#and how would that affect their relationship

[yinyuedijun]

ZERO-SUM GAME

It’s different with Aventurine. You like being his luxury hand watch. You like being his elegant knife, his liar’s dice, his pretty poker chip. You want to be his object—the object of his affections, something he can parade around just like his expensive suits and his beautiful jewellery and his ostentatious furs. Look at me, he uses them to say. Look at what I own. Look at what I own despite this code on my neck. Look at what I've won despite my eyes and my blood. (Or: Aventurine wins you in a game of poker. He decides to cash out his prize right then and there—to enjoy you on the card table, laid out among all the chips and cards.)

8.6k words of psychological issues, explicit smut, and deranged characterization. aventurine tops, reader bottoms. public sex, voyeurism from strangers, piv, oral (reader receiving), fingering with gloves on, creampie. mild dubcon but the reader is ultimately into it. afab gn reader, they are playing a fem-coded role for an espionage assignment (dress, heels, makeup). themes of objectification. discussion of slavery and sa during slavery (not explicit). dead dove do not eat, mdni.

You are in the grandest casino of Kinyoshi Moon Colony, and Aventurine is running your latest husband into life-ruining debt.

You aren’t cut up about it. If your marriage (or concubinage, rather) were genuine, you'd maybe be annoyed about the loss of capital. But as it is, this relationship is an assignment from the IPC—one of the longest and most excruciatingly boring yet. Fortunately for you, Aventurine’s presence tonight means that you've finally gathered enough intel for Diamond’s needs. It is time for the IPC to terminate your latest contract, and Aventurine is here to collect you.

Which is a little funny, given your relationship. It is strange sitting across from your boyfriend, draped over another man and thoroughly ignoring him. You’re entirely focused on fawning over your husband instead—laughing into his ear, lighting his pipe and filling his whiskey glass, and oh, Mister Li, you're so funny, you're so clever, I think you should go all in!—but Aventurine doesn't react. He only smiles at the two of you, like he isn't bothered by the sight.

This is, of course, an act: when you came home from your last marriage (assignment), he'd made sure to pleasure you so thoroughly that you forgot all about your ex-husband (mark). Aventurine did not openly admit to any kind of jealousy at the time, but you could tell he hadn't been keen on letting another man touch you. He usually isn't too keen about anyone touching any of his things, in fact. Despite appearances, he always abhors the thought of losing anything important.

But any fears he might have are concealed right now. They’re always concealed. Hidden by the expensive suit, the countless stacks of chips, the golden walls and high-vaulted ceilings of the Venetian Zhijin, Masked by his generous gifts, his easy laughter, his careless frivolity. You can see right through his gilded smile. The rest of the table cannot.

They are all intrigued when Aventurine asks, a playful lilt in his voice, “How about we make this game a little more interesting, gentleman?”

The other players at the table consider him. The other plus-ones—concubines, courtesans, gigolos, and so on—look at him with calculated expressions of cursory interest. You do so as well, but only for a moment. Your gaze quickly returns to Mister Li’s face—your husband is meant to be your true focus, after all, not the game. You are not a player at this table, but an accessory. Closer to an expensive watch than a human being.

Some business magnate from the Triangulum Galaxy leans back and raises a brow. “I'm listening,” he says. You watch a bead of sweat travel down your husband’s neck.

“How about we up the ante,” Aventurine says, his voice light, “but instead of betting more money this time, we bet our dates?”

You think, in other star systems, other worlds, such a suggestion would invite riot. But Kinyoshi Colony being what it is, and the Venetian being the establishment that it is, the other players at the table only laugh. Nearly half of them deal in the trade of human beings anyway—this is nothing novel for them.

“Well,” one of them says, “it’s not like winning more money’s gonna make a difference to any of us.” A round of chuckling. He turns to his date—some noblewoman from Jarilo-IV who seems greatly out of her depth—and says, “What do you think, love? How do you feel about being part of my wager?”

She doesn't like it. She clearly doesn't like it, and she also clearly doesn't know how to say it. Were you not on the clock, you might intervene. Maybe. As it is, though, all you can do is observe quietly. All the power in this gambit lies with Aventurine. Even when surrounded by men who manipulate the wealth of entire cities, planets, galaxies—he remains in full control.

“There’s never any shame in folding,” he says, magnanimous. Then he looks your husband in the eye, smiling conspiratorially. “But I know there are some of us who aren't afraid to take risks.”

Li laughs. “You’re right about that, Mister Aventurine.” He gives you a fond smile. And of course he does—you’re his last shot at winning back all his losses for the night. “I think you'd make a pretty little chip, don't you?”

Although Mister Li is clearly less distressed at the thought of betting you than he was at the thought of betting his company just last round, you notice, out of the corner of your eye, a muscle in Aventurine’s neck twitching. It’s very, very subtle, and he'd have never let himself do it if the table’s attention were on him, but he did it. Perhaps it was involuntary. Your mouth curls.

“Sure, darling.” You try not to sound too giddy. “I’ll be whatever you like.”

Ordinarily, you wouldn't be so happy about this farce. This is, put plainly, a stupid way to extract you from your mission. Were the cards in anyone else’s hands, your husband could win and you might be stuck with him for another several weeks, at least—assuming that you aren't discovered and killed first. Or you could go home with another man and be subjected to the kind of things that men do when they trade human beings, and you don't think the IPC would care too much if you were. You are an asset before you are a person, after all. At this table, you are closer to an expensive watch than a human being—and at the Company, you are an overpriced knife.

But to Aventurine, you're a chip in one of his games, and you don't mind that so much. Men who only know wealth will throw around their riches thoughtlessly, but men who have endured poverty will hold onto them tightly—desperately. Aventurine takes care of his luxury watches, his elegant knives, his liar’s dice. His capital. And he never loses anything. He always comes to collect. You trust him to collect you, even with this stupid plan, so you are calm as you watch the dealer shuffle the cards.

The table makes their bets. Most of the players go all-in. A couple fold, perhaps feeling some degree of concern for their partners, but it's more likely that they just have shit hands. A lot of the ones who continue playing have shit hands anyway. Your husband doesn't do too badly—a straight flush. He seems confident.

Then Aventurine lays out his cards. Ten. Joker. Queen. King. Ace.

All hearts.

You have to take a sip of your whiskey to stop yourself from laughing.

Aventurine, himself, has the grace not to look too smug about the outcome. Or maybe it's very unremarkable for him, all these winnings being pushed over to him—poker chips and human beings. Some of the other dates are clearly anxious as they move toward him (they are expected to be loyal to their husbands), and some are clearly excited (they are expected to be frivolous, hedonistic playthings). He humours them all, for a little while. Puts on the usual show as they crowd around him, charms them because it'll be good for business partnerships in case any of their husbands care even a little bit about them. You'd do the same in his shoes. But in your current ones (six-inch heels, black leather, red bottoms, luxury), all you can do is seat yourself on the card table and light up a cigarette. Waiting.

Aventurine eventually sends them all off. All I wanted was to get to know you, he says cheerfully, which is probably not a lie. After they leave, he asks the dealer to close the table and go on break. Turn a blind eye. You raise a brow when they obey him.

How interesting.

You're still enjoying your cigarette by the time he turns to you. You flash him a smile, one of the ones that you use for work. His expression doesn't change, but his thumb brushes against one of his many rings—switching off your synesthesia beacons for some privacy—and he leans back to study you. You know he's admiring you, but it could be mistaken for a leer.

“Well, well,” he says, “If it isn’t the esteemed concubine of Li Fengzhi.”

“The esteemed fifth concubine,” you correct. He hums, looking surprised.

“I thought you were the fourth. Did I misremember?”

“No, just misinformed. He took another concubine right before I arrived on Kinyoshi. He acquired a sixth just last week. Turns out he picks up paramours like they’re strays.”

“How inconvenient.”

“It made no difference to me,” you dismiss. “I’m his favourite anyway, but I’m sure you knew that already.”

“I’d have had to be blind not to notice it. You have the man wrapped around your finger.” Aventurine leans back, studying you as you smoke on your perch. “But before we continue—why don’t you come a little closer, esteemed Fifth Concubine?”

You make a face. “That title doesn’t sound as nearly as flattering in Avgin dialect as it does in Zhijinese,” you note, though you get off the table anyway. You don’t go very far, electing to seat yourself on his lap, your arms draping around his shoulders. The feathers of his jacket tickle at your bare shoulders; the satin of his gloves glide down the skin of your thighs before settling on your calves. “Since you’ve won my company for the night, though,” you sigh, “I suppose I can humour you, Mister Aventurine.”

“Lucky me.” He leans in, his breath sweeping the shell of your ear. His fragrance surrounds you, your body warming at the familiar scent of ambergris and vanilla. You realize, all of a sudden, how much you missed it. You have to stop yourself from pressing your face into his neck and melting—it would be a dead giveaway for your identity and also too revealing of your feelings. Aventurine might be endeared by it, but he might also find it disconcerting. He often needs to be tricked into intimacy.

He does enjoy being wanted though, and he can obviously tell that you want him. He pulls you closer, one of his hands giving your thigh a generous squeeze. It makes you throw your head back in a laugh, exposing the soft skin of your throat. You aren't surprised when he takes the opportunity to kiss it, his lips gentle against your pulse.

“You’re being very forward,” you tease him. “Did you miss me?”

“I’m just trying to be careful,” he defends himself between kisses, his breath warm on your skin. “We should try to conceal our mouths as much as possible. No one can intercept our synesthesia beacons, but someone could still read our lips.”

You give him a funny look. “We’re the only two speakers of Avgin in the known universe. Who could, other than ourselves, could read our—mmph…”

Aventurine has caught the rest of your sentence with his mouth. He’s hungry and wanting for you, the heat of his lips overwhelming. Your tongue is as practised as his, but you find yourself too distracted by your thrill to focus, your kiss wet and eager. Messy. Unprofessional.

You’ve never kissed any of your husbands like this. You’ve never kissed any of your other owners like this. You feel dazed when he pulls away.

You compose yourself. “So you did miss me.”

He smiles. “Guilty as charged.” A gloved hand rests on your face, satin tracing your lips. “How could I not? You’ve been away from the house for so long.”

Your eyes narrow. There’s no idiom for this in Avgin, so you flip briefly to Interastral Standard: “Pot, kettle, black. You leave home all the time.” You smack away the hand at your waist, petty. He looks amused. “And you almost always die.”

He switches out his smile for a pout. “Don’t tell me you’re still mad about last time.”

“You nearly got yourself blasted with atomics, so yes, I’m still mad at you.”

Now he’s frowning. “Am I going back to sleeping on the couch when you come back?”

“Yes,” you say. His deepening frown is meant to be read as a joke, but you know better. Deciding to throw him a bone, you lean in, whispering playfully into his ear: “You can still fuck me on it though.”

Aventurine hums, as if considering. His hands traverse your sides as he contemplates your suggestion. You move to straddle him, your thighs squeezed around his hips. When you grind against him, you can feel how much he wants you despite his composure, his control—his length straining in his pants, pressed against the silk covering your core.

“I don’t think I can wait long enough to fuck you on the couch,” he says, voice teasing.

“No?” You hum as his hands travel upward, feeling every inch of you. “The ship on the way home, then?”

“We don’t leave until tomorrow. Do you really think I can wait that long?”

You don't expect to feel the warmth of his hands on your chest. Your breath hitches when he starts palming your tits through your dress, neon eyes admiring the curve of them. One of his thumbs skims over the peak of your breast, and his mouth curls when your nipple hardens. “No bra? That's convenient.”

“I—” You squirm in his grip, whining. It just makes you grind against his lap more, your cunt moving against his slacks. A wave of heat runs through your lower half, and you clench around nothing. You can see people from a nearby table glancing at you, doing double takes. You can feel their lingering gazes on you, and you know Aventurine can too.

“I—are you going to”—your voice shakes as he pinches your nipple, as his other hand moves to squeeze your ass instead. Your dress is short—designed for easy access—and his fingertips easily skim the underside of its skirt. You wonder if he’s going to pull it up. You wonder if he's going to go even further than that.

But that would be an absurd thing to do in the middle of the busiest casino in the colony, which also happens to be the busiest trade hub in its star system. It would be absurd even for the two of you. Nevermind the reactions of the other players in the room—the staff here would immediately blacklist you, and so would every other gambling house in Kinyoshi.

You try to calm yourself. “Are you—ah—going to take me upstairs?”

He's fully kneading your breasts now. You can feel your clit throbbing, your body responding to his rough and unrepentant touch. “Hm… I don't think I want to.” Aventurine’s voice drops. His smile takes on a distinctly wicked quality. “I think I'll take you right here.”

“But we’ll get kicked out,” you whine. Even as you protest though, you're panting and moving your hips now. Grabbing at his arms, rutting against him like you're in heat. His fingers hook around the thin straps of your dress, pull them down your shoulders, already starting to indulge despite your reservations. You bend into his touch.

“Kicked out? By who? The staff?” He smiles, as always. “I own the place now. I don't think they'll be giving me trouble.”

“Y—you what?” For a moment, you're too shocked to keep up the wanton show. “You do? Since when?”

“Since last night.” He thumbs one of the straps that's fallen halfway down your arms. The rest of your dress threatens to come down with it. “Technically it's the IPC who acquired it—or, well, their shell company did—but I'm their designated representative here. I signed the contract.”

“The IPC isn’t going to be upset that you're fucking a concubine, who's not even your concubine, on their new property?”

Aventurine shrugs. “They know the kind of establishment the Venetian is. People gamble with humans here all the time, you know, so this has definitely happened before. The IPC definitely expects it to happen again. And besides”—he returns his attention to your dress, starting to slip the fabric down your shoulders—“I'm just cashing out my winnings. I'm sure they wouldn't deny a gambler his vices. That'd be bad business.”

You want to say more, but then he tugs, suddenly exposing you. You’re bare in front of him—in front of everyone. You can feel eyes on you. Heat curls in your gut as he grabs your tits again, his satin gloves smooth across your skin, and your nipples pebble beneath them. “Hm… much better.”

“But…” You bite your lip, glancing around. There are so many people watching now—so many voyeurs, who've forgotten about their games and their slots. Though there are a greater number of people who are continuing as usual, studying their hands, smoking their cigarettes, unperturbed. All regulars and VIPs, you know from your intelligence.

Aventurine pauses as you catalogue the room, raising a brow. Probably he's surprised at your sudden modesty; you usually have none when his touch is involved.

“Of course,” he adds, “if you'd rather enjoy the suite upstairs…”

“No—I don’t mind staying down here… it's just that I’ve never…”

Your voice trails off. Your eyes traverse the space again. There are people who’ve fully thrown their cards down, greedily drinking in the sight of you instead. Even some of the dealers are watching between hands, glancing at you instead of watching for cheaters. Like this is public entertainment, like you're a show.

Aventurine tilts his head.

“You've never had sex with an audience?” he guesses. He sounds surprised—perplexed. You don't know why. You know he knows it's a stupid question. You know he knows the answer.

You had sex in front of people all the time before you met him. You did it for the exact reasons that he’s almost certainly done the same. To this table of business magnates, you are closer to an expensive watch than a human being; to the IPC, you are more like an overpriced knife; to this gambling hall, you're an interesting sideshow.

To your captors who fucked you in public, you guess you were something like a toy.

The thought sitting in your mouth is this: you've never had sex with an audience and enjoyed it. It was painful—not painful for the heart or the mind or anything else sentimental, but painful like it felt you were a fish being gutted open by a knife. And even beyond that physical pain, you simply didn't enjoy being passed around. You didn't like being owned by those people. You didn't like being an object for their entertainment, a spectacle to be consumed.

But it's different with Aventurine. You like being his luxury hand watch. You like being his elegant knife, his liar’s dice, his pretty poker chip. You like being his plaything, spread for his viewing whenever he wants. You want to be his object—the object of his affections, something he can parade around just like his expensive suits and his beautiful jewellery and his ostentatious furs. Look at me, he uses them to say. Look at what I own. Look at what I own despite this commodity code on my neck. Look at what I've won despite my eyes and my blood.

You want him to own you too. You want him to show everyone that he won you, that he bought you, that you're his possession now. That he, and he alone, is free to treat you like a toy.

You're getting wetter just thinking about it.

“Nevermind,” you whisper. “Let's do it.”

His smile widens ever so slightly. Slyer than usual.

“Good,” he says. He guides you into standing. “Let’s get you settled then.”

You're seated back on the card table. The cigarette is forgotten in the ashtray next to you. Aventurine takes the time to straighten out your dress, lifting the straps back up and affording you some modesty—before he gently lays you out.

You look up at him as you're spread in front of him, laid out next to his royal flush and winnings. Like you're another chip in his stacks, the most expensive one. He puts a hand beneath your leg, drapes it over his shoulder. He takes the opportunity to kiss your calf, his lips delicate.

You glance at the tables around you. You watch the business owners and politicians as they watch Aventurine. You watch them as they watch your boyfriend pepper kisses up your leg, unless he's settling in between them. Your thighs spread easily for him, and you don't resist as he hikes up your skirt.

Then he frowns.

“I’ve never seen these panties before.”

“They’re new,” you relay.

“From your husband?”

“Yup.”

“I see.”

You can't see his face, but he sounds distinctly displeased. You expect him to complain, to say they're not expensive enough or not designer enough or just plain ugly.

You don't expect him to tear them right off.

“Aventurine?!”

You're so surprised you sit up, just in time to see him throw tatters of silk to the floor.

“What?” He looks up at you, expression unbothered, almost mild. “It wasn't your colour.”

Your mouth opens. “But it was still very nice!”

“I'll buy you nicer ones later. I’ll buy you a whole drawer of nicer ones later, when we’re done here.”

He looks down again, humming. Your cheeks flush as he spreads your legs again, baring your glistening sex to him—this time completely bare. Satin glides along the inside of your thighs, and your breath hitches when he reaches their apex. You feel the light touch of a finger along your opening, and you feel your body responding, tightening around nothing.

“Tell me,” he says, “What else did your husband do with you?”

His voice is casual, almost disinterested, but you know Aventurine is listening carefully.

“Not much,” you answer truthfully. “I haven't cum in months, you know.”

“Oh?” He sounds surprised. “You don't have sex with him?”

“No. He's fucked me a lot. It”—you whimper, pausing when you feel his fingers spreading you open, fluttering hole and swollen clit exposed to him—“it just wasn't very good.”

“Then”—you feel a thumb press against your clit, and you swallow—“he never touched you here?”

“N-no.”

“Stupid of him.” He’s drawing slow, lazy circles into the bud now, making you squirm on the table. You press yourself eagerly toward his familiar touch, having desperately missed it for months. Aventurine, perhaps sensing your neediness, asks, “And you didn't touch yourself?”

“He didn't let me,” you whine, and now he's frowning at you.

“I knew I should have gotten you out of there sooner,” he says, and you have to bite back a laugh. Aventurine’s mouth curls at the sound, and he leans in to place a kiss on your thigh. “But that’s fine. I'll make it up to you now.”

Aventurine kisses are soft and precise. They pepper a path up your thigh while his fingers continue to play lazily with your clit. You want—need—to feel something inside you, but he doesn't oblige. His fingers merely run along your entrance, teasing your dripping pussy with luxury satin, and that's all they do, even as your hips buck needily toward him.

He pauses for just a moment. When you look at him, you see him staring at you—at the brand on your inner thigh, the commodity code that your captors left on you, branding you as a product to be used and sold.

His voice is almost soft when he asks, “And what did your husband say when he saw this?”

“He never did,” you reply. “He always fucked me from behind. And he never went down on me.” You pause, thinking about the way he spoke of his business. Of his trade partners. Of what your captors had done to your home when you told him about it, feigning intimacy only to be matched in cruelty. You think about the way he fucked you, how it felt to be gutted open on his expensive, silk sheets.

None of it matters to you, really. This is behaviour that you’ve long accepted, that your body always anticipates. But you always like to offer Aventurine intimacy, whether real or feigned, whether he returns it equally or responds with undeserved cruelty: “I think it wouldn't have bothered him if he had noticed it.”

You can't see Aventurine’s eyes, but you can feel his reaction when he places a chaste kiss on your product code.

“I should have gotten you out of there sooner,” he repeats. Then he pauses. “Maybe I shouldn't have let you go at all.”

“I didn't mind,” you say. You aren't lying. “You gave me up for a reason.”

He stands. Cups your face with a palm, luxuriant fabric and gold rings pressed against your skin. Sometimes he's given up the aventurine stone temporarily for assignments, parting with it in elaborate gambles that he always manages to win. The way he’s touching you now reminds you of the way he holds the gem whenever it returns to his hand.

“Well,” he says, “I’m sorry it took so long to get you back.”

Aventurine tilts your chin up for a kiss. You meet it eagerly, and it's so tender in its familiarity that every memory of your husband fades. There's only Aventurine, and his gentle mouth, and the way his hands slide your dress down again, how he palms your breasts again. How he teases one nipple with his expensive rings until you're moaning into his mouth. How his other hand travels down until his gloved hand is cupping your heat. You drag your hips against his touch, desperately seeking some kind of friction, your wetness drenching the cloth. Your cunt clenches around nothing, your body aching to be filled by him, aching in a way that it does for no one else.

It’s one of the most addictive feelings you've ever known.

