anyone asks, I did not pull this from the bed by the front door of the building.”
“What are you doing here?” she asks. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I wanted to talk,” he replies. “You haven’t been replying to any of my texts or answering my calls. I told Lindy that I needed a few personal days and he told me that I can come back when I’m ready to. I didn’t want you to keep thinking that I was cheating on you or hurting you. That was never my intention.”
She rolls her eyes and walks into the apartment. Luke is quick to follow her and shut the door behind her. “You can say what you have to say then you can get on a flight to Anaheim to play tonight,” she tells him as she sits on the couch in the living room.
He sets the basket of snacks on the coffee table in front of her and sets the rose next to it. Luke pulls out his phone and taps on it for a second. She’s about to say something when he shows her his screen.
It’s a picture of the blonde girl that was with Luke, but she’s all cuddled up with Jack. Jack looks happy and is looking at her like she’s the only person in the world. It was taken at the beginning of the night because she can tell that there is something behind Jack’s eyes.
“It’s Jack’s ‘friend’,” Luke assures her. “They’re together but aren’t telling people they’re together but they make it obvious that they are. The reason she was hanging out with me for a little bit was because she wanted to know how to tell Jack that she’s ready to publicly be together.”
She looks up at Luke behind the phone. “You couldn’t answer your phone and just tell me that?” she asks.
“I left it in the car,” he tells her. He taps on the screen a few more times and holds up a screenshot of his and Jack’s locations. They weren’t together, and it looks like Luke was right outside the building.
It’s all making sense to her. Her and her trust issues were wrong this time.
A pout forms on her lips at the same time tears form in her eyes. “You really weren’t lying to me,” she mumbles. Her voice is incredibly shaky.
“I told you that I would never break your heart,” Luke tells her. “Not intentionally. I definitely wouldn’t cheat on you. I know you’re past with that and no matter how upset I am with you, I wouldn’t resort to that. Unlike everyone else you’ve been with, I’m more willing to communicate. Hell, I took time away from the team to come make sure we were okay.”
One of the tears rolls down her cheeks and Luke uses the back of his pointer finger to wipe it away. She leans into his touch and looks at him. “I’m sorry, Luke,” she says. It comes out as more of a sob than actual words.
He moves closer to her and throws an arm over her shoulders. She curls up against him and Luke kisses the top of her head. “It’s okay,” he assures her. “I know how you think so I gave you a little bit then came to talk to you. Just needed you to think with your head and not your past.”
She frowns and throws her legs over his lap. Luke holds her close.
“Do you want to go to Anaheim to play?” she asks as she looks up at him. “There’s enough time for you to make it for warmups.”
Luke shakes his head. “I think I want to spend a few days with you,” he replies. “I’m pretty sure they can handle a couple of games without me. I need a handful of days off where I don’t think about hockey. I haven’t been playing the best so a break sounds nice.”
“It’s your first season,” she tells him as she runs her fingers through his curls. “There is so much pressure on you because of your last name. You’re most likely feeling it without realizing it.”
He looks at his girlfriend. “I know,” he sighs. “Just give me a few days and I’ll head back to Jersey to play when they get back from the California trip.”
She leans forward and presses a long kiss to his cheek. “I love you,” she tells him. “I think you’ll grow into your NHL skates. You’ll have an insane season next season, or even for the last 20 something games of the season.”
“I love you too,” Luke replies. “Sorry I made you think I was cheating on you.”
“Got you to come see me so I guess I forgive you,” she teases.
It’s been a few weeks since Luke came to see her. They watched the All Star game together in the apartment. That was the last time they saw each other.
Luke gets comfortable on the couch. “Can we take a nap since we’re okay?” he asks. “I’m exhausted.”
“Only if we move to the bed because you are too big to share a couch with.”
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cherry-leclerc · 2 months
Text
20/90 ☆ cl16
genre: humor, smut, angst, jealous!charles, post-break up, toxic ex trope, on & off
word count: 2k
After a painful break-up, you and Charles find yourselves taking part in what seems to be a never ending cycle. But there are rules that apply.
nsfw warning under the cut!
18+...car sex, riding, wrap it before you tap it!
req!...two in a day?? you guys are spoiledddd
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It takes about twenty days to break a habit, give or take. There’s proof; like the time you scolded yourself into not biting your nails anymore, horrified with the idea of getting engaged with monstrous hands. Or when you swore you would never drink again after Singapore.
But it takes ninety to make a permanent change.
It was a mutual decision, it was the most mature one, really, too. He was getting more and more busy; higher demand. You were drowning with homework, and senior thesis, it was long overdue. Yet it still broke your heart just the same. We can try again in the future, he tries to reason when you sob against his chest, linen shirt growing damp, but never once thinks about pulling away. 
There is no future if there’s no you, you whimper. You feel stupid, desperate, and disgusting. It was not a lovely mix, but it was true. How could you move on when he was all you’ve ever wanted?
And there’s no present without you.
That was thirteen days ago, to be exact. Life was not better, but bearable to say the least. Often, you would find yourself stalking him on social media, unbeknownst that he did the same. You finally got your bachelor's you had worked your ass off for. He finally came to a renewal on his Ferrari contract. Life should be good.
Instead, you find yourself slumping against the cold wall, eyes squinting at the harsh sun. You’re well aware you’re panting like a beast, and sweat trickles down your face like a water faucet, but you couldn't care any less. Running was definitely not for the weak. 
Abandonner si tôt?
Directing your attention to a deep voice, your heart stops before excitedly pumping against your chest. You can feel it in your ribcage. It should be a crime how handsome he still is, the more he gets day by day. W-what are you doing here? 
His green eyes flicker against the rocks. Oh, you know. 
Are you here for me? You want to foolishly ask, but bite down instead. I thought you were already in Bahrain. 
Keeping tabs on me? 
Flustered, you narrow your eyes, feigning a normal state. We dated for five years. I know your schedule by heart. His soft features register a wave of shock, nervous fingers gripping his phone.
It was good seeing you. And he leaves.
It shouldn’t hurt so much, but it does. It feels as if you’ve scraped your knee, hit your heart, got punched square in the face, and got run over by a school bus. Infinite times. And he seems A-OK. It's against your better judgment to follow after him, to yell at him out of spite for no apparent reason. But you were not the same girl he used to know.
“Oh fuck,” Charles groans as you ride him hastily, headboard banging against the wall as he keeps a steady hold on your hip, where a path of fresh bruises lie. He almost laughs if it weren’t for you rolling your hips tentatively. He quirks a brow when you shake your head and finish around his thick girth, leaving him no choice but to follow along with a low shudder. 
“What have I done?” you whisper, delicate hands coming up to cover up your bare breasts. “Oh my God…”
“Ah,” he hums. “What a delightful thing to hear.”
Scurrying off his lap, you grab your wrinkled clothes, inching towards the exit as you wag your finger. “This –that– could never happen ever again. Capeesh?” 
Charles tries his best to hide his hurt, braving through with a nonchalant smile. “Never again.”
-
You’re eight days in when he texts you. Something about needing someone to talk to. You might have broken up, but who said you couldn’t remain friendly acquaintances? He demands you meet at your spot, and it's a slap in the face but find yourself there nonetheless. He rambles on and on about his ongoing stress, and the neverending pressure. You knew it got bad, but you never thought this much. 
“My PR manager is debating on whether I should date someone for the sake of increasing views. More attention.” 
Your jaw goes slack. “You called me for this?” Rushing up to your full height, you brush off a gust of dirt, struggling to not roll into a coughing fit. “What makes you think this is something I want to hear?”
The Monegasque’s face pinches up like a clam. “I thought you should know.”
You scoff. “Right…” He watches as you scarily pace the open field with a blank expression. It saddens him how suddenly he doesn’t know how to read you. “You’re a fucking coward.”
And you leave.
-
He follows through with it because there’s really no other choice. She’s nice, but not kind like you. She’s pretty, but not breathtaking like you. You get the gist. 
Her touch is unfamiliar and cold, forced. Abnormal. Her father is some kind of wealthy man who invests in prestigious hotels in his home country and is looking to make some more money as if what he doesn’t have is enough to serve him a lifetime. Sometimes, Charles feels for her. She probably wanted this the same amount as he did. 
Behind a screen, you live through all of it. Your friend nicknamed you as Bella-From-Twilight-When-Edward-Goes-Away. Only Edward comes back. Charles never did. But it's now been seventeen days. And you curse the day you run out of your favorite ice cream.
“Why am I always bumping into you?” you huff when you spot the brunette. He rolls his eyes. I’m the famous one here. I don’t need to follow anyone, unlike you. Where his cold tone finally blossomed from –you don’t know– but you didn’t like it at all. Purposefully hitting your cart against his own, you stroll off. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Superstar.”
Comedically, you both find yourself glaring as you check out from adjacent sides, a silent competition on who can get out of there the fastest. You came here just for that, he mouths from afar as your burn bright pink, gaze flickering towards your strawberry ice cream. You flip him off, but giggle apologetically when the cashier assumes it’s aimed towards her. 
Charles wants to chuckle in amusement but would rather eat his own foot than admit to that. Have a good day, you can hear his clerk tell him at the same time yours does too. Flinging your arm into the hoop on your tote bag, you run off as he races you with a full cart of groceries. There’s a curve you hit as you manage to squeeze through and smile back at your ex, somehow satisfied. Amidst skip, you feel a harsh push as you fling forward, falling onto your knees as a little boy winces, licks his lollipop, and walks away. 
Blood trickles down your knees as you fiercely turn back to look at a regretful loser. “Is it really that deep?” you spit out, ears turning bright red from your reasonable anger. He tries to help you up but that only receives him a slap in the face. “Great. I look like I just got my period. Unbelievable.” 
“You just hit me,” he speaks in disbelief.
“You just pushed me,” you retort pointing at your injury, flesh being creepily visible. “On purpose, I might add.”
The Monegasque scoffs, gently massaging his aching face, dark brows pointed at you like knives. “You’re one crazy fucking girl…”
“Thanks, I get that a lot.”
It's all a fateful haze, the way you end up in his car. You suppose it starts the moment he presses on helping you unload your groceries, as some sick apology. But it’s only my ice cream. But he sheepishly shrugs. Now blood paints his driver's seat as you sit on top of him, and occasional grunts overflow due to his red cheek. “I can’t have sex with you,” you mumble against his swollen lips, chest heaving as your tinted windows begin to fog up. It was still early, but you didn’t care. 
“And I shouldn’t want to have sex with you, and yet.” 
“Yeah,” you pant, kisses steaming up. “Okay then.”
Shame lingers on your drive back home, and grows even deeper when you realize your strawberry treat has melted.
-
You would never take yourself as a self-driven person; not like most people. It was only one of your many flaws, but in this very moment, bent over the kitchen counter, you promise to become one.
“I can’t keep going back to him,” you groan over the phone as Lily attentively listens to what she considers gossip, and you consider a mid-life crisis. “We broke up months ago, why do I keep doing this to myself?”
“Perhaps because two still care for one another.” And because you know you still love him, and he loves you, she wants to add but stops herself when you glare coldly. 
“I am so over him, are you kidding? I’ve never been better. In fact, I’m going out tonight. First man I see boom! Fuck him. Just like that.” You click your fingers magically for emphasis. 
Lily’s face drops as her eyes zigzag towards something behind her screen. Before she can try to talk you out of it, you hang up. She’s obviously joking, the Chinese girl stutters when Charles freezes, midway from hanging Alex a pair of joggers, since he had forgotten his own. The green-eyed boy forces a dark smile, tipping his head and heading out without a goodbye. 
“I should probably warn her.”
You weren’t picking up–you weren’t going to. It was starting to hit you how stupid this all was and you did not need your friends erasing the last bits of determination you had within you. Beaming at a group of guys, you can’t help but flutter your eyes as they quietly fight over who gets to have the first move. Dibs, if you must. Swallowing the last bit of your awful drink, you start making your way over before a warm hand grips your wrist. “No. I’m not doing this again.”
Charles rolls his eyes. “And you’re not doing that either, we’re leaving.” It takes a lot of mental strength to not kick him in the shin and run off, but you can’t help but slap him once again as soon as he drags you out into the alleyway. A habit you’ve picked up, I see, he growls.
“Why are you still doing this?” you whimper, glassy eyes looking up in complete defeat. “You broke up with me. I agreed. We’re supposed to be moving on from one another. Why can’t you at least try to let me go?”
It’s a punch to the gut, the sound of your raw voice, broken and weak. He takes a clumsy step back, chest tightening from the tense situation he has wheezed himself into. “Believe me, I’m trying but I just can’t…”
Your nose is runny, mascara coats you like a baby racoon, cheekbones are splotchy as if you’ve just been hit, and you were still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Which is part of the reason why he can’t walk away from everything you've been through. 
“Well you’re not going to try, but I am. For real this time.”
-
It’s been ninety-two days, a lot, but not enough at the same time. But there was a piece of you that knew you weren’t missing him as much. So, maybe–it was. Enough, you suppose. It still hurts a tiny bit sometimes, watching him pose with fake smiles, or maybe they’re genuine, you can’t really tell the difference anymore. The way his eyes learned to sparkle for her over time. Fake can become real, it appears. But you being yearnful didn’t mean you weren’t moving on for your own sake. This was good, a new start. The kind you now looked forward to.
And it only took ninety-two fucking days.
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noxtivagus · 2 years
Text
some notes i wrote a long time ago ( literally pls ignore me, i just wna dump this somewhere 🤍 )
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#just dumping it here#i like dumping my thoughts and words in settings that are#rather private but not hidden#FUCK I JUST REALIZED SOME THINGS I WROTE HERE... HOW EMBARRASSING 💀 i was a kid when i wrote this so tho all good. pls don't perceive me#the first five pics were on the same day#i was 14 years old back then#the last two were in the first few months of 2022#i really like just dumping words to myself#they probably don't really make any sense to others but#i still remember writing these words#they're connected to me and etched in my identity#words really mean a lot to me yeah. writing has always been an outlet for me#i can see how the things i love influence my writing hehe#reading on the stuff from 2020 here i see why ffxiv really hit harder for me when i ended up playing it a few weeks after T_T <3#ffxiv... really is my comfort. i really see how the 2022 stuff reflects on the stuff i (re)learned from ffxiv#i really remember where i was even sitting n the thoughts on my mind when i was#writing the first five pictures#that was still in my old house. i think i was struggling w burnout thanks to a lot of compiling stress#i still remember looking at the clock and noticing it had turned 5 pm. i remember how the sun rays lit the living room#and then as for the last two notes... i actually don't really remember that well anymore#but i found some other notes i have on that day#'even now i still can't be upfront about how i feel.' & 'i'm lonely' & 'tired'#oh my god i slept early for once then i started analyzing and reflecting on life from the moment i woke up to the moment i slept#'... memories as fleeting and ephemeral as the wind' & 'school is so boring bcs it's too fucking easy' & 'be honest with yourself'#'only things with the most intense/deep magnitude can sate my boundless curiosity and#unparalleled love and passion for every aspect of life on a profound scale.....'#later that day i think in late night/early morning i rambled a lot about ffxiv#i don't remember where the heck these notes come in during that day but i remember how life was like back then#how comforting. i really do lose myself in words#🌙.rambles
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slut4thebroken · 9 months
Text
Urges
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
Pairing | Jason Todd x reader
Summary | The Lazarus Pit had some unexpected side effects.
Warnings | 18+, sexual content, smut, grinding, in public, humiliation, light dubcon, multiple orgasms, no female orgasms, so much come, like genuinely so much, angst?, fluff, Jay is secretly a sweetheart and a simp, obviously.
Words | 2.8k
Notes | Based on this. (Lol imagine that’s you know what all over him in the pic🫣🤭)
Ao3 link | <3
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The pit didn’t just give him trauma— it affected his body too, giving him enhanced strength, speed, durability, and healing. But there was another, lesser known side effect. 
Honestly he hasn’t even thought about it for the past few years- always too focused on recovering from fucking dying, then on revenge and helping Gotham the way Batman couldn’t. But once it hit him… it hit him like a ton of bricks.
He doesn’t know where Batman or Nightwing were and why they weren’t with you, but there you were, the Batgirl suit even more flattering on your now mature body, making his cock strain in his pants. And you— you stupid little girl— decided to go after him alone. 
He tried to fight it, really he did, but when he had you pinned under him in a matter of seconds, he couldn’t help the way he pushed his crotch against you, trying to get a little bit of relief. 
“W- Get off me, you fucking creep!” You yelled once you noticed. He didn’t give you an answer because he knew exactly what would shut you up. So he took off the helmet and tossed it to the ground as your eyes widened. “Jason?” You said through a breath, making him growl at the sound of his name rolling off your tongue. He parted your legs, then settled between them and leaned over you as he rutted against your clothed heat. He only lasted a few seconds before the tightness of his pants became painful, so he leaned up to open them and pull his cock out. 
“What the hell are you doing?” You gasped, but there was no malice in your tone. Just pure shock and arousal. He leaned back down, shoving his face in the crook of your neck and inhaling deeply, not able to control the way his hips started rutting against you  just from your scent. You still wear the same fucking perfume that always used to make his cock fatten up in his pants whenever he got too close to you. 
He was panting against your neck now, his cock, trapped between your bodies, growing so incredibly sensitive that it almost fucking hurt. And his balls— god, he doesn’t ever remember a time in his life where they were this fucking heavy and full and aching. 
It wasn’t long before he was nearing his orgasm, especially when he focused on your breath on his neck and the way the swell of your tits felt against his chest. He choked out a moan, not able to control the way he started whimpering- so fucking desperate for relief. His brows furrowed, mouth open in a silent moan as his cock started twitching, then shot out rope after rope of come. He’s had enough orgasms to know that the way this one felt was definitely not normal. Even after a few years without it, it shouldn’t be this fucking intense and long. 
“God- what the fuck?” He whined, hips still desperately rutting against you as he rode out the endless orgasm. He could feel the mess through his own layers of clothing and he knew that your suit would be fucking wrecked when he was done. But it didn’t stop. He came for what felt like hours, listening to the pulse in your neck, smelling your perfume, feeling the delicate skin on his lips. 
“Fuck,” He whimpered, still rutting against you, but the friction was starting to lessen because of his cock being completely soaked with come. His balls just barely lightened, still feeling incredibly full and sore. When he finally, finally felt his orgasm fading, his hips slowed to a stop as he panted, trying to catch his breath. 
“Jesus fucking christ-“ You moaned through a breath. His cock twitched at the sound of your voice, never even having a chance to start softening before his whole body burned with need again. He leaned up to examine the mess, finding the entire crotch area of both of your suits completely soaked, as well as most of your mid sections too. He looked down further, finding come still dripping down the flushed tip all the way to his balls. His cock was so hard, it was almost visibly throbbing and his balls looked almost as full as they felt. 
“Jason?” You asked quietly, making his eyes snap up to yours with a growl. Your cheeks were pink, lips red and swollen as if you were biting them and he wanted nothing more than to shove his cock between them and make you drink his come, but even with the primal urges overtaking his brain, he couldn’t do that. Not to you. So with another growl he flipped you over, his come making a slapping sound as you landed. This time he kneeled over your legs instead of between them and he laid over you again to hold you still as started rutting against your covered ass. 
If he thought the smell of your perfume was intoxicating, it was nothing compared to your hair. He took a deep breath and let out a quiet groan, remembering how he used to be able to smell it when you hugged him. But back then it didn’t make him feel like this— it didn’t make his cock throb and it didn’t make him start whining. 
“Jason,” You suddenly said, trying to push yourself up, but his entire body weight was holding you down. He didn’t want to listen to your protests— to your rejection, so he placed a hand over your mouth, making you release a startled moan. 
“Shh, I’m sorry. It’s okay, I just- I need this, baby— need you.” You whined against his palm, the sound sending a jolt to his cock. 
It took every fiber of his being to not tear your suit and fuck your cunt- fill you up with load after load of his come until you milked him dry. But through those thoughts, he could hear a quiet voice reasoning that he wouldn’t be able to come back from that and he would lose you forever. And even though his cock was begging to be buried in a tight, warm cunt— in your tight, warm cunt— he knew it was true. So this would have to do for now. Just thinking about fucking you had him barreling toward his second orgasm. 