Aventurine only stops touching you so he can push away all the chips, clearing space on the table. He ignores the cacophony as countless stacks fall over, not sparing the plastic coins a single glance. Like you're the only prize that matters to him, even though the sum of his winnings come out to more than you ever were worth.

He lays you out on the table again, flat on your back, exposed, before kissing a path down your body—your neck, your breasts, your stomach, between your thighs. He deigns to give your product code one more kiss, his lips so gentle that it makes you tremble—and then he finally puts his mouth on you. He licks a hot stripe from your dripping pussy up to the crest of your sex, and your eyes close in bliss.

If you felt any uncertainty before this, it's completely gone now. Your hands ghost over your tits, playing with them as Aventurine’s tongue plays with you. He sucks on your neglected clit, fingers squeezing your thighs, keeping you spread open and still for him. He presses in, lets you drag your cunt over his greedy mouth and grind your clit against his face. Heat and pressure coil tight in your belly as he pleasures you, your body flushing with the kind of bliss only Aventurine can give you. You’re so lost in it that you almost don’t notice how quiet the rest of the hall has gotten, the cacophony of chatter and slot machines oddly subdued—almost missing. In their absence, the obscene noises that Aventurine is drawing from your mouth and body are louder than they should be.

The pleasure in your belly is just starting to swell when he pulls away. You give him a pleading look as he leans over you, but before you can start begging for more, you feel his fingers press against your heat. He watches you with keen eyes as he starts rubbing your pussy, maybe enjoying the desperate noises you make at his touch. You buck your hips, moaning as your clit and entrance grind against the fabric of his gloves, seeking friction. You’re empty, aching, desperate to be filled, but you think you can finish like this, just by rutting against his satin fingers—

Aventurine withdraws his hand, and you whine.

“No,” you beg, “please, please keep going, I was getting close—”

He raises a brow, feigning surprise. “Keep going?” He brings up his hand, shows you his gloves. The satin is soaked, shiny and stained with your slick. “I don't think I should. Look at what a mess you’ve made of my gloves.” Aventurine hums, frowning. “These are designer, you know. And limited—there are only 95 pairs of these in the whole universe. And you're ruining them.”

“I'm sorry,” you say, mind so fogged with lust that you can't even return his teasing. “I'm sorry, I'll make it up to you, I'll do anything, just—just let me cum—”

“Anything?” His smile is sly.

“Anything.”

“Well. I suppose if you help me clean this up, I wouldn't mind rewarding you with more.”

You don't need to ask what he means by that. When he holds out his hand to you, runs a finger along your lips, you obediently open your mouth for him. Your tongue slides along the wet satin, only making his glove messier—but he seems not to mind. He merely watches intently as your tongue cleans his fingers, taking in the obscene image of you hungrily lapping your own slick off the expensive fabric.

He lets you ruin his glove thoroughly before finally drawing back, peeling it off.

“I'm not sure that did any good,” he says, frowning. “I’ll probably need to buy a new pair. But”—he pulls away, and you feel him settle between your legs again, his hands spreading them. “I'll still reward you for the effort.”

Aventurine is quick about getting his mouth back on you. His tongue is hot on your skin, expertly teasing your clit. You feel his fingers running along your entrance again, growing sticky with his need. He laughs when you press your hips toward his hand, desperate to be filled.

Then he's pressing his bare fingers into your heat, and your back is arching off the table.

The moan you let out is obscene. It only gets worse when his fingers curl, making the pressure in your belly even heavier. Utterly shameless, you beg for him as he fucks you with his fingers: Aventurine, please, please, I need more, please, I'm so close, I'm so close.

As if taking pity on you, his mouth finds your clit again, his fingers pressing into your sweet spot at the same time. And he doesn't let up, pushing into it even when you think you can't take anymore—tongue swirling against your overstimulated bud, fingers making you gush uncontrollably. You practically sob when you cum, a noise of desperation that echoes in the gambling hall.

His smile looks a little fonder than usual—or maybe just entertained—as he stands again and leans over you. You taste your own release in a messy, open-mouthed kiss, and he strokes your face when he pulls away.

“So good for me,” he praises. “Are you going to let me do more?”

You nod eagerly. “Whatever you like,” you say, all sense of shame gone from your body, “and however you want.”

Aventurine’s mouth curls. “Your husband fucked you from behind, right? Why don't you bend over for me, then? Let's show him how he should have been doing it.”

You see the diamond pupils of Aventurine’s eyes glance off to the side, where, sure enough, your husband is spectating with some of his business partners. You force yourself to turn away before you can smile, hiding your expression from the other men. You’re not meant to derive any real pleasure from any of this, let alone pleasure of the vindictive kind. Your relationship with Aventurine is supposedly nothing but a gambler and his newly won, human plaything. It would be suspicious if you appeared to be anything else.

You slink off the table in a distinctly performative way, and Aventurine plays equally into the show—probably an act as familiar to him as it is to you. He guides you into turning around, your eyes falling on the scattered cards on the tabletop, the casino’s eyes falling on you. His hands waste no time in pulling down your dress and reaching around to knead your breasts, in full view of the rest of the gambling hall. You're only vaguely aware of your audience now, registering the interested, hungry stares, but not really caring. You're too focused on the way that Aventurine is tugging and twisting at your nipples, at how he’s pressed up against your ass, his cock straining through his pants. You grind needily against him, whining.

Aventurine kisses your shoulder. “Poor thing. You've been neglected for so long, haven't you?” His hands retreat, and you hear the sound of a zipper being undone. Then your skirt’s being pushed up and you're being bent over, your dripping pussy fully presented to him. When you feel the press of his cockhead against your entrance, you desperately try to push yourself back onto him. But he doesn't allow you to—only running the tip along your wet folds, still sticky from your release, while he stills you with a gentle touch on your hip.

You make a pathetic, desperate noise. Aventurine chuckles, though there’s now a breathy quality to his voice.

“Be patient,” he chides. “I'll take care of you.”

You know he will. He always takes care of you, in a way that no one else ever has. Even when he gambles your life for some mission, even when he can barely afford you the barest hints of intimacy, even when he displays your body to an audience of slave traders and murderers—he always takes care of you. Even if you are only a knife or a wristwatch or a chip in one of his games, he still treats you like you're worth holding onto.

Aventurine finally moves. Your eyes flutter shut as you feel his cock sliding into you. Usually he needs to be careful after your long missions away from him, knowing you'll be tense. He understands that your body always anticipates being in pain after being touched by other people. But he has you so worked up right now—still dripping from your release, still pliant from his fingers, still eager to please him before the crowd—that your cunt easily swallows his length. The stretch is pure bliss, pleasure unfurling in your body as you're filled up properly for the first time in months. He's just as affected as you, breath shaking as he bottoms out.

“Fuck,” he breathes—laughs. “Nearly forgot how good this feels.” He pauses, his breathing slowing—almost stopping each time you squeeze around him. You turn back, throwing him a pleading glance, and he meets it with an endeared smile. “Eager today, aren't you?” He hums, a hand sliding along your waist. “You really do need to be properly fucked.”

He's stalling. Trying to give you a moment to adjust, but you don't need it. “Yes,” you encourage him. Aching for the press of his cock against your walls, you grind against him, and you hear a strangled groan as you force him to move inside you. “Please, Aventurine—please, please fuck me, I need it so badly—”

He hums, both hands grabbing your hips, his fingers sinking into you. “Well. Since you asked so nicely.”

The first thrust has your eyes going wide, your hands reaching for the card table as you’re forced to bend over. You spread our palms next to the mess of heart cards and shiny tokens, bracing yourself for the way your body’s about to be used. He doesn't give you time to breathe after, each stroke filling you deep and fast. The rest of the gambling hall grows very, very quiet as Aventurine fucks you, and suddenly all you can hear is the appreciative murmur of the crowd, clink of ice cubes in aged whiskey, the noisy flick of lighters as more patrons opt to pause their games and enjoy the show. You hear the shattering of all the stacks beside you, hundreds of thousands of dollars in chips fall over beside you, tokens clinking as they roll across the tabletop. But all of that is soon drowned out by the wet noise of your pussy being fucked open, the squelch of your slick around his cock. You moan each time he bottoms out, eager to be filled.

When you feel his cock press into your sweet spot, your moans quickly turn into cries.

You hear something like a breathy laugh from Aventurine. Your body always reveals itself so easily to him, and you know he enjoys it. He hits that spot again and again, builds an agonizing tension in your body with every thrust of his hips. It has your pussy gushing around him, your thighs growing wet and sticky with your need.

Just when it feels like you can't take anymore, he reaches down and presses his fingers against your throbbing clit. Your knees buckle as he toys with you, chest heaving against the table as he sets a brutal pace. You're—overwhelmed, mind going hazy as you're fucked mercilessly. So far gone, you can hardly register the disgruntled expression of your husband, the hungry gazes of his companions, the way that other players are starting to shift in their seats, palming themselves at the sight of your pussy being split open. There's only the tight coil in your gut, the chips between your fingers as you grab uselessly for something to ground you, the cock that's filling you over and over and over—and oh fuck, you’re going to cum, you're really going to cum after being won in a game, from having your pussy used like a sleeve, from being watched by men who will never own you no matter how many times they trade you, no matter how many times they fuck you, no matter how many times they pass you around, because you'll only ever belong to Aventurine—

Your orgasm crashes through your body, and you sob.

It's a broken, blissed out noise. Your pussy is equally shameless, gushing as you pulse around Aventurine’s cock. You go limp as he fucks you through your orgasm, uncaring about the mess you're making. He only groans as you squirt all over him, hips stuttering as he reaches his own peak—spilling himself inside you, pumping you full. Aventurine’s body slumps over yours as rides out his high, his face pressing into your shoulder. You find the wherewithal to shift yourself, just enough to your lips against the tattoo on his neck. He looks at you for a fleeting moment, the blue ring of his eyes electric on you, before capture your mouth in a desperate, messy kiss.

The two of you stay there for a long moment, panting into each other. Then Aventurine collects himself, remembers how to talk: “Fuck.”

You piece yourself together just as easily. Maybe even faster. Smiling into his mouth, you ask, “Enjoy yourself?”

“Clearly.” Aventurine presses his lips into your neck, lingering only briefly. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

Aventurine takes his time with moving, as if basking in the afterglow—or bragging in it. But he does rise, eventually. Pulls out slowly, making you shudder. He helps you to your feet, lets you hold onto him for support. His spend drips down your thighs as you right yourself, messy and hot on your skin. You can feel it sliding down your legs as you walk, braced against Aventurine as he guides you in the long walk toward the elevator. It slips all the way down to your calves, to your expensive heels, even onto the marble floor.

You're fairly certain that it's not an accident when Aventurine flips up your skirt as you pass your ex-husband. At the very least, it isn't a mistake when you stumble in that same moment, bending over and giving him a good look at your well-used pussy, now overfilled with your boyfriend’s cum. You don't stop to look at him, but you know he must be red-faced, displeased—aware that he’s been humiliated. Beaten by a Stoneheart, concubine stolen by Sigonian, one of his favourite possessions claimed by a former slave. You'd laugh if you could.

You can't help but kiss Aventurine while the two of you wait for the elevator, a smile glowing into his lips.

It's absurd, but a staff member approaches the two of you as you indulge in one another. Aventurine pulls away as you’re approached, looking mildly annoyed as he switches on his synesthesia beacon.

“Sir,” the staff says, “you’ve left your other winnings at the table.”

Even in his post-orgasm bliss, Aventurine responds promptly. “I’ll cash it all,” he says. “Send the money to my room. I'm not coming back tomorrow.”

“Very well. And the terms of the… human resource exchange that just happened?”

Aventurine’s jaw clicks. It's quiet, but surprising. You watch him carefully.

“We didn't bet contracts,” he says. “This is a concubine, not a slave. But tell Mister Li I'll buy them anyway. I'll pay whatever price he wants, which I’d wager is the company that he gambled and lost to me. Maybe suggest that to him.”

“Of course,” the staff member replies, bowing. Despite the first-rate service, Aventurine looks like he can't get out of there sooner enough as he guides you into the elevator. You give him a curious look as the door closes.

“You're going to give up a multiplanetary corporation just for this?” you ask.

“Not entirely. The IPC was planning to acquire it anyway. It'll be ours again in a few months.” He stares at your reflections in the mirror, his strange eyes lingering on your dishevelled form. “We’ll put your intel to good use,” he adds, and although Jade or Diamond or any of your real bosses would say this with a smile and reward you with a bonus, Aventurine’s expression is unreadable.

“What's on your mind?” you ask, fingers brushing against his hand. “You’re worried about something.”

Aventurine blinks, and it takes him a moment to recover.

“Nothing. Just hoping we didn't give our relationship away just now.” He cups your face with a hand, guides you into looking at his smile. A deflection. “I might have gotten carried away.”

You lean into his touch, eyes playful: a performance. As if he's some stranger that you're servicing, a captor being entertained; as if you're a plaything about to be used. As if you expect to be treated like the disposable commodity that your husband just gambled away.

“I wouldn't worry,” you reassure him. “I'm sure after the show we put on, it'll be clear to anyone that you're only keeping me around for sex.”

It's very, very subtle, but a muscle in Aventurine's neck twitches. He'd never allow it in a game of cards, never before the IPC, never before the prying eyes of slavers and killers—but he allows it in front of you. He always unwittingly bares himself to you, even as he swallows his discomfort before adopting his usual, vulpine expression. You don't think anyone else would notice what lies beneath the gilded surface of his smile, his liar’s eyes. You don't think anyone else would notice his tells, his vulnerabilities, his quiet fear of loss.

After all, there is no one else in this universe who knows how to trick him into intimacy.

Winning has always come with a certain emptiness for Aventurine. Gambling is, after all, a zero sum game. He plays a royal flush and people lose their homes. Winner takes all. He survives the fighting pits, his blade dripping red with the lives of other slaves. Winner takes all. He runs from the stench of blood and burning flesh, praying for thunder and rain loud enough to drown the screams of his dying kin. Winner takes all.

He alone survives. He alone enjoys his riches. Ever since the Avgin died, he has always been by himself. There is no amount of coin nor credit that will ever change this.

Here is another unyielding fact that hollows any win: that no matter how many credits he collects, he will always be a chip himself. He will always be a plastic token worth sixty coppers. Gambling is a zero-sum game, and ever since the day he was chained, Aventurine has been the pool of riches divided among winners. He has always been the commodity being traded between hands. He has always been the prize to be cashed out and used. Even now, with all this money and power, it will never be him who comes to collect: it will always be the IPC. Winner takes all.

Such is his fate. Luck is always on his side, but he has always had the losing hand against destiny. No matter how many times he wins, there is nothing that will ever truly belong to him.

But then he met you.

Then he met you, and now his luck does not always feel like such a cruel or empty thing. Now the zero-sum game has meaning. He hedges his bets in the market and buys out a planet, and acquires you along with the shares. Winner takes all. He gambles his life against a nuclear power and comes out on top, and the IPC allows him to keep you by his side. Winner takes all. He plays a royal flush and wins at a table of slave traders, and he gets to fuck you until you can't think of any cock but his own. Winner takes all.

Gambling is a zero-sum game, and when you're the reward, Aventurine wouldn't have it any other way. He’ll never share you with anyone. He'll never sell you to anyone.

He’ll never lose you to anyone.

Sometimes it surprises him, this attachment he feels to you. He doesn't quite understand it, but he thinks it mostly just has to do with how good it feels to fuck you. Much like gambling, Aventurine has never enjoyed sex until you came along. Sex for him has always felt like a humiliation, like being gutted open as a captive animal, like being won and passed around in the grand hall of some gaudy casino.

Which is, in fact, another thing he never thought he'd enjoy: having sex in the Venetian Zhijin before an audience of revolting men. He'd resented having to do it as a slave, but he’d enjoyed doing it with you as a Stoneheart. He'd even do it again if he could—take you over and over again on that card table, fill you up with his cum. Spread your cunt in front of everyone, so they could see for themselves that you were now his. Winner takes all.

Winning doesn't feel empty when you're his reward. Sex doesn't either. Because Aventurine isn't a chip or an animal or a commodity when he fucks you—he's a player. Someone with a seat at the table, as just as wealthy and powerful as the slave traders around him. Someone who’s allowed to own something—really own something.

Really allowed to own you.

Aventurine owns you. When he fucks you, he is a player at the table, and you are the prize he gets to keep. And no matter how you feel about him and how you act toward him—this is all the two of you will ever be. He knows this. He knows that you know it too.

So sometimes he can't fathom it, the way he treats you in bed. The way he always kisses your commodity code when he sees it, the way he allows you to kiss his own. The way he always thinks about pleasuring you until you're drunk on his cock, so addicted to him that you’ll never want to be touched by anyone else. The way he always likes how your body feels when it's being shaped by his hands. How different it feels from being forced to touch other people.

How badly you make him want something that he's always hated.

And this is what he understands least of all: how he doesn't like to hear you say aloud the true nature of your relationship. How he doesn't like it when you accept this reality and say, you're only keeping me around for sex.

It hollows him out when he hears it. A bitter feeling swells in his throat, and he forces himself to swallow.

Aventurine keeps his face neutral as he enters the suite with you. As soon as the door is shut, you pull him close—close enough for him to see the blurred lines of your lipstick, smudged from his mouth; close enough to see the white diamond necklace on your neck, a collar for a concubine; close enough to see the finger-shaped discolorations on your throat, poorly hidden by your foundation.

Close enough to see all the things done to your body by others—all the things you didn't choose for yourself.

“How do you want to have me next?” Your fingertip traces his lips. “On the bed? In the shower?” Your eyes are playful. “Maybe against the window?”

Aventurine’s hand cups your cheek, gold rings pressed against your skin. His hold is delicate, more careful than with anything else he's ever handled—any of his watches, his furs, his jewellery. Even more than with the aventurine stone.

“I want to kiss you,” he says.

You blink.

“Kiss me?” Your brow ticks up, but then your face lights up in supposed understanding. “Okay. You can kiss me. And then?”

“And then I'll keep kissing you.”

You tilt your head, not understanding. “Really?”

“What? Is that off-limits now?” He leans in, expression playful. “Don't tell me I've got to go back downstairs and win back permission to kiss you from your husband.”

Before you can say anything else—ask anything else, perceive anything else—he presses his mouth to yours. Your eyes widen for only a moment before falling shut, your arms wrapping around his neck. Your lips part for him, and he delights in the noise you make as he deepens the kiss.

He did lie, in a way. The two of you do end up fucking again—this time in bed, your mouth gasping into his as you fall apart for him, wet and needy around his cock. You're so warm around him, so pliable beneath him, so desperate when possessed by him. He knows that he could keep going, that he could do anything to you, that you'd be eager to let him use you however he wants.

But all he does afterward is kiss you.

This is yet another act that he never thought he'd enjoy. Kissing has always felt like a chore or a power play or a manipulation. It has always come with a certain emptiness—just like gambling, just like sex. And then he met you, and now it no longer feels so hollow. Because when he wins bets for the IPC, he feels like a poker chip in one of their games, but when he’s fucking you, he feels like a player at the table. And sometimes, when he kisses you—when he holds you close, when you come down from your high and press your face into the crook of his neck and in the vulnerable haze of your bliss, tell him, I missed you—

—he finally feels like a human being.

end notes: christ alive I have never written anything so horny glddjsksjs. I apologize for both my mid smut writing and deranged characterization 💔

initially this was supposed to be brainless pwp about aventurine eating you out on a poker table but I kept asking myself “why the hell did aventurine gamble for human beings and why are these two insane enough to be fucking in a casino tho lol”, and thus a coherent narrative was born from my shameless lust for this guy! but please also don't take the story too seriously because this is a dumb smut piece first and foremost and I mostly wrote it with my clit 😔✌️

that being said, if you are curious about the subject matter that I covered – here's an afterword expanding on my intentions with the themes.

#aventurine x reader #aventurine smut #hsr smut #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #x reader #im so tired of editing this the quality of this piece is a lost cause sldkfjsldkfj #DIVIDER BY @/CAFEKITSUNE BTW it is so cute i thought it was perfect for this fic #anyway. sorry to everyone for character assassinating our favourite gambler #yueshuo.fics #dead dove #cw.slavery

[luveline]

𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭, 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 | 𝐚𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐫

When someone hurts you, you and Aaron both need time to get better, and to put things right. fem, 8k

cw canon typical violence, graphic scenes and imagery of assault/battery, recovery, mentions of being sick, issues eating. established relationship, lots of angst and comfort, hotch being vulnerable, jack being sweet 

˚‧꒰ა ✮ ໒꒱‧˚

You lay backward over the luxurious stretch of the couch and sigh as your spine gives a sharp crick. Your head feels heavy after a long shower, your arms ache from a day at work, but the feeling of soft cotton on your legs deters any moping. 

I hope these are more comfortable, his note read, a white post it note stuck to a boutique bag. You wrap an arm around your waist remembering how Aaron’s message had made you feel: spoiled, and considered. 

You’d mentioned in passing that all your pyjamas are old and rough as a consequence, thought nothing of it, and promptly forgot about the conversation entirely. 

When Aaron finally comes home tonight, you’re going to give him a proper thank you. You can imagine his reaction to such a thing, his smile as he says it’s no problem, his eyes shuttering closed as you press a kiss to his cheek. You hadn’t realised how prevalent affection would become in your life after meeting him, but everything he does inspires love. Awful, soft, marshmallowy love where he looks at you and you want to sit in his lap. 

You slide your phone up your chest lazily and click the button on the side to light the display. Aaron hasn’t claimed to know when he’ll be home tonight. All he’d said was to let yourself in. 

It’s odd but not the worst thing in the world to be alone in his apartment. There’s less and less free space each time you visit as Jack begins to outgrow his and his fathers lodgings, but there’s never a stain or bad smell, the Hotchner apartment feels homey. You’re excited whenever you’re invited to spend the night with them. 

Maybe some time soon he’ll ask you to move in, or better, to marry him. You’re not a hundred percent sure how you feel about marriage, about being someone’s wife, but there’s a great well of pleasure to be found in the idea that Aaron would want to marry you. He makes you feel loved already in a hundred different ways but the ring might be nice, like a symbol to signify how much you mean to him. 

You rest your hand across your eyes. It’s silly to think of. Sillier to want so soon. You’ve been together for just under a year, and you have no false hopes about rushing into the future, but it’s certainly a future you want with him (and with Jack, too). He’s taking things slowly for a hundred different reasons but he loves you, and gifts like your new pyjamas cement that. He really listens to you. 

Your phone rings a moment later. 

You smile at the screen. It’s nice to be in love with someone who loves you too. 

“Hey,” Aaron says when you answer, his voice warm even through the phone, “I didn’t think you’d answer.”

“How come?” You sit up with a little start. 

“It’s getting late, honey. I called Jess and Jack was already gone.” He doesn’t say anything further. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I wanted to hear your voice, I think.” 

“Well, where are you?” You struggle to envision him speaking saccharinely like this where his colleagues could hear him. He’s nice to you often, but he’s a reserved man. 

“I’m just,” —a crunching sound of metal, the trunk of his car closing— “about to get in the car. I’ll be home before ten. Can I have you until then?” 

“I don’t see any reason to say no. But do you think you could come home a little faster? I have a crick in my neck.” 

“And you want me to fix that?” 

“You always fix my neck.” 

“How have you done it?” There’s a sound you assume to be the car door closing, but you can’t hear anything beyond that. 

“I have bad posture.” 

“You have perfect posture.” 

“No, it’s quite bad.”

He laughs loudly. It took some time to draw the humour from him but he isn’t as stony as you’d think, and for a while he didn’t have much worth laughing for, anyways. Whenever you hear it, you try to prompt it twice. 

“You don’t have to lie to me, Aaron, it’s just like when you said my weird rash wasn’t weird.” 

He laughs again, to your pleasure. “It wasn’t weird, it was a heat rash, I promise. You act like you’ve never seen heat rash.” 

“One of us goes to hot cities all the time and one of us lives permanently in Virginia.” 

“What are you talking about? Virginia’s far from cold. You’re being argumentative, I can see your smile in my head. I’m never going to fix your crick if you keep acting like that.” 

“No, don’t be like that,” you laugh, tipping back into the cushions. “You’re always such a sore loser.” 

“What did I lose?” 

You can tell from his tone that you’ve promised yourself one of those hugs that borders on a straight jacket tightness, his face tucked into your neck as he asks you to repeat yourself. What did I lose? he’ll ask again, kissing your chin, the line of your jaw. Tell me clearly.  

“It hurts,” you say honestly, “please don’t be mad. I really need one.” 

“I’m not mad… I’m going under the overpass, my signal might cut out.” 

“Okie dokie. Hey, did you eat? I can make you something for when you get home. I got groceries.” 

“I’m not hungry, but you can make yourself hot cocoa, and I’ll drink it when I get there,” he says. 

“Or I could make us both some?” 

“It’s much more fun if I drink yours before you can, honey. You know that—”

You pause in the quiet, then hear a quick beeping. You pull your phone from your ear and find the call disconnected. 

Cruel overpass, you think. 

Sure he’ll call you back, you take your phone into his kitchen and set about finding all the things you’ll need for hot cocoa. One mug, because you should hate when he forces you to share, but you love the feeling of his fingers on yours as he takes it and the thankful kiss he dots on your cheek. 

The kettle is uncomplicated. You toy with the stovetop, set the kettle on the burner, and let the temperature rise. It begins whistling lightly a mere thirty seconds later. 

You click your phone on again. He’ll have passed through the tunnel now and will be calling you back any minute. You stare at the phone, hoping to summon him, slouched over the counter with the tin of cocoa powder by your fingers. The kettle whines with growing heat, but cool air kisses your back. 

Goosebumps rise. Up and down the lengths of your arms, the back of your neck—

A sudden chill. 

The lack of air comes before the hand, the pain a rush, a burst to be away from. Leather on your neck creaking without sympathy as a hand tightens and drags your body back against something hard. 

Not Aaron. Your scream comes strangled under cruel fingers as you fight to move forward again, straight for the burner, the kettle shoved across the burner grate and exploding with scalding water, heat of the burner kissing your chest— you scream, only it’s worse than a scream, sound from the deepest part of you forcing itself past the heat at your neck as you try to fling yourself away from the pain. 

You fall with a hard clout. “Stay still!” comes out enraged against the back of your neck. You drop to your knees, the pain lighting flaring up your chest, your gaze frantic as you search for a flame that isn’t there. You’re not on fire, you’re crawling and then scampering up into a standing position when the heavy weight drops itself on you again and smashes your face into the floor. 

All your fight leaves you. Your ears ring. Your panic wanes but the pain stays alert in your mouth. 

A hand grabs you by the back of the head and drives your face into the ground. It’s like light in your eyes and your nose, the brunt of it, the crack of your bone and the hot trickle of blood that swiftly follows. You gurgle in pain, spluttering and gagging against the linoleum, waiting for Aaron to turn you over and say sorry. It’s an accident.

Blood drains from your nose in spurts to match your racing pulse, so much blood you can see your eyes reflected in the dark stretch of it. Water drips down the front of the stove, your breath aches and begs, and your attacker takes a measured breath. 

He flips you over. You can’t slide away, there’s nothing left in you, your head a second body as he raises something. 

Your phone rings on the counter. 

“Please, don’t,” you plead with a sob.

You pass out as the pain connects. Just as quickly as it started, your body takes the reins. 

—

There’s a strange darkness waiting for you. Like waking before your alarm and stealing those last minutes, body aching, not wanting to get up and face the day. Aaron gets up early every morning, sometimes as early as four AM, and whenever you get up with him your eyes hurt for hours. 

Nothing, nothing, nothing. 

Hey, hey, I think your boyfriend’s coming.

What will he make of my handiwork?

You didn’t stay awake long enough for that one, did you? But you’re waking up now.

The pain is enough to wake you up again, a hot drag down the side of you to your hip and in. You aren’t aware of the sounds you make, but you can hear them. Your panicked squealing as the heat presses further and further in. Your crying, and your whispering, “Stop, stop.” 

“There’s handsome,” the dark voice says. “I’ve gotta go hide somewhere, does he carry after hours? I think I’ll find out.” 

“Oh,” you say, feeling sickly. You attempt to curl into yourself, when did you turn onto your back? “No,” you mumble, lips wet with something hot. 

“Honey?” a voice asks. 

“Honey,” you repeat, woozy again, darkness falling in all over again, where it stays. 

Honey, are you in here?

—

The window behind Aaron’s shoulder is cold. Rain patters fast like floods, thunder occasionally chewing through clouds, and Jack Hotchner cries sluggish tears into his dad’s shoulder. 

Aaron has his eyes closed. They’ve been at this for a while. “Shh, shh shh, buddy,” he says softly, patting the bottom of Jack’s back. He’d sway him back and forth if his arms weren’t about to fall off. 

Jack squirms closer, no room left between them. 

“I know it’s scary,” Aaron says. 

Jack just cries. This approach of quiet support isn’t working; Jack isn’t a baby that needs to be put to sleep, he’s a panicking little kid, and Aaron needs to change gears. He ushers him away from his chest and crosses his arm behind Jack’s back. Careful, he shifts Jack’s weight to free his other arm and brings his fingers up to the silky brown hair dropping onto Jack’s forehead. 

“She’s okay,” Aaron says, stroking Jack’s hair. His little forehead is clammy. “She’s not hurting. I know it looks scary, honey, but… she’s just resting.” 

Jack looks him in the eyes. “Her face.” 

“I know.” He nods emphatically. “It’s hard to see. Blood isn’t nice. You don’t have to see her again today, not if it’s too scary.” 

Jack lifts a hand to Aaron’s face. Clumsy but with clear attempts to be careful, he wipes at the skin under Aaron’s eye. Aaron bites back a smile. 

“I look tired,” he says. 

“Yeah.” Jack brings his hand back to wipe his eyes. He sobs as he does it. Aaron can’t describe the ache it gives him to see it. 

“Buddy, I’ll do it. Let me wipe your face. I can do it.” 

Jack drops his hands. Aaron turns his hand and wipes the smudge of Jack’s tears from hot cheeks, testing the waters with a little smile. 

“I couldn’t see you under all those tears.” 

Jack does a little smile back. “Yes you can.” 

“I couldn’t! But now I’ve wiped all your face I can see you again. You’re handsome, did we know that?” 

Jack giggles. He sniffles, and he presses his palm to Aaron’s neck. “I don’t want her to be sad, dad.” 

“She’s going to be sad, because something scary happened, but it’s okay. I’m gonna take care of her.” 

Aaron would offer to take him home, but they can’t go home. They may not go home for a long time —the team is still trying to work out how someone made it into the apartment without alerting the building’s security or Aaron’s internal system. And then escaped again without Aaron’s notice. Until then, Aaron has to make a decision about a safe house, for himself, Jack, and Jess, though she's extremely unreceptive to the idea. 

Aaron has to look after Jack, and he needs to take care of you. 

“What do you think, bud?” he asks, cupping Jack’s head in his hand. “Do you want to go home?” 

“You said I can give her a hug.” 

“If it’s too scary, we don’t have to. I don’t want you to get upset again.” 

“I’m not scared. I want to give her the hug,” he says. 

Aaron pulls him in for a hug of his own. “Okay, buddy. Just try to think of it like this. She’s where she needs to be to get better. Everybody here is looking after her. She’ll be okay soon.” 

Aaron looks over Jack’s head down the hospital hallway. It’s a quiet ward, and here between the main ward doors and the hallway that leads down to the individual rooms there’s complete silence. Night is approaching quickly again, and with it comes Aaron’s panic. Your head turned into a puddle, your face lax of expression in the dark. He can’t stop finding the women he loves bloody and on their backs. 

“Ready?” he murmurs. “Can you walk with me? My arms are tired.”

“Yeah.” 

Aaron puts Jack down gently onto his feet. He neatens his hair, chucking him under the chin as he goes to see his smile. He’s so pretty, like Haley was, with shiny eyes. He’s a beautiful kid. Aaron takes his hand and together they make their way down the hallway to your room. 

You’re sleeping. 

Aaron herds Jack through the door and to the plastic covered chair by your side, where he lifts him up and sits him down. He stays between you both. Jack isn’t scared of you, just the blood, but he wants to show Jack that he’s going to protect him from anything he needs protecting from. He also desperately wants to touch you, and reassure himself that you’re still breathing. 

He looks for your hand. Your pinky finger is splinted, but he can take it with care, give the palm of it a squeeze. 

The blood matted in your hair has finally been washed away after a turbulent day, as well as the staining that marred your face. Your nose is broken, and looks it, the bruises so fierce your eyes have turned puffy and your top lip has inflamed. There are second degree burns in multiple places but most affectedly on your chest. There’s a stab wound at your hip, allegedly done with a small blade. It nicked your small intestine. The bandages laid over you are a lump under your hospital gown. 

Aaron looks at you, and he feels a passionate disdain for himself. He wishes he could… be someone else. Someone who doesn’t have such a deep connection to a job that hurts the people around him, over and over. Haley used to say he was obsessed with being the hero, but this doesn’t feel heroic. 

“Do you wanna give her your cuddle?” he asks softly. 

Jack stays sitting. 

He’ll have to give it to you himself. Careful, Aaron leans down over your prone body and presses a half kiss to your ear, the only place that won’t hurt. 

You have an IV drip going into your arm, painkillers, an ECG monitor to the left. The room is white but busy, you’re a burst of colour against it all, your cuts and bruises, the evidence of violence he can’t remove. Aaron’s tired. He perches on the gap of bed by your leg and holds your hand, turning to Jack, who watches with a frown. 

“She’s sleeping,” Aaron says. 

“When can she come home?” 

“In a few days.” He feels the pad of your hand, terrified of your broken finger but needing to hold a part of you. 

“Why is she sleeping all day?” 

Traumatic experiences are exhausting. “I think she might want to be alone, so she sleeps.” 

“Should we go?” 

Aaron shakes his head. “I think we should stay. When she wakes up again she’ll be happy to see us, because we’re not strangers.” 

“We’re family,” Jack says. He’d liked that, when the nurse asked you how Aaron was related to you. Family only.

“We’re her family,” Aaron agrees. 

If he somehow miraculously fell out of love with you, you’d still be family to them. You’ve given so much of your heart since you met them. Aaron wants everything you have to give. 

You wake in a slow, slow upheaval. It takes effort on your part, the opening of sore eyes, the dreary decision to face your pain. Your hand jumps in his but relaxes when he shushes you, your slimmer fingers stilling under his rubbing thumb. For a split second, you keep your gaze half-lidded, jaw soft, like you’ve been indulging in a stolen nap. 

Then your breath catches and you screw your eyes tightly. 

“You’re okay,” he says, quietly, and not as lightly as he means to, “you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” in quick succession. 

“Hurts,” you say, and gasp, a whine stuck in your throat. 

He doesn’t know what to do. Jack shouldn’t watch this but he can’t leave you alone. “It’s okay,” he says, holding your wrist to stop it climbing up your bruised face. 

You were worse the first time you woke up. Catatonic, then sobbing. You mumble and whimper now, pain threading goosebumps down your arms. 

“It hurts too much,” you say. A sob falls out of you like you’ve been ripped open. 

Aaron doesn’t think, but an instinct sparks. The pain, to hit you right out of the gate like this, to make you say something like that when you’ve always always made your problems small, must be torture. It must feel new and sudden all over again. 

Aaron checks that Jack is alright and leaves the room. He looks down one hallway and then the other, but there’s no nurse around —he races to the reception desk and begs the two nurses there for help with you, “She’s in intense pain,” he says, grasping the desk. 

The nurse he’s more familiar with clears her throat. “Mr. Hotchner, she’s already had enough motrin for two people at your request, she really shouldn’t need–”

“Pain is just as important to treat as the injury.” 

A second nurse puts her salad down with raised brows. “Do you want to overdose her?” 

“Excuse me?” 

Aaron has always seen himself as a gentleman, but the argument that ensues is tricky to navigate while remaining respectful, and he’s no closer to better treatment for you by the end of it. He gives each nurse a disapproving glower and takes his phone from his pocket, turning on the spot, ready to call whoever it is he needs to call for a second opinion. He’s not gonna listen to you cry when there’s no need. 

He pushes the door open with the phone still clutched in his other hand. Jack’s climbed onto your bed. He cuddles your face, sitting by your pillows and bent over you protectively. 

Aaron lets out a breath. 

“It’s okay,” he says, his arm behind your head and his arm on your shoulder. “W’gonna take care of you.” 

“I know,” you say, crying without sound, shaking under his arms.

His cheek smushes against your forehead. Your eyes are closed and your face braced for contact Jack doesn’t make, careful not to hurt you as he rubs his cheek into your skin. Your blankets are falling off of you from the squirming and your bruises shine with tears in the light, but Jack has calmed you down some. 

Aaron shouldn’t have left Jack with you. He’s been so scatterbrained since he found you when he should be the opposite, but Jack is doing better than Aaron managed alone. 

“I’m sorry for crying,” you say slowly. “I’m hurting, but it’s not bad. I’m okay.” 

“That’s good. You have a big scratch on your face, and bruises.” 

“I know.” 

“Dad says you have a bruise on your tummy too.” 

“I got lots of bruises, but it’s okay. Don’t worry about me.” You bring your hand up injured and uncaring to rub his leg. “You’re being a really brave boy, thank you.” 

A tear rolls down your cheek. 

“It’s teamwork,” Jack says. “I hug you and you hug me.” 

“Is that what you want? You want a hug?” 

“I want to go home,” he says, hugging you harder. 

You grasp his arm loosely where it’s just under your chin. “Jack, can you move your arm?” you whisper. 

Your breath comes quickly, but Jack moves his arm away from your bruised neck and you try to calm yourself down. 

Aaron jolts himself back into action. “Sweetheart,” he says, rushing to sit Jack back and give you more space. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

He watches. Not sure what to say. Not sure saying anything is wise. You squint at him through your lashes, eyes opening slowly, your mouth a line pressed hard to stop from crying. 

“I think it's time for Jack to go home,” he suggests gently. 

“Yeah,” you say, eyes swimming with tears. 

“No.” Jack squeezes your head again, to your panic. 

“Jack, buddy, please don’t touch her neck,” Aaron says, grabbing Jack from your pillow. 

He erupts into tears again. Frantic and vying for you, Aaron tries to calm him and he kicks against his chest, tears turning to disgruntled sobs at not getting what he wants. You wince, pressing your face completely into the pillow. 

Aaron carries Jack from your room, phone in hand. 

—

Is she breathing? Can she talk? 

I don’t– I don’t know, I don’t– She’s breathing. Honey, can you hear me? I don’t know what to stop. I don’t know where it’s all coming from. 

Where’s the worst of the blood? 

It’s everywhere. 

Abdominal? Chest? 

I can’t tell. I can’t tell. 

Mr. Hotchner, you can’t panic. Does she have a chest wound?

Yes. Yes, but– 

Is she conscious? How’s her pulse? Be ready to start chest compressions. 

Honey, can you hear me? 

Your name said clearly. 

“Hey, can you hear me?” 

“Yes,” you murmur. 

“If you need a minute, that’s okay.” 

You cover your mouth with your hand. Emily Prentiss has a soft voice like your boyfriend’s when she wants to have it. She’s never spoken to you like this, none of his colleagues have, but since the incident, everybody treats you like you’re made of glass. 

Cognitive interviews are meant to happen immediately after an accident, but you weren’t up for company. Aaron promised this would be on your terms, that Emily is the most practised, and that she’s reaped the most information from them than the rest of the team. So far, it’s worked to drag bad memories to the surface. 

“Maybe we should start from the beginning.” 

There isn’t a beginning. There’s just conversation. Aaron’s hand on your heart and his shaky voice, so unlike him.

“Okay.” 

Emily reaches for your hand. She smiles, and her nice features get nicer. That’s another thing they all share, good looks. “Okay. What did you notice, in the kitchen? It’ll help if you close your eyes,” she reminds you. 

You close your eyes. 

“What stuck out?” 

“Nothing,” you murmur. “I’ve been in there lots of times, and nothing ever changes.” 

“Nothing? Not even the drawings on the fridge?” 

“Jack’s particular about his best work, even if I think they should all be on display.” 

Emily’s voice turns to a shard of itself. “What did you do? Can you take me through it step by step? Make yourself a cup of hot chocolate.” 

“I never got that far.”

“What did you do?” 

“I filled the kettle.” 

“What kettle?” 

You don’t understand the need for specificity, but you answer. “Aaron got it for me, when he… he told me he loved me, and when we got home he’d bought me a kettle and a bunch of stuff to make my being there easier. The kettle, because… he said something about superheated water. How the microwave can be dangerous, and this would be easier than a pan.” 

“Alright. Okay, and what did you do after that?” 

“I put the kettle on the stove.” You lit the burner, and heat kissed your palm, and suddenly the room had felt cold. “I got goosebumps.” 

“When?” 

“The kettle started to whistle, and it was cold.”

“And then–”

“Then he grabbed me.” 

“Yeah,” Emily says softly. 

You touch your nose. “I tried… He didn’t feel like a person. He didn’t feel like someone I was fighting, it was just painful.” 

“Like he was quick on his feet?” 

“He was silent. I didn’t hear him until I made him fall.” 

“How big did he feel?” 

Your stomach churns. Big. He’d felt big. 

Where’s the worst of the blood?

“He said he was going to hide,” you remember. 

“He said that? He said ‘hide’?

“Yeah. And he asked me if Aaron carries after hours.” 

“When was this?” 

It’s a headache. You try to remember more, because that’s what they need right now. If you ever want to go home, if you want Jack to go home, you need to remember more. The BAU are good, but nobody can make a map out of slivers. 

“That was at the end,” you say. 

“After he stabbed you?” 

You wince. “Yes. After.” 

“You’re doing so good,” she praises, “I just want to fill in the gaps.” 

“I can’t remember. I was unconscious.” 

“When Hotch found you?” 

“No, before.”

“Before?” she asks. 

You’re sick of sitting there with your eyes closed. Sick of your hands shaking with nowhere to hide them, and sick of feeling sick, your nausea as present as the stinging pain of your burned wrist against your sleeve each time you move. 

You open your eyes and look around the conference room for something interesting. How nice would it be to think of something else for a few minutes?