“Oh fuck- oh my god.” He whined, resting his forehead on your shoulder. His free hand was clenched so hard to keep from touching your tits, or anywhere else, that his fingers were starting to hurt.  
Despite him pinning you down completely, you managed to push your hips up a little, pressing your ass even harder against his cock. The action had him gasping out as he fell over the edge again. He couldn’t hold in the whimpers and moans as his cock twitched between your ass and his pelvis, spurting ropes of come into the tight space. His balls were practically throbbing— pulsing with each shot of come that left his cock. 
He continued rutting against you desperately, trying to get the most out of this agonizingly long orgasm. While he could feel some of his come coating his cock, it seemed like most of it landed on the small of your back that was arched as you held your hips up. The ache in his balls was already starting to alleviate, but they weren’t empty yet, so he sat up on his knees to continue, groaning at the sight of the entire lower section of your midriff covered in his come.
“Jason?” You asked quietly, but he ignored you as he lifted you onto your knees, pushing you down by your upper back when you tried to rise on your hands. 
“I’m sorry- Just one more, I promise, baby, one more.” He whined, positioning you how he wanted, with your legs squeezed together. The sight of his come rolling up your back into your cape had his cock twitching in need, so he slipped between your thighs and immediately started fucking you. There was enough come covering his length that the friction didn’t hurt, but honestly he could’ve used a little more friction, especially because the material of your suit had him sliding in and out easily. 
His hands moved to your hips, gripping tight enough to make you whimper so that they didn’t drift to your ass. Bucking into you as he desperately chased relief again, his eyes trailed all over your body, mostly focusing on your ass through the skin tight suit, but moving up your come covered back too. His balls slapping against your thighs with each thrust was almost starting to hurt, but he couldn’t stop— not even if he wanted to. 
“Oh god- I’m so close. Almost there, baby. Just one more I think— Just one more and I’ll feel better.” He choked out, bucking into you wildly. The sound of his wet pants hitting your wet suit was deafening on the otherwise quiet rooftop. When you squeezed your thighs together even harder, he let out a broken moan, cock throbbing, anxiously awaiting the pleasure. 
“Oh fuck-“ He groaned, cock twitching between your legs as his come shot out, painting your stomach. Quickly pulling back, he fucked his fist, watching as his come covered your ass and dripped down your thighs. “Shit,” He whimpered, when it just didn’t stop. It was less than his previous orgasms, but still enough that you were practically kneeling in a pool of his come. The last few spurts landed on his fist, dripping down his hand to the puddle on the ground as he panted, trying to catch his breath. 
Releasing his cock, he watched the way it still twitched pathetically, but despite that, he knew he was done. What he didn’t know however, was how he was going to clean all of this shit up. His cock was slick with his arousal, dripping down to his balls, adding to the mess on his pants. His hand and clothes were in a similar state. 
“Jay?” You asked quietly, making his eyes snap up to you. 
“Shit-“ He helped you up so you were sitting in front of him. The come that was on your stomach had rolled up to your chest, coating your tits, making him hiss as his cock twitched at the sight. You were practically covered head to toe in it. “I- Are you…” You flung yourself at his body, wrapping your arms tight around his torso in a hug. He tried not to focus on the way that his come would now be on his chest too. When you pulled back— way too soon, he thought with a frown— you slapped his arm, making him grab the slightly aching spot. 
“Ow- What the hell?” 
“You have a lot of fucking nerve to be asking me that when you’re the one who needs to start explaining.” You growled, crossing your arms over your chest with a scowl. 
“…You’re mad?” He asked sheepishly, watching your expression start to shift into one of amusement before you hardened it again. 
“You’re dead. What the fuck, Jason?” 
“I’m sorry. Can we just- go somewhere other than here and get cleaned up, then I’ll explain?” He asked, gesturing to the pool of come you were both in. A light blush painted your cheeks when you glanced at the mess. 
“Fine.” 
He took you to his safe house and apologized profusely, promising to clean your suit for you. Only once you were both dressed in his clothes and sat on the couch did you suddenly realize that Jason is in front of you. Jason who you haven’t seen in years, Jason who’s older now, but still just as pretty as the day you met him. Jason who you couldn’t save.
“How long have you been back?” You asked, trying to hide your emotions as you crossed your arms over your chest and cleared your throat.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. I had to… work through some things.” You tried to wait patiently for him to explain, but it didn’t seem like he was going to do that anytime soon, so you continued.
“Tell me what happened. I don’t understand how you’re here right now.” He sighed, glancing away from you. 
“Do you know what the Lazarus Pit is?”
“The thing Ra’s Al Ghul uses, right?”
“Yeah… He- put me in it. That’s how I’m back.” He muttered. 
“Shit- are you okay?” You’ve heard the stories of what it can do to a person and your chest ached knowing that he went through something like that. 
“I’m alive.” He shrugged with a dry chuckle. 
“I’m sorry.” You moved to wrap your arms around him in a hug, but stopped when he leaned back. When he saw your hurt expression, he rushed to explain himself. 
“It’s not you! I just- I can already smell you from here and it’s taking everything in me to not do something I’ll regret. Again.” Your brows furrowed in confusion but when you glanced at his crotch, your eyes widened in understanding. 
“I don’t understand how you can still be hard after that. Actually- I don’t even understand how that was possible in the first place.” 
“I didn’t know it was possible either… When I came back, I was different— stronger, faster. I guess that changed too.” He explained and you nodded in understanding even though it still barely made sense to you. “Plus the last time I came was like a week before I died so it’s been a while.” 
“Jesus- Jason, tmi.” 
“That’s tmi?” He scoffed in disbelief. “I just fucking came on you three times and that’s too much?” 
“Oh my god- stop.” You muttered, burying your burning face in your hands. “Why did you wait so long though? I mean, I’m assuming you had at least a little bit of time after you came back.” 
“The thought never even crossed my mind. Not until— until I… saw you.” He mumbled the last part so you could barely hear it, but you did. “Look, I’m really fucking sorry. I know it’s not an excuse to say I couldn’t control myself, but even then, I still shouldn’t have done it.” 
“You don’t have to apologize.” 
“Are you kidding? I assaulted you!” He exclaimed, making you roll your eyes. 
“Okay well maybe my mess wasn’t nearly as bad as yours, but if you’d bothered to check, you would’ve found evidence to the contrary.” His eyes widened slightly, lips parted in shock. 
“You-“ His eyes moved down to your pants as if he’d be able to see what you were talking about.  “I don’t… What?” 
“You’re so clueless sometimes, you know that?” You chuckled, giving him a small smile. 
“I’m not.. clueless. I was just distracted.” He muttered, a blush painting his cheeks. 
“Uh huh. I have a question.” You said, changing the subject. 
“Shoot.”
“Why me? I’m sure you saw plenty of other girls throughout the years so why did I make you break?” His lips curled up into a small smile and you couldn’t help but feel like there was an inside joke you weren’t a part of. 
“You’re so clueless sometimes.” 
“What’s that supposed to mean?” You frowned. 
“Jesus- I don’t know what job you have, but I really fucking hope you’re not a detective.” He chuckled and you hit his arm again. 
“Shut up. Just tell me.” His expression suddenly dropped into a more serious one and you felt anxiety start to twist in your stomach. 
“Because I’ve had a crush on you since we were like 14.” He muttered. You stared at him in shock and when he turned to finally look at you, you could see the moment where he realized he wanted to backtrack. “Which is really fucking awkward if you have a boyfriend or don’t feel the same way because I did not think this through nearly enough,” 
“Me too.” You said, putting an end to his rambling. 
“What?” He choked out. 
“I’ve had a crush on you too. But since we met, not since we were 14.” 
“You did?” 
“Yeah… Why did you think I was so fucking awkward around you?” You chuckled, making him smile. 
“I don’t know, I just thought you were awkward.” He shrugged. “Do you… still have a crush on me?” He asked coyly, as if he was giving himself the opportunity to pass it off as a joke. 
“I wouldn’t have let you come on me three times if I didn’t.” You said teasingly, your smile widening from his reaction. You liked turning the tables, making him blush for once. “Do you still have a crush on me?”
“I wouldn’t have come on you three times if I didn’t.” 
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satoruhour · 7 months
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a/n: jjk 236 spoilers, mentions of suicide from reader’s side, no comfort, cry. around 1.4k. tagging @jabamin @hyomagiri @saiki-enthusiast @arminsumi @shotorus @satohruu so yall can suffer w me
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the first signs of grief manifests in you when there’s a bright light that signifies gojo’s disperse of cursed energy, the familiar hollow purple that obliterates half the buildings around the two strongest sorcerers — one from the heian and the other one from our times. surely, your lover wouldn’t do something as foolish as involving himself with the blast, but gojo satoru is always one to take risks.
when he took up the job of taking care of megumi and tsumiki at just eighteen years old and providing all the things they needed to fluorish. gojo is risky as he convinces a kid with a terrifying curse to make some friends and learn about cursed energy. he sometimes puts himself in danger when he takes up more missions he can shoulder just to show the higher-ups that he can kill them any time.
gojo satoru has the world of jujutsu in his hands; how his birth had changed the trajectory of the society, altered the balance of the world and now—
“satoru!” you call out once the smoke clears and he’s still there, intact, smiling a sick smile like the many times you’ve seen him done at megumi and after burning french toast. you brief a sigh of relief and the pounding of your heart calms down momentarily before sukuna emerges and he’s missing a hand and a leg and your heart pulls lower and lower seeing the kid you raised be such a ragdoll for sukuna’s entertainment. but there was always the hope to isolate the king of curses’ soul and save megumi somehow. shoko and you had discussed it, you know it to be true, it has to be true, until there’s a sharp noise that cuts through your ear drums.
it’s high-pitched, like a flash of light that shines in your eyes too abruptly and you have to cover them. but it blinds you as much as it deafens; an attack from god knows which end and you swear you hear the reaper’s scythe.
gojo thinks you look beautiful like this; hand on your cheek and head in your hand as you watch him and the melodic sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board. you’re so concerned about him cutting his hand again that you’ve dragged your chair all the way into the kitchen to watch him closely, which was counterintuitive; the whole reason why he had bled in the first place was because he was looking at you so much.
he admires the way you curl into yourself on the beanbag in the apartment, a book on your lap on how to get to know your teenager better, hair falling over your eyes and the reading lamp not even helping that much in illuminating the words. gojo skims over your features and the way your chest breathes slowly, like everything good in the world. he hopes he’s able to get that with you in this life, for as long as he lives.
you feel it before you see it in the screens that the fight is broadcasted from — something is missing. a light has switched off, satoru has stolen the blanket at night and left you freezing again, seeing your favourite snack missing from the fridge. and you run. past the students you’ve raised, past the bright blinding screens and into the battlefield, past the debris and each crunch of cement under your feet brings a fresh bout of tears to your eyes. the tokyo winter is cool, snow starting to slowly fall upon you and the saltiness on your face seem to crystallise and harden and you’re not even sure any more. there’s a tingling feeling in your feet, in your finger tips and a pull of your heart. you know where gojo is before you see him.
“s— satoru…” you mumble, eyes welling up with more tears when his bottom half stays standing, baggy pants stained with red, red and more red and you’ve never hated a colour like you do now. you hate it, you hate it, you hate it even when he’s proposed to you with a red velvet box and gotten you valentine’s day chocolates in that same darker red and there is just too much blood.
and then it’s like the hierarchy of grief doesn’t matter any more. all those articles you’ve read preparing yourself after gojo’s fated meeting with death at sixteen, and then after shibuya — you think you can’t handle any more of the collecting and patching up and crying and headaches and holding a finger up to your chest and hoping you’d kill yourself with your own technique. the only time you’d accept the absence of the bright blue on his face is when he was sleeping and his chest moved with even breaths, not like this.
not like this. 
“satoru—” your voice cracks and you cannot even see. tears and tears and mucus and the fresh crunch of snow under your feet as you step closer to his severed body.
“baby…” he mumbles, barely above a whisper, hand twitching and reaching out in the direction of your voice because this is infinitely worse than getting stabbed in the neck by toji fushiguro, perhaps a little worse than seeing your best friend of your high school life get manipulated by a cursed user. satoru wants to demote all of that and say that seeing you stumble to your knees in front of him while you hyperventilate and sob hurts the most. 
“d-don’t move, ’toru, we— we’re going to get you b-back, okay?” you’re playing with god now. “shoko!” the doctor stifles a sob at your cry, broken up by the feedback of the sound system. she knows you’re trying to defy god.
“i don’t think—” the light is slowly dying. the world’s light, the student’s light, your dawn and dusk. “m-my love, everything is…”
“satoru, please, you need to—!” they say the last sense to go is touch and hearing. you crouch to his face to see him react to your warmth, eyes moving an inch to where he thinks you were and puts all of his cursed energy into one hand just so he could hold your cheek. you, warm as always as the sun and everything good in the world, a new rush of warmth overtaking his hand when your tears flow over his battered, tired hands, the same hands that has drawn over his love time and time again over your body and you are a canvas made of gojo satoru’s endless, unconditional ardour.
“i-i’m…” it fades out, his voice box is almost gone and you wail again and the snow from below wets your knees. his name is all that leaves your lips and you think if you can’t play god, you can only beg, even if your religion is solely gojo satoru.
“no, no, no no nono, satoru, c’mon, baby, stop it!” you scream in his face, words all mushed together when you feel the breath of life leave his chest, the blues die out in his eyes, “i love you, i love you, darling, i love you—” your lover barely manages to muster a small smile and you scramble all over his chest, clutching at the tattered black t-shirt and his hand that is starting to go cold and he has the energy to mutter out a stupid remark like gojo satoru always does.
“i’m sorry i got y-your favourite outfit stained with red, princess…” satoru whispers and that breaks the dam fully. you sob and groan and cry and wail until your voice is hoarse and you cannot speak any more and gojo wants nothing but to full heal himself again just so he could stop your crying. perhaps hold your face in his hands and kiss your forehead and nose and lips and embrace you until you couldn’t breathe. perhaps even to tell you he loved you more than anything and everything; more than poems and that foolish line he just had to say at the end and kikufuku and waking up next to you.
but in what world will gojo satoru ever get repose and a normal life? you hope for every other universe to have him be a preschool teacher, or maybe a florist, or even a superstar. but not in this one, no.
the hand that caressed your cheek is replenished again with cursed energy.
satoru gives you three squeezes.
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craisinsensation1029 · 2 months
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Never Forgotten
Kento Nanami
originally posted on AO3! :) wrote this back in July for Nanamin's birthday :3 <3
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Fem reader, established relationship, alcohol consumption, vaginal sex, cunnilingus, cream pie, slight breeding kink, very light bondage, Nanami dealing w a shitty day, its like, kinda sweet if u squint a bit, a little praise & degrading
4.6k
MDNI
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Nanami looked down at you as you stirred in your sleep, cuddled securely into his side. Your arm was wrapped around his midsection and his was around your shoulder. He pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, as he reached for the remote to turn the television off.
You two had been dating for nearly ten months now. You hit it off after meeting through a mutual friend for a night out for drinks, and have been happy together since. 
You two did have plans to move in together in a few months. Nanami owned a condo, and you still had some time before the lease on your apartment was up. This was the first major relationship either of you had been in, so it admittedly was a huge step, but both of you were prepared to take the plunge.
Until then you shared nights like these where you would come and sleep over. He loved having you over, seeing you move comfortably around the space as if it were your own.
Tonight was a bit different, as it was the night before his birthday. You two hadn’t spent one of his birthdays together yet, so he honestly didn’t know what to expect. Not that he was particularly a a person big on the occasion, seeing the day as just another year closer to retirement, but maybe you would make it different.
You were just that kind of thoughtful person that made everything worth celebrating. Hell, you baked him a cake when he told you he got another employee of the month award. You gasped when he shrugged lazily at the feat and sprinted to the kitchen. He told you it was really no big deal because he had so many, but all you did was narrow your eyes at him and told him he needed to be more excited he was being recognized for such diligent work.
He smiled at the memory as he pressed another kiss to your forehead.
He looked at the time on the clock. 3 minutes to midnight. He was unsure if you were supposed to spontaneously wake up out of your sleep with a song and dance, but there was nothing but silence to surround him when the clock struck midnight. 
Your sleeping form was so serene, he wouldn’t dare disturb you. Instead, he repositioned your bodies by unhooking your arms from his waist and wrapping his around yours instead. You stirred again as he let out small sigh mumbling to himself, “Happy birthday to me.” He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
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The same way you always fell asleep before Nanami, you always woke up before him. You were already somewhere in the condo when Nanami woke up. He was hopeful this was going to be a birthday to remember. 
He went into the master bathroom to brush his teeth and got dressed for work. He never took the day off, because well, the retirement fund needed to be supplemented somehow. He took a look at himself in the mirror. Maybe he should have gotten a haircut a few days before, but no matter.
He walked out into the kitchen where you were sipping tea at the island. “Hey, good morning boo. Coffee’s in your mug.” You always made his coffee in the morning, just the way he liked it, but a wave of disappointment hit him. Was that it?
“Thanks, baby,” he answered, walking toward you to press a kiss to your lips. You kissed back. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “Sleep well?”
“With you? Always,” you gushed, your soft hand landing on the side of his face. Wasn’t there anything else you wanted to say?
“Oh, good,” he nodded, his voice tight. “Uh, I guess I should get going then.”
“Already?” you pouted. “Do you have an early meeting or something? You didn’t even sit down and drink your coffee yet.” He loved spending mornings with you, drinking your hot beverages together while you entertained him recalling your always too wild and vivid dreams, but he couldn’t act like this wasn’t bothering him.
His girlfriend forgetting his birthday. His heart clenched, but he just tried to remember why he had never made it a big deal in the first place. It was just a day, he would just have to remind himself of that. 
“Yeah,” he lied, opting to pour the coffee in the mug into his tumbler. “Email came in about earlier this morning. I wasn’t expecting it either,” he chuckled, but his laugh was strained. He was lying through his teeth, couldn’t you tell?
“Ugh, okay,” you groaned. “I got called into work tomorrow, so I probably won’t be around when you get home. But I’ll cook something for you to eat for dinner.” 
Great. Even better. Now he would truly be spending the day alone. He cleared his throat before he spoke again, although he didn’t know what to say. He settled on, “Okay.” He swiftly placed his laptop in the bag before heading toward the door.
“I love you!” you called out behind him.
“Yeah, I love you too,” he said, just loud enough for you to hear as he pulled the door closed behind him.
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The day Nanami was having would give A Series of Unfortunate Events a run for fucking money, and he was pissed off.
Not only did his morning start off with a lack of birthday wishes from you, but it was immiedtaely followed by some asshole deciding to go NASCAR speed on the residential street, a large puddle of last night’s rain drenching his slacks. 
He stood on the train while a parent’s curious toddler had the gall to ask him if he was still potty training. He knew he couldn’t glare at a child, so he held on the the pole even more tightly as he ignored the kid who decided to ask the question again and again until he and his mother eventually got off at the stop before him.
The morning meeting he lied about turned out to be a very real meeting. If Nanami actually checked his emails that morning, he would have known. So there he was in the office with drenched slacks and fifteen minutes to prepare a presentation that he didn’t give a fuck about. After being able to throw something together, his supervisor thanked him for being so flexible, but informed the team the meeting was actually for next week. “I guess I made an oopsie!” he shrugged. Nanami left the conference room without a word.
The fire alarm went off in the building a few minutes before lunch was going to start. He groaned, reaching for his lunchbox so he could at least warm it up somewhere else, only to realize he was reaching for air. He fucking forgot it at home. He groaned again, knowing not only did he have to take a fuck ton of stairs down from the twenty seventh floor, but he would have to buy lunch from some overpriced, overcrowded shop.
Once he got to the town square, it was already bustling with a bunch of people trying to get food for the lunch hour. He was already too aggravated to deal with that shit. He opted to just get a croissant from his favorite bakery instead. Taking the short walk there, he clenched his fist seeing a white note on the door and the lights off. Walking closer, the note read, Closed for inventory today, see you tomorrow! He absolutely wanted to scream.