“He called it handiwork when he cut me. Asked if I thought Aaron would like it,” you say, bordering monotonous as your gaze fizzles, unfocused, across the room. 

“Okay, Y/N. Okay. I know you’re tired.” She reaches for your hands to squeeze at the same time. “You did really well. Any details at all are details we can use to find him.” 

You’re not in the mood for talking anymore. Tears burn your eyes, waiting for a blink to set them loose. 

“I want to see Aaron,” you confess quietly. 

“I’ll find him for you.” Emily stands but bends, the dark of her hair a contrast to her pale face. She’s lovely, and her hand is gentle on yours. “Are you okay? Can I get you something to eat?” 

So Aaron’s not keeping that to himself. “I want to see him, please.” 

“Yeah. Okay.” 

This is a horrible room. It’s not their fault, but the big white board is tacked with bad photos of grisly cases —currently your own. You stare at a photograph of your blood in the kitchen and don’t know what to do. Should you look away? You hadn’t realised you bled so much. 

You turn your chair toward the door. Emily looks back as she leaves and smiles at you softly, but your eyes are already moving to the smaller dry erase board by the doorway. It’s ‘Hotch’s turn to clean up on Thursdays. How strange that they make the boss clean the conference room. 

You can picture him picking up coffee cups and wiping down the table. You can always picture Aaron. 

You can see him hovering over you, his hand pressed to the bloody mess of your hip to stop the blood. 

“It’s okay,” you whisper to yourself, wanting to break from the memory, following Aaron’s example. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” You repeat it into your hands, head tilting down. You sink until your knuckles touch your knees. 

That’s all he says when you panic. He’ll say it over and over again until you can breathe right. I have you, I have you, you’re okay. 

He’s much quieter this time. You hear his footsteps, his familiar gait, your head pounding too hard to move. Aaron makes a sound between a sigh and a hum, like he’s saying a sorry hello as he kneels in front of you. His hand takes your face, rubs softly over your ear. 

“My head’s just hurting,” you murmur. 

He doesn’t respond. You sit together for some time as your mind races with bad memories, your fear a rush of goosebumps down the lengths of your arms and thighs. It’s hard not to think about what happened, mostly because you’re still a walking bruise, your stitches sting when you move, the blisters on your chest ache, all of it inescapable. But it’s your anxiety that plagues you most. You’re in a constant state of dread. 

You had no idea someone could hurt you as badly as they had until it happened, and now you’re desperate not to be hurt again. 

“You have to look after me,” you say eventually, throat sore with how awful it feels to say. 

“Yes, I do.” 

“Please don’t let me get hurt again.” 

Total silence. You sniffle at his lack of an answer, only slightly comforted by his hands at your wrists now, pulling them from your face. “Let’s sit up,” he says, standing himself. “Come on, let’s sit up. You shouldn’t be putting so much pressure on your abdomen.” 

You lean back and everything aches like a stretch after a long run or a bad night’s sleep. 

Aaron pulls a chair next to yours. When he sits, your knees are pressed in between one another’s thighs, so close he could hug you. You might need one.  He’s given you a ridiculous amount of them each day, some for him and some for you. 

He has with him a takeout box and a bottle of water. 

“Here,” he says, popping the seal of the drink. “Three sips.” 

You feel like crying, but you drink. He opens the takeout box to reveal a normal looking sandwich already cut into two halves, but he takes a plastic knife from his pocket, peels away the wrapping, and cuts the sandwich again into quarters. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” you say. 

“No, you’re not. You won’t be.” He presses the sandwich flat with his hands and holds it to you until you take it. “Please, Y/N. You only have to eat what you can.” 

“I don’t want it.” 

“Please.” 

“Did Emily tell you about my interview?” 

He reaches for your thigh. Mildly unlike him when you aren’t at home. You assume it to be a tether for your sake. “No. Is there something you think I should know?” 

“I don’t want to say it again.” 

“Then you don’t have to. Someone will tell me when I get back.” 

You pinch the fluffy bread in your hands, eyeing wearily at the wet insides. “Can I come with you?” 

“You’re having trouble in the cognitive interviews, you won’t want to hear what we have to say.” 

You split the sandwich in half again, watching as salad and mayonnaise ooze from the bread. 

“If you don’t eat, you won’t get better,” he says, a touch stern. 

“I can’t eat when you won’t let me come with you.” 

“I’m not the only person capable of protecting you. I…” He circles your wrist before you can make a mess. “Can you please eat it?” 

You take a bite to appease him, your stomach roiling, food wet and cold on your tongue. You eat the whole quarter queasily, a lump at the back of your throat begging you to stop. 

Aaron takes an empty hand and rubs it tenderly. “Thank you,” he says, that rubbing turned more forceful, his hand journeying to your elbow and back again. 

It’s sweet how attuned he is to your needing his touch, but mortifying. This entire experience had been embarrassing from start to end. Couldn’t defend yourself, can’t get to grips with it, and can’t keep anything down. Aaron looks at you and your bruises and you wonder if he’s seeing you with blood matted in your hair, or hearing you beg for him to get you something stronger. All you’d wanted was a sedative. 

“I’m far from the only person capable of protecting you,” he says. 

“You saved me,” you say. You mean it in every sense of the world. 

“…This is my fault.” 

“I want to be with you,” you say honestly. “I don’t feel okay by myself right now, I just need you, or I feel so sick I wish that I died.” The anxiety is marrow deep. 

Aaron looks gutted. “Don’t say that.” His hand goes back to yours, back to tenderness. “I know you're scared.” 

“Then why won’t you listen?” you ask weakly. 

“I’m listening to you,” he says, his tone a dulcet, pleasing softness you’ve never ever heard before, “I need you to be safe, and I need Jack to be safe, and I can’t do that while he’s still out there.” His brows pinch together, agonised. “I’m sorry you’re scared. I didn’t protect you. But I won’t let anything happen to you again.

“I love you. Please believe that I’m doing what’s best for you right now.” 

You turn your head away. He cups your cheek regardless. 

“I love you,” he says again. 

“I know.” 

“No, I love you.” 

He’s saying sorry.

“I love you,” you mumble back. 

“How are you feeling? Is anything hurting more? Weeping?” 

Your eyes are heavy at his touch. “You only looked at me a couple of hours ago.” 

“Alright. Can I kiss you? I need to go.” 

You don’t answer. Aaron kisses your chin, your jawline, the type of roving, teasing kisses he’d give as he squeezed your sides, only he doesn’t squeeze you, he can’t without hurting you. His hand hesitates just above your deepest wound. 

His bright kiss works to spark a modicum of life back into you. Not a lot, but enough. It was likely his intention, some quick prodding kisses to remind you of something happy between you both. 

You curl your fingers over his hand and turn your face for a chaste peck. He smiles, the curve of his lips evident and relieving against yours. 

“Someone will take you back to the safe house, okay? Give Jack a kiss for me,” he says. 

You nod. Aaron strokes your cheek. 

—

Your assailant could have killed you while you were vulnerable, but he didn’t. “He assumes he’ll have another chance,” Emily surmises. 

“That’s cocky,” JJ mutters. 

“It’s telling,” Aaron says. “But he won’t.” 

The coaching has been extensive. You, sick, a breath from tears and hurting, your shoulders in his hands and his grip too tight. If someone tells you I’m dead, you wait. If Morgan tells you I’m dead, you ask Rossi. If he says I’m dead, you ask Emily. You can’t believe the first thing someone says. No one is going to move you from this safe house to another without seeing me first. If I do get hurt, you and Jack will be moved separately. You will always get my confirmation before you’re moved. 

I’m not gullible, you’d said, wincing at his sharp tone. 

It’s not about that. People will lie, and they will lie well. They will talk their way into the house if you let them. You can’t let them. 

I won’t. 

He’s racing against a countdown, because no matter what he says, what you know, or how many agents wait outside your house, sometimes it’s a force of will. 

Foyet didn’t need much more than that. 

He admittedly feels on surer footing knowing where you are. The decision to guard you without putting you in WITSEC is aching and scary but better, too. He knows where you are. He can be there in ten minutes. No guessing games, but no hiding for you either. 

Your dread is taking over everything you do. Today’s the first day since you came home almost two weeks ago that you could function without a live-in nurse or Jess there to look after Jack, and already he’s worried, because he’d convinced you total honesty was what’s best for the both of you, and so your texts are candid. 

One an hour for his sake, more if you're up to it.

Threw up my beta blockers. Jack misses you, he wants to make you a Lego boat and fishing rod, but I’m not sure how to do it. Please make sure you eat dinner. 

Your next message makes him smile, thankfully. I’m kidding about the dinner thing. Ha. I had one of those gels you got for me, and Jack wants fries, so I’m making waffle fries. 

He texts back quickly. Eat dinner. Please tell Jack I miss him too, and don’t worry about the boat, he’ll work it out. Then, feeling awful, he adds, I love you

Aaron should go home. He’d feel better if he knew he was there to help you keep your medication down, but if he leaves… He knows his team will give you everything they have, but he has more. He can fix this. 

He can’t fix this, god, his head hurts badly. You’re covered in cuts and bruises and burns and he thinks he can make up for that? You’ve been brutalised. Aaron can’t believe this is happening again. 

He rubs his brow. 

“You okay?” Emily asks. 

When he looks up, JJ is gone. 

“I’m fine.” 

“It’s okay if you’re not.” 

He’s not fine, but he knows what she’s asking. “I’m okay enough to do this,” he says. 

It’s hard not to confuse you with memory, your hurting similar to his own, your situation one that he’s already lived. Haley will haunt him for life. It doesn’t usually feel as punishing as he fears he deserves: he gets to remember the best parts of her everyday. He sees her in Jack all the time. He sees her in you, occasionally —you’ll touch his hair or rub his arm like she would’ve done, and it doesn’t make him miss her any more than he does, he’s not in the business of wishing you weren’t yourself, he loves you, but he remembers her. Aaron remembers how he failed her every day. 

He can’t fail you, too. 

“Is it ever easy?” Emily asks. 

Aaron looks around for a bottle of water. “Is what?” 

“Being in love.” 

He thinks about it. “I must make it look hard.” 

She laughs softly. “Sometimes, yeah.” 

Maybe that’s not fair, then, to you. For him to make it seem difficult to love you. To fail to correct Emily when she asks. 

He chooses his words carefully. “Loving her is the easiest thing in the world. But… I continue to work a job I know makes me hard to love in return.” And that puts you in danger. 

It doesn’t feel wrong to be sincere. Perhaps it’s easier with Emily. She saw so much of him during Foyet, and she’s family, truly. He can tell her how intense it’s felt. 

“Well, it doesn’t seem hard for her,” Emily says. 

He shakes his head. 

She continues regardless, “Even during her cognitive, she mentioned the first time you told her you loved her. When it was over she wanted to see you over anything else.” 

But I put her here, he wants to say. Or doesn’t want to say at all, but instead knows with surety. 

“She can’t eat if I’m not home,” he says. What a thing to do to someone. “It’s my fault.” 

Emily smiles, hair slipping off of her shoulder as her expression turns to playfulness. “I think you’re seeing it all wrong. Something bad happened to her, and you’re so safe to her that you make it better when you’re with her. That’s not fault, Hotch. Just love.” 

He turns his attention back to the board without another word. 

—

When the day comes, when they find the man who hurt you, you’re sitting at home with Jack Hotchner in your lap. You’re laughing at his laughing, cartoon fish on the TV, and Aaron’s got a gun in his hand fifty miles away. You both giggle, nearly in hysterics as the safe house living room glows pink and red, Jack’s favourite character swimming hurriedly across the screen, as Aaron negotiates the arrest. 

Usually capable of mediation, Aaron finds his patience completely unravelled. He offers the UnSub two choices: he surrenders now, immediately, and he keeps his life, or he deliberates and Aaron kills him. 

He has reason to believe the UnSub will try again, of course. Will keep hurting you until it sticks. 

He goes home satisfied.

“Dad’s home!” you say excitedly, your movie long finished, your thighs numb and stitches stinging where Jack has leaned against you. You encourage him off of you as the front door closes, the cold air from outside rushing in. 

“Honey?” Aaron calls. 

“Yeah!” You stumble into a standing position, sure you look about as disgusting as you have since the situation began, promptly sitting back down as head rush hits. 

Jack races for the door, meeting Aaron in the hallway with a whoosh. “Hey!” 

“Hi, junior g-man, what are you doing?” 

“We watched Finding Nemo,” Jack says, “and now I’m hugging you, duh.” 

“Duh. Well, I need to talk to Y/N for five minutes. Can you wash your hands for dinner?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You okay?” he asks. 

“I’m fine.”

You hear the sound of a light kiss, and then Jack rockets across the hallway and up the stairs. Aaron walks into the doorway, tie still knotted but with no suit jacket, and you know what he’s going to say before he says it. He wears a strange expression.

“You got him?” you ask. 

He puts a white bag on the coffee table, looking down at you fondly. “I got him.” 

“How did you find him?” 

He crouches down in front of you. He’s so careful to be harmless to you now, so tentative. “You’re not the only woman he hurt. We dealt with him in the past. From the information you gave Emily during your interview, and the information he left behind, we found him… If you weren’t as brave as you are, I couldn’t have kept you and Jack safe.” He holds your knee. “Thank you.” 

You stare at him. Staring, wondering what he means. “Brave?” 

“Brave.” 

“I’m a coward.” 

He shakes his head. “No. You’re not.” 

All you've done for days is cry and throw up and bleed, literally. You’ve ruined clothes and sheets, thrown up in his lap, terrified and aching. Each time was met with the same gentleness. A kiss on the cheek, or a hand rubbing your back. Is that bravery? You feel like a baby. 

Aaron’s brow is relaxed. He takes your two legs into his hands, and he looks at you with a reverence that leaves you breathless. 

“You’re hurt forever because of me,” he says quietly, you strain to hear him, “because of who I am, and what I choose to be.” 

“How can you say that? It’s not your fault.” 

“It wouldn’t have happened to you if I hadn’t missed his MO the first time.” 

“You’re not putting the knife in anyone’s hand,” you argue. 

“But it keeps happening.” 

His hair shines dark and wet. It must be raining outside, the safe house walls are thick, the windows shuttered permanently, you haven’t heard a peep. You stroke it back from his forehead. 

“Remember… when we first got together, and you told me you were sorry for how hard being with you could be. And I said it was okay, that it wasn’t hard, and you said it would be?” 

“I remember,” he says, practically mouths. 

“I was so afraid when...” You swallow roughly. “I still am. But not– not of you. Not of what you can do. When you told me it was going to be hard, I thought, well, it’s worth it, because I really liked you then and I love you now.” Tears collect in your eyes. Safe. I’m safe. “And you look after me, so– so–” 

You stop as your voice turns to glass, worried you’ll make a fool of yourself and cry in his hands. 

“I didn’t want this for you,” he says. 

“Nobody wants this. Bad things happen to everyone, but who has someone like you to look after them?” 

He breathes out heavily. “Please… don’t cry.” 

You wipe your cheeks, taking a lengthy pause before you say, “I’m okay now.” 

He looks at you in silence. 

“Come and sit with me,” you say, scrubbing your cheeks, hot tears cooling on the backs of your hands. “Your knees.” 

He actually smiles. It changes his entire face. “What about my knees?” 

Aaron sits on the couch next to you atop Jack’s blanket, a bag of pretzels tipping between your leg and his. You attempt to rake his damp hair into submission as his fingers run against your thighs, fishing for pretzels to put back into the bag. 

You’d like for him to grab you and kiss you harshly, give you one of his straight jacket hugs, some roughhousing, but you won’t get that from him until you're better, and even then, it’s up in the air. So much has changed. 

But not everything. 

“I love you,” you murmur, fingertips scratching down behind his ear to the back of his head. 

He turns to you, sagging with relief and exhaustion. “Kiss?” he asks quietly. 

You nod. He holds your cheek, and you close your eyes at the same time for a kiss. It’s not a lot, but you have time. He can give you another one when you’re both better recovered. 

He pulls away. You open your eyes, finding his closed, his face downturned. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

“Was Jack good?” 

“Jack’s always good.” 

“Did the nurse have anything to say about your chest?” 

“She said it’s healing okay. That I need to use, uh, scar patches when they start to scab.” 

“I can get those.” 

“I know, I knew you would.” 

He gathers you up for a hug. For a moment, you think he’ll move on, that the end of your nightmare will kill his remorse, but he breathes in, nose wedged against your cheek. 

“Do you think that tonight, we could pretend it didn’t happen?” You’d like to just sit with him, press your hand to his chest and doze. It’s the first night in a while that you’ll feel completely. 

“Yeah. I can do that.” He hugs you rather tightly. “Do you want to see your present?” he asks, relaxing his grip. 

“My present?” 

He grabs the bag on the coffee table and places it in your lap. “I’m worried it’ll remind you of bad memories, but I wanted you to have nice things then, and I still do.” 

In the bag, there’s a pair of pyjamas. Very different to the ones you’d been wearing when you were attacked, they were girly and sweet, soft in your hands, these are sturdy. Still soft, but thick. The shirt is short-sleeved and the pants cuffed at the ankles, a hoodie tucked underneath them, and a packet of minky socks. 

“Thank you,” you say. 

Thanks for everything, for saving you twice, for taking care of you at your worst, and for wanting you to have something comfortable to wear at the end of it. To have experienced an abjectly cruel battering will leave its marks in your forever, but you meant what you told him. He looks after you, and you love him. 

He kisses your shoulder. “You don't need to say that.” 

He doesn’t add anything else, his nose pressed to your shoulder, his hand on your hip. Whatever goes unsaid can be felt in the other’s touch. 

˚‧꒰ა ✮ ໒꒱‧˚

thank u for reading!! it’s been a long time since I wrote a fic for hotch and it’s hard to write him being vulnerable but I hope this is alright anyways and that you enjoyed :D please consider reblogging if you did enjoy it (cos that way my fics get shown to more people <3) ❤️

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner oneshot #aaron hotchner drabble #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #hotch x reader #hotch #hotch x you #hotch blurb #hotch drabble #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic

[prettyboykatsuki]

u give rin pussy ONCE. and hes in the best mood of his life afterwards. is sooooooo clingy too

no like. exactly...

i dont think rin can do hook-ups. he gives very like. 'i dont understand hook up culture. die in my arms.' type vibes BUTTT

i think there's a very real instance like pre-relationship where he is acting like a massively pathetic dick to you (bc hes in love w u ... he needs to heal so bad.) and you pause like. rin we should fuck. i think you'll be more tolerable if we fuck

RIN DOES NOT DO HOOKUPS. but he's not so out of touch that he's gonna pass up on a chance to have sex with u in particular. the sex you have is INSANEEEEEE. you have never seen him act like that in your entire life. he's kind of ... needy ? but very aggressive at the same time. just over all intense. he shakes a lot. ill be honest i can very easily see it being his first time and he doesn't bother telling u cause he would let u take it any ways. bonus if it is not your first time. makes him crazy

u have crazy ridiculous sex and run out of condoms via his disgusting athlete stamina. and ITS LIKE A SEDATIVE LOOL.

he's so easy to handle afterwards. loses his bite. he doesn't argue w u at all. he's just....clingy and kind of sleepy. if u initiate affection he will fold INSTANTLY. he can't do it bc of his pride (before u are dating. afterwards he doesn't care at all. literally) but if u do he's like lowkey going yipeee in some deep recess of his brain.

u can't say a damn THING bc if u even think of teasing him he will revert to his tsundere ways but it really clicks that he actually likes u bc he has an arm around you and his face in your neck like inhaling you and he's like mumbling whenever u move to stay put. like who even is that. its so funny its such a change.

he is a mess after that. like constantly in conflict over 1. accepting his feelings for u bc ur annoying 2. figuring out how to get into a relationship w/out folding (which is impossible.) bc he hates hookups. he's insane

#return to sender #a.rin

[azullumi]

LAST NIGHT I DREAMT OF THE STARS AND YOU, PT. 1

premise — because that’s just how they are; alternatively, “the type to” trend with hsr characters. characters — ruan mei, veritas ratio, aventurine, and robin content tags — gender-neutral reader, established relationship, fluff, slight angst, not proofread, word vomit in some parts, 1.6k words ; headcanons

note from me — seasickness took me out and the fact that i have a 9 hr road trip tomorrow is already making me dizzy. i hope i’m asleep for the 3/4 of it,, also this has a pt. 2 which i’ll upload later on !! anyways i wrote this in between my vacation and trip and in between the long-ass separate fics with sunday and aven so sorry if it seems rusty or out of my style 🙏

RUAN MEI, (lies in between the line of a good lover and a bad lover) the type to be unable to express her affections for you through words and settles with small and simple gestures that she has observed and seen from everyone around her; having never understood “love” and never knowing how to correspond with such, she’s left silent and confused like a lost child in the wake of it. She’ll find herself staring you quietly, memorizing the lines of your face and how it creases and contorts into different expressions, studying each crevices and edges of the parts that makes up your being to bury you in her memory, and there’s a smile that tugs on her lips every time her gaze falls on you. Oh, she wishes she understood what it all meant (she simply and devastatingly adores you).