With only fifteen minutes left in the lunch hour, he trudged back to the office where the fire alarm had stopped going off, but they advised everyone to take the stairs for safety purposes. Safety his ass, he didn’t have anymore fucks to give, but there was no choice. Hungry, and more then fed up, he trudged up the stairs and threw his head back once he got back to his desk.
His phone went off and he pulled it from his pocket, smiling seeing a text from you. He unlocked it, his face falling upon reading your message. I just left. I made you some chicken alfredo and garlic bread for dinner :) i’ll be back on Saturday! I love you!! ♡
Was that really it? His phone was littered with other birthday wishes that he would get to in time, but that message from you may have actually just made his day worse. Thanks baby, I love you too , he replied anyway. He wanted to throw his phone across the room.
The rest of the day was equally annoying; too many conversations with people that couldn’t take a hint that he didn’t want to talk, emails that were about as useful as white ink on white paper, and hunger still gnawing at his stomach from his lack of lunch.
By time time it was five, his supervisor was sauntering over to his desk. Nanami visibly scowled, but that didn’t deter him at all. “Nanami!” he greeted. He already knew where this was going. Overtime today of all days, fucking great. “I guess I made another oopsie.” His supervisor began to explain how his incompetence was now Nanami’s problem, and an hour later he was seething when he left the office.
The elevators were still deemed unsafe to use, and he trudged down the stairs yet again. He was finally out of work, but there didn’t seem anywhere for him to go. He could have hung out with some other friends, but more than anything he wanted to be with you. He sighed, deciding to get on the train and pop into the bar by the house. Nothing like some greasy food and some alcohol to wash away the day.
He sat at the bar, waiting for the bartender’s attention. “Hey man, can I just see some ID?” Nanami fished his ID out of his wallet, flashing it to the worker. “Oh, happy birthday man! I got to give you some shots on the house!”
“Woo! Birthday boy!” a visibly drunk man next to Nanami whooped, clapping him on the back.
“Thanks,” Nanami muttered as the bartender immediately poured two shots of brown liquid in front of him. He didn’t know what they were, but he didn’t care. He threw them both back in quick succession, the liquid burning his throat all the way down. He scowled at the aftertaste as he pushed the empty shot glasses back toward the bartender.
“Naw, you’ve got to give him something a little smoother,” the man next to him said. He ordered four shots of something Nanami wasn’t famailar with, pushing two his way once the bartender had them all poured, He raised one, motioning for Nanami to do the same. “Happy birthday, man!” He threw it back, and then easily the other. It indeed did go down a lot easier than the other.
Four shots in a matter of less than ten minutes was probably not very wise. He ordered some sweet chili boneless wings and garlic parmesan fries for himself, along with a beer to sip on. He knew he would feel it later for sure, but who cares. He would be alone anyway. He ate the greasy food when it came out, his head already feeling heavy by the time he was done.
He paid his tab when the bartender asked, “You got far to go?”
“No,” he slurred. “I live right up the block.”
“Oh, then one for the road won’t hurt!” He poured Nanami a final shot, some clear liquid. He threw it back instantly. This one was smoother than his choice of dark liquor before. “You’ve got some hot ass waiting for you at home?”
“I wish,” he grumbled. “But thanks.” He bid adieu to the bartender and the man that was sitting next to him as he made the short walk home.
Perhaps he was a bit more fucked up than he realized, because he was absolutely struggling to get the key in the door. He took a breath and rested his forehead against the cool door. What was the rush anyway? Then again, he didn’t wan’t to be standing outside when what he needed was a shower and his bed. He fumbled with the door again, his efforts successful this time and pushed the door open.
He furrowed his brow, seeing a large Happy Birthday banner hung from the wall facing the door in the living room. Streamers and balloons hung from the walls, and he had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Then you stepped into view from the kitchen, a large grin spreading across your face. You ran up to him, throwing your arms around his neck in glee. “Sorry, I went to go put the food back into the oven, I thought you were going to be back earlier!” You pulled back slightly to press a kiss against his lips. “Happy birthday!”
He was confused. Or drunk. Or maybe a little bit of both. 
He took a small step back, taking in your appearance. You had one of his favorite dresses on, a short, strapless, floral print number that flared at the end with lettuce edges. It was perfectly form fitting, your breasts bouncing at the top as you walked, your figure that he loved accentured, and your ass he adored getting a handful of on display.
“Huh,” he said dumbly. 
“Your birthday?” you laughed with a soft shake of your head. “You drunk? Is that why you took so long?”
He was stunned into silence. 
“Aw, come on!” you pouted. “You couldn’t have possibly thought I forgot! Maybe my acting was a little too good…” you contemplated, but he couldn’t help but just stare at you, and then back at the decorations littering the space. Even the banner meant so much to him. He knew you couldn’t have possibly put that up without asking for someone’s assistance or using a ladder, both of which you hated doing. But you did it, for him. 
He suddenly felt like an idiot for even thinking you could have forgot. For the first time today, a smile genuinely crossed his face. “Thank you, baby.” He pulled you tightly against him, hands immediately grabbing at your ass. Maybe the bartender had a premoniton on his behalf or something, because here you were, hot ass and all.
You playfully swatted his hands away opting to taking his hand in yours. “Come on, don’t you want to at least have dinner?” He was admittedly already full, and eating something else was the only thing occupying his mind now, but he let you pull him toward the kitchen anyway.
He was dumbfounded. The table was set with the good china you just insisted would only be used for important occasions. 
He was an important occasion. He felt his heart swell.
Another birthday banner, and more streamers and balloons decorated the space. A small cake decorated with purple icing and sprinkles with Happy Birthday, Kento! scrawled in white frosting sat on the middle of the table. You grabbed some oven mitts and bent over to open the oven. The dress was short enough to see the meat on your ass cheeks, and all he could do was walk over and stand behind you, gripping the flesh. Maybe it was the alcohol, but his cock was already straining against his slacks.
“Kento, let me get this food out,” you giggled. He stepped back to give you some space and he instantly knew what was in the oven; it was one of his favorites, oven roasted lemon garlic chicken with potatoes. You walked over and placed the dish on the table, a bright smile on your face. “Maybe I should have said something earlier, I just wanted to surprise you.”
You strided toward him, your hand caressing the side of his face. He placed his hand over yours, closing his eyes and leaning into your touch. This is what he needed after today. You were what he needed. “I would never forget a day as important as this,” you whispered. “Do you really think I could forget my favorite person’s special day?”
“I was a bit silly for thinking you did,” he admitted, a laugh escaping his lips. “I was having a fucking shit day and thought I was coming home to an empty place.” You frowned, and he hated seeing you frown, especially on his behalf. “But that has nothing to do with you, baby. This is already the best birthday ever.”
You smiled softly, although your brow was still knitted. “Well we can talk about your day while we eat.” Your eyes quickly brightened again. “Oh! And I can give you your gift!”
He wasn’t interested in talking or receiving gifts right now. He never understood the rationale of people in movies and television shows pushing food and silverware off the table to ravish their partners, but it fully made sense to him now. He was only interested in having you bent over the table and rutting into you until you were creaming around his cock and crying out his name.
“That sounds great,” he mumbled, bringing you back to him. “But I’ll be very honest. Let’s get that food back in the oven for a bit. There’s something I need to do first.”
You were lost, but nodded nonetheless. “Oh okay, we can do that! It is your day, after all.” You gathered the dish with the chicken and walked back over to the oven to keep the meal warm. At the same time, Nanami was pushing the plates further up on the table. 
You strolled back over to him, and he instantly smashed his lips against yours. One hand was grabbing your ass while the other was on the small of your back. One of your legs instantly rose while your arms wrapped around his neck, making any space between the two of you nonexistent. He felt bad for his breath that must have reeked of liquor, but the feeling faded when your tongue was pushing past his lips and exploring the inside of his mouth.
He gripped the material of your dress tighter, and if he didn’t like it so much he was afraid he would have ripped it off of you with his bare hands. He moaned against your lips as your hands shifted so your manicured nails were running through his undercut. Fuck, he loved when you did that. Your tongue continued to move inside of his mouth, and he moved his against yours. You always tasted just divine, savory and sweet at the same time, and man was he so blessed to be loved by someone as amazing as you. 
Your tongue slowly exited his mouth and you began to nip at his bottom lip, eliciting another moan from him. He jerked his hips against you, his erection swelling by the second as his tongue began to explore your mouth. Your mouth was always so inviting and willing for him as your lips parted for him. He closed his eyes, enjoying the pure bliss of the moment. Hard to think he was having the seemingly worst day ever just a few hours ago when he was here now, his hand full of your ass and his tongue shoved deep down your throat surrounded by so many of his favorite things.
His tongue exited, and the kiss became sloppy as your bodies stayed melded together, but he wanted more now. He quickly spun you around and bent you over the kitchen table. He slapped your ass, watching it jiggle in the material of the dress. You mewled, and arched your back more, wiggling it in the air. He slapped it again, letting his hand massage to spot before pushing up the material.
He figured you had a thong on the way your cheeks were out when you bent over when taking the food out of the oven, but no. You weren’t wearing any underwear at all. “Were you expecting something, perhaps?” he asked, letting a finger swipe through your folds. You were already wet, but he knew he could have you soaking in a matter of minutes.
“Something like that,” you answered playfully. “Thought it would come a little later, but now works too.” Oh, you would be coming later too, but Nanami needed his fix now. 
“You little slut,” he chuckled, sinking down to his knees behind you. “Acted like you forgot my birthday just to cook my favorite food and wait for me in my favorite dress with no panties on,” he tsked.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” you teased, wiggling your ass for him. “How could I ever make it up to you?”
Nanami just laughed as he brought his hand to your ass, kneading your cheeks again. “I can think of a few ways.” He spread your cheeks to look at what was his before letting his tongue swipe across your center, instantly moaning at your taste. He swiped his tongue through your folds again, letting his eyes close as your familiar taste infiltrated his tastebuds. Your moans were music to his ears as he continue to stroke your center with his tongue.
One hand reached around to circle your clit as his tongue began to push into you. You writhed against his face, and he loved it. His thumb and middle finger slowly stroked your clit as his tongue slowly and shallowly fucked you. “ Fuck, Kento, please,” you whined, arching your back more, giving him more access to your clit.
He always loved when you begged for him, despite how much he would tease you for it. His mouth left you, but his fingers were still working against your clit. “I thought you wanted to make it up to me?”
“I-I do,” you choked out. He could already feel your legs trembling, and you could be coming for him at any moment.
“Then either shut up or use your words,” he grunted, putting his mouth back on you. You moaned again, pushing back on his face while his tongue continued to lap at you. He was achingly hard now, and was pretty sure his dick could drill for diamonds in the mines.
He started to rub your clit more quickly, and you were falling apart. Your legs struggled to stay steady as your moans turned into desperate pants. “Please, need to come,” you begged.
“Oh, look who knows how to talk,” he chuckled, his voice muffled. But he would do just that. He swiped his tongue against you once more, and you cried out as your orgasm had your juices coating his face. He let out a moan of satisfaction at your release and stood quickly. You rose from your position of being bent over the table, to which he chuckled and bent you back over. “I’m not done,” he said, undoing the buckle on his belt.
He pulled the black leather through the loops on his slacks, using it to bind your hands behind your back. “That feel alright?”
“Feels great,” you answered. He could hear the amusement in your voice despite not seeing your face, and couldn’t help but shake his head.
“Naughty little bitch,” he murmured, admiring your exposed ass. “You were just dying to get fucked in this dress, huh? I guess this is a lucky day for you too.” In the blink of an eye, the button on his slacks were undone and his erection sprang free. He pushed down his boxers briefs and entered you quickly, hands positioned securely on your hips.
He groaned as your cunt hugged his cock. It simply didn’t matter how often you two fucked, and your sex life was pretty healthy. The first thrust never failed to make him want to come right on the spot. His pulled his hips back and slowly pushed inside of you, the veins of his cock dragging against your walls. You both let out moans simultenously as his hips developed a steady rhythm. He loved seeing your ass bounce against his hips; even more so now with your arms bound and seeing that all you could do was moan and take him like a good girl.
“Fuck Kento, more, more,” you cried out.
“Shit, okay, baby,” he groaned, wiping the sweat that was forming at his brow. He held onto your hips tightly as he started to slam into you roughly, shaking the table. You let out a yelp that was quickly followed by a moan, and he couldn’t help but bite his lip as he continued to pound into you like his life depended on it.
He could start to feel your pussy spasm around him, and used one hand to slap your ass. “Fuck, you look so good taking my cock like this,” he grunted, his hips still moving quickly. He was determined to give you the fucking that you wanted; the one you deserved for making sure he felt special, loved, and utterly cared for.
“Ah, Ahhh,” you cried out, helpless to do anything except for take the vicious pounding that you asked for. “W-want you to come in me,” you stuttered out against the creaking of the table.
If he weren’t so determined to keep thrusting, he would have stopped, and asked if that was what you really wanted, but fuck it. It was his fucking birthday, and he was going to stuff you like a twinkie. “I’ll fuck a baby into you tonight if that’s what you want,” he panted, continuing his onslaught.
You moaned again, and then he felt the telltale signs of your orgasm washing over you. You were obscenely wet with your juices coating his cock and running down your legs as your pussy violently clenched around him. He fucked you through your orgasm with slower thrusts until the wave of pleasure passed through you.
He undid the belt that kept you bound, and pulled his still hard cock out of you. He quickly hauled you up, spun you around, and sat you on the table. You instinctively wrapped your arms around his neck and pressed another kiss to his lips while he slid inside of you. 
You whined at his entry with the sensitivity of your last two orgasms, but clenched around him. He kissed you back sloppily as he rutted his cock into you. He pulled down the dress to expose your breasts and you leaned back slightly so he could slip a nipple into his mouth. He sucked it hashly, letting his teeth bite down gently on the bud.
“Oh fuck Kento, that’s so good.” Your hand was soon coaxing his head in the other direction so he could do the same for the other. He obliged, sucking your other nipple into his mouth and giving it a small bite before letting his tongue trace the area around your areola. 
His orgasm was fast approaching and he gripped your chin tightly, squeezing a thigh with the other hand. “Fuck baby,” he grunted. “I’m going to fill this pussy up real good.” You put your hand on his lower back, bringing him closer, and he was done for. He stilled and let out a pant as his seed spurted inside of you, coating your insides white.
He rested his forehead against yours, and you cupped his face with a smile, pressing a soft kiss to his nose with his cock still seated inside of you. “Happy birthday, boo.” You moved to press a kiss to his lips. “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby.” Yeah, best birthday ever.
532 notes · View notes
azsazz · 2 months
Text
Midnight Muse (Part 15)
Azriel x Reader [Art School AU]
Summary: You and your best friend Feyre have just moved into a new apartment for your sophomore year of college at art school. What you didn't know when you signed the lease is that you'd be living next to three rowdy boys.
Warnings: Mentions of throwing up, doesn't actually happen.
Word Count: 4,008
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] [Masterlist]
Notes: ENJOY. Also, someone plz tell me they got tagged this time 😭
_________________________________________
Everything fucking hurts.
Your head is throbbing like someone is repeatedly hitting you with a hammer. You can’t even open your eyes because the dots of light in your vision are swimming in circles, and you’re pretty sure if you crack your eyes open and squint into the room you’ll surely lose the contents of your stomach, which is still mostly alcohol from last night.
You groan in agony because it’s the only thing you can do. Curling in further on yourself, you tug the covers up over your head, trying to block as much of the sun, creeping steadily in through the windows, as you can.
A deep inhale to try and ease your stomach brings along the scent of freshness; like night-chilled mist and cedar. The smell is so perfectly balanced, familiar and fresh in your aching lungs that it almost lulls you back to sleep. It’s effortlessly masculine and with another luxurious inhale, your brain connects the scent to its familiarity. It’s the same as the soap you’d used when you were forced to stay the night at the apartment next door, while Feyre and Rhysand had been having their public nudy show in your living room.
You want to snuggle into it, wallow in its comfort all day, but your mind is quickly catching up to you, running that specific thought back a second time, but slower.
It smells like the same soap you’d used when you were at Azriel’s apartment after the rainstorm. 
Your eyes snap open and your body jolts into an upright position that makes your stomach roil, shoving your head down between your knees.
Fuck. You drank way too much last night.
You blink away the bleariness, the dizziness from your vision, staring down at your lap. You’re still wearing the clothes you’d ambled over to Cassian’s party in, and the fabric sticks to your skin uncomfortably. You feel like shit all around, sick from the alcohol, dirty from the night spent dancing and sweating, and you’re pretty sure your breath smells like you’d licked the floor of the local dive bar.
Another blink brings the sheets into focus, certainly ones that are not yours. These are a deep charcoal color, softer and smoother than anything you’ve ever touched. The thread count must be in the thousands. The mattress beneath your aching body feels like a cloud, and all of the effort that went into curating such a lovely bed surely shouldn’t be wasted.
You’re impressed for all of a few seconds until you lift your head and realize where you are.
Azriel’s room.
It’s easy to tell because your memories of last night slowly roll in like flipping through pages of your sketchbook.
“Look,” Cassian grunts as you stumble again and he has to put you on your feet again. He’s faring slightly better than you right now, but only because there are women to flirt with. “I know our friendship is still kind of new, but if you keep hanging all over me like this you’re going to scare away the ladies.” 
You can’t help but to laugh. It feels good, so good that your chest aches with it. Your cheeks are red with drink, and Cassian hasn’t ever seen you grinning so much. 
It kind of scares him.
“Where are your keys?” he continues, his hands warm on your hips where he’s trying to keep you from falling flat on your face. Maybe that last shot you’d taken together had been one too many. “Can I pat down your pockets?”
“I know you wanna feel me up, Cass,” you slur playfully, and his name sounds snake-like, with the way you drag out the S.
“Of course I do, (Y/N), any man would be stupid not to want you,” he comments but his words don’t register because the floor is slipping out from under your feet again.
“Feyre has the keys,” you hiccup. Then, “Are we on a roller coaster? The room is spinning.”
Cassian curses, poking his head out of the crowd to search for your missing roommate. She’s with Rhys, no doubt, but he doesn’t see them in the mass of bodies crowding his apartment. What he does see are a lot of disappointed, single women.
He gestures to you and then slices his hand under his chin in a cutting motion, signaling that he’s not with you, even though you’ve wilted against his chest, rubbing your cheek into the soft fabric of his shirt. Cassian watches his message land, their eyes sparkling in intrigue again, and he doesn’t care, he needs to get you somewhere safe so he can take that pretty brunette and her friend to his room.
The safest place in the apartment he knows is Azriel’s room.
“Oh my fucking Gods,” you groan, holding your head when your curse rings in your ears. Of course you’re in Azriel’s room, because you’re fated to end up in situations that will make him hate you even more.
Slowly, you shove the blankets away, slipping your legs over the edge of the bed. The good news is, you feel like you’ve slept for a hundred hours. The other good thing is that you didn’t throw up anywhere in his room that you can see, or smell. 
The bad news is that you don’t know where Azriel is.
But at least he’s not currently here to witness you rising from the dead.
Blindly, you reach for you phone, patting across the table next to the bed. In the back of your throat sits a lump that you consciously work to swallow down. Later, you might regret not purging the rest of the sickness from your body, but the last place you want to do that is here, in Azriel’s room. What the fuck did you end up drinking last night? You remember the flaming shots and Cassian throwing out a partygoer who looked awfully familiar.
Then there had been Mor, who had told you all about Rhysand growing up over a few drinks. The longer Cassian had forced the two of you to talk, presumably so he could sneak off to flirt with girls while you were distracted with each other, the more Rhysand’s cousin seemed to relax. Those cutting looks had turned from pinning you to your spot to glaring at any of the girls who came up to the both of you to ask about the hosts of the party.
Mor’s stories had you seeing your roommate’s boyfriend in a different light. And the embarrassing ones were even better. Like the one time they had gone sledding down the slope of Mor’s family home in Colorado. It had been a steep incline and they’d been warned many times not to go down there, but the fresh snow had been all too tantalizing not to.
Their punishment had been to walk back up the hill to the house, and when they were small the trek felt like it was ten thousand steps high. And they had to carry their sleds behind them. Rhysand had thrown up halfway and Mor had gotten sick from the tears of laughter streaming down her face afterwards.
Cassian’s words cut through the smile trying to sluice across your face. Azriel had said something about a date. Your stomach revolts but you don’t know why. The thought of Azriel missing out on one of Cassian’s parties doesn’t seem out of character for the broody man, but going on a date? This is the first you’ve heard about Azriel doing so. You know much more than you’d like to know about his roommates’ sexual lives, but you didn’t think Azriel was even open to going out. You don’t know why you care.
You don’t.
It doesn’t sound as convincing as it may have once been.
He’s ridiculously attractive, so why wouldn’t he be going on dates? He probably has a plethora of phone numbers from girls begging to go out with him. So many that it makes your teeth grind at the thought.
Your fingers connect with your phone and your head throbs at the brightness of your screen, rivaling the sun’s rays spearing through the blinds.
And then you see the time.
“Shit,” you curse, scrambling for the shoes someone had kindly taken off for you. They’re piled at the foot of the bed. 
You’re late for class.
Gods, you don’t remember the last time you drank like this. Must have been sometime last year because even with all the wine you’d consumed during your pottery painting with Feyre, Cassian, and Rhysand, you hadn’t felt this badly. This is a next level hangover.
You brace yourself when your hand lands on the doorknob to his room. There’s a lock and it’s flipped shut, so you turn it back carefully, breathing a sigh of relief when the click is quiet.
You freeze in your tracks, breath catching in your throat when you slide the door open.
Azriel is lying on the couch, his body splayed out in a long line. His shirt has risen from where he’s lifted his arm, resting it over his eyes to block the sun coming in through the windows, revealing the cut of his hips. There’s two tattoos painted on the skin that you hadn’t noticed the other night, a pair of feathered wings lining the defining muscle of his hips.
You lick your lips before realizing that in the quiet of the apartment, Azriel is fast asleep. The steady rise and fall of his chest helps give him away. That, and the fact that he’s not snarking at you or shooting daggers in your direction.
It’s your saving grace.
The coffee table shoved in front of the couch is littered with cups and rolling paper wrappers, alcohol spilled across its surface. You have no idea how the glass tabletop has survived the rowdy part unscathed, because you’re pretty sure there was one point in the night where you saw a girl standing on top of it, readying herself to fall into the crowd of people congregated in the living room.
The floor is much the same, and you feel like you’re walking a minefield as you tiptoe around questionable puddles and garbage. The stench of alcohol in the air makes your head spin, your stomach protesting and you press a hand to it, trying to comfort the ache.
You escape the apartment without waking Azriel, breathing a sigh of relief that has the remainders of your final drink swimming up your throat.
You make a run for your apartment next door, and thankfully, Feyre answers your knocking.
You don’t like the knowing look she’s wearing, but she doesn’t pester you while you make a break for the bathroom.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
Surprisingly, it doesn’t take you long to get ready for class.
You’d told Feyre to go on ahead without you when she had knocked softly on the door while you had your head in the toilet, but the sound still clanged through your head like a gong. She was going to get coffee with Rhysand before class and asked if you wanted anything, to which you gratefully accepted.
Even though you have plans to meet Lucien at the coffeehouse for a drink, you need something now or you’re afraid that you won’t make it through the day.
As badly as you want to go and be a hermit in bed all day, you don’t want to miss your classes. Alis is bringing in another model and grading what you come up with in class, and you don’t want to be docked points for missing out. 
Your other class for the day is Art History, and you need to show up to be able to drink in as much of the different styles of art as possible.
Dressing quickly, your clothes stick to your freshly-showered skin. You shove a baseball cap over your hair because while you had the time to wash your body, your hair had been left neglected until later tonight.
Slinging your backpack over your shoulder, you snag your sketchbook from your desk, shoving all of the loose papers hanging out the edges inside. It’s a haphazard job at best, but you’re already running too late for your liking, and you can organize them later.
Like as you wait for the Gods-awful elevator your apartment building has.
The queasiness in your stomach has gone down but the piece of toast you’d forced yourself to eat threatens to come right back up when you spot Azriel, his own backpack slung over his shoulder, waiting for the elevator.
You can still turn around and hide away, there’s definitely still time to—of course he’s turning around at the sound of your approaching footsteps.
His golden eyes glitter with amusement and you can’t shove away the shiver that slides down your spine like a paint filled brush as he trails you from head to toe.
“Sleep well?” He asks gruffly, and the sound of his voice makes your knees weak. Tripping on your next step, your sketchbook goes flying from your hands, spilling the loose papers you’d just stuffed in there everywhere. 
Somewhere in the back of your mind you can hear Azriel curse in surprise, but you feel the hot mortification slicing through your body. There are sketches of his hands fluttering to the ground. Ones you had drawn while working on your last project for Alis’ class, the one where you drew Leonardo’s Study of Hands. Azriel’s had been your inspiration, and there’s sketches of them in all sorts of poses, some more promiscuous than others, and you’re completely fucking mortified.
You drop to your knees, face burning red as you scoop the papers closer to you, praying that he doesn’t see. Azriel’s already crouching down with you, helping gather some of the drawings, and the fact that this is the first time he’s ever seen any of your work is overshadowed by the fact that there’s a piece of thick drawing paper right next to his boot. It’s creased from its fall, half of it turned up at an angle. You can see the wavy lines you’d tried so hard to recreate from memory. If he picks that up and looks at it you will have to transfer schools.
“Don’t touch that,” you almost screech when his fingers close around the edge of the paper. You watch it in slow motion, the clench of his jaw, the way that his eyes flick down to his hands, marred flesh fully on display. Oh Gods, you think you might throw up all over again. He thinks you mean that you don’t want him to touch your things because of his fucking hands. Your throat tightens, heart beating so fast in your chest that you’re sure it’s going to burst through your skin. Quickly, trying to rectify yourself, you plead, “No.” Your voice cracks around the lump forming but you shove past it. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Azriel’s face is tight as he stands. You scramble, collecting your papers into your arms. He towers over you, even standing, and you don’t like the flicker of muscle in his jaw because he’s clenching his teeth so hard. 
You don’t like the shadows writhing through the gold of his eyes, molten with anger.
He hands out the papers he’s picked up and an apology is on the tip of your tongue. Reaching out, you’re just about to grasp them, croak out a thank you, when Azriel drops them.
You watch them flutter to the ground again. The elevator dings and the doors squeal open, but you can’t stop staring at the paper on the ground now. You swallow hard, the mortification bubbling into annoyance.
Azriel’s boots twist in your vision and he enters the elevator without another word.
Your eyes prickle but you don’t know why. The breaths you’re releasing through your nose to keep calm are harsh and shaky. Like Azriel’s hands. You need to go to class, and he can fuck off now.
You dip down and snatch the papers from the hall floor, not caring if they get crumpled in your haste. The doors of the elevator begin wheeling shut but you slip through before they can shut completely, trapping you inside with Azriel.
The tiny, metal box that grinds down the elevator shaft is filled to the brim with tension. You can feel the stiffness wafting off of Azriel’s body, though he’s leaning against the wall like he doesn’t have a care in the world, head currently buried in his phone.
Your anger emits in waves, and you feel like you’re drowning in it. What you had said came out the wrong way. You had in no way meant it in the way that you didn’t want his hands touching your work, but the way you’d seen Azriel go preternaturally still, something flash in his eyes, still makes you sick to your stomach. You want to cry, because they’re not tainted in the least. If anything, his hands are the most beautiful hands you’ve ever seen, imperfect yet so, so perfect. 
Of course he had retaliated in the way that he did. You would’ve misconstrued the comment as well, but there’s an itch on your side that tells you he didn’t have to react like that, throwing your papers back to the ground. Another misunderstanding between the two of you.
You open your mouth to speak, but there’s a screeching that’s more horrible than it usually is, and the elevator is jerking to a grinding halt.
You stumble a little, and Azriel steadies you before removing his hands just as quickly. His brows are pinched and the lights in the tiny space flicker before going out completely.
“What the fuck?” You question, pitched higher because of your nerves. You’re stuck, the elevator has stopped working and you’re stuck in it with Azriel. “Oh my Gods, we’re trapped!”
Azriel grunts, punching the buttons on the door. An emergency light flickers on, casting the metal box in a low, fluorescent light. Nothing that he’s doing works, and you’re officially beginning to freak out.
You watch Azriel try to pry the doors open, but even with the bulging of his biceps he’s no match for the metal jaws of death.
Throwing a look over his shoulder, he says, “What are you standing around for, princess? Call the fire department or something.”
“Right,” you respond weakly, pulling your attention from his muscular form. The dispatch is nice about it, sending someone your way and all you have to do is stay calm and await assistance. “Thanks, “ you reply to her, hanging up the phone and turning back to Azriel. “So we wait.”
He looks like he wants to ask more questions, but he nods instead, sinking down and making himself comfortable against the wall. Looking up at you expectantly, you sigh, dropping your bag from your shoulder and collapsing to the floor across from him.
His legs are so long they nearly stretch across the entire elevator, and you can’t help but follow the path back to his eyes, glowing as he watches you. You avert your gaze as quickly as possible.
You don’t know how long it will take for the fire department to get here, so you shoot a quick text to Feyre with your predicament, letting her know that you won’t be able to make it to class and to give your coffee away. Then you send a sad emoji because you really, really needed that caffeine.
Across from you, Azriel’s phone buzzes. He reads it, and then his eyes flicker up to yours in a glare.
“Cassian seems to think that this is funny,” he says, and you don’t know why the deep timber of his voice feels like fingers brushing across your skin. “Why did you tell them?”
“I texted Feyre,” you huff defensively. Crossing your arms over your chest, you level him with your own glare. “I don’t control who she tells.”
Azriel rolls his eyes, shutting off his screen.
It’s silent for a long time. There are no sounds coming from outside of the elevator, and you wonder if anyone has even noticed that it’s trapped. The godsdamned thing takes so long to arrive at any floor that you think most patrons take the stairs now, or give in when the elevator of doom never reached their floor.
“I’m sorry,” you blurt, mostly to break the silence. Azriel raises a straight brow and you flush. Sheepishly, you continue. “I didn’t mean what I said in the hall like that. I just—I didn’t want you to see my sketches.”
It’s the most you can give him without spilling the truth of exactly what the drawings were.
Azriel’s jaw works, and it looks like he’s contemplating something important, with the way he’s assessing you. Maybe he’s trying to read if you’re telling the truth, if your apology is sincere or not. The intensity of his eyes makes you want to pull your hat down over your own face to hide it from sight.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” He surprises you by asking.
Your lips part in shock. “What?”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” He asks again, because he doesn't know how he can word the question any differently.
The question throws you. Azriel’s ignored your apology, and instead he’s asking what you’re doing tomorrow night? Has the elevator getting stuck somehow transported you into the Twilight Zone? Is this even really Azriel sitting here with you?
“Um…nothing?” you respond, and he quirks a brow.
“Is that a question or an answer, princess?”
“An answer. I’m doing nothing. Why?”
He shrugs nonchalantly, tipping his head back to rest against the wall, as if he’s contemplating even finishing his question. He looks ever the picture of nonchalance, but what you can’t see is the way he’s curling his fingers to stop their trembling, the rapid beating of his heart.
“I’m having an exhibition tomorrow night. Would you like to join me?”
What? You’re even more dumbfounded now than if that had been the end of the conversation. An exhibition? Tomorrow night? And he’s asking you of all people?
“Who are you and what have you done with my douchebag neighbor?” you ask, shifting in your spot.
A wry smile cracks his mouth and it makes your heart flutter. “Still here, princess.”
Your mouth twists sourly at the nickname. “Let me get this straight. You want me to go to an exhibition with you tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” Azriel nods, agreeing with the echo of his words you’ve just replayed back to him.
“Why don’t you ask your roommates to go with you?”
“They don’t know about it.”
Huh. You don’t know why Azriel wouldn’t invite Cassian or Rhysand to an exhibition he’s having. Well, you could see Cassian wreaking havoc and drinking too much champagne, but Rhys? It seems like the perfect spot for someone like him.
You mull it over, analyzing him. Azriel waits patiently as you study his eyes. The gold is bright under these lights, looking like two golden bars of sun. He’s never been easy to read, and even right now, as you’re trying with all of your might, you can’t find any flicker of anything that tells you this may be a joke.
You tut, crossing your arms over your chest to stop yourself from wringing your fingers in your lap. “Why me?”
“No one better to go with than someone I’m not trying to impress,” Azriel answers seriously. And, he has a point there. You won’t have to hold back from telling him your honest opinion of his work.
You hope that he’s terrible at art, but you have a feeling he’s anything but.
“That doesn’t give me a lot of time to find something to wear.” 
His eyes flash and you wish you knew why.
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s not a no.”
Azriel nods, and that’s that. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight, then.”
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
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glitch-karma · 9 months
Note
hai i want to req a scenario where bsd characters has a crush on the reader and tries dropping hints but the reader just thinks that they’re being nice :D
characters: yosano, nikolai, akutagawa, ranpo, jouno
I added Chuuya cause I am self-indulgent, but enjoy!
Tw: Very light talk of characters being very touchy, but still sfw
Yosano
she's so obvious
Constantly complimenting you
Saying how pretty/handsome you are
Maybe a little touchy iykyk
She honestly wants to confess and have a serious relationship with you
and she's been trying to drop hints but..
"Oh Y/n~, you're so cute I could eat you up.."
"Huh? You can't eat people Yosano! Do you need something to snack on?"
"ugh. No, thank you, dear..."
Finally, she'll confess to you after patching you up after a small mission.
"Y/n.. I uhm, really like you."
"Awe, I like you too Yosano! You're my best friend"
She falls on the floor momentarily before just jumping up, grabbing you by the collar, and kissing you.
"O-Oh!" "Yeah. Oh."
"So? Do you.. Like me too?"
"W-Well. If it means we could do that agai- MPHM!"
Nikolai
Another obvious one
Now he's the real feeler upper
He will not let you GO MAN
Definitely a grabber too
I have this vision of him full-on grabbing your ass and you're just like "Oh? What's up, Nikolai?"
Surprise hugs from behind
He lets you braid his hair
Unlike Yosano, he will not be as patient
He'll grab your hands, get down on one knee, and scream:
"Y/n~! I love you! Please go out with me so we can be free together!"
You are not expecting this at all
So you shakily nod
Then he'll pick you up bridal style and run around with you in his arms <3
Akutagawa
Now with him
I wouldn't fucking notice either bro
His idea of hints is odd
"You don't suck at fighting.."
"Uhm... Thank you?"
He's read that some people give food to their crushes, so he'll randomly just set a cup of tea down on your desk
Since it's a food he likes, he'll also just leave figs on your desk???
It's, very confusing to say the least
In this case, I don't see him ever actually confessing
it was actually Chuuya that found out and pushed him along
Aka, he dragged you both into the same room and pushed Akutagawa along
but it all worked out in the end
Ranpo
Oh my God you gotta be real dence
CLIMBS ON YOU?
LIKE FULL ON SCALES YOUR BODY AND SITS ON YOUR SHOULDERS
And when you get tired and ask him to get off he's just like "Nah I'm good."
Shares his snacks with you
You brought him sweet mochi one day and that was the day he vowed to marry you
You thought he was joking?
Likes pitching your cheeks
"You're so squishy and cute Y/n~ Just like a dumpling" "Ranpo that hurts-"
The way he confesses I hear you ask?
One morning he just, out of nowhere kisses your cheek.
You FLIPPED out and he was just confused
"oh, are we not dating?" "WHAT? NO?!"
He didn't realize you were too busy to notice his feelings
Jouno
Side note: God we need more Jouno hc's fr tho
Jouno's way of showing he loves you?
Training you to the mfing bone.
Bro does not let up
If you're a hunting dog it's even worse
Y'know that scene where he stands on tecchou's back?
He does that all the time
Sometimes hits your head too
But, if he sees you're genuinely struggling he eases up
Honestly, he shows hints in very small ways that you wouldn't notice
Like a small pat on the back or bringing you water after a long day
All the other hunting dogs can see the way he listens extra intently when you talk as well
Another thing, he remembers almost every conversation you two have even had.
So he knows all your interests, likes, and hobbies
He would probably just casually do a normal confession, bring you a rose and a gift <3
Chuuya
Chuuya is terrified of letting people get too close to him (Kinnie moment-)
So for a while he wouldn't make any attempts at a relationship with you at all
But after you've stuck around him for years, even when others didn't, how could he not be smitten for you?
After a while of denying, he'll finally drop hints
He'll offer to drive you too and from work (mostly for the excuse to have your arms around him)
He also started bringing you lunches on Monday's
Has bought you jewelery and chokers galore
The expensive ones too cause he rich rich
He will drunkenly confess
"Damn.. Why do you have to go and make me fall in love with you?"
"..What?"
He has never sobered up so fast
He tried to stand up and leave, but you grabbed him and hugged him tight
After a few seconds, he did the same
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jenosbigtoe · 5 months
Note
your abo fics slaps so hard honestly 😩😩😩 please write alpha!haechan w my beloved breeding kink… only if you’re up for it ofc! the way he’s been hitting the gym lately got me all 🤪🤪🤪
mdni. nsfw 18+
pairing: brother’s best friend!alpha!lee haechan x mark’s little sister!reader
warnings: breeding, creampie, unprotected sex
a/n: idk why i can’t just write a normal abo fic i gotta add another trope… but brother’s best friend!hyuck is so.
it should be a federal crime for lee donghyuck to look that fucking hot.
it was obvious he had just come from the gym, wearing a black tank drenched in sweat and grey sweatpants. he reeked of pure alpha pheromones, making your little pussy dampen and drool. he had been working out so much lately, you could tell. his arms got so beefy and his chest so thick, veins popping out as he bragged about his gains to mark. you fantasized about how it would feel to get pinned underneath him as he took you as his omega, your face buried in his burly chest as his biceps held you down.
as he stood in the doorway to your room, he gave you a flirty wink and blew a quick kiss. he definitely noticed you eye fucking him. “sup, babe.”
you groaned and threw a pillow at his big head. “ugh, hyuck, get out. mark still isn’t back from class if you’re looking for him.”
lee donghyuck. your brother’s best friend, whom you’ve known since he was the annoying little shit that was attached to mark’s hip at 6 years old and teased the daylights out of you for being such a little baby that still clung to big brother markie. the donghyuck that once put a frog in your hair and let it pee on you. the donghyuck that has blown out the candles on your birthday cake every single year, for 17 years, since you were 5. the donghyuck that was only a year older than you but still treated you like a little baby.
in spite of all his teasing, you always had a huge crush on him. and he knew that. he loved taking advantage of that fact. when you finally presented as an omega a year after he presented as an alpha, he took his teasing to another level. making sure to grab your hips as he walked past you, pretending to hump your ass when your back was turned. rubbing his scent all over you when markie wasn’t looking, giving you a sly wink when you were sufficiently claimed and red in the face. getting really close to your face to brush a hair out of your eyes, almost as if he was going to kiss you.
you didn’t really know what your relationship with him was. really, you wanted nothing more than to be his omega and for him to be your alpha. but he just loved teasing you and you loved all the attention you got from it.
“oh no, babe. i’m not looking for mark.” his eyes held a dangerous glint as he slowly walked over to the side of your bed.
you stared up at him nervously. “hyuck, what are you doing?”
he wordlessly crawled onto your bed and pinned you underneath him. strong hands grabbing your small wrists and body pressing you down into the mattress. his pupils were blown with lust as he looked at you like a piece of meat in front of a hungry predator. your heart was beating out of your chest. you felt like your blood was on fire and your stomach was going to twist itself into a pretzel.
“donghyuck, what the fuck are you doing?” your voice was small and nervous.
he leaned his head down to nuzzle your neck, inhaling your sweet scent deeply. you were getting dizzy from the pheromones emanating from his body as he kept you pinned beneath him.
“fuck, omega. let me stay like this for a second,” he groaned into your neck. you felt his hardening cock rub against your thigh. your pussy started drooling and screaming for him.