RUAN MEI, the type to subconsciously write your name on paper whenever she’s distracted. it’s a small habit she does, one that makes her smile whenever she notices the letters spelling out your name. She has ruined, tainted several of her papers, even important ones, with just a single word, a set of letters that composes of what makes warmth seep into her chest when her mind drifts into the thought of someone—you.

RUAN MEI, the type not understand the underlying reason behind her actions—why she spends the time and makes the effort in between her busy schedule and pile of papers to make sweets for you, why she lets you do her hair despite how messy it often turns out when you braid it and how she can never find the strength in herself to “fix” or disturb the state of your work, why she always seek for the warmth of your hands whenever she’s feeling uneasy or stressed, why she always lean to your shoulder or to your touch when you caress her cheek, and everything. It’s a puzzle board of missing and scattered pieces, unable to comprehend the full image of the mystery—and yet, she still delves into the enigma of her feelings that is intertwined with your existence. Maybe one day she’ll come to know it all and maybe it will be the time when she can finally be honest to herself.

VERITAS RATIO, the type to want to know every single thing you and remember all of it. Perhaps it’s the bare minimum, perhaps it’s something that he just does. “They don’t like that,” He would say when an arrogant fool would even try to give you (or do) something, and he’s there, witnessing it all, knowing the things that you prefer and like. He knows what flowers that you like, knows your favorite color, knows the way you prefer to sleep, knows the small habits that you do when you’re nervous or scared or happy, knows every little detail that paints the whole of your existence. Isn’t it simply just lovely when someone desires to know you from the inside and out? Even if it’s just a little bit, he feels more closer to you in this way.

VERITAS RATIO, the type to be sweet and reassuring towards you (through words and actions), even though he may come off as mean, blunt, or rude towards others. Sure, he may call you an idiot sometimes but he’ll never go past that nor reach the line of degrading and distasteful remarks because he never wishes to hurt your feelings; if ever he did, he’ll apologize and tell you it’s not his intention. “Fool,” But the affection that edges into the tone of his voice cuts the thread of disdain that sews into the word. Oftentimes when texting and it’s easy to misunderstand the tone of one’s message, especially his tone, he’ll reassure you that he didn’t send it in a way that he’s angry or scornful: “The ‘Ok’ that I sent is not a mad ‘Ok’, I am in a rush and could only type that out. I’m not angry.”

VERITAS RATIO, the type to entertain your questions no matter how stupid it can be; he’d give you the answers every single time. He doesn’t mind being treated like a walking encyclopedia or dictionary if it’s you—he’d hate it if you were going to ask someone else instead of him (although he probably never told you that discomfort). I mean, you have a well-known member of the Intelligentsia Guild, someone who parallels a genius, just right at the tip of your fingertips, why bother asking someone else?

AVENTURINE, the type to like listening to the sound of your breathing, the sound of your heartbeat (to listen to the sound of you blinking, to listen to your hands soothe). It’s comforting, in an odd way, and he never tells you but it helps him fall asleep—watching the rising and falling of your chest, seeing your calm face wrinkle ever so often while you sleep. He keeps the sound of your heartbeat close to the pocket on his chest, weaving the rhythm of it to his pulse, and before he knew it, the dawn will come in quiet solitude.

AVENTURINE, the type to be always on fight-or-flight mode. Perhaps it’s the way that he grew up, perhaps it was the harsh and cruel environment that he’s in, but he’s always on guard, seemingly on defensive mode as if danger lurks at every dark corner. His shoulders are always tense, his hand either hidden or playing with the ring on his finger, it’s like he never can’t seem to relax himself even when he’s in the comfort of your arms. It follows him everywhere, trailing behind his feet, and forces him awake at night—he doesn’t even know where the fear, the anxiety, is coming from, he just knows it’s there. One wrong step and his thoughts will come crashing down like cold downpour, one wrong move and you’ll come to leave him. Sometimes a little reassurance comes a long way and it’s all he needs when his mind is being tormented. (He will learn to live with it, even if he can never seem to understand or know it. He will come to know peace as if it’s all he had in his hands when the sun first held him).

AVENTURINE, the type to immediately smile after a kiss. It’s utterly affectionate; parting, staring deeply into one’s eyes with his cheeks dusted with a certain color and he’s grinning—warmth beams from his expression and there’s a certain feeling that intertwines into his gaze and he knows it’s love because it’s all he feels whenever he looks at you. He’s the type to laugh into a kiss, feeling ticklish all over his bones as if your hands are ghosting the sensitive parts of his skin, and you’ll ask him, “What?” but he’ll only answer with, “Nothing.” He’s not drunk, the ache of wanting simply swells up in his chest and all he can think of is how much he adores you.

ROBIN, the type to try and make time for you. Her schedule is always packed, filled with all kinds of events and tasks that she needs to do. It’s overwhelming, everything feels overwhelming for her and it’s hard to know which one she should prioritize first not when she has a lot of things on her hands. Sometimes she feels lost, feels the weight too heavy on her shoulders, feels like her feet are tied to the ragged earth, feels the cage closing on her. She tries so hard to be the perfect lover for you, to become someone that will reach beyond your expectations; she cradles that perfect image, broken in all of its edges, that were constructed for herself close to her chest even if it feels like a knife to her heart. But really, all you need is for her to be herself (not the star that everyone admires and wishes to reach) and sometimes, that’s all she needs to hear from you—that she doesn’t have to hold on to the shattered chains when the coldness of the metal reminds her of what she has to carry.

ROBIN, the type to go on all kinds of dates with you, silly or not, and even matches clothes with you. She’s usually the one to make the invite to match, thinking that it’s cute and the both of you rarely ever has time like this so why not make the most out of it; who are you to even say no when she’s beaming at you so warmly? She has all of her options laid on the bed, displayed on clothing hangers, asking you what you’re going to wear or what color do you want. It’s lovely, sweet, seeing her like this and you could only pray to whoever aeon is listening that nobody comes to ruin the day the both of you rarely have for each other.

ROBIN, the type to bring you all kinds of souvenirs and gifts from her (universal) tours, sometimes having bought too much that you don’t know what to with some of them; the type to send you letters every time she’s away so that you won’t worry for he, especially knowing what happened last time, the type to always try to keep in touch and keep you close no matter the stars between you and her. She’ll ask for one thing that you own that she can carry with her person, making a promise that she’ll come back and return it—the item a testament to her vow—, but for the meantime, she’ll keep it so she has a little piece of you everywhere she goes and she can say that you’re always there by her side.

DRUM ROLLS PLS *dundundundundun* special mention to the one and only beloved feli @dr-felitas !! i think i owe you a lot of end notes so here i am :3 also i’m sorry if i publish this and i still haven’t responded to your messages (if you have sent me cause im on dnd to avoid my dumbass from checking and looking at the phone during car rides knowing that i get motion sick) ANYWAYS i would like to begin this with i love you mwamwa, you’re one of the sweetest and most wonderful souls i have ever met and anyone who tells u otherwise will get a boulder thrown to their head 🫵 im glad to have met you, that my anti-social ass went ahead and messaged you despite the fact that we only talked once or twice AND IT WAS OVER ASKS OR COMMENTS BUT YEAH !! idk what or where i’ll be if i hadn’t done that; maybe not replying to my friends idk (again im sorry if i take business days to answer i sometimes get busy or i sometimes dont have the energy :3 i hope u still love me hahahaha… *slides down the wall*) again, i really appreciate and adore you for everything. you are a brave and kind person and i only hope for the good things for you. don’t be too mean or harsh to yourself 🫂 know that i’m always here to listen to you no matter what you’re saying. you’re never a burden to me and i hope you’ll come to see just how you shine and radiate with so much warmth and kindness, it’s like love itself is found in you. ily lottss mwaa <33

sunday, himeko, welt, gallagher, and jing yuan next !!

© azullumi — do not plagiarize, copy, repost, nor translate any of my works.

#—stellaronhvnters. #hsr imagines #hsr x reader #aventurine #hsr aventurine #aventurine x reader #aventurine honkai star rail #aventurine hsr #star rail aventurine #hsr #star rail #honkai star rail #ratio x reader #aventurine x you #ratio x you #ruan mei x reader #ruan mei #veritas ratio #robin x reader #hsr robin #azul.writes

[chosows]

FIRE ON ICE 🏒

Ice hockey Sukuna x Fem Reader

Summary: Hockey—a sport that had taken over his life, and yours. Every day of the past month has been dedicated to his performance for the upcoming game; this game determines their position in the tournament as the rightful victors.

Sukuna takes great pride in his preparations, often neglecting you in the process to ensure his focus is entirely on the game. Whatever the fate may be, he is aware of his absence in the relationship. He swears that given this victory tonight, he will share you a fix of his undivided attention.

Word count: 5.5k

Contains: Smut, established relationship, teasing, public displays of affection (brief), top!Sukuna, bottom!reader, cunnilingus, penetration, brief aftercare

Note: i keep getting hockey edits plastered over my social media feeds and it’s taking over my life, so now it can take over yours too. this is also my first post on tumblr + first oneshot (not my first time writing—i typically prefer my long fics); this may be a little rough

Saturday, September 14th, 11:00 AM

With a few hours remaining before the match begins, you attempt to settle down in the hotel room they had provided as his accommodation. It was ridiculously fancy, decked out beyond belief; the closet has its own room, something even your apartment lacks. The view was exceptional; you could see the arena from the floor-to-ceiling length windows. The building that would decide the fate of his career could change both of your lives if his team succeeds. Though Sukuna would never admit to his emotions, you could sense the tension and dread growing inside him each passing day. His anger becomes out of control when he is overwhelmed; he struggles to process his thoughts and allows them to overflow, spurting whatever hurtful words they harbour at you. You know he doesn’t mean it, he could never harm you; you’re his good luck charm—his motivation. When tensions are heightened, you figure it’s best to stay out of his way; he regulates alone, any other input will add kinder to his raging flames. Fans have been highly active in the media, small video and picture edits of the team are blowing up—especially the ones of your boyfriend. Herds of women flock to these hockey matches despite admitting they only attend to see the player they deem most attractive. Many of the older men had found your social media accounts through Sukuna and would send you direct messages, expecting you to have the latest scoop on the team. In reality, you pay little to no attention to the logic behind the sport; all you do is support Sukuna with no other thought in your mind. He has attempted to explain the process but it doesn’t register in your brain; a brick wall would take better understanding than you do. Buzzing sounds and your phone vibrates on top of the wooden bedside table, casting your attention to the lit-up phone screen. A Facetime call is coming through, so you quickly do your best to shape up your appearance before answering.

“Hey,” The camera shows Sukuna alone in the locker room, his jersey resting beside him on the bench as he rests his head against the cool metal, “Only three hours left, you excited to see me out there?”

“You know I am; you should see what it’s like on social media. They’re all talking about the game, there’s been a few thousand posts under the team name in an hour.”

“Good, we’re going to give them something to talk about.”

“I can’t wait for this to be over, I feel like I haven’t spent time with you properly in months.”

“I know. It’s been tough, you’ve gotten through it quite well though.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to steal you straight after the game?”

“Don’t know, they might have us do some interviews. I’ll try my best to make it quick.”

“How come you’re not dressed?”

“Started sweating so I took everything off, it’s been a mess over here.” He pats his hand against his abs, then tilts his head slightly to the side to reposition himself more comfortably.

“You’re stressing yourself out again, Sukuna.”

“You think?”

“Give yourself a breather, don’t let it weigh too heavily on your mind. You don’t want to let your emotions mess with you mid-game.”

“That’s easy for you to say, it’s far harder than it looks.”

“I believe in you,” You smile at him through the screen, and his eyes drift to your mouth, “I’ll be there yelling your name, cheering you on louder than everyone else.”

“That’s all I need. I’ll see you soon, baby.”

“I love you, go win us that game.” He takes a final moment to glance at you, the grin on his face visible before he ends the call.

With little time left to spare, you take action and begin dressing accordingly. Since it can get cold being so close to the ice, you’re advised to layer up. You select one of your sweatshirts and a pair of pants that will ideally match the outfit you crafted inside of your mind, praying that it will look better when it’s on your body than it does laid out in front of you. Pairing the sweatshirt with one of Sukuna’s jerseys adds to a cosy yet stylish outfit; you have to look your best since there are chances that the cameras, at some stage, will be on you. It doesn’t have to be formal, but it must be presentable—that’s what Sukuna always tells you. If you wouldn’t wear it for a job interview then you shouldn’t wear it in front of the camera, so you take those words into careful consideration while dolling yourself up. You do your usual makeup routine and style your hair in your preferred way, aiming to keep the casual look to not overdo yourself. To finalise your appearance, you slip on a bobble hat and scarf which matches the colour of the team; your pace increases as you catch the time, sliding into your shoes by the door.

Travel has already been arranged for you; there’s a car waiting outside to take you to the stadium to avoid the hassle of fans. Since you are the girlfriend of a team member, they allow you to enter earlier. Driving through the city spotting civilians wearing the rugby jerseys and merchandise sends sparks of exhilaration through your soul; it’s a thrilling experience and you are more than grateful to be in the position you’re in. Many women would kill to be you; Sukuna is just as dreamy as they make him out to be, but they will never gain the true experience of being his lover. His appearance is what gets them hooked; he’s brooding, standing at around 6’7” tall. Fierce eyes, proportional features, and cocky mannerisms make him the man he is. You can’t blame them for drooling over him, he’s everything any woman could ever want. His career isn’t what you chased him for; you initially had no idea who he was when you first met him at that party. The car comes to a halt and you step out, cluelessly approaching the stadium until you wait for someone to guide you. Sukuna’s personal jersey makes you stand out, fans would never be able to attain one like this; he had signed your name under his, a true limited edition. Two of the event managers spot you and escort you through the back, now passing through the hallways where all the players are situated before the game starts. You attempt to peek around corners in hopes of catching a glimpse of Sukuna before the game, but your luck runs dry.

Front row, in a seat beside the wife of the coach; you are more than familiar with Kenjaku, considering yourselves as friends due to the interactions you share outside of the sports world. Her seat was empty but his jacket was draped over the chair, signalling his return shortly. A few other women were here, though you aren’t acquainted with them; a majority of the men on the team switch their girlfriends far quicker than you can keep up with. Sukuna is teased for his long-term relationship, especially for the fact that he still hasn’t proposed to you. Their words are a nuisance to him, nothing but fodder; when the time is right, he will make his move. Peer pressure could not affect someone who has always stood out amongst the crowd. You settle down and shove your hands into your pockets, eagerly waiting for the fans to begin piling in. The sound elevates when the main doors open, and then the hordes of people flock to their designated areas. Life is what makes the atmosphere of these games so mesmerising, you wonder if Sukuna still feels that awe while on the ice. Kenjaku slips past and takes his wife’s seat momentarily, handing you a pair of gloves Sukuna advised him to give to you.

“Good afternoon, hockey fans!” The commentator blasts out on the speakers, diminishing the build-up of chatter into silence. Kenjaku pleads with you to keep a keen eye on his wife’s personal belongings while he dips back to the player bench, awaiting the arrival of his team.

“Welcome to the final game of the tournament; a great day to show up and support your favourite team!”

On the giant screen, the camera pans to the players exiting backstage. There he was, taking steps onto the ice and gliding as though he were still on land. Sukuna was breathtaking, your eyes are trained on him as though he were a deer you are hunting in the wild. The commentator continued to ramble on with the general procedure of announcing the lineups of both respective teams and introducing the coaches to the fans. You stand up from your seat like the others around you and clap, joining in with the chant before the game officially begins. Sukuna spots you in the crowd, shaking his head at how clueless you appear; he tries his best to suppress the chuckle attempting to burst out—he can’t shame you for trying. He settles down, now shifting his mindset to the main goal—securing this game as a victory. This team may cause a problem, but he’s confident enough that this win is in their hands.

“Good luck to both teams, may the game commence!” The voice fades out and then both teams launch towards the puck, battling for ownership.

It’s hard to make out what’s happening as all you can see is the mass amounts of various players whizzing past your eyes. Sukuna is determined to take the lead, so he does. He manoeuvres his way, breaking the opposing team’s line of defence and sending the puck directly to another one of his teammates, only to have it stolen back almost instantly. This battle has been ongoing for the past ten minutes, and Sukuna’s fury is beginning to bubble up. His team are unable to maintain security and control of the puck, rendering his efforts useless. You glance over at Kenjaku near the team bench and notice him holding his head in his hands; his team is falling apart in front of his eyes, and there is little hope for them to obtain a goal anytime soon.

Crashing, cursing, and tumbling are all that have happened so far. Sukuna’s performance is becoming more aggressive, nudging players out of the way as though they were ragdolls and sending them crashing into the barrier. Kenjaku’s screams register over the rowdy crowd, urging him to stop before the referee targets him for fault. Frenzied turmoil had possessed him as he turned a deaf ear, now taking the game into his own hands. He secured the puck and denied making the same mistake he did before; he kept the puck close and eased his way through the obstacles, acting as crowd control amongst all the other players. They were struggling to catch up to him as he approached the opposing goal, their goalkeeper springing to action as he saw Sukuna heading his way—rapidly. That sight alone is enough to make anyone begin to falter, and before he knew it, Sukuna had made his shot, sending the puck straight into the goal through the space left unprotected. The crowd roars as the commentator announces Sukuna’s name and number as the unassisted goal scorer. He sticks his tongue out as the camera captures his face, skating backwards to return to his original position.

Shortly after, the opposing team had matched the scores just before the first intermission commenced. While other members of his team were escorted off, he swiftly made his way over to you, banging his hands against the barrier to grab your attention. You run over to him from your seat, catching a glimpse of Kenjaku scolding him in the background. Sukuna points at you and you cock your head aside, confused as to what he could be wanting to say. You point at yourself and he nods, then he changes the positioning of his finger to himself. You copy his motions and he bobs his head with approval, a knowing smirk painting its way onto his face. He bites his lip and spins in place, rolling his eyes back to make a dirty innuendo. The people behind you were puzzled at the interaction taking place in front of them and you motioned for him to cut it out, hearing his laughter descend as he made his way to catch back up with the members of the team. Before he disappears to the locker room, he points at the area where his heart resides and then back at you, leaving you with a stupidly big smile presented as your current expression. Sukuna deserves this win more than anybody else on their team does.

Behind the scenes, Kenjaku devised a new approach. Since Sukuna is the fastest and most offensive on the ice, he’s their best shot at scoring, meaning the opposing team will have their members on high defence around him. With the idea shared of deceiving them with who their main shooter could be, the other team will not know exactly who to target or when. Sukuna is going to remain off the radar until he’s required to strike, a simple approach that fools typically fall for. While the discussion dies down, they are shortly announced to arrive back on the ice to continue the game with an equal score of 1:1 for both teams.

A new energy radiates and overtakes the rink, Sukuna’s body language is shifting and his eyes darkening. As soon as they began, someone had already shoved into him. In turn, Sukuna manages to subtly take him to the floor, avoiding a penalty since he cannot be pinned for the fault. Several of the opposing team are hounding him, hardly allowing him any free movement even when he isn’t in possession of the puck. It’s incredibly hard to play a game when you are boxed in, especially in a sport where movement plays a key factor in success. In a sudden outburst, Sukuna shifts his position and sends two people into the barrier. The referee intervenes and pulls them to the side, a possible penalty on Sukuna’s behalf. The chants increase in volume as the game picks up pace, yet you can hear the sound of Sukuna’s voice overpowering the chaos unfolding around him. He was furious, battling the violent thoughts plaguing his mind. If he wasn’t so strong-willed, he would’ve lost control of his hands and swung the hockey stick against the skulls of the pests who have been harassing him. Upon final decision, he was sent to the penalty box and was unable to participate in the last two minutes of the period.

No goals were scored as the game shifted to the second intermission; there were zero rational thoughts left inside Sukuna’s mind, he was a walking hazard. While he was exiting the rink, he swung his stick against the metal pole and snapped it in two, tossing the remains aside as he stormed past the rest of the team. Kenjaku informed the group that he would temporarily bench Sukuna since it would give him time to recollect and focus his attention back on the game—and he had no other option but to agree with this decision. Sweat was rolling down his face and the veins on his hands were threatening to burst; riling himself up like this is never a position he wishes to put himself in, especially in important scenarios such as this. When intermission finished, Sukuna had switched out with a member of the bench and sat there bouncing his leg, a new hockey stick by his side. You scoot to the end of the row and shout over to him, catching his attention by pure miracle. Though in a terrible state of mind, the sight of you had twisted his lips up into a subtle smile. He raises his hand to wave until he’s suddenly switched out, now making his way back to the ice. There was an opening and he didn’t hesitate to take it, he checked the puck away from the imbecile navigating it and was making his way swiftly to the goal. Rather than taking the shot, he passed the puck to Kashimo; their secret weapon. While they rushed to Sukuna, Kashimo had taken the opportunity to score the goal, adding a point to the team on the leaderboard. Sukuna grins widely as the other team realises they had been outsmarted, relishing in their failure.

Kenjaku stands up from his seat and claps his hands while the camera zooms in on him and splits screens between Kashimo and Sukuna. The final intermission had arrived with a score of 2:1; the last round would determine the winner, and at this rate, this would leave their team victorious. While they’re in the locker room, you send Sukuna a text. He won’t be able to read it until the game is finished, but you feel it’s only fair to let him know how proud of him you are. Watching him out there while understanding how hard he works is rewarding, especially when it goes in his favour—he puts his soul into this sport; no one could work harder than him. Sukuna is a legend in the making, a fire that will only burn brighter. You’ll be there throwing gasoline into the flames, making sure he doesn’t die out.