“hyuck…”
he shushed you by pressing a hard kiss to your mouth. he sucked on your lips like a man starved, grinding his erection against your thigh and keeping you pressed into the mattress so you couldn’t escape. you moaned at the contact, reciprocating the kiss with the same fervor.
he suddenly broke the kiss to look you deep in the eyes. you could see the flaming hot desire burning beneath his pupils. “omega, let me make you mine? please? i’m tired of these games. let me make you my mate, omega.”
your heart soared with happiness. you couldn’t hide your excitement as you grinned and nodded your head vigorously. were you dreaming? donghyuck had never even this was everything you had ever fantasized about and more. your dream alpha taking you and making you his? and you didn’t even have to do anything besides sit here and look pretty?
he took you balls deep, easily slipping his fat cock inside your dripping cunt. you were already so wet for him. such a good omega for her alpha. so perfect and all for him. you eagerly took everything he had to give you. after all, he was your alpha.
“a-ahh! ah! alpha, please!” you sobbed into his shoulder, mind numb and pussy clenching from pleasure. your legs shook from around his shoulders.
“fuckkkk, feel so good, omega,” he pressed a sweet kiss to the top of your head and caressed your cheek. “you have no idea how long i’ve waited for this day. how long i’ve waited to finally make you mine. just couldn’t take it anymore.”
his hips drove impossibly deep into yours, tip of his cock kissing your cervix with every thrust. your cunt gushed and clenched around his thick cock. his heavy balls slapped against your ass and made lewd sounds from the wetness of your pussy.
“alpha!! please!! don’t stop!” fat tears of pleasure rolled down your face.
you buried your face into his thick chest and grabbed onto his beefy arms for support. his delicious scent and intoxicating alpha pheromones filled your head and left you feeling so so needy for him.
your sweet pussy clenching and dripping around his cock was too much for him to handle. “gonna cum, omega, and you’re going to take it all. you’re going to take every last fucking of my load. gonna fuck my cum into you til you’re round with my pups and everyone has to know you’ve been claimed by your alpha.
you nodded your head vigorously, bucking your hips up to meet his thrusts. “yes, please, alpha!! i need your cum so bad! cum inside my pussy, please!”
with a final hard thrust snapping against your hips, he bottomed out inside your bruised pussy. you could feel his cock throb and twitch inside as his hot cum filled you up impossibly full.
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fallingdownhell · 2 months
Note
If it's no bother the whole meeting family and sister being favoured ordeal but with Wanderer, Xiao, Childe and Tighnari please! Yummy comfort...🤤
Honestly.. I did my best with it, but I don't know if I'll do another addition to this from now on. It feels like I'm always writing the exact same thing, and I feel like it's getting boring and repetitive...
Let me know what you think about it, please, because I really don't know.
Characters Included: Wanderer; Xiao; Tighnari
Content: gender neutral reader; established relationship; reader has a sister; hurt/comfort; mention of past (child) abuse; mention of child neglect; insults; slight racism against Tighnari; not proofread yet
Word count: 3,7k words
Requested by: @ahtopoteyto
Enjoy everyone<3
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Wanderer
When you suddenly hit him with the question of wether he wanted to meet your parents or not, he was confused and slightly shocked. From what he had gathered over the time you've been dating, you did not have a very good connection with your parents.
You never really talked about them or told him stories about your childhood. The first few times he asked you about them, he vividly remembers how your face became pale and you simply stating that you didn't want to talk about this. So he let it be, not bothering you with it anymore.
So for you to suddenly ask him this after months of not even mentioning anything related to this subject, he found it highly suspicious.
"Where's this coming from so suddenly?", he asks, taking your hand and sitting you down on the couch next to him. He can already tell how much it cost you to simply ask him that question.
"W-well... I just thought that maybe it's something you'd want. I mean.. normally, in relationships, you introduce your parnters to your parents. So, I thought, maybe we should do that, too..?"
You sounded so meek and unsure of yourself, he hated to see you like this. He may not know the full story about what happened between you and your parents, but if it made you that uncomfortable just talking about them, then that's all he needed to know. He would never knowingly put you through something horrible.
So, to reassure you, he circled his arms around you, pulling you against his chest while placing his chin on top of your head as he just held you like this. "Don't force yourself to do something you don't want to do. Our relationship isn't exactly normal anyways. I don't care about meeting your parents. You don't like them, that's enough for me to also dislike them."
That made you laugh a bit, and he also relaxed a bit, knowing that if that could make you laugh, you were already feeling a bit better.
"Even so.. I think you should know why I don't have contact with them anymore..", you quietly spoke after some time.
"Only if you want to tell me. You don't have to force yourself.", was his answer, but you insisted, finally wanting him to know, since you've already kept it to yourself for so long.
And so, you told him about all the things you went through when you were younger, still living with and depending on your parents. You told him how you were the oldest child of your parents, and for a while, everything was good. There were normal, loving and even spoiled you a bit as a child.
But when you were 6 years old, your parents decided to have a second child, and so, your sister was born when you were 7. And suddenly, it was like you didn't exist anymore.
Your parents focused all their love and attention towards your baby sister, leaving you to figure things out by yourself. They at least still provided food for you, but anything else you were left to your own devices.
By the time you were 12 years old, you were practically living by yourself, though you were still in your parents house. You were cooking your own meals, doing your own laundry, managing school stuff and all that your parents were supposed to do for you.
Your sister was only 5 years old, she was just a happy child and didn't know about the clear favouritism and neglect going on. She was just a sweet child that wanted to play with her sister. You couldn't hate her, since she didn't do anything wrong.
From time to time, you tried to get your parents attention, either with your grades or other achievements, but they always brushed you aside to focus on your sister, since they claimed she needed their attention more than you did.
It hurt, and you kept on trying and trying, until eventually, you realised that it had no sense and you just stopped. You knew that they would never love you like they did with your sister. So, as soon as you could, you started a part time job to save up some money, so you could leave when you needed to.
The older you and your sister got, the more she also became aware of the favouritism. Luckily, it didn't grow over her head, and she tried her best to get your mom and dad to focus on you, too. But they never did. Instead, your sister spent time with you, which you were really greatful for.
When the time came, you were old enough and had enough money saved, you left your home. You told no one, except for your sister. She was sad to see you leave, but she understood why you did it, and wished you the best of luck. Even to this day, you hold some sort of loose contact to her.
Your parents however? You haven't heard a word from them since you've left. You weren't even sure if they've noticed your dissapearance, if they even remembered that they had an older child. But you were glad, you didn't want anything to do with them in the first place.
While listening to your story, Wanderer felt himself get more and more angry on your behalf. How dare they treat their own child in such a way? What kind of a parent would do such a thing?
He was gritting his teeth, clenching his fists. He wanted so bad to make them pay for what they did to you. But then he focused back on you, still in his arms, sobbing as you were telling him your story. No matter how much you reassured him that you were fine, it was still affecting you.
So instead, he focused and channeled his anger into the love and worry he had for you. He tightend his hold around you, planting a soft kiss to the top of your head. "I'm sorry you had to live through something like that. But that's all in the past. You're here now, with me. You've achieved so much for yourself and by yourself, so you can be proud of you. And I'll be by your side for each and every step in the future. I won't let something like this ever happen to you again. And if you ever want me to pay your parents a little visit... let me know."
That last statement brought him a small hit to his side, but he merely laughed it off.
You'd always be his number one. Forever and always..
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Xiao
Having an Adeptus as your boyfriend, the Guardian of Liyue himself at that, you tried to spend as much time with him as you possibly could. For you, that meant spending ever second of your free time in or around Wangshu Inn, sometimes even spending the night there despite having your own living place.
Xiao appreciated this gesture of yours. You knew that he liked the Inn as his place of operation, and you didn't want to force him into spending time at your place, when he would only be anxious the entire time. So it was a compromise you were willing to make.
Today was a nice summer day. You were dressed in soft clothing, allowing the occaisonal gust of wind to cool your skin down as you were standing on the top balcony of the Wangshu Inn, observing the scenery before you. Xiao was currently out somewhere, so you had decided to wait for him here.
While you were observing, leaning your body against the railing, you suddenly felt the presence of someone behind you. Before you could turn around, a pair of arms came around from behind you, encircling your body as his hands found purchase on the railing, next to yours.
You immediately recognized him, a smile spreading as you felt his body leaning against yours, his soft lips pressing against your exposed shoulder.
"You should be more careful. I wouldn't want you to lean to far over and falling to your death.", he mumbled, staying close to you, searching for the physical contact.
You loved how openly he showed his love and affection to you when it was just the two of you, no one else around to witness this soft moment of his. "I'm sure you'd catch me before anything could happen to me.", you reply, intertwining your hand with his.
"And you'd be absolutely right."
You smile but don't say anything more as you stay with him like this, enjoying the way his body feels against yours. If only this moment could last forever...
But alas, it didn't last nearly as long as you'd want it to. Soon enough, you could hear some shouting from below, coming from the reception. You heard the Boss Lady, Verr, call after someone. "Sir, please! You can't just barge up there!"
But whoever that man was, he just ignored her as both you and Xiao could hear the heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. With one last look at each other, you break apart to an appropriate distance, figuring that whoever this was was probably here to seek the help of the Adeptus.
However, as the man arrived at the top balcony, your breath got caught in your throat as you recognized the man standing in front of you.
His eyes found yours, and you saw a glimpse of something wash over his face that you couldn't quite name. Xiao also noticed this, choosing to remain silent for now, but closely watching both of you. He may not know who this man was, but it was obvious to him that you recognized him.
"Dad?", you then asked, still hoping that this was just some bad dream you'd wake up from any second now.
"(Name)! I finally found you! You weren't at home, so I've been searching everywhere for you."
The man, your father, made a step towards you, but as soon as he did, you also took a step back. The motion didn't go unnoticed by Xiao. You were clearly uncomfortable with your father being here, so he was preparing to step in the second things threatened to go out of control.
"What do you want?", you ask him, not wanting to spend any more time in this mans presence than you absolutely have to.
"What, a father can't visit his child?", he asked, letting out a chuckle, but everyone present could tell how fake it sounded.
"Just tell me what you want already."
Your father threw you a glare, but relented nonetheless. "Fine then. Your mother and I were hoping for a bit of financial aid from you. Your sister wants to study at the Academiya of Sumeru, but we lack the money to help her with that. We heard that you were doing pretty good for yourself, so, naturally, you'd help out your family a bit. Right?"
The last word sounded almost threatening, like refusing would cause you serious consequences. You knew that tone in your fathers voice all too well, having been "disciplined" by him most of your life if you ever dared refuse him.
This entire situation was almost laughable to you. You haven't had contact with either your parents or your sister in years, since you finally left their home for good. And now, after years of silence, they suddenly remember you, only to come crawling and begging for money. Which they plan to spend on your sister.
As it always was. It's always been her over you.
"..No.", you say after a few seconds of silence. Hearing your answer, your fathers forced smile drops and he stares at you, like he couldn't believe the word that just left your mouth.
"What did you say?", he asked, his voice ice cold and you flinched a bit, hiding a bit behind Xiao as you were still scared of this man, but you refused to subject yourself to him again.
"I said No. I'm not giving you any money."
Your response was hanging in the air for a bit, when suddenly, anger started to show on your fathers face and he then began lunging towards you, one arm raised as if to slap you.
"You ungrateful, little-!", he yelled and was about to take a swing at you, when suddenly, within the blink of an eye, he was laying on the floor, face pushed onto the ground, with Xiao standing over him, restraining your fathers hands.
"You will not put your hands on them. I won't allow it."
Your father was cursing and screaming, trying to escape the hold Xiao had him in. But the more he struggled, the more force Xiao put into holding him down, which only worsened the curses thrown at the both of you.
Witnessing this, the reality of what would have happened to you if Xiao wasn't there with you sank in, and you felt your knees giving out, sinking to the floor as tears subconsciously began to run down your cheeks.
Noticing this, Xiao quickly reassed the situation as he leaned down to your father. "Leave. And don't you dare ever come back. If I see or hear you bothering them ever again, I won't be so mercyful next time."
Then, he let go of your father and rushed to your side, checking in on you. Your father cursed some more as he finally got to his feet again and quickly left the scene, and hopefully, your life as well.
You on the other hand, were a mess right now. Tears running down, you were sobbing as you held onto Xiao like your life depended on him. He let it happen, soothingly running a hand along your back as he just held you, letting you cry it all out.
After you've calmed down again, he just has to talk about what just happened. "I take it this happened more than once to you?", he asked softly, referencing the moment your father tried to lay hands on you.
You couldn't say the words, so you just nodded as a response. Xiao felt anger rising in his chest, but he held it under control focusing on you, since you needed him right now.
"What else has he done to you?"
And so, with shaky breath and lots of pauses in between, you tell him about all the abuse and the clear favouritism of your sister you've been going through your entire childhood, up until the day you ran away from them for good.
Xiao was in shock that parents could do such a thing to their own child. And even if he wanted to go out and make them pay for their actions, there's nothing he could do. He was bound by a contract to protect the people of Liyue. He couldn't harm them. But he could protect you..
So, he takes you in his arms again, holding you close to him as he softly speaks into your ear. "I'm so sorry for everything that happened to you. From now on, you won't have to worry about them any longer. I'll protect you. From them and any other harm that tries to make their way to you."
And you knew that he meant every word he said. You knew that you could trust Xiao with everything, most importantly your life, and he'd guard it as his most treasured possession. With him by your side, you finally felt safe for the first time in your life...
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Tighnari
Working as a Forest Ranger has always been a lifelong dream of yours. Doing so with the love of your life by your side was that dream actually coming true to you. Sometimes, you just stare at Tighnari, wondering what you did to get so lucky to have him as your partner. How you deserved him in the first place.
He always laughed a bit and softly reprimanded you, but he never did so with ill intent. When he did that, you could always see the genuine love he held for you in his eyes, clear as day.
When it came to your relationship, everything happened a bit slowly, as per Tighnari's request. Since his species only has one partner their entire life, he wants to make extra sure that this will work out.
You take your time with going on several dates, where he explains to you the basics of his kind, what to do and what not to do, with him and others of his kind. But nothing he told you ever scared you away from him. If anything, it made you fall for him even more.
Then came the day when he wanted you to meet his parents, before you were making things official with him. You were nervous to meet them, but luckily, his parents instantly took a liking to you, especially his mom. She was over the top with her sons choice in a partner and the both of them gave you two their blessings.
The day after, you finally made things official, telling everyone of your friends that you were dating, and everyone was congratulating you. Word also spread among the other Forest Rangers, and soon enough, you were also bombarded with congratulations from them, as well.
Life was going good, but there was one thing that Tighnari was still thinking about.
You've met his parents, but he's never once met yours. Matter of fact, you don't even talk about them all that much. He's asked you one or two questions about them, but he soon came to the conclusion that this wasn't a topic you were too fond to speak about.
He did ask you why that was, but when you only gave him vage answers and excuses, he dropped the topic, figuring that it wasn't too important anyways. The main issue was your relationship, not some outside opinion. He thought that you'd come around and tell him more once you felt ready to do so.
Unbeknownst to him, that day would arrive much sooner than he anticipated.
One day, as Tighnari was about to head out for one of his patrols, he noticed you standing at the entrance to Gandharva Ville that led to Sumeru City, talking to two figures he didn't recognize. He thought for a second before he decided to head over to see what was going on.
As he got closer, he began to pick up on some signs of distress coming from you, which already set him a bit off edge. Then, he picked up on the voices and realised that you were arguing with those two individuals. He didn't know what it was about, but that wasn't important.
".. you understand, (Name)? We only want the best for you, so-!"
"Excuse me. Is everything alright over here?", Tighnari interrupted the conversation, and as you turned around to him, he couldn't help but notice the relieved look on your face. He gave you a sympathetic look before turning back to the other two visitors, who looked upset at being interrupted so rudely.
"And who are you?", asked the man, while the woman nodded along with him. Before Tighnari could say anything, you were already at it.
"This is Tighnari, Leader of the Forest Rangers, and my boyfriend. Tighnari, those are my parents.", you said as you vaguely gestured with your hand between them.
Tighnari's eyes widened as he heard you introduce them. He cleared his throat before extending a hand to your parents. "It's nice to finally meet you."
However, instead of taking his hand, your father simply ignored him, while your mother looked at him for a second, before scoffing and focusing back on you. "Seriously, (Name)? You got involved with someone like him? You could do so much better for yourself.", your mother said, looking at Tighnari with disgust, specifically at his more animalistic features.
"..Excuse me?", Tighnari asked again, retracting his hand. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. When he looked back to you, he saw you gritting your teeth, yet when you spoke again, he heard the strain in your voice as you tried to remain polite with your parents.
"Like I already said, I'm happy with my life here. I'm happy with Tighnari. Nothing you do or say can change my mind about it."
"Quit being stupid already, (Name)! Now that your sister isn't taking over the family business anymore, we need you to come back and take over. We also found a suitable marriage candidate for you. If you would just-!"
"I said No!", you interrupted them again, this time however, all the politeness has left your tone.
"I know you only never bothered me about coming back till now, because you were betting on my sister to take over. You'd never force her to do the things you want her to do, but doing it to me is fine for you?
I'm done with that. I have my life here, doing what I always wanted to do, with the love of my life with me." To undermine your words, you stand next to Tighnari and take his hand in yours. The action fills him with pride, as well as the fact that you're standing up for him to your parents.
"So, you can either accept that fact, support me and still be a part of my life. Or, you can leave, and never bother any of us again."
You finish your little speech, your mother gasping at your words, but your father quickly takes her and ushers her away, leading them back to the city.
As the two walked away, you let out a deep breath, relief washing over you as they walked away. You were still holding onto Tighnari's hand when he spoke up again. "I take it that was why you didn't want me to meet them, am I right?"
"I'm so sorry about that. I know I should have told you, but I never wanted you to have to go through that. I already don't have a very good relationship with them, and I didn't want it to affect you, as well."
Hearing that, Tighnari smiled as he turned towards you to take you in his arms. "Thank you", he whispered into yours ear.
You nodded against him. You'd always stand up to your parents again, without another thought, if it meant you were doing it for him...
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bokuroar · 2 months
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12:17 — few years later | 🛬❤️‍🩹🎇 iwaizumi h.
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“you’ll be there, right? right? right?!”
if it’s anotamically possible to cut your ear off without passing out because of oikawa’s incessant nagging, you would’ve done it the first few seconds he begged you to accept kuroo’s reunion dinner invite before the all-star game. you were seijoh’s babysitter manager after all so, according to kuroo, it’s just right you’re there, in which you only replied with a i’ll think about it.
“haji’s gonna be there.” oikawa says in his annoying singsong voice and you swear you could hear his smirk right through your phone.
you bite your lip as if oikawa could see you blushing and smiling through the call. after years of graduating from high school, you wouldn’t have thought just hearing his name will elicit the same effect on you.
“and?” you reply nonchalantly because you would rather crawl under the earth and bury yourself alive than let oikawa confirm your cutesy, little high school crush on iwaizumi never really went away.
oikawa being your best friend saw through your reply and snorted, “pft, if i know you’ve been looking at his instagram every night before you sleep just because you’re too much of a scaredy cat to hit him up. don’t act as if you don’t zoom in on his shirtless pi—“
“oh my god, fine! i’ll go to this freaking dinner so please for the love god shut the hell up! ” you exasperatedly sigh wanting to tolerate oikawa’s teasing no longer not because it’s untrue but because you felt like you were caught committing a crime. it’s a curse and a gift you have a best friend that knows everything about you.
you hear oikawa shriek through your phone in celebration and about being there at 6, so you mutter a good bye before he lays out a plan that involves dragging you wherever into the night.
as if on cue, your phone lights up with a notification from your old group chat when the call ended,
✉️ t. oikawa: see you all on saturday!!!! no backsies!!!!!! :p
you roll your eyes knowing he’s talking about you. you were about to hit send on a message something about being him still being an annoying ass when another bubble popped in your screen that made you rewrite everything you were about to say.
✉️ h. iwaizumi: im back too 🇯🇵 see you guys :)
✉️ you: i’ll be there ☺️
come saturday, you’re standing in front of the restaurant which every nook and cranny you’re familiar with as this was a popular go-to after-school-dinner-place during your younger years with the team. you try your best not to look frantic while you check your phone at least every 10 seconds to tell oikawa “wru >:(”
you were about to hit the call button when you hear somebody clear their throat. as a reaction, you step away from where you were standing thinking you were probably blocking the entryway.