5:20 PM

2:1, the final score was announced and the stadium celebrated the victory of Sukuna’s team. It warmed your heart to see the wide variety of individuals supporting him; from children to elders, Sukuna was able to please all of his fans on this special day. Most importantly, he had pleased you. You watched as they placed a medal around his neck and cheered his name, holding your hands together in the shape of a heart. When the award ceremony had concluded, many fans were flocking out of the stadium, preparing to camp outside and say their farewells to the players. When the arena had cleared out, most players went straight through to the back. Sukuna strides over to you, dropping his helmet while you wrap your arms around him. He had lifted you off of your feet and squeezed you, almost crushing you with the sheer dumb strength he harbours. You gaze up at him and pout, an unspoken demand for a kiss. Who would he be to deny you? He pressed your back against the glass barrier and held you there until the sound of a voice behind caused him to break away, placing a final peck on your cheek before he turned to the source.

“You’re in public, you know?” Kenjaku points at his tongue, mimicking a gag as he picks his jacket up. “You need to behave, you had me on the ropes that entire game. Are you serious, Sukuna? I can’t keep—”

“We won, didn’t we?” Sukuna takes your hand into his, though there was no skin-to-skin contact you could still feel the heat he radiates.

“Don’t be arrogant, and don’t make a total fool out of yourself in the interview. I’ll be in the room, I’ll make sure I’m sitting right beside you to keep you in place.”

“I can’t believe you’re the same man who gets shitface drunk every weekend; I’ve babysat your kids and you still hound me.”

“I’m a man of many wonders—endless possibilities. Come on, this interview is about to start,” Kenjaku turns away to head through the back, then addresses you in his final words, “You can come too, they have seats behind the cameras.”

Sukuna waits until Kenjaku is out of sight before he pulls out the puck used for the match. He closes your hands over it and links your arm with his, dragging you towards the room where the interview will take place. Walking through the hallways filled with pictures of local legends is bone-chilling; perhaps Sukuna will be on one of these walls someday. When you reach the interview room, you take your seat and beam at him, proud to see him amongst his members with medals hanging from their necks.

8:30 PM

Left on the back wheel of the team, you had become burned out from their excessive amount of celebratory activities. Interviews, photographs, autograph signing, and the list goes on. You were forgotten about, struggling to remain patient for much longer; all you want to do is go back to the hotel room and sleep. Sukuna steps out of the locker in his casual attire, pushing you out the exit doors with him to the cab he booked. It was silent on the way home—in your case. You had dozed off while he muttered about the game, unintentionally exhausted from so much hockey. You don’t intend to be disrespectful, but when it’s the only thing you hear constantly for a month, your brain begins shutting down at the trigger word—hockey. You’re surprised you are able to escape it in your dreams; it’s a mosquito you cannot kill, nipping at you and draining your energy.

Thump. Your eyes flutter open as the mattress sways. Sukuna had carried you to the room and had fully prepared himself for the evening. His hair is still damp and his skin is clammy, your hand had intertwined with his the second you recognised his presence. It had been a long day for both of you—more so him, you were just the spectator. You scoot closer to him and place your chin on his shoulder, coming into contact with his eyes that possess a devilish glint.

“You tired? It must be so much work cheering me on.” His nail scratches under your chin, causing you to scrunch up from the sensation.

“It is, it’s a lot of work. Unpaid too.”

“How should I pay you?” It was a rhetorical question—he already had his answer, he just wanted to hear it from you.

“Some attention would be nice, we haven’t cuddled properly since last month. You always come home late and—” Before you can finish your complaint, he lifts you and places you on top of his chest. His hands rest on the small of your back, sliding under your sweatshirt.

“Poor you,” He coos, his fingers tracing lines down your skin the lower his hands venture, “You must feel so neglected.”

“I forgot what your touch feels like.” You mumble into his bare skin, the vibration of his raspy laugh causing you to stiffen up.

“Has it been that long? Or are you just that desperate?” His thumb toys with your lips, your breath fanning his hands while he waits for you to reply, “What one of the two is it?”

“Both. It’s been three weeks since we had sex, I started to believe you fell out of love with me. You wouldn’t even kiss me properly.”

“I couldn’t afford any distractions, you know that.”

“But it’s not fair, Sukuna. You can’t just kick me off to the side, I won’t distract you—I promise. It’s been horrible for me, I hate it when you have to play these big games.”

“Didn’t know it was that bad for you, I never meant to make you feel like shit. Let me make it up to you, yeah?” Sukuna pushes you off of him and looms over you, unbuttoning your pants, “I’ll make it all better, you shouldn’t have negative thoughts in that pretty little head.”

“Should be me, I’d take it all from you if I could. You’ve been there for me through it all, my most loyal supporter. My number one girl.” He tugs your pants down, revealing your panties and the wet patch that had formed in them.

“You’re—”

“Turning you on? I can see that.” He pokes his finger on the patch and your legs clamp shut, tramping him in between them.

“—Making me flustered! Slow down—” You’re cut off when his lips graze your inner thigh, planting pecks down the strips of exposed flesh.

His teeth attach to the thin fabric and slide your panties down slowly, the heat from his breath interacting with your cold skin causing goosebumps to rise. When he drags them past your knees, he slings them off to the side and spreads your legs, keeping your most vulnerable region in view for his prying eyes. You’re there in his jersey, eyes unable to meet him and hands gripping the sheets—he had almost forgotten how pleasant this view could be. He lowers his head and his hair brushes against you, smearing some of the moisture it withheld from his shower. Rather than diving straight in, his index finger slips between your folds and coaxes your clit with slick. You were far too easy—getting this soaked when he had hardly even touched you. You must’ve been fantasising about this moment all day. While he could give you what you want, he decides to drag it out further, testing your limits. Your patience has already broken and the weak pressure he is applying to your clit isn’t enough to stimulate you, it’s just enough to make you aware of his presence.

“Are you grinding against my fingers? You’re so needy,” He cackles at your desperate attempts to receive satisfaction and pulls his fingers away, slipping them into his mouth and indulging in your taste, “You’ll wait until I’m ready.”

“Please don’t do this to me, it’s been so long—don’t you think I deserve it?”

“I do think you deserve it, which is exactly why I’ll give it to you in a way you won’t forget. You’ll get what you want if you are patient, can you do that for me?” His hands knead your thighs, and you nod in response, “Good.”

Dominance came naturally to Sukuna, in both his hobbies and his sex life. It’s what he knows best, and is certainly what he excels at. He makes you weak just by the touch of a few fingers, melting slowly as his buttery words raise you to the pedestal he sits you on. Held so highly in his life only to be belittled by his condescending words—humiliating you and taunting you for becoming so aroused. You find your gaze fixed on his heaving chest, eyes daring to lower and come in contact with his highly defined abs. Sukuna’s physique resembles a hand-carved statue, chiselled with all the fine details a true creative could only dream of. He lowers his face and stares up at you, his eyes fluttering gently making him appear innocent–you both know that’s not the case. Kisses are littered on your abdomen, and your body wriggles, silently begging for more. Your body was heating up and your stomach was in knots, anticipating the moment he finally made contact with your clit. Sensing the urgency, he drags his tongue between your folds, sending a shudder through your core. Since he started, he can’t turn back–he’s hooked on your taste, and he’s starved; a luxury he had forced himself to miss out on. He got lost quickly, but you had been far gone for much longer than he had. Your hands are tangled in his ashy, strawberry-coloured hair, fingers wrapping around strands doing their best to bring him closer. Sukuna’s tongue was toying with your clit, repeating the same circular motions. Wriggling due to the pleasure didn’t affect him, he had you locked in a position where you couldn’t move. Breathy moans fill the atmosphere as you near your climax, though your release is yet to be granted as he pulls away. Your slick is smeared across his lips, his cheeks possessing a hardly noticeable twinge of pink from his lack of oxygen intake.

“I’ve missed you, you know?” He wipes his face clean with his forearm and drags you into a longing kiss, his eyes flickering with adoration as he distances himself, “Do you think I stop thinking about you when we aren’t together?”

“I missed you more.” He pins your arms behind your head, a sultry smirk twisting his lips up. All you can do is gawk at how heavenly he looks; he’s an angel with the personality of a devil, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

“That’s impossible,” Using one hand to restrain you, his other ventures down to his boxers, stroking his dick through the fabric, “You have no idea how much you mean to me—I don’t think you fully understand the lengths I’d go for you.”

That’s the truth—you don’t know how far he’d go for you, and you’re unsure if you want to find out. His struggles with regulating his fury place him in treacherous territory; there is no doubt in your mind that he could take a life just by using his bare hands, there are times when even he is unaware of the extent his strength can reach. With his boxers now discarded, he lines his tip up with your entrance, teasing your hole while he prepares to thrust in. Though he is completely bare, your top half remains covered with his jersey. In a sudden snap of his hips, he forces his way in, your plush walls massaging the length of his dick. Allowing you time to adjust, he slowly inched his way deeper, being careful not to overstimulate you. All of his six and a half inches being consumed by you, taking him in nicely. Getting you wet is no struggle, and it certainly helps with the penetration; your body has adjusted to his girth and size, similar to a lock and key mechanism.

Thrust after thrust; sweat was pouring from Sukuna. The bed would creak at any given movement and the two of you were far from quiet, giving this floor of the hotel an insight into what you were doing. His groans would cause knots to tie in your stomach, your walls clenching around him only adding to the pleasure he receives. You are beautiful when you are sprawled out like this for him, muttering and whispering his name under your breath, assuming he wouldn’t hear it—but he heard everything. He heard how good you said it felt, he heard you chanting his name as though you were handing yourself over to him, he also heard those pleas for a release. It was nearing your breaking point, your climax had been toyed with, but now it is threatening to reach its peak.

“Tell me everything that’s been on your mind, let it all out.” Sukuna continues to wind his hips in those rugged motions, hitting sweet spots you weren’t aware existed. It took you a while to process his words, too fucked out to think straight.

“I hate how— How you distance yourself from me—” Your mouth hangs open while whines roll from your tongue, head lolling back and your eyes closing over, “And I hate how you never listen— You always— It’s always what you think is best.”

“And?”

“I wish that you’d just— That you’d—” You can’t fight your release and you cum, allowing yourself to come loose. Your breath hitches as he continues, chasing his own release.

“That I’d what?”

“I just want you to myself, ‘Kuna.” A tear slips from your eye as your overstimulation turns into a second orgasm; the presence of his lips on yours catches you off guard, resulting in you moaning in his mouth.

What once started strong becomes sloppy; his forehead is pushed against your shoulder while his groans become silent, the huffs of his breath now creating more sound. His core tightened as he pumped his cum deep inside you, your hands rubbing up and down his back while he lay down. All of the pent-up tension from his mind and body dissipated, replaced by the lust shared with you. His teeth nip at the skin on your neck, nuzzling his head further into the crook to latch on better. Your nails had etched their mark into his flesh, and his teeth had imprinted their shape into yours—a fair exchange.

“I am all yours. Every day during this break will be dedicated to you.”

“It’s the worst feeling knowing other women wish they were yours.” That’s the biggest con of having a boyfriend known in the media; it drives you insane seeing what others say about him online—especially when they find a way to criticise you for being the one he chose to settle for.

“None of them could ever compare to you; they’re spiteful. Who wouldn’t be? You’re a gorgeous young woman who is successful. They have to take their anger out on the people who are better than them. You have everything they will never obtain.” He squeezes your hand, intertwining your fingers; a symbol of remaining linked for eternity.

“I have you. I think I’ll keep you forever.” You plant a kiss on his forehead, watching the smile spread across his face; the shift in his tone was noticeable, his voice huskier than it was before.

“Who said that was a choice? You’re never leaving my side.”

#jjk sukuna #sukuna x reader #sukuna smut #oneshot #jjk #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x you #sukuna x y/n #jjk smut #alternate universe #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen sukuna

[justlemmeadoreyou]

I'd love some period fluff if you're taking requests 💘 maybe reader staying round H's pretty early in their relationship and she starts in the night or something and is obviously super embarrassed but he's just very gentle and calm and trying to make it all ok for her ☹️

sure, pookie <3 here it is! hope you like it ❤️

***

You woke up in the middle of the night feeling a dull, cramping pain in your lower belly. As you became more awake, you realized with dread that your period had started unexpectedly while staying over at Harry's place. 

You felt mortified when you reached down and discovered you had bled through your sleep shorts and onto Harry's nice sheets. Panic rose inside you, your face flushing hot with embarrassment in the dark room.  

Thank goodness Harry was still sound asleep beside you, snoring lightly. If he woke up to this messy situation, you thought you might actually die from humiliation. 

As carefully and quietly as possible, you slid out of his warm embrace, trying not to make any sudden movements that could wake him. The cramps made it hard to move silently, but you didn't want to disturb his peaceful sleep.

Finally free from the bed, you wondered what to do next. You desperately needed some feminine supplies, but were too embarrassed to go searching through Harry's things without permission. But what other choice did you have?

Taking a deep breath, you tiptoed into his private bathroom, praying you could find what you needed. The fancy bathroom gleamed even in the low light, with its sleek fixtures and plush towels. But you had no idea where to look first.

"Looking for something, love?" Harry's deep, sleep-roughened voice startled you from the doorway.

You let out a muffled shriek, whirling to find him standing there in all his shirtless glory, looking concerned. Your face burned hotter as you struggled for an excuse for rifling through his bathroom uninvited.

"I...uhh...s-sorry, I'll just go back to bed-"  

But before you could make your escape, Harry stepped closer, worry etched across his handsome features as he noticed your hunched posture and the arm pressed to your abdomen.

"Wait, love, what's wrong? Are you alright?" His brow furrowed as you shook your head miserably, trying not to cry from the mortification.  

"Hey, it's okay," Harry murmured soothingly, reaching to pull you into a gentle hug. You tensed at first, but then melted against his warm, bare chest as he started rubbing soothing circles across your back.

"Whatever it is, we'll get through it together, alright? No need to be embarrassed with me."

You sucked in a shaky breath, leaning back just enough to meet his caring gaze in the dimness. "I...I got my period," you stammered, feeling heat flood your face again. "A-and I wasn't prepared and..." 

You trailed off, grimacing as you glanced down at the stained sheets peeking through the bathroom door. But instead of the disgust you expected, Harry's expression was nothing but compassionate.

"Aw, baby, I'm so sorry," he murmured, cradling the back of your head and pressing a tender kiss to your forehead. "That's no fun at all, is it?"

Sniffling, you shook your head again, fresh tears pricking your eyes at his sweet understanding. Most guys would be completely revolted. But not Harry, of course. Your wonderful, loving Harry.

"Come here, let's get you sorted out," he soothed, keeping an arm wrapped around you as he guided you further into the bathroom. With his free hand, he started rummaging through the sleek vanity, pulling out various supplies.

"Harry!" you gasped, watching with wide eyes. "I didn't think you...I mean, do you actually keep...?"

He shot you a cheeky wink over one broad shoulder as he lined up pads, tampons, pain medication, and even a fresh pair of cotton sleep shorts. "A guy's gotta be prepared for any situation, love. Never know when my best girl might need me."

Your chest flooded with a rush of affection and appreciation. How was this amazing, considerate man actually yours? You stepped into his arms again, hugging him tightly.

"Thank you, Harry. I'm so lucky to have you."

"No, I'm the lucky one," he corrected, scratching lightly at your scalp in the way he knew you loved. He pulled back to drink in your features, emerald eyes shining with pure adoration.

"Feeling any better now, darling? Need a warm bath or heating pad?"

You shook your head, squeezing his waist. "No, I'm okay for now. Making me feel completely loved and cared for is the best medicine." 

Harry beamed down at you, crinkling those adorable dimples. "Well in that case, I've got an unlimited supply."

He dipped his head to capture your lips in a soft, lingering kiss, one hand cupping your jaw tenderly as the other traced soothing patterns along your lower back. You sighed against his mouth, relaxing into his strong, steadying embrace.

When you finally parted, his forehead resting against yours, you took a deep, calming breath. "I love you so much, Harry."

"I love you too, period and all," he quipped, making you snort-laugh even as happy tears blurred your vision. "Now let's get you cleaned up and back to bed, alright?"

You nodded wordlessly, watching through an adoring gaze as he set about quickly changing the sheets with fresh ones from his linen closet. Within minutes, the bed looked fresh and inviting once more.

Harry ushered you in first, plopping down on the mattress beside you and instantly gathering you against his chest. You nestled into his warm, comforting embrace, trailing your fingertips idly across the silken smooth skin stretched over his toned biceps.

"Thank you, Har," you murmured drowsily, feeling your eyelids already growing heavy again as the stress from earlier fully dissolved.

You heard the rumbling vibration of his low chuckle against your cheek. "Anything for you, darling girl. Always."

Pressing a soft kiss to your temple, Harry stroking your hair soothingly. You were just drifting off into peaceful slumber, cocooned in his arms, when his voice rumbled once more.

"Though if you do happen to wake up with any particular cravings, I'll need some advance warning before raiding the shops for the entire stock of ice cream and chocolate..."

♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡

requests are open! | masterlist |

#harry #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fic #harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles writing #harry edward styles #harry fic #harry angst #harry fluff #harry styles au #harry styles blurb #harry styles concept #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles masterlist #harry styles imagines #harry styles fluff #harry x reader

[bloodreinasbathwater]

Jacked Up Love

Jack Hughes X Best Friend! Reader

(Brothers Best Friend AU)

a.n: I have been bouncing around my living room as I typed this up. I have so many ideas for this fic since I want it to be on the longer side. I hope you guys enjoy and please message me if you have any questions or want to be added to the tag list. <3

warnings: flirting, not proofread, fuckboy jack, alcohol usage, allusion to cheating.

masterlist link

Summary: Caught between a secret crush and family loyalty, she shares an undeniable, electric connection with his best friend, Jack Hughes. Haunted by her feelings and the fear of Lee's reaction, Y/N finds solace in a cozy girls' night where her friends encourage her to take a chance on love.

word count - 3184

...

The music thumped through the crowded living room, the bass reverberating off the walls and shaking the floor beneath your feet. Partygoers spilled out into every available space, red solo cups clutched in their hands as they swayed to the rhythm of the beat.

It was your twin brother Lee's birthday bash, a wild celebration that would seamlessly transition into yours once the clock struck midnight.

Red and purple lights flashed in sync with the music, casting colorful shadows over the throng of people. The air was thick with the scent of beer and sweat, slowly beginning to choke you.

The living room was a chaotic blend of laughter, shouted conversations, and the clinking of cups, with decorations hastily thrown together to give the place a festive feel.

As much as you wanted to enjoy this moment for your brother, you couldn't. The music, the cake your friends had painstakingly made, the thoughtful gifts scattered across a table – none of it could lift the heavy weight in your heart. You were drowning in the secret you'd been carrying for months, maybe even years.

Through the haze of bodies and strobe lights, your gaze locked with a pair of striking blue eyes. Jack Hughes, Lee's best friend and the object of your forbidden affection, stared back at you intensely from across the room.

The connection between you two was electric, undeniable, a connection girls would kill for – but also utterly wrong. You knew his fan girls would kill for that look, that moment alone with him.

You quickly averted your eyes, guilt twisting in your gut.

The pulsating energy of the party seemed to mock your inner turmoil, each beat of the music hammering home the impossibility of your feelings. You took a sip from your cup, hoping the alcohol might dull the ache, but it only served to remind you of the secret you could never share.

As the minutes ticked down to midnight, the anticipation in the room grew. People began to chant Lee's name, the excitement palpable. But all you could think about was the man standing just a few feet away, and the forbidden connection that both thrilled and tormented you.

Instead of suffering in the heat of his presence, you made your way to the kitchen for a refill, snippets of conversation floated past you. But one hushed whisper from Lee's girlfriend made you freeze in your tracks.

"Mhmm yeah I know right!!” she whisper-shouted. “But did you hear? Jack's seeing someone on the side that no one knows about," she murmured conspiratorially to her wide-eyed friend. "But she came and told me. She’s my friend’s cousin. Apparently, he's been sneaking around with her for weeks now."

Your blood ran cold as the words sank in and your breath hitched as you tried to gasp for air but it ceased to work. The room seemed to tilt around you. Jack was cheating?

But how could that be, when just last night he'd held you in his arms and promised that you two would find a way to tell your brother about your secret relationship?

Suddenly, you felt a hand on your shoulder. You whirled around to see Jack standing there, his expression unreadable.

"We need to talk," he said quietly, urgently. "Meet me upstairs in five minutes."

With that, he disappeared into the crowd, leaving you reeling. Your mind raced as you tried to make sense of it all. What the fuck was going on?

Trembling slightly, you ascended the stairs, navigating each step slowly on your wobbly legs. You had a sinking feeling that whatever awaited you in the room above would change everything - for better or for worse. The only question was, were you ready to face the truth?

…

5 months prior…

You'd known Jack since childhood, as he and your brother Lee had been inseparable since kindergarten. He was the epitome of popularity in high school.

His easygoing charm and infectious laugh made him a magnet for attention, and he reveled in teasing you relentlessly about the most trivial matters. You had always brushed off his playful flirting, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing you flustered, but it wasn't until sophomore year that you started seeing him differently.

It happened gradually at first - lingering glances across the cafeteria, a flutter in your stomach whenever he flashed that crooked grin. But by junior prom, you were head over heels.

You could still remember that night vividly. Jack had shown up at your door looking unfairly gorgeous in his tailored suit, ready to pick up Lee for their double date.

When his eyes met yours, time seemed to slow. "Wow, Y/N," he'd said softly, his gaze raking over your dress appreciatively. "You look beautiful."

Your cheeks had flushed scarlet at the compliment, and in that moment, you knew you were a goner. As Jack and Lee posed for photos, laughing and joking around, you couldn't tear your eyes away from the tall, athletic figure of your brother's best friend.

You loved the way his dark hair flopped over his forehead boyishly, the way his blue eyes sparkled with mischief and intelligence. He was charming and quick-witted, always ready with a joke or a sarcastic quip. But beneath that cocky exterior, you sensed a deep loyalty, a steadfast devotion to those he cared about.

That summer, you found yourself spending more and more time with Jack and Lee, the three of you lounging by the pool or goofing off playing video games.

Every accidental brush of Jack's hand against yours set your skin on fire. You lived for those little moments - a shared inside joke, a knowing glance when Lee said something ridiculous.

Now you found yourself engrossed in videos on your phone as you lay on your side in your bedroom. You felt the weight of the bed shift as it dipped on the other side and a pair of strong arms snaked around your waist, a low, husky voice whispered in your ear, “Miss me?”

Your heart skipped a beat as you recognized the familiar timbre. “Definitely not,” you scoffed, tossing your phone onto the bed. “Did you need something, or are you just here to bother me with your existence?”

Jack chuckled softly, his breath warm on your neck. “You're way too serious,” he whispered, nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck and pulling you closer. “You need to relax once in a while, you know...”

“God Jack, you're such a fuckboy,” you muttered, voice strained as you weakly fought against his hold, worming your way off your side.

He laughed softly, tightening his grip on your waist. “Aww, don't say that like it's a bad thing,” he whispered, planting a kiss on your forehead. Over the years you had grown used to Jacks subtle affection, but that didn’t help the skip of your heart anytime he came with an inch of you.

“Is it *bad* for me to want to hold my best friend's sister?” His words were laced with a playful, almost teasing tone, but his touch was anything but playful.

It was possessive, almost desperate, and it sent shivers down your spine. “Depends on what your intentions are,” you replied curtly, trying to maintain what composure you had left. “You know we're never gonna happen, right? Can't ever and won't ever.”

You knew you were pushing him away but couldn't help it; the thought of anything more than friendship with him felt wrong, forbidden.

Jack shrugged, “you never know,” he whispered, his voice a husky murmur against your skin. “There could always be a chance...”

His words were a dangerous siren song, tempting with a future you knew you couldn't have. “Trust me, I know Jack.” You whispered back, heart thrumming against its cage like a frantic drum. The sound of your racing heartbeat was a betrayal, a secret you feared Jack would overhear.

“You're nervous,” he whispered against your cheek. “I can hear and feel your heart, it’s so loud y/n… am I making you nervous?”

Panic surged through you at his words and suddenly you felt the need to get away. “oh my god, do you hear that? I think my brother's calling me,” you said placing your hand against your ear, dramatically looking towards the door as if searching for his voice. You finally broke free from his hold.

You readjusted your clothes, trying to regain your composure and walked towards the door, turning back to look at Jack with a forced smile. “Come on!”

“But we were just getting to the exciting part,” he whines, adjusting himself into a seated position. An idea sparks into his mind, and he proposed, “Why don't you go check on your brother while I stay in your room? When you're ready, come fetch me.”

He gave you a sly grin, raising his eyebrows suggestively while he relaxed himself against the headboard.  

“No way,” you protest, marching towards jack and firmly grasping his strong, muscular arm. “Let's go.” Undeterred, he readily follows your lead, allowing you to pull Jack to his feet.

“Alright then, I suppose you're just not in the mood for some playful banter,” He say with a shrug, trailing behind you as you exit your room.

…

As you both made your way down the stairs, you can't help but be drawn to the pictures of Lee and you that adorn the walls. Each one brings back a flood of memories, creating a timeline of your life, that is both heartwarming and bittersweet.

Your eyes come to a stop on a black and white photo of Jack and yourself from three years ago, taken in the very room upstairs on senior prom night.

Jack takes note of you pausing beside him, his eyes following yours to the photo. A small smile tugs at the corners of jack’s mouth as he take in the sight of you both looking so young and carefree. “Ah, I remember that night...” jack says softly, laughing softly. “God, you were a pain in the ass...' he teased, his voice full of affection.

“Like you were any better,” you shoot back, nudging your arm playfully.

Jack laughed, unable to deny the truth in your words. “Hey, at least I didn't whine and complain the whole time. You promised me that if I went to this party with you that you wouldn't complain, but of course you did...” he trailed off, recalling the events of that night.

You pause, mock-offended at his accusation. "Me? Complain? Never! I was just expressing my opinions on the music selection. There's a difference, you know," you say, pretending to be scandalized.

"And it's not my fault your fan girls kept stepping on my feet,” you say with a mock glare. “What even happened to that one girl? Weren't you supposed to go to prom with her that night?”

“You mean Jennifer? It seems like a lifetime ago now.” Jack raises an eyebrow and shrugs. “Yeah, I was supposed to go to prom with her, but she was a bore. I didn’t plan on going to prom with her to begin with.” He admits.

“Being with her felt... forced. It didn't feel right. She found herself a different guy to go with anyway." He shrugs again, not bothered in the least. “But what about you? Who were you going to go with, huh?”

You look away sheepishly. “You’re the only person I asked.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, a flicker of surprise in those azure eyes. But then he smiled softly, feeling a warmth in his heart at your words. "Did you secretly have a crush on me back then or something?" he teases, with a hearty laugh.

“In your dreams.” You scoff, pushing his shoulder before continuing down the stairs.

He catches you off guard by wrapping his arms around your shoulders and pulling you close, smiling brightly at you. “Maybe dreams do come true, you know?” he whispers, "Don't worry, it's okay to admit it. You can't resist this face," jack jested, striking a ridiculously cheesy model pose.

“We could never do that, Jack.” You sigh.  

“Yeah yeah... but…” he trails off as you lean your head onto his shoulder, his arms tightening their grip around you.  He was silent for a moment before he started again. “You feel that?” he whispers, referring to how perfectly your bodies fit together. “It feels like we’re made for each other.”

“Don’t say stuff like that.” You turn in his arms, now facing him.

Jack tilts his head slightly, looking at you. “And why can’t I?” he asks, a sly smile on his face. “You don’t feel it too? That there’s definitely some sparks between us?”

He reaches up, gently cupping your face while he presses his forehead to yours, your lips just barely touching. The warmth of his skin and the scent of his cologne envelop you, creating a bubble of intimacy.

You say nothing, just continue staring into his eyes, your thoughts a whirlpool of confusion and desire. “We were supposed to be down there 10 minutes ago, Jack. Let’s go.”

Jack rolls his eyes slightly, looking back at the photograph before sighing in defeat. “Fine, let’s go then.” the creak of the wooden steps underfoot and the distant hum of conversation from the living room growing louder. The smell of freshly baked cookies wafts from the kitchen, mingling with the tang of lemon cleaning solution.

…

You glance around the living room, searching for your brother's watchful eyes before allowing Jack to veer into the living room. The room is a burst of activity: Lee's friends scream in triumph as they win another round of NHL, their cheers filling the space with infectious energy.

The flicker of the TV screen casts a blueish glow across their faces. Lee huffs deeply, turning his disappointed gaze to Jack as he plops onto the couch, the leather squeaking beneath him.

Jack laughs softly, joining his friend on the couch. “You’re just making it easy at this point,” he chuckles, shaking his head mockingly. The warmth of the room, filled with the scent of popcorn and the underlying hint of teenage sweat, contrasts sharply with the cool leather of the couch.

“I get why you’re losing though; you have other things on your mind…” Jack tilts his head slightly as he speaks, shooting a glance in your direction unbeknownst to you, his eyes twinkling with a mix of teasing and unspoken affection.

…

The following weekend, snow fell in thick, lazy flakes, covering the world in a pristine white blanket. Inside, the warmth from the fireplace filled the room, the crackling flames casting a cozy glow that softened the edges of your living room.

Your three closest friends trickled in, each carrying trays of colorful cocktails, the drinks decorated with festive garnishes. Laughter and chatter filled the air as they set the trays on the coffee table, their cheeks rosy from the cold.

"Y/N, this place looks amazing," Sophie exclaimed, shrugging off her coat and hanging it by the door. "And I needed this so much. Work has been a nightmare."

"Tell me about it," Ava chimed in, plopping down on the couch and grabbing a cocktail. "I feel like I haven't slept in days. But tonight, it's all about us."

Mia, the last to arrive, brought a tray of her famous spiked hot chocolate. "Who needs a beach vacation when you have a fireplace and booze?" she joked, handing you a steaming mug.

Jersey Shore played in the background, a comforting, familiar noise that accompanied your weekly girls' night ritual. The girls settled in, curling up on the couch and floor, the room filled with the scent of pine and cinnamon from the candles you had lit.

"So, what’s the latest?" Sophie asked, taking a sip of her cocktail and looking around expectantly. "I feel like I haven’t seen you guys in forever."

Ava leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Okay, you guys are not going to believe what happened at work this week. So, you know that cute new guy in accounting? Well, apparently he's been asking about me!"

Sophie gasped, clasping her hands together. "No way! Tell us everything!"

As Ava launched into a detailed account of her office flirtation, complete with dramatic reenactments, you found yourself relaxing, the warmth of the fire and the camaraderie of your friends soothing the turmoil inside you. For the first time in days, you allowed yourself to enjoy the moment, sipping your wine and laughing along with the girls.

But just as Ava was getting to the juicy part, Mia turned to you with a mischievous grin. "Okay, enough about Ava's love life. Y/N, we need to talk about you and Jack!"

You nearly choked on your drink, feeling your cheeks heat up. "What? There's nothing to talk about," you protested weakly. Sophie rolled her eyes.

"Oh please, you've been crushing on him since high school. It's so obvious. Why haven’t you made a move?”

"Yeah, remember junior prom?" Ava chimed in. "You couldn't take your eyes off him all night. I thought you were going to combust when he told you that you looked beautiful!"

You buried your face in your hands, groaning. "Ugh, don't remind me. I was so awkward back then."

Mia reached over and squeezed your shoulder. "Hey, we've all been there. But seriously, what's stopping you from going for it now? You're both single, you have history... it could be epic!"

You sighed, swirling the wine in your glass. "It’s not that simple. Lee would be so angry if he found out. Jack is his best friend. I don’t want Jack to have to deal with that kind of fallout. And besides, I don’t even know if he likes me the way I like him."

Sophie leaned forward, her expression softening. "But what if things went right? You can't let fear hold you back forever, Y/N. Sometimes you just have to take a chance on love."

The girls exchanged looks before she started again. "Y/N, come on," Sophie said, rolling her eyes. "Any guy would be falling at your feet if you wanted them to. Jack is no exception."

"Yeah," Ava agreed, "and from the way Jack looks at you when he thinks no one's watching? I'd say there's definitely some unfinished business there."

Your heart fluttered at the thought. Could they be right? Was it possible that Jack felt the same way after all these years?

As if reading your mind, Mia grinned. "I think it's time for Operation Seduce Jack Hughes. Who's with me?"

The girls cheered, clinking their glasses together. You couldn't help but laugh, feeling a rush of affection for your ridiculous, wonderful friends. "Alright, alright," you said, holding up your hands in mock surrender. "I’ll think about it, okay?"

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the giddy thrill of possibility, but in that moment, anything seemed possible. Even a happily ever after with the boy you'd loved for as long as you could remember.

…

Tag List <3

@ru-kru, @rebelatbay

#jack hughes #jh86 #x reader #jack hughes fanfiction #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes smut #jack hughes fic #jack hughes imagine #nj devils #luke hughes #hughes brothers #dawson mercer #new jersey devils #nhl imagine #nhl hockey #nhl smut #nhl fic #jack hughes fluff #jack hughes blurb #jack hughes x oc #jack hughes x y/n #jack hughes series #jack hughes x you #jack hughes x sister!reader #jack hughes angst #nhl x reader #hockey imagine #nhl fanfiction #nhl one shot #nhl

[yakichoufd]

Any Scogan headcanons u have???

I don't have that many yet!

I don't think scogan can happen without scogean. So one of my favs headcanons is that Jean was aware of Scott's attraction (and affection) for Logan before him. Maybe Jean would have helped Scott to understand his mixed feelings. I don't know how well written Scott and Jean's relationship is but I truly believe they are best friends. The latest episode really helped me to enjoy their duo (and Jean in general). And them having this strong telepathic bond is really sweet. You can play around and make Jean more aware about things and tries to act around them (clueless Scott is always fun). It is a small HC that I appreciate but I don't like it more than that: at first they did not aknowledge each others interest because they both misunderstood each other and thought they were that awkward trouple that only existing because of Jean. Then, after a more clear and honnest conversation, they understood Jean was not an excuse for them to be together. They are quite childish around each other so they would still fights over silly things (but only because it amuses them). Fighting is their love language. They can be very gentle to each other and affectionate but it would always be physical affection rather than words. I do not think both of them are great at talking about their feelings, but they can show them. Logan wants to see Scott's eyes but not at the same time. I'd like to have some angst HC about them because I am a big fan of hurt/comfort. I've mostly angts HCs about dear Scotty cause his childhood is quite easy to make super sad haha! (welp Logan too, but I am always weak for my fav to be in pain haha)

#ask response #scott summers #cyclops #logan howlett #wolverine #scogan #scogean

[xenyasplacex]

Baby Trapped — Prologue

Chris Sturniolo x Fem!OC

Summary: Chris is in a toxic relationship and the only thing keeping him there is his daughter.

warning- Toxic relationship, Miserable Chris, Shouting, Abuse, Physical Abuse

A/N : Hey guys, this is the prologue to my new series, lmk if you guys enjoyed it x

I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR MY WORK TO BE STOLEN, REPOSTED OR TRANSLATED

IN THIS STORY THE TRIPLETS ARE 24 YEARS OLD

Nick woke up with start when he heard his bedroom door slam. He quickly turned on his bedside lamp as saw Chris stood taking off his slippers.

“What are you doing Chris it’s 2am!” Nick whisper yelled at his younger brother. Chris didn’t say a word he simply walked over to Nicks bed and layed next to him.

it was only now that Nick could properly see him. He had obvious tears in his eyes and a slight bruise starting to form under his eyes.

“Chris? What happened, what’s going on, what happened to your eye?” Nick rambled, clearly worried for his brother.

“It’s nothing Nick go to bed” Chris whispered as he layed his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.

“What the hell do you mean don’t worry, did Aaliyah do something? And where’s Adriana? and what the hell happened, why is there a bruise under you e-“

“Nick!” Chris shouted angrily, cutting his brother off. “I’m sorry for yelling,” Chris whispered back a few seconds later, “Aaliyah didn’t do anything okay, Adriana fell asleep in Matts room and nobody wanted to wake her up and i just… i fell okay? Now can we go to bed?” Chris rambled playing with the ends of the pillow.

“Yeah, of course i’m sorry” Nick replied quietly before turning of the low lamp. “Good night Chris.”

Chris didn’t reply, ages went by and Nick thought Chris had fallen asleep until he felt Chris move his arm around himself and felt his younger brother cuddle up to his side. Nick brought Chris in closer and wrapped both arms around him as if to protect him. With that Chris let out a content sigh.

“Good night Nicky.”

Nick was barely awake when he tumbled out of bed for a glass of water the next morning.

“i’m so sorry, i’m sorry,” Nick heard Aaliyah, Chris’ wife, say over and over again between kisses as he walked downstairs.

He took a quick look into the kitchen where he saw the Aaliyah kissing Chris all over saying how sorry she was while Chris stood there, not reciprocating the affecting but not pushing her away either.

“Whats she so sorry about?” A voice asked behind Nick making him jump a little.

“You scared me! And i have no idea, all i know is Chris came into my room crying last night and almost blew up on me when i asked if Aaliyah had done something.” Nick replied turning back to look at his sister in law who was now pressing long and hard kisses to his brother’s lips.

Nick simply gave Matt a look before going upstairs to look for his niece. 

This was a cycle. Aaliyah would do something, Chris would get extremely upset and then the next day she would be all over him, apologising and everything. They had all had enough of it but Chris couldn’t let go. Not when he had a daughter with this woman and she knew enough to destroy their career and so the same thing kept happening over and over again.

Until it ended.

HOW I IMAGINE EACH CHARACTER

Adriana Sturniolo

The Child

4 years old

Aaliyah Sturniolo

The Wife

23 Years Old

NOT PROOF READ

Next Chapter

#chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo fanfic #chris sturniolo x reader #christopher sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #spotify #sturniolo #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo smut #matt stuniolo fanfic #matthew sturniolo #the sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo x you #matt sturniolo fluff #matt sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo imagine #Spotify

[yenonnoff]

ೃ⁀➷ from beginning to end | (day)

synopsis: peaceful days on the alcor with kazuha and his lovely significant other.

content: established relationship, fluff, comfort, kazuha just loves the reader; wanderer's part is a parallel version to this <3

note: this was completely written and dedicated to @kqbukimono (may)!!! it's a crime to subject kazuha to any pain. this is for all the times when ure genuinely rly nice and funny ᐢᗜᐢ hope u enjoy!!

the wanderer's love (wanderer) | from beginning to end

to kazuha, loving you was like a breath of fresh air. it was a walk through pretty gardens of cecilias and scenic views. your touch, your gaze, your presence—everything about you made things idyllic, and kazuha loved you dearly. 

he was stuck in a cycle of stagnation before you joined the crux. it was the same routine everyday: relax on the ship, have writer’s block, deal with beidou and the crew’s shenanigans, and so on. you were the gentle breeze that moved things along, at least with you this routine was bearable. 

kazuha was a man of placidity, he was also a man with a zeal for adventure and stories… he was also hopelessly in love with you—the combination of everything he treasured and more. 

mornings on the ship were mostly peaceful: kazuha could be found right by your side, always sharing meals together while he told you stories and haikus (you had reignited his motivation to write). 

afternoons were even better when beidou would anchor the ship and head into town. sometimes you stayed together; other times, you went separate ways, coming back with a million things to tell one another. he’d listen softly as you spoke, humming in response or making a comment that was often accompanied with blissful laughter. 

he could never get tired of this: conversing about nonsense that effortlessly filled him with love and admiration. he was comfortable with you, drunk on the way you understood one another. you consumed his writing and his thoughts. everything kazuha wrote overflowed with compassion, each word painting a precious memory. 

however, he found it difficult to write about you specifically. no amount of metaphors or similes, pretty diction or imagery could ever fully depict your grace and splendor. he’d struggle and feel dissatisfied. still, kazuha tries again everyday, realizing new things just by spending time with you. 

nights on the alcor consisted of inane celebrations and drinking contests. asinine rambling would fill the ship as platters of food scattered across the deck. there was no escaping beidou and her crew’s drunken mischief so the two of you would often sit side by side and enjoy a drink. you’d only excuse yourself when the night breeze got too chilly and your lover’s warmth could no longer blanket you. 

nights always ended with a kiss and the whistling of ocean waves. the two of you would slumber until a new day started, this time more unexpected and spontaneous than the last. that was just how life was with you, and kazuha wouldn’t trade it for any treasure on teyvat. 

he slept soundly every night knowing you were by his side; he slept knowing he was the luckiest man ever.

when the sun rises again, kazuha will wake with gratitude and affection coating his heart. the two of you will have all the time in the world to go on adventures and converse about trivial matters. he’ll have all the time to say, “i love you,” over and over again.

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin imagines #genshin x you #genshin x reader #kazuha #kazuha genshin impact #kazuha x you #kazuha x reader #kazuha fluff #kazuha x y/n #wanderer #wanderer genshin #genshin wanderer #wanderer x reader #wanderer x you #wanderer x y/n #genshin impact angst #scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x you #reader insert #fanfic

[3amfanfiction]

MDNI tw: baby trapping and manipulation. GazxReader fluffy-dark one-shot.

Kyle is ready for a baby, so when he sees his chance he just can’t resist. And he knows how he’s going to make you an enthusiastic, albeit unknowing, participant.

He was ready.

It’d been a long time coming; you and he had had your ups and downs and always came out stronger on the other side, together. Always together. It was you and him until the end.

You were such a perfect partner for him, practically handmade to fill in all his rough edges and he never let you forget how much he adored you. He bragged about you any time you came up in conversation and wasn’t shy about crowing your achievements from the rooftop.

Your friends were over the moon at your relationship. Every time you met up for brunch or movie nights you would field at least 3 comments about where they could find their own head-over-heels partner.

You had been sick for a few weeks before you finally went to the doctor.