“sorry i was just w— oh. haji?” you take these few seconds to take him in—the way his shirt hugged his biceps, the watch that also somehow added to his attractiveness, his skin that’s more tanned, his freshly cut hair, and his smile. god, that smile. so many things have changed about him since he last visited home but his kind, subtly giddy smile still reached his eyes.
“been awhile, hasn’t it?” iwaizumi sheepishly say and you hold back a gasp when he scratches the back of his head that flexed his arm.
“it’s been.. yeah? yeah, it has. i mean. yes..” you nervously laugh, mentally kicking yourself for tripping over your words.
you feel your cheeks redden, not from the cold air of the darkening day but because of the manly, handsome laugh that bubbles from iwa’s chest. “watcha doin’ out here, though? waiting for a someone or..” he drags his sentence hoping you don’t hear his silent prayer that you are romantically available.
you snort before you could even think about it, “no, c’mon it’s not like that.” you laugh and went on to tell the tale of oikawa begging you to come, “i’m waiting for that idiot tooru who went several measures to make sure i’m here.”
“you two were thick as thieves, weren’t ya? i’m glad you stayed in touch even if that shithead went abroad.” iwaizumi smiles and you can’t resist staring at how he threw his head back when he laughed at oikawa’s typical antics.
“wish we did too, y’know. i missed ya.” iwaizumi suddenly confesses, “i just found myself wanting to talk to you when i was out there.”
to say your heart felt like it dropped on your feet was an understatement. it’s like everything froze—the leaves halted midair, the world went silent and the only sound you could hear was the loud thump of your heart. all what you manage to let out is, “o-oh? you did? really?”
iwaizumi looks at you like you just asked the most ridiculous question, “‘course i did. we talked every day then! remember how i used to walk you home after our trainings then stop by that dang old ramen place that was there since forever? missed hanging ‘round with you and the team ‘tis all.”
you smile as you look at the ground, shyly but fondly recollecting all the simple but sweetest moments with iwaizumi you cherish so much. with his sudden reminiscing, you recall the sort-of debate you had with him because he kept on insisting he should always walk you home.
“r-right. the team. yeah, i missed them too.” you say as you shake your head along with the thought of having a chance of romance with your longtime friend.
“we should go inside. fuck that tardy tooru i think a lot’s of them here.” you casually laugh and walk towards the door until you felt a hand on your wrist.
iwaizumi shoots you a grin, “what do you say the two of us go grab that ramen? for old time’s sake?”
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a/n: so .. uh … im back ! hope everyone’s still here 😅🫣 anw this was supposed to be just a drabble but i got a lil carried away & im alr thinking of writing a pt 2 .. wdyt hehe
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randombush3 · 2 months
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dies irae
alexia putellas x reader
part one, part two, part three
words: 12425 (sorry not sorry)
summary: part four, the part that made me realise another part was necessary
warnings: drugs, alcohol, cheating, (a lot of???) vomiting, general angst tbh
notes: in all honesty, i started this with the intention of finishing the series, but it hit 12k and i thought maybe not x
weird little comment, but the last section was originally written in spanish (hear me out: i was on the plane and i didn’t want the people beside me to read it over my shoulder) and i’m still feeling a little iffy about my translation of my og version but oh well!
i hope you enjoy this and are content w waiting another five years for me to churn out the new FINAL part
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The sand is warm beneath your feet, each grain rubbing against your bare soles as you sprint. The ground under such surfaces often hardens, proven by the sweat trickling past the thin string of fabric that holds your bikini together. If the beach were not so private, you would be worried about wandering camera lenses. 
However, there is no one else here but your favourite people. Well, maybe Nico has dropped to the bottom of the list now that your energy has been worn down while his does not seem to waver. 
“I give up,” you pant as he continues to tumble down the shoreline, changing his tactics and swerving into the water, comfortable in his sea. The same sea he looks at each morning from your bedroom window. The one he learnt to swim in. (That and a variety of hotel pools.) “You win, you win!” 
The small figure, around twenty metres away, comes to an abrupt halt, wobbling on little legs for a moment. Then he begins to run again, but this time towards the towels and constructed shade you had set up earlier. Unwillingly, you race him back to base camp. 
“He ganado,” he declares as he taps Alexia’s shining back as though she is the signpost signifying the finish line. Your hand caresses the divots of muscle soon after, brushing sand across smooth, tanned skin. Nico peers at you strangely, but understands, thanks to Tia Alba, that the beach outfits are special to his mothers. 
“Mi ganador,” comes a tired murmur of praise. 
“Did you see, Mami? I was so far ahead.” She nods, craning her neck upwards to talk to him. You gladly sprawl out on the vacant towel, passing on the baton to your wife, fortunate that Elena has been asleep in her buggy for the past twenty minutes. “Can I play with Lela now? Is nap time over?” 
“No, sweetheart, naptime has just begun.” He looks up at you with pleading, bored eyes. The one unfortunate consequence of going to a private beach is that, unless you bring along your babysitter, there is no one else for Nico to play with. Alexia and you are both exhausted, and today is supposed to be about relaxation. Three-year-olds don’t understand that concept. “If you don’t want to sleep, how about burying Mami?” 
“In the sand?” 
“Sí, in the sand.” 
He leans close to your ear. “Mami says I’m not allowed to do that,” he whispers, though he has not quite mastered the volume of such a tone yet. Alexia pretends not to be listening, but you can feel her foot prodding your shin in protest. 
“Rules are sometimes made to be broken,” you tell him. “And if you do bury her, the only way to make her happy again is to get ice-cream. Which means you can also get ice-cream.” 
“You are so annoying,” grumbles Alexia. 
“This morning, I believe the word you used was ‘sexy’,” you retort. With the Euros on the horizon, it seems that the two of you are using up what little time you have to spend together. Though Alexia sometimes feels like there are hands wrapped around her neck after she failed to win the Champions League once more, she is more than happy to take advantage of the time off before she tries to make amends internationally. 
“Mm. You are magically both.” 
You tug your sunglasses – Prada, brand-new from a modelling campaign – down slightly, so that they sit lower on your nose. The sun is warm and doing its best to wear Nico down as he finds his discarded spade and begins to dig, and Elena is still fast asleep.
A mischievous grin forms on your lips, one that Alexia knows well. Topless, she flips over onto her back, excusing herself with a muttered comment about an ‘even tan’, and that is invitation enough for you to cup her cheek, your touch as fiery as the surface of the sun that blankets the beach. The gentle breeze ruffles your hair as you lower yourself down to her level. 
“The phrase is ‘annoyingly sexy’ in English, darling,” you murmur, your eyes locked onto hers. Even now, after six years, the proximity ignites desire over every inch of your skin, and you cannot wait to kiss. Alexia’s initial grumble turns into a soft chuckle, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of amusement and something more. Impatiently, you kiss her, aware that the moment will soon be ruined by a spray of sand as Nico pursues his mission. 
She is just as eager to kiss you back, craving the way you seem to hold the solution to every problem. Part of Alexia’s mind has not yet been able to comprehend the way in which you love her. It is hidden by the other, much larger compartment: the one that reminds her every day that she should never, ever tell you, because it would break your heart. To you, Alexia is making up for lost time. To her, she is secretly begging for forgiveness that you don’t even know she is due. 
She knows the minute your phone rings that everything is about to go wrong. No one is supposed to call you today; you have been emphatic about it. You blindly reach for the ringing device, ready to lob it into the ocean, but Alexia grabs your wrist. “It must be something important,” she says, and it feels like she is telling you she understands; you are busy, and she understands. 
“I’ll be quick, I promise.” With a quick jog up the steps and onto the concrete of the promenade, you perch on the stone wall separating the beach from the carpark, bare feet swinging over the edge. The rough surface of the wall presses uncomfortably into the exposed flesh of your bum, but you remind yourself that you will soon be lying back down on the beach towels. “Hi? I thought we agreed that pretty much everything could wait until tomorrow. I don’t care about any photos taken of me, and you know that my automatic position is simply to ensure that the children’s faces are blurred out before they get spread around.” 
“Y/n!” Your publicist sounds nervous. It’s a stressful job, you guess. Between organising interviews and brand deals and the like, she has to stamp down on unwanted rumours and be on the look-out for any perceived cracks in your very public person. Naturally, you are not perfect. 
“Yeah, I’m here. Hi.” 
“I’m afraid that it’s not a picture of you this time.” Alexia is now famous in her own right, as she always should have been. With a Ballon d’Or under her belt, you have been promoted to a ‘celebrity couple’.
“She has her own team, you know.” 
“I’m sure she will be firing them soon.” The joke fails to land, instead crashing and burning and… You freeze. 
“Why?”
“I am sure that you are aware we have feelers out for anything that could potentially harm your reputation.” You nod foolishly, caught up in the undisclosed severity of the phone call, forgetting that she cannot see you. “An hour ago, we were contacted by a photographer; one of the usual ones we get in when you’re in need of a bit of a press-boost. He’s based in Barcelona, has lots of friends in the area and such. I have the terrible job of telling you.”
Your heart quickens as the confession hangs in the air, leaving a heavy silence on the other end of the line. The anticipation builds, and you can almost feel the impending storm swirling just off the coast, waves beginning to thrash against rocks, nature beginning to tear the world down. 
“He claims to have some photos, ones that could potentially damage your image,” she says, tone measured and professional. “I haven’t seen them yet, but he described them as… intimate, to say the least.” 
“Of Alexia?” you question carefully, forcing the words onto your tongue. “Intimate? What do you mean?”
“Well, they are of her and someone else. Someone who isn’t you.” 
“Who?” Dread sets in, and the wall is suddenly not the most uncomfortable thing about your position. You feel too exposed, unsafe in what you are wearing. Taken advantage of, perhaps. 
Cheated. 
“I have not seen the photos yet, babe. I don’t know what else to tell you.” He would have attached them in his email. Paparazzos don’t have time to harass you digitally as well as in real-life. She must have avoided opening them. Or. Or she is lying.
“I need to see those pictures,” you assert, your need for clarity driving the sentence forwards. 
“Are you sure?” You nod again, unable to speak past the lump in your throat, knowing that she cannot see you but feeling helpless to do anything else. She takes your silence as confirmation. There is a brief click of a mouse, and the animated swoosh of an email. “They should come through in a moment.” 
“Thank you.” 
“Are you… alright?” 
She quickly takes the hint from the lack of response and hangs up. 
You rest your phone on your thigh as your arms grip onto the ledge of the wall, pulling yourself backwards so that you do not fling yourself off it. You shake as you reach safety, and your fingers feel numb as they tap the screen, accessing your emails robotically until a pinwheel is all that separates you from the photos. 
Intimate, huh. 
They are practically snogging. 
There are eleven images, and each one delivers a blow more painful than the last. 
The beach feels confined, like an elaborate cage that you cannot escape. The shoreline creeps towards you, and you seem to be pressed against the hot metal of the car in the carpark. You struggle to recognise the scenes captured as ones where you were present, and the unfortunate date in the bottom right-hand corner evidences the photos as a time when you were not in Barcelona at all: 2021. 
The realisation hits hard and you find that everything you have ever believed to be true has simply been a cruel joke that you were excluded from.
What you have been sent is more than just proof; it is a betrayal etched in pixels, an undeniable record of a moment that shatters the foundation of your relationship. Your heart races as your scroll through the images, cruelly reminded of a reality you desperately wish were not true. One you had no idea existed. One that had been kept secret from you. 
The lump in your throat grows, and your eyes blur with unshed tears. You are overwhelmed by sharp pain coursing through your veins, and it is as if you have been injected with a poison that burns through your cell tissue, disintegrating every block of your body. It scorches the things you know to be true. 
Love goes up in flames before your eyes. 
And then a voice that you really do not want to hear speaks, and, just like that, the ashes of what has disappeared are suddenly ablaze once more. 
“Nico y yo vamos a tomar helado. ¿Quieres algo?” Sandals, sunglasses, a loose linen shirt. Nico holds her hand, proud of himself. You cannot bear to look at either of them, so you stare at the towels a few metres beneath you. 
“Where is Lena?” 
“Dormida, aún.” 
Shaking, you stand up, enjoying the sharp rocks that pierce into your skin, reminding you that you are yet to die. “Take Nico. I’ll go back down and sit with her.” 
“Vale. Te quiero.” 
You don’t reply. You wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. 
Every step feels as though the world is cracking open and you are going to fall to your death, yet, in the midst of the impending doom, you feel as calm as can be. Numb, perhaps. 
Elena stirs as you adjust the parasol providing her the necessary shade. A hand reaches out, prepared to grab onto you, searching for your body like you are her lifeline. You are her lifeline; you are her mother. And so is Alexia. 
A tear rolls down your cheek as you let her pull your fingers to her mouth, nails brushing her lips as she whines with the headache of waking up from a nap. “What are we going to do?” 
The car journey home is silent on your part. You stew in your nothingness, unwilling to engage in the light conversation Alexia creates to keep Nico awake before his sleep schedule is ruined. Barcelona flashes past you, and the city that you once admired feels like the scene of a crime. Looking out the window is almost as sickening as if your eyes were to land on the woman beside you. Almost. 
You withhold your grief for the evening, going through the motions of nightly chores; putting the kids to bed, finishing the remainder of your packing, drying the dishes without throwing them at the blonde hair that sails past as she sorts her own suitcases out. A few texts are exchanged between you and your publicist, in which you graciously decide that those pictures will not come from you. Though if her team fails to catch them before they reach Twitter, that is not your problem.
Under the soft glow of the bedside lamp and the comforting blanket of darkness, you clear your throat. 
It has been six hours since you found out.
Every second that has passed has done so with excruciating pain, yet you cannot determine whether it has sunk in at all yet. You wonder if, given the chance, you would crumple into yourself and weep as though she has died. 
When you look at Alexia, readying herself for bed, you decide that the whole situation is laughable. 
You are so stupid. You thought she loved you more than that, and you were embarrassingly incorrect. 
“I want you to leave now,” you say firmly, only the bed between you. Alexia pauses, pyjama shorts halfway up her muscular legs as she peers at you curiously. Her confusion is infuriating. “I want you to… go to your mother’s or something. You’re not sleeping here.” 
“Why? What have I done?” 
She speaks as though this is a normal argument, or as though you are hormonal and unreasonable. You clench your fists and remind yourself not to wake the children up. “I am surprised you didn’t follow her to Mexico.”
It is then that Alexia Putellas realises three things. The first: she hasn’t spoken about Jenni since she left for Pachuca, and she barely pays attention when Nico persuades her to find the stream for the striker’s matches. The second: it has been six months since Jenni called whatever they were doing quits. And the third… the third is how well and truly fucked she is. 
She should have confessed her crime the minute she first slept with her; the night after they were knocked out of the World Cup. Elena wasn’t even a concept, then. You took her back though you were unaware you had ever lost her. 
Last year, when it was Alexia all alone, she should have confessed her second betrayal. A longer, more hurtful betrayal. Something fuelled by meaningfulness, not passion and heightened adrenaline. If she were in your position, the physicality would not be what obliterated her heart; the emotion behind the entire affair would. 
She wipes her eyes, aware that she has started to cry. It is all the confirmation you need. “I’m so sorry,” is the only thing she can think to say, but ‘sorry’ does not amount to the pain she knows she has caused. ‘Sorry’ won’t heal a wound that has cut deep, cut through years of love and happiness and supposed loyalty. ‘Sorry’ does not change the fact that Alexia lent herself to Jenni, let Jenni take her in any capacity she wished, and then returned to you as though it had never even happened. 
In all honesty, part of Alexia is very curious about how you have found her out. Mapi would not risk being caught up in such a storm, and Jenni would gain only suffering from telling you because she knows that Alexia would never choose her. Though she has spent night after night with her finger hovering over her sister’s contact, she resolved never to tell Alba either, for fear that her sister would see her for the monster she is and side with you. Selfishly, Alexia does not want anyone to side with you, but even she finds it easy to hate herself. 
“Is that all you can offer me?” you croak, and it is clear to Alexia that you are this calm because you are putting your children before yourself. They do not need to hear their parents’ marriage implode; not tonight, not ever. She cannot bear to meet your eyes as you pierce through her bowed head. “Alexia.” She pulls her shorts up fully, forehead parallel to the floor. “Alexia!” you snap. 
“I’m sorry,” she repeats. 
Alexia Putellas is regarded by most as intimidating, yet, here, she is anything but. She is meek. Pathetic. 
She is a woman who continued to make a stupid mistake although she was given so many opportunities to fix it. 
And, when Alexia finally grows the balls to look into your piercing eyes, she sees, reflected in your hardened, dark pupils, weakness and idiocy, rimmed with the most stinging of betrayals. It kills her to see you fight your own tears, and it is worse when you have to break eye contact because you are afraid you will vomit if it goes on any longer. 
“You are packed, so you can leave tonight. Sort yourself out while I get the children up.” 
Everything is ruined because of her. 
It is the last night Alexia lives under the same roof as you. It is a horrible way to end a golden age, and the worst possible confirmation of the fleetingness of all things that exist. You hate the world, you hate Jennifer Hermoso, and you hate that you can’t bring yourself to hate your wife. 
Alexia says goodbye to a sleepy Nico and a clingy Elena. Your daughter refuses to let her mother go the minute she is passed to her, and all four of you try your best not to cry, whether it be from confusion, regret, or heartbreak. 
Nico, inquisitive as one is at his age, does not let the door open without questions. ‘Why now?’ is what causes Alexia to freeze, searching on your face for permission to have one more second with him. You cup the back of Elena’s head, fingers splaying out against her soft hair, soothing her back to sleep. And you nod. 
She crouches to his level, dwarfed by her suitcases. In her pocket, her phone buzzes; her taxi has arrived. “¿Te acuerdas cuando te hablé sobre la responsabilidad? Soy la capitana, cariño, y tengo que cuidar a mi equipo, así que ‘ahora’ es lo mejor para ellas.” You are grateful for the lie. 
“¿Ahora yo mando? ¿Como me dijiste?” 
“Sí. Tienes que cuidar a Mama y Lela, y protegerlas como yo os protejo a vosotros. Y nos veremos prontito, petit. Te lo prometo.”
He is fighting his tears, stiff like a toy soldier marching off to an imaginary battle. You half expect Nico to salute with his chubby, unpractised fingers, but he simply stands there, between Alexia and you. Though Elena is safe in your arms, Nico is caught in the crossfire, two feet innocently leading him into no man’s land. 
You take a deep breath as Alexia closes the door behind her. She has been driven out – her own doing – and she knows, because she knows you, that there will be no space in your life for her until your gaping wound dulls in pain. The journey to her mother’s house is the second time she ever considers killing herself, with the first being the night her father died. 
But this is how it goes. 
You fly to England the next day, holding it together until Elena and Nico are safely in the hands of Anya, but you do not give her a reason for her much-needed babysitting abilities.
It is a small secret. You keep it because on top of being in agony, you are so fucking embarrassed. You. You got cheated on. You weren’t enough for her. (And Jenni was?) It’s really easy to pretend you’re stressed for Alexia, knowing she is heading into a tournament that Spain could win but won’t. 
The first official step you take – the very first – is with a nanny. You meet her the day after landing at London Stansted, and she seems to be the perfect choice for the interim period of your life that you have unexpectedly entered; she speaks Spanish, she is discreet, and she reassures you that she is there to enhance family life, not destroy it. And possibly another alluring factor: she is quick to sign an NDA and promise that no photos of your children will make it into any dogshit magazine. 
Her first interaction with your children is two hours before your lunch with your publicist, manager, producer, and lawyer. They have agreed to congregate – they have seen the pictures (an exclusive peek, as the deliciously world-destroying surprise photoshoot has not yet been picked up by anyone with ganas to publish it). Each one has a purpose, each one wants to profit off your heartbreak, and, though they’d never admit it for fear of breaking their hard exteriors, each invitee would also like to see if you’re okay. 
“Do you… like her?” you sheepishly ask your son while Isabela, the nanny, supervises Elena’s lunch. You’re not entirely sure your daughter understands that the hummus is supposed to go into her mouth, not redecorate the highchair table from white to beige, but Isabela does her best to instruct her, the familiar tinkle of Alexia’s language making your daughter’s eyes light up.  
He looks a little puzzled. “Is she a babysitter?” 
“Sort of.” You sigh, “it’s just that I have a lot to do, and Mami is playing football now. Isabela is going to help us, but I want to make sure that you want that.” 
Nico shrugs. “Don’t care.” 
“And she’s going to speak in Spanish, just like Mami does.” In anticipation of a worse reaction, you wince at the slight insinuation that you’re replacing Alexia. He doesn’t pick up on it. 
“She sounds funny.” 
“That’s because she’s from Colombia,” you answer him, and he nods, storing that information for later. Probably for when Alexia calls to speak to him (a moment you are dreading). 
“Is Colombia near Mexico?” He perks up; you know what’s coming next. “Does Isabela know Jenni?” 
You have to remind yourself that Nico has not done anything wrong. The fault of the mother is not the son’s, and, briefly, you pray he has inherited your fidelity for the sake of his future partners. 
You pretend that the name that just fell from his lips does not fill you with the overwhelming urge to strangle someone. And, calmly, you reply, “probably not, but you can always ask her.” 
Alexia does not know what to do. 
She wishes, she really does, that someone would pass her a clock… and she knows she has trained and worked hard enough to wrestle the hands of time back a year and change her decisions in every situation. Alas, that is impossible. 
She tells Mapi, as the team touches down in England, what has happened. The defender is unimpressed – angry, even, at her best friend – but nothing warrants what is to come. 
The morning feels eerily normal. Breakfast is difficult, especially when all Alexia can think while she eats is that every morsel in her mouth fuels the monster she has become. Every bite, every sip of coffee, leads her to live another day. She is not particularly certain that she deserves that. 
Mapi does not look at her, swerves her request to be partners when training begins. Head down, eyes slowly filling with tears, Alexia takes the punishment. She says nothing when Pina pinches her side, “Patri’s being annoying”, and drags her into the drill. 
She runs, she passes the ball, Pina turns and shoots it into the mini-net. 
Pina runs, she passes the ball, Alexia turns. 
Something goes wrong. 
Maybe it is that the pitch is uneven, cut up from whoever had trained before. Maybe it’s the pass, slightly off-target. Maybe she is at that point in her menstrual cycle where the risk of injury is higher – that’s being looked into, isn’t it? 
Maybe it’s that her body can no longer stay so robust when everything else in her life is hurtling towards the ground in the most epic downhill slope possible. 
Maybe. 
The pop is unmistakable, and the pain searing. She can’t help the scream she lets out, barely registering whoever has rushed to her side while she presses her face into the dirt, tears watering the grass.
“I’ve done my ACL,” Alexia gasps, lifting her head up slightly. She catches sight of the blue sky, the green grass. The bright sun shining down on her, hot against her neck but nothing in comparison to the agony in her knee. 
She blinks, thinking her eyes are blurring from her tears. 
A second later, she is unconscious. 
When Alexia wakes up, she is glad to have passed out. She has no memory of being hauled off the pitch or brought into the medical room. Her head aches and her knee throbs, but she knows that there is someone beside her so she does her best to hold in the immediate wave of sobs that seem to take over her. 
A calloused hand reaches for hers, unclenching her fist, urging her to squeeze the pain away, pass off some of it to her companion. They have given her pain medication. She can tell because the white walls dance around her and the only word she can manage to get out is your name. 
She whispers it over and over again. 
“I know,” comes a soothing voice, poorly concealing the worry that cracks the tone. “Shh, I know, I know. You’re okay, Ale. She’s… she’s on her way.” 
The call is unexpected. 
Mapi never has much reason to talk to you on your own, unless you share a concern for your wife’s wellbeing. You suppose that’s a bit of a redundant commonality now. Your lawyers have drawn up a custody agreement and, upon meek request, divorce papers: a gift for after the Euros. 
“Dime, Mapi. Estoy trabajando,” you say curtly, signalling from inside the booth that the phone call is nothing to worry about and you can resume the recording session in a moment. 
Mapi’s news makes you even more resentful than you were already feeling, because you can’t help but sprint to your car the minute the address is given. 
Pain becomes part of everyday life.
Crutches, too. 
Alba and Eli already existed as frequent visitors, but the former increases her appearances so that she has moved in the day before Alexia’s surgery. 
It spills out, the night of the surgery, that Alexia and you are no longer together. That you left her, with good reason. It’s a surprise, considering you had stayed by her side during the twelve hours in England between the medical room, the hospital, and the airport. 
When Alexia reluctantly tells Alba why, Alba decides that you are a saint and her sister, a sinner. She holds her hands behind her back to keep herself from slapping Alexia across the face, but little does she know, Alexia longs for the anger, wishing she wasn’t being pitied for her injury. She wishes there was no injury to be pitied for, but, then again, she tells herself that she deserves it and accepts the agony as one would hold a blade to their wrists and slit them. 
This behaviour, this quiet ideology that she has been punished for her mistake, is what leads Alba to ensure the keys to the balcony are hidden and the kitchen knives are tucked away in a cupboard, out of sight. Or perhaps it is what she hears her sister telling herself in the mirror. Worthless. Degenerate. Evil, cruel, horrible. Selfish! 
She has two children with you, for God’s sake!
“I have ruined my own life.” Her words burn, the intensity of her anger enough to make Alba flinch, hands gripping the steering wheel harder, forcing her way forwards. The hospital comes into view and Alexia cries out in anguish. “I have ruined it, Alba! I have ruined everything!”
Alexia, The Ruiner. 
She bears the new name with something more than disappointment. She lets the nurses examine her knee, compliment Alba for her care-taking, and reassure her about the surgery. She lets them talk her through possible complications, secretly hoping one will occur and she will wither away; no longer a footballer, no longer a mother, no longer your wife. Just Alexia, The Ruiner. 
Alba and her argue, Alexia lying back in the cot, hospital gown patterned against clinically white sheets, light fabric against her paling skin. “You wanting to die is not you wanting to kill yourself. It’s your regret, and it’s your cowardice at not being able to face the consequences of your actions.” Alexia had been hot-headed enough to voice how she did not want to make it through the surgery. She is in excruciating pain, and is convinced they need to investigate it. “It’s your knee, not your heart. Your heart hurts because you cheated on her and she rightfully left you! Don’t you ever say something so fucking stupid again.” 
“Alba!” Eli’s entrance is neither good nor bad. “Alba, leave her.” Alexia’s tears run down the sides of her face, hitting the sheets like little bullets. The soft caress of her mother’s hand across her cheek is no comfort, and Alexia only sobs harder. “You are going to be fine, mi cielo. The surgery is going to go well and you will come back even stronger.” 
Alexia knows that, once you have torn your ACL, you are more likely to tear it again, so she mentally disputes her mother’s claim. She has no energy to voice the thought, however. 
“Mamá, she’s convinced she’s going to have a heart attack.” Alba points to her sister’s chest, as if to disagree by showing their mother that nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. They begin to argue, and Alexia watches her family implode, deeming herself once more, Alexia, The Ruiner. 
It’s not a heart attack, it turns out. She falls victim to a severe panic attack just as they begin to wheel her away. They increase her dosage of anaesthetic. 
Unfortunately, the next morning Alexia comes to after a successful surgery and remembers nothing. That is until she looks to her bedside and finds only her mother there (Alba having gone to the big, empty apartment to adjust it to her sister’s newly-disabled lifestyle). 
She relives the kisses Jenni used to press to her neck, the marks sucked into her skin though Jenni knew she was not hers to brand. She relives your expression when you told her you knew, the grimace you had worn, the way your eyes flicked to the ensuite as though you were going to throw up at any point. 
She hears her knee pop again, sees the trophy slip from her grasp, sees it float into the realm of possibility along with the Champions League cup. 
“You’re awake,” Eli says with surprise, offering a warm but sympathetic smile. She reaches out to touch Alexia, but Alexia jerks her body backwards, instantly regretting it when her knee begins to ache unbearably. “They said you’ll be in a lot of pain at first, but it will subside and, soon, you can start recovery. Your physiotherapist is going to visit in an hour or so, and I cannot count how many well-wishes you have received.” Weirdly, Eli thinks to herself, Jenni has said nothing. 
Alexia shakes her head, trying to dispel the fog in her mind. “Do the… Do the children know I am hurt?” 
“I believe so,” Eli replies with a nod. “Y/n broke the news to them, but we haven’t heard from her since you went into the operating theatre. I have no idea whether she’s going to come here. I assume she will.” 
“She won’t,” mutters Alexia, refusing to look at her mother.
“Oh, don’t be so gloomy. She’s your wife, of course she is going to come.” A dark storm brews in the cagey hospital room, but Eli remains an oblivious ray of sunshine. “I know you don’t want Nico and Lela to see you like this, but they miss you. They must have been so excited for the Euros!” 
All of it is the wrong thing to say. If Eli had known, she would have approached the uncertainty differently. 
If Alexia were not so angry at herself, so guilty, so destructive, she would have calmly explained that your absence is both warranted and understandable. 
Instead. 
Well, instead, this comes out of her: “She is not going to come because I had a fucking affair and she has left me and taken the children to fucking England where they are probably never going to be allowed to see me ever, and I will live out the rest of my days as a fucking coach because I am useless and I am never going to play football again!” 
Eli sits back in her chair, shocked. 
“What have you done?” 
Neither knows if it is a question or a damnation, but Alexia chooses to answer her mother regardless; “I have ruined everything, and now I am paying the price for it.” 
Your friends gloat a little bit, calling it Karma. Anya and Gio are first in disbelief, but they soon progress onto the stage of hatred – something you have not yet been able to access. 
For now, life feels as though it is on auto-pilot. Your children are happy and safe, your country is going to do well in the Euros, and time does not stop ticking no matter how hard you wish it would. 
Alexia’s surgery is successful. You see the update on Twitter, not wanting to contact Alba or Eli in case Alexia thinks you have forgiven her. You haven’t. Perhaps you never will. 
“There are two ways you can go about this,” Gio says with a smirk, holding out a thong to you as you stand in your bedroom in just a towel. “You’re hot and rich and famous… and now single, too.” You are not completely sure of that, but you nod, following along. You slip into the lace and then point to the England shirt folded on top of your pillow. It gets thrown at your face. “You can wallow in it and weep like a damsel in distress, giving her the satisfaction of breaking your heart…” 
“I don’t think she wanted to–” 
“She cheated on you,” Gio cuts you off bluntly. After a moment, your shoulders drop and you resign to hearing her plan. “As said earlier, hot, rich, famous… Babe, just get with someone else. Get with everyone else! Your babies are looked after 24/7 and this is London, my dear. The pond is really an ocean and you are a catch. As your bestest friend, I know what’s best for you. You’ve got an album coming out in September, a tour to hop on in November, and about three thousand dildos you can hop on after that!” 
You cringe. “Don’t be crass.” 
“Don’t be a prude.” She gestures to herself. “Look at me; Mia’s fine and healthy, doesn’t legally have to see her arsehole of a father, and I get a good shag every fortnight.” 
“No, I’ve drawn up the custody agreement already. I’ll go back to Barcelona when the school year starts, and we can swap every two weekends. But I’m keeping our home – she can find somewhere else to live, seeing as all of this is her fault.” 
“And the tour?” Gio asks as you pull on your England jersey and a pair of shorts. Good weather has blessed the start of the tournament, and you have been invited to the first match at Old Trafford by Manchester United themselves. Gio and Anya are coming, and you think they have put you in with a few of their players and executives. Your father has his own ticket, planning to meet you there and convince you to pay your grandmother a visit (she doesn’t like that you are lesbian and therefore you don’t like her). 
“I don’t know,” you sigh, “because I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to make the children’s lives even more unstable. Maybe it’s best to give them a few months to adjust to the idea of us not being together.” 
Gio hums in agreement, knowing she had it easy with her own co-parenting adjustment because her daughter was a baby with no recollection of her parents being a couple, much less in-love. “You’re a good mum.” She kisses your cheek and wraps you in a very needed hug. “You’ll get through this because you are stronger than a pathetic affair.”
You swear. 
“What time’s our train leaving?!” 
The match is a good one, and the atmosphere is enough to make you feel the slightest bit alive. Spain plays in two days, and though you have good reason to believe Alexia is going to be there, you are booking a family trip to Legoland to delay the first hand-off of many. 
England win with one goal to nil, courtesy of Beth Mead’s chip. You are on your feet, cheering the entire match. One of the United executives tells you that he loves your passion and asks you if you’d take his ticket to the post-match drinks as he wants to head home for a nap. You laugh, the old Mancunian reminding you of your father, and accept. It’s just the one ticket, so you bid Gio and Anya goodbye, book a hotel for the night (comfortable with the idea that Isabela has safe hands to care for your children), and give your father a valid reason to pass up on the visit to Didsbury. 
The only person at this event that you really know is Alessia Russo, after exchanging a few DMs last Christmas to wrangle a signed Manchester United jersey for Nico’s Christmas present (a gift Alexia had refused to say was from her as well). 
“No kids today?” she asks with a grin, pulling you into a friendly hug. 
“Didn’t manage to get them tickets,” you reply. “But now I get to drink, and you get to watch me and wish you weren’t on a nutrition plan.” 
She shakes her head. “We’ve actually been instructed to celebrate the wins. Sarina Wiegman says it’s a key part of tournament success.” You look around the room, noticing every Lioness here, hair still wet from the showers and donning team-issued tracksuits, has a can of beer in their hands. Jorge Vilda could never. “Glad to see you haven’t yet become a Spain and Barcelona fan. Feeling patriotic enough to be introduced to our captain?” 
Leah Williamson bears the same concentrated eyes gifted to Alexia; determination, victory, leadership. 
You’re unsure if you have ever formally met her, perhaps at the Brits once. “I go with Alex? Alex Scott,” she says, as though she is trying to impress you. She takes the briefest of looks down to your hands that hang near your waist with no glass to hold (the bar has cut you off for half an hour). 
You wear one ring. It is not the one with which Alexia promised you her total devotion, but it is from her all the same. An old gift – maybe from your first anniversary? 
Leah doesn’t ask whether you are still married. 
“I heard your son loves football?” He is obsessed with his mother, he wishes to follow her in every single thing she does. “You should bring him to our next match. I’ll get him one of those passes, and– Hey, you know what? I bet there’s a way I can get him a place as a mascot for one of the matches! Both our next ones are down south.” 
You smile. “Really?” 
“Yeah, course. He might be a bit young but I’m always glad to help out our little fans, and it might throw Spain off their game.” She winks, offering no further explanation, and is suddenly called away before you can request more information. 
You have to admit, the idea of Nico walking (toddling) out with England makes you feel both proud and satisfied. It will be a tiny jab towards Alexia, which, honestly, is a privilege considering how she has stabbed you in the back repeatedly with a machete. 
When your son’s first time on a proper football pitch is with Alessia Russo, holding her hand with wide eyes and a wider smile, you are sure Alexia has smashed the screen of whatever TV she has been studying her opponents with. 
Spain playing England in the quarter-final feels intensely political within your family. 
Alexia is in Brighton for the first time in her life, and she hates more than anything that she is not preparing herself for a match. She won’t be going through her pre-game rituals for another seven months, at least. 
You tell Isabela to take the children to Alexia’s hotel, unable to put yourself in front of the wheel. Your hands have not stopped shaking since your manager texted you a screenshot of their conversation (seeing as you refuse to talk to her, not for pettiness but for fear of breaking yourself in two), and Isabela poured you a glass of wine before she left to calm your nerves. 
You feel sick, and the toilet water turns red as your body rejects the rioja. Once you have wiped your mouth, you laugh at the notion that even Spanish wine is unwelcome inside of you. 
“Who are you?” Alexia demands as the revolving doors of the lobby reveal her two babies with a stranger. She is quick to remove Elena from the arms of this new woman, although she is disgruntled by how comfortable her daughter seems. One of her crutches falls to the ground, Alexia not having been able to master childcare and post-surgery impairments because she has not seen the children she is supposed to care for, but she does not find it in herself to care.
“Hola, Sra. Putellas. Encantada.” Isabela holds out her hand but Alexia does not shake it, jaw clenched at the way you have gotten a Spanish-speaking nanny as though to completely erase her babies’ Catalan accents and memory of their other mother! “Me contrataron para ayudar a Y/n con los niños. Me dijeron que usted se encargaría de ellos hoy.”
“Sí, lo estoy haciendo, porque son MIS hijos.” She looks at Nico, who has been hiding shyly behind his nanny’s leg, afraid of his mother’s fierceness. Alexia softens, hoping to welcome him into her embrace, but her stupid knee won’t bend and she can’t get onto his level. Isabela reaches out to help her, or to at least steady her so that she doesn’t drop the squirming toddler she is holding, but the help is unwanted and, quite frankly, embarrassing. 
Alexia’s frustration brings tears to her eyes. 
She quickly blinks them back. 
“¿Le gustaría que la ayudara, Sra. Putellas? Me han pagado por trabajar hoy, así que no es un proble–” 
“¡No!” Alexia snaps. Silently, she curses how condescending and petty you have become. Paying the nanny in advance to taunt her for her injuries! “No. Estaré bien. Soy su madre.”
“Por supuesto, pero también está herida.” Isabela looks around the lobby for a moment. “¿Está sola?” 
Alexia knows that Mapi’s parents are going to be arriving any minute now, kindly offering to help out with Nico and Elena. “Oh, we do not mind! We’d love for María to have children of her own,” they had said. 
“Soy perfectamente capaz de manejarlo–” 
“Isabela,” Isabela supplies. 
“Isabela,” Alexia repeats. “Ahora, si ha terminado, vaya a disfrutar su día libre.” 
She waits on the sofa just left of the door for Mapi’s parents, silently begging them to arrive as soon as possible. Nico is bored and would like to run around, upset that Alexia denies him his fun whenever he whines to play. Elena is tired, grumpily napping in Alexia’s lap, but that means she can’t position her knee the way the surgeons had asked her to. Isabela hadn’t meant to, but she had dumped two rucksacks of toys, snacks, and clothes onto Alexia, who still hasn’t been able to retrieve her crutch from the floor. 
Close to tears and very overwhelmed, the arrival of the couple comes as a great relief. “Oh, you poor thing,” coos Mapi’s mother, a caring woman from whom her friend inherited the same quality. She kisses Alexia’s forehead and instantly takes the weight from her lap, hushing the soft whimpers Elena lets out. “Let us look after the babies. You make sure you have the tickets sorted. Have you taken your pain medication? Oh, let me take care of it for you.” 
The fuss is something she has had to get used to, but she is thankful for the assistance. They wrestle Nico into his red Spain jersey, something he was not delivered in, and they ensure all three of their wards are comfortable before the stadium appears in the windshield of the taxi. 
Alexia begins to get nervous. 
Spain has more talent than England – always has – but they don’t have the same funding nor support. Their manager is a dickhead and the federation corrupt, and Alexia’s teammates suffer daily in a way no Lioness would be able to comprehend. She fears for their reputation, for their progression. 
Her nerves increase when she sees you in the stands, in your own box of course. It seems that you see her too, but your only acknowledgement of her presence is the wave you give to your children. Alexia has to remind them sharply in Catalan that they are Spanish. 
Afterwards, when Spain lost and Alexia is blaming herself for the defeat, you walk through the tunnel, following Leah’s directions that she had sent over text. You’d added her to your contacts yesterday, growing tired of Instagram DMs.
The odd thing about this area is that to your left, nothing is heard and the air hangs its head in shame, but to your right, a nation celebrates its victory. Sadly, you know you have to fetch your children from the Spain changing room before you say goodbye to the English heroines. 
You knock on the door, politely. You have never been more glad that a player has not been selected for a squad. Jenni has missed the Euros due to injury, much like her partner-in-crime. 
A solemn Ona Batlle, a Manchester United player who serves as a bridge between worlds in your household, opens the door, making no attempt to force a smile when she sees that it is you. You are (were) their captain’s wife; you are like family. 
“Hi,” you breathe, not wanting to be the one to pierce through the silence. 
Ona stands to one side and you pass. 
Most of the girls are tearful, sniffling into their jerseys, heads in their hands, but no one is as distraught as Mapi. Her sobs take the fun out of winning, her devastation crushing and contagious and impossibly hard to ignore. She buries her face into Alexia’s shoulder, but it does nothing to muffle her cries. 