“Tuberculosis.” you rasp to Kyle on the other end of the phone. “They prescribed me some heavy duty antibiotics called rifampin that are the size of horse pills!” you hold the prescription bottle up towards the light and shake the tablets around in disbelief.

Kyle just laughs into your ear, well aware of how much you disliked needing to take large pills. It had been brought up every time one of you got sick throughout your relationship. You insisted that they got stuck in your throat and stayed there for hours before finally dissolving, no matter what Kyle tried to say. He used it as an excuse to brew your favorite tea and pamper you more than usual whenever you had to take them, so he never tried to argue too hard.

“I miss you . . . wish you were here,” you croak, making your way to the couch to relax and try to catch your breath. Your lungs felt physically tired as you tried to breathe. It was a unsettling feeling. Panting lightly, you pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and cocooned yourself, relaxing back into the cushions.

“I know sweetheart. I wish I was there too. I would make you that soup you like and rub your feet while we watched a movie. You wouldn’t have to get up for anything.” The line crackles and breaks for a few moments before clearing up again. “Just a little bit longer, love, and I’ll be able to come home. It’ll be before you know it.”

“I miss you Kyle.”

“I miss you, sweetheart.”

. . .

When the call ends Gaz immediately looks up the medication you said you were prescribed. Rifampin. He’s never had tuberculosis and he wants to verify that this is the standard treatment and if there are any side effects to watch out for. While he isn’t in the country right now he’d figure something out if you needed him back quickly.

Fingers which had been swiping steadily, reading warnings and side effects with the same attention to detail as to mission reports providing intel before an operation, slowed and then stopped as he continued to read. After a moment his screen goes dark and your future shifts and locks into place on the other side of the world.

. . .

It was edging into evening just over a week later when the front door swings open and in steps Kyle. You immediately throw yourself into his arms and begin fussing, hugging him and checking for any new injuries at the same time. He just laughs and squeezes you back tightly. “I’m fine love, just happy to be able to hold you again.”

After sorting out the immediate concerns you tumble into bed, cuddling face to face and sharing a pillow, sharing breath. You’re not sure who kissed who first but you’re both tied for ardor. Your tongues tangled together as hands slide under clothes and down pants. Before things got too involved you pulled back to look at him. “You’re going to have to pull out. This medicine can affect my birth control so you can’t come inside me okay?”

He nodded eagerly as he began to pull your shirt up your torso, fingertips dragging along skin in their own version of a kiss. “Pull out, got it.” He said distractedly, glancing down at the skin and softness he was uncovering. Before you knew it you were both naked and he moved his way down your body, taking his time to slowly work you up. Spending time nibbling along your coller bones, sucking a bruise into the hollow of your throat, tonguing around your neck to the other side to continue.

What follows is hours of pleasure and torture in equal measure. Kyle has never been a stingy lover but tonight it’s like he has something to prove. He brings you to your peak again and again and again . . . and then he holds you there.

While the two of you had dabbled in edging before this, it had never been to this extreme. Tonight had been hours of cruel pleasure, the sheets under you were damp with sweat and you were sobbing with your hands buried in his hair.

“Pl-please,” you hiccup on a sob “I need to come. Please let me-let me come.” you beg him, trying to maintain eye contact through your tears. He currently had three fingers buried deep in your cunt and his lips suctioned to your clit.

His lips pop off with a slurp and you yelp.“Do you need it, baby?” He grins with a feverish gleam in his eyes. “You ready to come?” You nod eagerly, blinking and causing the tears to spill over your lash line.

“Please, please I’ve been good. I’ve been so good, please let me come.”

“God you beg so pretty baby. Okay, but I want to come together.” He climbs to the head of the bed and lays on his back. He grabs you by the hips and helps you climb on top, slotting himself back at you entrance. “Come on, up on top love, thats it.” he babbles as you sink to the base and gasp at the feeling of being stuffed full. “Yes, Just like that, just like that.” is wrung from his throat as you squeeze him tightly.

You begin to pump your hips, pulling away from him before bringing yourself back down but you quickly lose steam. It had been hours at this point and you were on your last legs.

“I know.” Kyle coos condescendingly, brushing the back of his knuckles over your cheek, wiping away tears, sweat and drool. “I know sweet thing, you’re so tired. It’s gonna be okay. Look, I’ll help you.”

He reaches both hands down to your hips, digging his fingers into soft skin and plush rolls. His fingertips causing divots where they press into the fat of your hips. He pulls you into a grinding motion, “Doesn’t that feel good baby? Me holding your hips just right, helping you grind back and forth?”

You nod dumbly, brain fried and only able to think of how good he feels inside you. He drops one of his thumbs down to find your clit, giving it steady, smooth circles to help you finish.

“Yeah? Right there? I can tell it’s good just by your face. I love that fucking face that you’re making.” His mouth begins to run, words dropping out with no prior planning. “If I could tattoo it behind my eyes and carry it around with me for the rest of my life I would die a happy man. You make me so damn happy baby.” He grunts as he begins to move your hips faster, grinding you down firmly against him. “I want you forever, do you hear me? Forever. It’s you and me okay? Yeah, you’re getting close? I am too, love. Mmmm fuck. Just like that, keep rocking your hips baby and you’re gonna make me come. God you’re taking me so well. Tucked up, deep inside you.” His jaw clenches and he pulls you as tightly against him as he can.

“Fuck. I’m gonna come love. You’re gonna make me come.” His words stutter to a close as you continue to grind, chasing the final edge. You could feel it tingling up your legs, across the backs of your thighs.

“Im so close,” you pant, head tilted back, eyes closed, unable to think of anything accept the feel of his cock bumping into your soft walls, creating sparks of pleasure. “Don’t stop baby. I’m so close. I can’t stop. Please”

A groan punches out of Kyle and his grip turn tight enough to leave fingerprint bruises to find in the morning. “If you don’t want me filling you up, you gotta get off baby. I know you’re close but you’re gonna make me come. You told me to pull out just to, just to be safe. I can’t-i cant hold it baby. You’ve gotta get - get off or it’ll all be inside.”

He starts to stutter and lose rhythm still pulling you into him, rubbing your clit with his thumb.

You don’t hear him. A roar is building in your ears, a white noise type of hum that is blocking out everything else. You can feel your release digging its claws into you down to your bones as it gets ready to wrench you from your body.

Your knees begin to shake from their place beside Kyle’s hips as you finally get what you’ve been working towards for the past however many hours. Your vision whites out and your mind blanks.

You clench around Kyle’s cock. warm gummy walls pulsing around him, drawing him inside. You’re grinding down on him as hard as possible, his tip pressed against the back of your channel.

His eyes hold an unusual gleam right before he closes his eyes and tilts his head back, groaning his release as he pumps everything inside of you.

Later when you’re spooned together, his arms wrapped around your waist and legs tangled together, you don’t notice him cupping his hand around your lower stomach. He falls asleep with a smile on his face as he imagines his future together, with all three of you.

#nobody look at me #jk I actually love this #we need more gaz fics in the world #this handsome man can make all the babies he’d like 🥵 #you just know they’d be cute #fanfic #cod #kyle gaz x reader #kyle gaz garrick #kyle garrick #simon riley x reader

[betterthanfakemouthstatic]

i was in the middle of making a post about my predictions for the finale when i realised my buddie stuff could take up a whole other post so here ya go:

this is a bit of an out there theory and i don't necessarily think it will happen, but it's something i'd do if i were the writers. eddie makes a move on buck. i don't mean 'yay buddie goes canon in the last 10 mins of s7', i mean 'eddie fucks up so monumentally they don't know if they can come back from it.' i think he'll try to kiss buck and buck will push him away.

eddie's confused and lonely and heartbroken (not to mention desperate) and he turns to the one person who has unfalteringly been by his side the whole time, the guy who likes to fix things. it's not that he doesn't have genuine feelings for buck, because he really does, but he's not thinking about it AT ALL. he just wants buck (to his core) and is maybe letting himself feel that for the first time.

but it's like a slap in the face to buck. buck, who's in a happy, stable relationship for the first time in years. buck, who eddie told his bisexuality wouldn't change anything between them. buck, who's been used for his body for his entire life. he would be absolutely crushed if eddie did this. and he's matured to the point that i think he might not let it slide. he wouldn't cut eddie out of his life, but i think he'd need space and for once he might respect his own needs over his wants. especially since i don't think he's considered his feelings for eddie and definitely doesn't think eddie's acting out of love/desire

so we get to the end of s7/start of s8 and eddie has fucked up his relationships beyond belief. chris, marisol, even his parents and shannon's memory. buck is still there, because he's always there but things are different. and i think that it could be a great set up to explore who eddie really is and what he wants, especially if/when the 118 get split up. as ryan keeps saying, he'll be isolated. neither buck or eddie will tell the others what happened between them, but that doesn't mean that eddie won't finally look into his sexuality by and for himself.

when i say i want a divorce era 2.0, i don't mean screaming at each other in a grocery store bc to a certain extent that was almost funny - they were coworkers of less than 2 years and it was wildly overdramatic. now they're partners and best friends and co-parents and they've suffered blow after blow, and their kid's gone and eddie betrayed buck and they don't know how to be anymore but they love each other too much to let go

#idk how to end this lol #but yeah i think this storyline would eat #it'd be crushing #but i think oliver and ryan would kill it #and i think we need a more mature revisiting of buck and eddie's relationship/codependency #they spent season 7 establishing how close they are and how strong their bond is #(and they've done it so beautifully and casually) #and i think now they need to smash it up and put it under a microscope #also eddie needs to be studied #also they're clearly doing something big with eddie in the finale based on all the interviews scheduled #i think they'll come out the other side stronger #but i think they need to be confronted with a problem that is of their own making #and not an act of god #though i think a near death experience as part of/the culmination of this arc would be stunning #also interested to see how it would affect buck and tommy #would not be surprised if we get tommy essentially stepping aside or telling buck he's in love with eddie #anyway #911 thoughts #911 spoilers #911 abc #buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #bi buck #queer eddie diaz #gay eddie diaz #911 speculation #911 season 7 #911 season 8 #christopher diaz

[langernameohnebedeutung]

I just read Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver #4 and they literally airdopped Magneto in, had him say the worst thing imaginable to Pietro and closed curtains lmaoo 😭

just drop a car battery on me why don't you

#larger characterisation stuff aside. The way they used this letter was just...not very good storytelling in my opinion #building it up the way they did and revealing it at the end sets this up like it's going to contain important information for the future #but this? as little sense as it makes for this letter to exist in the first place. It'd have made more sense if we knew about the content #and got to see how see how this take on their relationship affects the twins and maybe their work together #(which...quite frankly I also think would have been very forced and ooc) #and then in the end they could have had a confrontation with Magneto about it and called him out on it #but the way it's done it just feels like exposition. It doesn't feel authentic at all. And also not really reunion at all. boo. #(plus I know it's too early to substantiate this but... #I'm kinda beginning to feel like they don't know what to do with Magneto's character post Ressurection.)

[neuvislover]

☆༉ — 𝓒𝓸𝓶𝓮 𝓽𝓸 𝓶𝔂 𝓭𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓼 𝓲𝓯 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓬𝓪𝓷. 𝓘'𝓵𝓵 𝓴𝓲𝓼𝓼 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮.

pairing. neuvillette, wriothesly, lyney, chlide, cw: slight sexual themes, no smut, gn!reader genre: fluff, established relationship

about. genshin men having baby fever

request. Hiii, I saw your requests open, so I was wondering... Wriothesley, Neuvillette, Thoma, and Childe + baby fever, showing it as rubbing/kissing reader's belly or being clingier than usual

note. I apologize that this took so long and that I've been away for quite some time but I hope u enjoy this

𝓦𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓼𝓵𝓮𝔂 — the realization hit him hard, and it hit him deep. he wanted a family, and he wanted it to be with you. the mere thought of you all swollen up with his child in your stomach elicited all sorts of emotions inside him. the vision of you rocking your baby to sleep as returned home after a long day made his heart light up. the thought of you sleeping side by side with a mini him brought a dimension of bliss. He couldn't wait to see you having his child, couldn't wait to build up a family with you.

𝓝𝓮𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓽𝓽𝓮 — the thought of having a child had been lingering in his brain for days. he is trying to ignore it, pushing it aside yet every time he sways his thoughts it is just getting stronger day by day. his hands were wandering around your stomach rubbing and caressing your soft skin. taken aback by the sudden affection neuvillette showed you because he was typically not the first one who gets needy in the morning. so you fixed your position to see his face properly. cupped both of his cheeks with your palms and laid your forehead on top of his “neuvi what’s wrong?”. he didn’t answer you albeit he pulled your waist closer to him and ran his big palms on your stomach.

“just thinking, my dear”

𝓣𝓱𝓸𝓶𝓪 — he has always had a soft spot for children. whenever he sees kids playing in inazuma city he can't help but smile and feel a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. he’s always quick to help a child who’s fallen down, offer them treats, or entertain them with funny faces and stories. thoma reads books and articles about parenting, wanting to be well-prepared. knitting up adorable baby clothes, He enjoys every second of it, thinking about the day he’ll dress his own child in them. he often finds himself smiling at the thought of little everyday moments—like walking through the market with a baby in a carrier or tucking a child into bed with a bedtime story.

𝓒𝓱𝓲𝓵𝓭𝓮 — grinning as he watches your smile widen at the baby in front of you both at the store. a playful giggle fills the air, warming his heart as he imagines a future home with you and the baby. childe is already very family-oriented, often talking about his younger siblings and how much he loves them. his baby fever stems from this deep familial bond and his desire to create a family of his own. despite these thoughts, his eyes remain fixed on you as you bag the groceries. you ask if everything is okay, and he responds with a gentle smirk and a kiss on your temple

"Hmm, just perfect, sweetheart."

𝓢𝓾𝓻𝓹𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓮 𝓖𝓾𝓮𝓼𝓽!:

𝓓𝓲𝓵𝓾𝓬 — tho he doesn’t openly show his feelings but often watches families and children with a soft, contemplative look. He sees parents with their kids in mondstadt and feels a deep yearning for a family of his own. diluc yearns for a family of his own and starts making small gestures hinting at his baby fever, like buying cute trinkets or toys when he sees them. he prepares himself mentally and emotionally for fatherhood, practicing patience and empathy. diluc carefully discusses his dreams and hopes for a family with you and secretly plans how he would decorate a nursery in the winery.

#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact #neuvillette #neuvillette x reader #⋆.ೃ࿔*:･neuvilette my beloved #wriothesley #wriothesley x reader #genshin fluff #childe x reader #thoma x reader

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Michael Gavey SFW Alphabet

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Acts of service and quality time. Michael isn't naturally a touchy feely kind of person, so will show he cares by bringing snacks and hanging out with his partner. He has felt like an unwanted outcast all of his life, so these small acts would be his declaration of "this is my person".

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Michael doesn't make friends easily, social skills aren't something that comes naturally to him. He will befriend people that he considers to be similar to him, and can come off as quite intense in the early stages.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Cuddles would be quite awkward at first, as he's not used to physical contact, but he'd grow to love them. He's not the all-encompassing, every limb wrapped around each other type of cuddler, but is never more content than when his partner has their head resting on his shoulder with his arm around them, while they read or watch TV.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Is naturally neat and orderly, but cannot cook to save his life. It would be a case of his partner doing the cooking and he does the washing up afterwards. He does want to settle down though, knowing he has someone who isn't going to leave would make him incredibly happy.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Michael doesn't let go easily, so a break up would be messy. There'd be angry words and tears from both sides. A real mess with no possibility of remaining friends afterwards.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

If the relationship makes it to the one year mark, his partner can absolutely expect a proposal. In his mind, he has found the one, so he wants to seal the deal as quickly as possible.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Emotionally he's incredibly insensitive. He'd need to be taught what not to do. Physically, he's gentle to the point of being too soft, but that comes from nerves and a lack of experience.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Hugs aren't something that comes naturally to him, but as the relationship develops he grows to enjoy hugs as a means of greeting.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

His partner has to be the one to say it first, then he'll say it back. He's not comfortable putting himself out there, in case he's rejected.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Extremely prone to visits from the green eyed monster. His biggest fear is abandonment, so every person is potentially someone you'll leave him for. This lessens as the relationship develops and he feels more secure.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

His kisses are awkward at first, he's not experienced. As time goes on, he gets more comfortable and his favourite thing to do is brush his lips against his partner's temple or hairline when they're engrossed in a book or concentrating on something else.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Incredibly uncomfortable. He doesn't know how to talk to children.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Michael's an early riser. He'll make a tea for himself and his partner, and leave theirs on their bedside table. He reads until they get up.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

He falls asleep early. Usually nods off while watching something.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

He is a chronic oversharer, simply because he doesn't understand social dynamics.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

He is quick to lose his temper, but it's short lived and he calms down quickly, often seeming embarrassed afterwards.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He remembers every little detail, no matter how inconsequential.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

The first time his partner held his hand in public. The fact that they weren't ashamed to be with him meant the world to him.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

He's not protective in the sense that he would get into a physical altercation for his partner, but he's protective in the sense that he makes sure they do what's best for themselves in every aspect of their lives.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He makes a big effort, simply because his partner means the world to him.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Speaking without thinking, eating junk food instead of proper meals, arrogance.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Not in the slightest.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

He would be crushed if he suddenly found himself without his partner.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

His favourite idea of a date is taking his partner to a museum, and giving them their very own tour, because he'll have looked up and memorised all of the facts regarding the featured pieces beforehand.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Stupidity is a huge turn off for him. Also conformity to the "norm" - he wants someone that has a mind of their own.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

He goes to bed early and gets up early.

#michael gavey #saltburn #my headcanons #michael gavey sfw alphabet #ewan mitchell

[yourpsicodelicbitch]

asteroids related to love 💝

ao haru ride

ik this is too cheesy for my style but hope it may help :) these asteroids are just a few compared to the existing.

self love

hygeia (10): how to maintain a healthy relationship between body and soul.

medea (212): represents our healing ability. archetype of Pluto/scorpio. where we make mistakes again and again, vengeful, practically process of healing.

fated connections

devine (3561): if it has aspects with other’s person planets/asteroids could indicate a trascendental connection.

libby (5672): represents fated connections.

aura (1488): represents an intuitive connection.

karma (3811): indicates you’re destined to meet with these person due to past-life unfinished business.

destinn (6583): strong connection, destiny like.

pholus (5145): if it’s in synastry/composite chart, indicates unexpected events that would change the trajectory of your life -that has to do with this connection-.

sposetti (22354): means “married couple” in Italian. marriage potential, past life marriages or special connections.

betrayal

oenone (215): indicates people where you have been cheated on/ left by lovers or simply felt betrayal.

love synonyms

paeonia (1061): represents a flower that symbolizes love, honor and wealth.

olathe(18984): lovely, beautiful.

loving (432971): loving emotions.

ask (4894): represents the way you love someone, “love” in turkish.

liebe (7696): “love” in german. romantic expectations and needs.

pure/unconditional love

ceres (1): unconditional love, depth we’re willing to go for the ones we love.

alma (390): represents the desire of expanding our heart while time passes, optimism for love and romance.

agapenor (5023): simple appreciation. unconditional love that can last through ages, not only romantic. altruistic love.

valentine (447): sacrificial type of love, deep bonds between two people. indicates the urge to give our all without asking anything in return.

child (4580): represents our inner child. pure, unfiltered, innocent love.

isis (42): desire to nurture/protect the ones we love and care about. also may represent leadership qualities. loyalty, devotion, between others.

romantic love

amor (1221): means love in spanish. represents what we need to show/break patterns to commit with the person we want to love.

cupido (763): represents how you fall in love. I’ll think on this asteroid more like a “crush” type of “love”, innocent at first.

juno (3): can represent our romantic boundaries, what we will do for romantic -not necessarily- relationships and I have a post of juno series if you’d like an interpretation of your juno sign.

union (1585): inner need of deep and meaningful connections -any type-. indicates qualities of the relationship in composite charts.

adonis (2101): ideal type, plus if you like masculine.

groom (5129): indicates how do we approach role of marriage -long term commitment- in their life. who you may end up having this relationship, depending on your preferences.

briede (19029): like asteroid groom, associated with commitment, etc. like the name, dependa in preferences.

others

companion (8490): shows wanting to be all the time with that person. what are you looking for in a long term connection (romantic or not).

anteros (1943): manner which you reciprocate love, requited love.

luda (1158): where do people adore/love you.

link (3505): indicates the type of connection -close- between partners.

lovelock (51663): obsessive love, like the name.

galatea (74): imo idealization of our type of a person.

akashi (5881): requires introspection/exploration. hidden knowledge and potential. has to do with how our past relationships affects our present and future.

(*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ૮꒰ྀི⸝⸝> . <⸝⸝꒱ྀིა ∗ ࣪ ˖༺ ♡ ༻˖ ࣪ ∗ */ᐠ - ˕ -マ✩ (˶˃ᆺ˂˶)∗ ࣪ ( ๑ ˃̵ᴗ˂̵ )و ✩

♡ Based on personal experience and I’ve analyzed in my surroundings.

♡ English is not my first language.

♡ I’m not a profesional astrologer.

Thank youu. baibaiii🫣🫶🏼💋

Do not copy. Please give me credits.

#astrology #asteroids astrology #astro posts #astro placements #astro observations #pinterest #love asteroid