You gulp, catching hazel eyes, understanding the plea to not make this feel worse. 
You are heartbroken, and so is Mapi. For different reasons, yes, but both organs are shattered in the same way. 
Alexia mutters something very quietly, secretly wishing Mapi does not let her go because this is the first time the defender has actually spoken to her since Alexia did what she did, but the blonde hair stops itching her face soon enough. 
Rooted to the spot, you search the room for two smaller Spaniards, finding them both taking after Alexia, comforting the players. 
“Nico, Lela, come on,” you croak, finding tears in your own eyes. “Say bye-bye to Mami.” 
Their hugs and kisses are missed the moment Alexia leaves the country, and the absence of them makes Alexia crumble completely when she finds the letter from your lawyer that Alba has been hiding from her. 
September rolls around with school, the start of your custody agreement, and the release of your new album. 
Judgement Day. 
For many, it confirms the split from your wife. Those pictures were never picked up by a magazine, so you have had them deleted with a baseless threat to sue for defamation.
Alexia no longer has to communicate with you through one of your employees, but any texts exchanged are few and far between. She tells you that she is renting a flat near the training centre. It has three bedrooms, but Nico and Elena share one because her mother is living with her while she recovers from her ACL. She also partially tore her meniscus, though she had hesitated to pass that news on, but everything seems to be in order and she is ahead of schedule.
You reluctantly text her whenever you leave the country, whether that is because you are flying to London for work (and to visit Leah, who you are now good friends with) or because a club opening has called and you have answered. It’s not as messy as the media makes it seem, but you agree with the articles that say you seem to drink as though it is what keeps you alive. The word ‘addict’ gets thrown around, but you are sitting in an armchair in front of your therapist before that escalates, if not for yourself then for the sake of your children. 
They themselves do not understand. Nico frequently asks when Alexia will come home, though he has usually just visited her when this question pops out, and Elena throws big tantrums during the swaps. Those are done at a neutral location: the park near you. You hope the playground takes the edge off the palpable tension between you and Alexia as you sit on opposite sides of the same bench, exchanging brief updates about your shared duty until whoever is a mother for the next two weekends makes up an excuse to go. 
Just before Christmas, once you have calculated that it’s technically Alexia’s turn with their children until January, you go on your biggest night-out since the days when all you were was a 2010s pop star in a girl-group. With no one to go home to and an empty house in Highgate awaiting your return, you get the closest to sleeping with someone else since before meeting Alexia. Her lips trail down your neck, the white powder on her nose rubbing onto your skin as she presses herself into you. You grope her body desperately, painfully dissatisfied by the bones and creamy skin your hands find. You are used to muscle, to strength, to power. 
Not some anorexic model who calls you a MILF and hasn’t had a sober day in years. 
In the end, you don’t end up sleeping with her, but it makes the headlines nonetheless. Your publicist lets them. “The world needs to see you move on, even if you aren’t,” she says. Your slight disagreement is not voiced, and social media explodes with further confirmation that you are single. A group of football fans are quick to attack you, calling you cruel for leaving Alexia when she is injured, but the thousand-person army doesn’t particularly bother you. You are doing your ex a favour by not opening up about the reason for the split, and you are both aware of that. 
You spend Christmas with your parents, who are not pleased to have you moping about their house. Your father tells you that success is the best revenge. You tell him that your album has topped the charts in December, winning its battle against Christmas music. 
“But that hasn’t mended a broken heart,” he is unkind enough to point out. “And neither will models, drugs, or alcohol.” 
At this point in the day, you have made it through a bottle and a half of wine and a pack of Marlboro Golds. Voice hoarse from smoking and sobbing the entirety of Christmas Eve, you tell him to “fuck off” and call a taxi for yourself. 
You don’t remember the destination you had typed in, but you end up at Leah Williamson’s house. 
Leah is home, having returned from Milton Keynes half an hour ago, and is not really surprised by the state you are in. She supposes that she has gotten to know you well enough to realise that you are far from stable. This is the first time the English captain has seen you heartbroken, but she is unsure whether it will be the last. 
Your tour commences the following month, with January being a fresh start to a new year. You tell Leah, who invites you out with her on NYE, that this year you won't be cheated on. It is not the comment that makes her laugh, but rather the way it slurs out of your mouth.
Barcelona feels suffocating when you arrive at the park to say goodbye to Nico and Elena. You’ll be in the States for the entire month and maybe some of February. Alexia is sure it will be fine, especially since the team has taken it upon themselves to look after the two children and help where they can. Additionally, Alexia is growing closer to one of her friends, Olga, who loves children and wanted to be a teacher before she decided on something much cooler. 
Alexia has the courtesy to send Mapi and Ingrid in her place, knowing that you do not want to talk to her. You haven’t yet heard her explanation, but that does not matter. Nothing excuses what she did, and nothing will. (And with Jenni, who is no longer the godmother to Elena, the title being revoked instantly.)
“Will you miss us?” Nico asks as you kiss his soft hair, hugging him tightly. “Mami said that we have to swap every three findes so why no now?” 
“Why not now?” you gently correct him. “Because I have to work. I’m going to sing in front of lots and lots of people and, maybe, write some new songs!” Your attempt to excite him crashes and burns, but you are not going to give up. “This is a secret so you can’t tell anyone, but some really, really special people want to make songs with me.” 
“Who?” he pouts. 
“Well, one of Mami’s favourites, Karol G. She is very nice, and she told me she has an idea for a collaboration.” Petty, yes, but also a career move. Nico’s innocence and lack of understanding about the meaning of separation means that he sees your plans as a very nice gift for Alexia.  “And, let me think. Ooh, Bad Bunny – you know him, don’t you? I’m sure Pina or Patri or–” 
He pulls away from your embrace, taking a step back. “Sí,” he says, sounding exactly like Alexia, “but to Mami, she no like because he says rude things.” 
“Adults are allowed to say rude things,” you reply with a cheeky smile, winking at him. “Your mami says rude things all the time, but not in front of you.” 
“Really?” 
“Yep, but you’ll have to ask her about that.” 
Alexia has hobbled through the nighttime routines, aided by Olga, who has halved the job by picking Elena and Nico up from nursery and school and watching them until Alexia’s day at the training ground had ended. Her and Olga haven’t kissed yet, but Alba has advised her sister to be quick about it if she ever intends to. Alexia is not sure she does want that, because your absence has only made how much she loves you (and how much she fucked up) even more obvious.
Their beds are on opposite sides of the room, which is technically the master bedroom – only fair, Alexia thinks, because they are having to share here but not when staying with you – and Elena is fast asleep by the time Nico is tired of the bedtime stories he has relentlessly requested. She brushes off the slight sting of his dismissal of her acting and helps him settle underneath the covers. 
As usual, she presses a kiss to both cheeks and the tip of his nose, and tells him to have nice dreams and a good rest. The weekend starts tomorrow, which means he gets to join Alexia at the training centre and sit in on the sessions. Alexia is slightly jealous because she is still stuck in the gym, but as long as he is entertained, she will get over it.
“Mami, how long is a month?” asks Nico, voice small and groggy and… is that a hint of an accent? Maybe the two and a half months of Isabela’s Spanish has affected him. She will look into it. 
He tugs on her jumper when she spaces out. “Sorry,” Alexia whispers. “A month is thirty days. Maybe you need to pay attention at school.” She pokes his cheek playfully, and he giggles. 
“I do pay attention, I do. Thirty days is long.” 
Alexia dreams of the football pitch, of the grass she has been promised she will play on before April. “It can be very long,” comes her agreement, picturing where in her recovery she will be come February. “It can also be very short.” 
“I miss Mama.” 
His statement, unbeknownst to him, is uncomfortably relatable. 
“Thirty days will be very short. You’ll see her again soon, and, you know what? She made me promise to give you goodnight kisses from her every night! She is going to send them to me from America, and I’ll pass them onto you.” 
“Really?” 
“Sí,” says Alexia with pursed lips, raising her eyebrows to invite him to doubt her. He looks up at her with adoration, as if her word is law. She can only be thankful that you are merciful enough to have not turned her own children against her. You have expressed your wish to keep them from being collateral damage, and Alexia respects you for that. 
“Mama said that she makes songs in LA with Karol G!” 
Then again, there are other ways to be petty.
Touring has always exhausted you. Eat, sleep, travel, sing, in varying orders; the schedule grows repetitive and tight after the first week.
After the first show in LA, you bring a blurry face to your hotel room. You kiss her, you can’t bear to do anything more, and you let her sleep off her drugs in your bed while you take the sofa in your suite. 
High on adrenaline half the time and utterly knocked-out when not, you zombie your way through the travelling, grouchily rehearsing new songs on the road, signing merchandise for your screaming fans. You get asked about your private life in a few interviews initially, but the journalists soon learn that the topic is to be avoided if they wish for you to talk to them at all. 
The headlines continue to tear apart images captured of you at clubs, and magazines never seem to find the pictures of you with your children when you visit them while you make your way around Europe. 
There comes a point where you look at a woman and she becomes, in the eyes of the media, your latest plaything. 
Alexia is seething by the time your two-night show in Barcelona rolls around. 
One day, when Nico and Elena understand the concepts of affairs and heartbreak, they will see the articles written about their mothers; the hate Alexia gets, the times she has been called a whore by fans of the same sport she devotes her life to, the stark inequality between her and her male counterparts. With these horrors of the world, they’ll see the pictures of you, pupils blown out, eyes red. Women clinging onto you that perhaps faintly resemble Alexia. 
Because Alexia knows you, because she loves you, she can see that what has been labelled your ‘slay’ era is really fuelled by devastation. A disaster that she caused. It riddles her with guilt, but she doesn't know how to expel that emotion from her head without reverting to the early days of her loneliness where she ate nothing and made her sister seriously worry whether she was going to find her bleeding out in the bathtub one day. And so, with a lack of command over such a strong feeling, she decides to rage. She is furious with your irresponsibility. 
“Where should we eat?” your guitarist asks with a grin as you touchdown in Barcelona. The soft murmur of Spanish and Catalan is unexpectedly comforting, the familiarity grounding. Maybe Barcelona has become your home. Maybe it never stopped being that, because home is where the heart is and, frustratingly, yours still belongs to the woman who tore it out of your chest and didn’t even have the guts to tell you about it. 
“I can’t,” you reply quickly, wiping the sweat from travel off your brow with the sleeve of your turtleneck. “I promised my son I’d tuck him in while I’m in the country, and my daughter has been drawing at nursery so I’d like to collect some of the pictures and see if I can get them blown up onto canvases.” 
Laughing, your crew make their way off the jet. “You know, most celebrities would pay thousands for abstract art but you get yours from a toddler.” 
“She’s talented.” Mapi draws with her, you’ve been told. Elena is what makes Ingrid yearn for a ring to appear in their relationship sooner rather than later. “And take the piss all you want, but if you had had to put my kids through what I have, you’d feel the same.” 
The sofa in the Putellas household (the apartment no longer inhabited by Eli, who was very glad to escape the intense atmosphere as soon as Alexia was cleared to live by herself) houses three unsettled humans of varying sizes. The biggest, Alexia, shifts on the soft, new cushions, awaiting your arrival with gulps of brewing tears and the latest set of paparazzi photos of you fresh in her mind. The boy, Nico, practically vibrates with excitement, promising himself that he will drag out this bedtime as long as possible to make up for all the others you have missed. The smallest is upset because she hasn’t fallen asleep yet, kept awake by her older brother who shakes her whenever she starts to drift off, hastily scolding her with a ‘no, Lela! Mama is coming home’. 
With no key to this flat, you are forced to be buzzed up. 
The anticipation builds. Nico and Alexia try to remember what you smell like, testing themselves to see if they can recall it scent for scent. Have you changed your shampoo? Alexia wonders, Do you still use the same moisturiser?
“Hi, my darlings!” you squeal as the door flies open and Nico comes hurtling into your crouched form, closely followed by his unsteady little sister. “Oh, how I’ve missed you!” You squeeze them as though you are never going to let go, and only release them from the hug when Elena begins to whine, adrenaline rush dying and tiredness overcoming her once more. 
“Mama, home,” Nico says with an inaccurate finality. You spare Alexia a glance as he pulls you through the bare walls and grey decor until you reach a door with stickers up and down the white-washed wood. “Mami made me change, but you can read! Lela wants this one.” He rumages through the box of books near the children’s whiteboard (on it, the odd x’s and o’s of football tactics), pulling out a few to stack into his own pile before thrusting something you recognise very well. 
“Mami reads to us in English sometimes,” he says matter-of-factly, though Alexia silently curses him from where she is standing in the doorway. “Important to know.” 
You chuckle. “Mm, very important. How else would you talk to me?” Elena quietly crawls into your lap, happy to take over Nico’s bed, where you are sitting. You stroke her hair, holding her close. “Mami reads you ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’?” 
He is too young to know what scepticism looks like. 
“Es que hay ‘La Pequeña Oruga Glotona’.” 
You refuse to look at the voice which speaks, but you nod. 
“Alright, why don’t you get into bed, and then I’ll start to make my way through the mountain of books. I am absolutely all yours for tonight, my loves.” 
… 
Alexia’s hands slam down on the dining table, slapping against the wood with a loud bang. “Enough!” she exclaims, her voice slicing through the tense air like a knife. Her eyes blaze in fury and you shrivel, not quite sure what you have done to her. You grant her the silence she needs to continue, though her shout echoes through the shattered tranquillity like a bomb that continues to explode. “It is enough.” 
“What, Alexia?” 
You sound kind of… bored once you have regained your composure. Your shock is now replaced with a blank expression, and you run your eyes over your nails, examining your cuticles so that you don’t risk making eye contact with her. 
“You think you can just waltz in here as if you haven’t offered yourself to the entire world and expect everything to be okay?” Her voice trembles with indignation, venom dripping from each word she spits out. “You can’t go from common slut to mother in one day!” 
Nails forgotten, you square your shoulders and set your jaw. “I hadn’t realised you were the jealous type, Ale.” The nickname slips out like a poisonous dart, taunting her, wounding her. It rattles her, and you intend to shake her more. “It’s none of your business, not anymore. Deal with it – or don’t, I don’t care.”
“What kind of example are you setting for our children?” she continues, lips curling into a scornful sneer. “Kissing anything with a mouth! Like some, some hormonal teenager. And to have it all over the papers? It’s trashy! It’s embarrassing for me, because my wife has her hands down the pants of every woman she meets, pumped full of alcohol and drugs and… You, you go to these events, paid to get yourself on the front pages so that they can be mentioned in the location of the incident, and… and that’s like prostitution! Making money from your body, from sex!”
Her fists clench and she storms towards you, footsteps harsher than her bad knee can probably take, but you make no move to back down. You lift your chin up; “I don’t have to resort to prostitution for money. I have more than enough.” 
“Then you do it for attention,” Alexia reasons with herself, albeit very loudly. “That is what you are, aren’t you? A slut for the cameras and the glitz and glamour of it all. So quick to jet off on tour, leaving me with our children–” 
“I may be a ‘slut’ for attention, but at least I am not a whore for a woman who is not my fucking wife!” You press your hand to her chest roughly, pushing her away from you. “I’m not the one who had an affair, I’m not the one who ruined everything!”
Alexia recoils at your words, freeing herself from your searing touch before she melts. She forces her fury to its boiling point. “How dare you,” she seethes, voice cracking at the ferocity in which she forces the sentence out. “You think you can just throw my mistakes in my face?” You hold your ground. She will not intimidate you. “You think you’re so righteous, but you’re not as innocent as you pretend to be.” 
It is a baseless accusation. You both know it. 
“The only fact we have here is that you fucked Jenni. Our daughter’s godmother. Your ‘best friend’, my friend too! I trusted her, and I trusted you, and you took that trust and obliterated it by sleeping with her!” 
Alexia wants to cut you deep, wants to give you the gory details of it all, but she hears the croak of your voice and knows you will not make it to your hotel if she tells you.
“I slept with Jenni, sure, but you have passed yourself around enough to make us even.”
“Nothing will make us ‘even’, Alexia,” you cry, meaning to sound scarier than you do. You can’t help the tears from streaming down your face, nor the hoarseness of your throat. “And I would never ever do to you what you did to me!” 
You have to go on vocal rest the next day, otherwise the concert would be called off. 
Alexia refuses to attend, even though most of her teammates will, instead pawning Nico and Elena off to your backstage staff and dangerously driving herself to Alba’s place. 
It is one of those nights where Alba cannot leave her side for fear Alexia will choke herself to death on her tears. When the elder of the two can longer hold it all in, Alba ties her hair back with an old hair bobble so that the blonde strands don’t get in the way of her sister’s vomit. 
("I don't want to live like this," Alexia says, her eyes wide and alert. Her little sister looks at her with empathy, searching, with a broken heart, for a version of a woman from the past she's not sure she knows. This Alexia is not the same.
"Of course you don’t." It's obvious. Obvious by the way she forces her existence without happiness, without company, without a smile. It's like there is no sun in Alexia's world, nor a blue sky, nor an end.
It never ends.
So, she says, "I don't want to live like this, without her, without the family I dream of every night, every waking moment. I don’t want to live, Alba. I didn’t want to live in August, and I haven’t since, and I… I do it because people rely on me." She takes in a deep, acidic breath, grimacing at the taste of bile on her tongue. “If it were just me, just Alexia”--The Ruiner, she silently adds–“I wouldn’t be here. Alba, Alba, I don’t want to live like this.”
She carries on repeating it because Alba has to understand. There can't be a possibility that Alba thinks her sister is insincere. What a lie that would be! To Alexia, she prefers death over continuing like this, with her head in the toilet and vomiting, vomiting, vomiting. 
"If I had the chance, I would go back to August 2021 and never sleep with Jenni. I’d not let her kiss me, not give into it. I'm exhausted from it; from my loneliness, from the kids' questions, asking when their mother will come back home. Do you know that Nico asked me if we still loved him? If she still loves him? And why his friends have two parents and he seems to have a shell of a woman for one, and a vacant space in the king-sized bed for the other?"
"She might not want you again, however, and your imagined future may be false – it is the opposite of reality, no? If I were her, I wouldn't. You cheated on her when she only gave you love and patience and… Well, Alexia, I swear I really want to see you happy, but I just don't think she'll forgive you."
"And why not?"
Alba sighs. She places her hand on Alexia's back, moving it in circles to calm her sister down. When they were little, it was always Alexia who helped Alba. With school, with her problems, with new lovers or ones from the past. It was her responsibility to take care of her little sister, and when their father died and there were only three of them, Alexia felt that responsibility even more. 
Here, roles reversed, Alba can only apply that which she has learnt from the heaving lump of flesh slumped on the chequered tiles. 
"Alba," repeats Alexia, lowering her voice, relenting. "She loves me."
The younger of the two can’t help the tears that brim in her eyes, distressed in her own right. "She loves you despite your other girlfriend because she's a saint. She's a saint but, if you want her to be happy, you cannot take advantage of her," Alba warns gravely, sincerely, and correctly. Alexia lifts her head and looks at the clock on the bathroom wall. Alba's apartment is clean and trendy, just like the woman, and she has dirtied it with her presence. She remains, for the foreseeable future, Alexia, The Ruiner. 
"Smartass."
"It's just the truth."
"Well, if that's the truth, I'd rather you be a liar."
Alba sighs again, more heavily, and asks Alexia to get up from the floor. If Alexia's knee hurts, she says nothing and jumps up and down. "Ay, your knee," Alba grumbles but Alexia keeps going. She keeps going and going until she can't breathe and her lungs hurt. She keeps going because she believes it will rid her of her sadness, or at least hopes so. She hasn't stopped when Alba asks her to. A loud voice breaks the silence. "What are you doing?"
"Destroying everything. If I can't be with her, I don't want to play football. I don't want to walk, or see, or talk. I just don't want to live."
To Alba, this tells her two things. One is that her sister has gone batshit crazy. The other? Well, that is the solution. It's simple, really; one sentence, and Alexia will know what she has to do.
"You need to fix this.")
Heartbreak is ugly, but Alexia’s guilt is uglier.
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